I love traveling – getting away to far places seeing what the world holds.  This last week I had another chance to get out in the world this year and went down to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  What a trip!  Full of excitement and fun being with some of my favorite people.  There wasn’t a lot I would have changed about this trip, but I did learn a few things.

Lessons Learned From Traveling
 

I’ve got on a few trips this year, and I’ve found that when you travel and you stay at a resort, it is much better to go with someone to be romantic with than with a bud.  Not that I didn’t have a blast with my friend Lewis, it was just that we would have had a much better time staying at a hostle with him than at a resort.  These are meant for couples or families.  Quite easy to tell this by the people we saw.

When I do travel with a group, much easier to have everyone be single or all in relationships than be a single with a couple.  Not that you can’t have fun together, just means that they’re going to want to have their alone time.  Also, when you are together at a beautiful place like Puerto Vallarta, it gets you really thinking about how single you really are.  :)

Another thing about traveling with one or more friends – be sure you know up front where you stand.  This mainly comes into play when a guy is traveling with a lady.  Without knowing where things stand – easy to assume one way and have it be the other.  This isn’t related to this trip, but good to state.

Puerto Vallarta Adventures
 

I’m not listing everything I did in Mexico and I’m also not going into a ton of detail because there is too much to say.  I will say however that Puerto Vallarta was beautiful and a place I’ll definitely go back to, but not for a while.  I’ve got many more places to go to first.  Here are a number of things that I partook in while traveling around:

• Walked on the beach
• Swam in the ocean
• Swam in the resort pool
• Ate lots of food
• Drank lots of booze
• Haggled with the locals
• Smoked Cuban cigars
• Went to clubs
• Explored the city
• Enjoyed the board walk
• Went boating
• Snorkeling
• Zip lining
• Rappelling
• Rode a mule
• And much more!

I’d be happy to share more of my adventures in more detail if you’d like.  Just message me or meet up with me in person!

Below are pictures from my trip!

I got home Monday night (October 10th) from a nice 14 hours of flying back from Europe (actually is was cramped at tiring, but part of traveling) where I spent two weeks traveling with a good friend from high school, Janel, and had an amazing adventure.

Rather than splitting up my trip into three parts; one for Munich, one for Paris, and one for South Ireland, or writing a bunch of daily posts on how it all went, I’ve decided to just give a summary of my trip and allow for people to ask questions.  The pictures included in the post will be more useful than anything else.  Hopefully you can find the info if not enjoyable, perhaps useful!

Now to start talking about my trip…

Munich, Germany

Getting to Munich was the first part.  We left at Portland, had a layover in Amsterdam, and arrived Munich on the 28th around 2pm.  We settled into our host’s place (a coworker’s brother’s place) and went out to explore the town.

Munich was an awesome place with a lot to offer.  Though bustling with people, it never really felt too busy unless we were trying to get in/out of Oktoberfest; which meant I saw a lot of people since I went to Oktoberfest three of the four nights I was in Munich.  Not all my time was spent at Oktoberfest, most of it was spent in the city and around the area.  Just the evenings were mostly spent there enjoying this worldly popular German drinking festival.  Though most people know of it as a drinking festival, there are also a lot of rides and other carnival type events at the fest; however most of my time was spent partaking in the popular event – drinking.  We wandered into some of the huge Bulvarian tents, but sadly never found seating so we made our way into the “garden” (seating around the tent for those slackers who didn’t reserve a table early – like me).  This was an exceptional place to enjoy the fest since the weather was wonderful.  We met a number of locals and had a killer time – fining around 10 liters of beer over the three evenings at the fest – good times!

Other than Oktoberfest, we enjoyed BMW World, the center of the city around the town hall, went to Olympic Park and made it up the tower overlooking most all of Munich, and three castles/palaces!

The castles were probably my favorite part of my trip.  In order of my least favorite to most:

• Nymphenburg Palace – Huge palace very close to Munich
• Linderhof Palace – Beautiful palace where Ludwig II spent most of his time living.  Note: There is over 5Kg of gold leafed throughout this palace.
• Neuschwanstein Castle – One of the most amazing sites I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting.  This place is beautiful.  It was remarkable walking up the path to this castle and seeing how big it truly is; completely breathtaking!

These castles were intense!  Things I’ve always dreamed of seeing I was able to see and enjoy by walking around and hearing the history of these places.  Definitely a part of my trip I would like to do again!

Most of the rest of time spent at Munich was hanging out with my host and getting to know him.  He was awesome!  Thanks so much Hoang and his step-dad for hosting us!!!

Paris, France

After departing Munich by train we ended up in Paris, France.  Perhaps you’ve heard of it.  This popular city, though I really enjoyed it, was pretty overrated.  So many people say how poetic Paris is, and it has its high points (like seeing Paris when it is dark out is so beautiful), but during the day however it was just a busy tourist trap.  Perhaps that was my view of the place because most of our time was spent going to the common touristy spots.  Guess I’ll have to go back and spend my time doing other things before I can really say one way or the other.

Our host in Paris, an awesome guy I met off CouchSurfing.org named Faou, was great.  He gave us so many useful bits of information and a great way to tour the city.  He also was a lot of fun as we went out with him most every night we were there.  My favorite part of Paris was the first night and the last.  The first night Faou took us out, had us pick up some wine and bread, and we went to a Park near where we were staying which was full of hundreds of people just hang out enjoying the day.  No event was going on, just people taking in the sun and other comforts.  We ended up spending the evening drinking wine, eating bread and cheese, and just enjoying the music dancing in the park.  It was fantastic!  The last night was spent on the steps of Montmartre looking over the city enjoying the music of a brass instrument band.  These are what gave me the best view of what Paris has to offer and I loved it for that.

On top of picnicking around Paris we saw so much:

• Montmartre - huge church built due to a terrible war – people have been praying 24hrs a day for 125 years+
• Moulin Rouge – Didn’t see a show (100+ Euro) – but did see the windmill
• Trocadéro - beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower
• Eiffel Tower – got to cut through the lines to the top thanks to a newly-wed couple from Germany/Italy.
• Musée de l’Armée – War Museum – bunch of stuff of Napoleon’s
• The Lions – Paris bar where we had the weekly meetup – played my first experience of French billiards/pool
• Notre Dame – old church with huge bells!
• St. Michel Fountain – awesome!
• Luxembourg Gardens – beautiful park full of relaxation
• Canal tour of Paris sites – great tour of the city at night
• Catacombs of Paris – tons and tons and tons of bones!

So many sites in such a short amount of time in the area.  So many amazing people met along the way!

Next destination – Ireland!

Dublin, Ireland and the Southern Part of Ireland

We took a flight over from Paris to Dublin which didn’t cause many issues at all – thankfully!  Getting into Dublin itself from the airport was quite a pretty site.  The grass in Ireland is so green and lush – reminded me of home more than any of the other locations.  Unlike our time in Munich and Paris – where most of the time was spent in each city, our time in Dublin on the other hand was pretty short.  Most of our time was roaming the south part of the island on a tour with a bunch of Australians, Americans, and Canadians.  Most of them were Australian which was A-okay with me since they were a ton of fun and can hold their liquor! (I even got them to try a beer made in Oregon by Rogue Brewery – Dead Guy (a favorite of mine)  Their accents were also pretty awesome (probably my next big trip will be there).  Though Dublin had a lot to offer (Guinness, Jameson, etc., etc.) it wasn’t the highlight of what I wanted to see in Ireland.

Ireland is quite spread out and to see everything takes driving.  Since we didn’t want to spend a ton on renting a car, learning to drive on the wrong side of the car/road, we decided we just go on a bus tour.  It was a ton of fun though felt kinda rushed at times.  Saw a lot along the way though:

• Rock of Cashel – cool castle with a cross that was struck by lightning.
• Golden Vale
• Blarney Castle – yeah, I kissed the Blarney Stone!
• Killarney - great Irish city with a fun comedy show, live Irish musicians, and a night club – awesome times.
• Dingle Peninsula – they have a cool dolphin named Fungi
• Coumeennole Beach – left part of my soul here which I have to return and get before 20 years are up.
• County Clare
• Ennis - another fun city full of Irish pubs with local musicians
• Cliffs of Moher (Cliffs of Insanity from Princess Bride) – the one place I REALLY wanted to see in Ireland – it was one of the foggiest days ever – couldn’t see jack!
• Galway – fun city before we headed back to Dublin

Ireland was beautiful.  So many places to get lost in and see.  Sadly, the last part of our trip kept me from seeing some things I really wanted to see (Cliffs of Moher), but that just means I’ll have to go back.

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My trip was a blast; not much could have made it a ton better.  There are just a few things I would have changed, but overall – it was an awesome experience.  If you would like to know more, then please write me in the comment section or get a hold of me some other way!

Here’s to my next adventure!

I can’t believe the time is already upon us for me and my friend Janel to depart off to Europe.  It’ll be our first trip to Europe for both of us and I’m sure it’ll be an absolute blast.

A short itinerary: (More details on travel here at TripIt.)

• Depart Portland at 1:30pm 9/27.
• Arrive into Europe through Amsterdam at 8:30am 9/28.
• Depart Amsterdam at 11:30am and arrive into Munich at 1:30pm 9/28.
• Enjoy the rest of the day getting settled into Munich at my friend Huy’s brother’s place.
• Thursday morning, 9/29, head over to Oktoberfest early enough to enjoy the festivities and hopefully meet some wonderful people to let us share share table.
• Spend most all of the day there.
• Not sure what else Munich holds for us other than seeing some amazing castles and driving on the autobahn.
• Depart by train to Paris on 10/2.
• Arrive in Paris and stay with an awesome CouchSurfer.
• Enjoy all that Paris can offer in just four nights.
• Depart by plane to Dublin on 10/6.
• Make it to Guinness for a tour and hopefully make it to Jameson.
• Go on a south island tour of Ireland from 10/7-10/9.
• Spend one last night pub crawling around Dublin. 10/9.
• Depart to Portland on 10/10 at 12:30pm.
• Get into Portland at 7:20pm.

What a trip it’ll be!  If you have any advice or things for us to see – leave a comment!!!

See you in two weeks!!!

Hang Gliding in Corvallis

I bought my adventure getting into hang gliding through Groupon for around $49.  It was a pretty awesome deal to go fly through the air; too good to be true.  Well, my friend Leanne and I shortly found out that it was.

The class was around 3 hours and led by a guy who was wearing cutoff jean shorts (probably handmade); I’ll call him Mr. Cutoffs.

The initial lesson was two hours inside a hot hangar sitting in metal chairs, most of which was him not covering hang gliding itself but the history of aviation and his problem with people in the US.  He shared his disdain for Groupon and shared that we just weren’t committed to this due to our little funds spent.  Doesn’t make a lot of sense when it was his choice to use Groupon and he wouldn’t have any of our money if it wasn’t for Groupon either.  He was rude and continually mocked us; made the joy of hang gliding completely disappear.

After his two hour crappy lesson and his bitch-fest about Groupon and our lack to learn in America, we went and finally put suits and helmets on.  With the way things were going I was surprised to see us going to the hang glider and moving it to the field.  The field was a flat recently mowed grassy area of land near the hangar.  I realized shortly after that the ideal view I had of hang gliding wasn’t going to be happening.

We spent the next 30-45 minutes dealing with Mr. Cutoffs freaking out at us about not continuing to run while trying to get the hang glider up and him calling one of the students “stupid”.  Quite a mess, and definitely ruined my experience of hang gliding.

We finished this “hang gliding” experience by hauling the hang glider back to the hangar and then helped him out by taking the hang glider apart, which took around 30 minutes and gave us more of a chance to listen to him bitch.

Leanne and I left with a ruined experience which was later followed up by an email after his weak “apology”:

Thanks for the apology [Mr. Cutoffs].  I understand your passion – but keep in mind that if you want students to also be interested – sometimes you need to show them some respect.  You made a few of us today probably never want to consider hang gliding due to the way we were treated.  I understand safety measures, becoming a pilot and all, and though it is important, you could have shown that in a way that wasn’t so rough.

I also felt, due to the way you talked about groupons and other deals, that my money isn’t good enough for hang gliding through you.  You made it sound as though we were all cheap and weren’t really putting our all into this.  Well, for most that is right, we weren’t all planning on becoming students, but we were all interested in learning more about hang gliding.  Whether just to experience it or to actually start taking lessons.  You kept talking about people growing, well for most of us, experiencing something different, like hang gliding, is growing.  Not that we need to make it our new hobby.  We wanted to try something new out – that’s really it.

Keep that in mind for your next batch of “groupon” buyers wanting an experience.

I still enjoyed my class today and thank you for the opportunity to try this out.  I myself probably won’t continue due to my other hobbies (flying airplanes for example), however I hope others due.  You really do have quite a strong passion for the subject and I wish you the best with it.

Best regards,

Jason

I never got a follow up.  Overall, my experience of what hang gliding could be has changed, however, it is something I might consider doing years down the road with a “good” instructor.

An Amazing Time at Warrior Dash

Unlike the previous day, my Sunday was awesome.  I spent the morning icing my ankle and buying a brace and ibuprofen.  I rested for a while and then took off with my friends Cat, Grant, and Jay over to Horning’s Hideout for Warrior Dash.

We got checked in and took pictures.  We had a bit of time to waste before our 3pm obstacle course so we walked around a tad, made our way to the start, and got in the mass of people ready to run.

I didn’t know how well I would do because of my ankle, but I believe the adrenaline of running got into me because once the start happened, I just took off.  The dash began with a mile run going on flat at the beginning and rising in altitude a couple hundred feet.  This was followed with around ten obstacles spaced apart for the rest of the race.

The running on flat dirt didn’t bother me, the obstacles were all pretty easy (and fun), but the uphill running wasn’t gonna happen.  I ended up walking up most of the uphill areas.  Oh well though, I still did awesome finishing the course in 38 minutes and 55 seconds!  Pretty damn awesome since I had a bummed ankle!

I followed this up by getting my ankle wrapped at the medical tent and limping around with my friends to get clean, get a beer, and then later donate my shoes to the donation pile.

I had a blast with this race, and will definitely do something like it again soon.  However, I’m planning to get my foot the rest it needs in the mean time because I leave to Europe pretty soon and need to make sure I’m ready for it and not in pain!

We rafted for right around 3 hours where we went over rapids up to class 5!  The class 5 we had the chance to go over was Husum Falls.  This waterfall is roughly ten feet and is quite risky but a ton of fun.  I’m glad our entire crew decided to stick with it and run the waterfall.  On top of going over a waterfall, we jumped off a cliff, we jumped off a bridge, and went through a dozen class 3/4 waterfalls.  Such an awesome experience.

I’m sad to report however that nobody fell out of the boat.  We only came close once even.  So hopefully next time I go rafting, we’ll get one or two to hopefully get knocked out!  Without that happening, just seems kinda mediocre.  Nah – it was amazing!

Below are some pictures that were taken before, during, and after our adventure.

Enjoy – and please leave a comment below!