Happy Anniversary!

Memories of Lucerne

Hiiiiii! It's been a while since my last post and even longer since I was travelling. In fact, it's been one year! This time last year, I was halfway through my time in Europe/Japan. I like having my life rolling again in an awesome job with awesome friends in my favorite part of America, but there's a lot that I miss. Speaking French. Having no idea how to communicate with the Japanese. Exciting foods. The unfamiliar architecture. All the bikes and generally much healthier lifestyle. I've gotten into the habit of biking almost everywhere around Louisville, except to work which is a little far.

In this post I want to recap where I went and where my money went. Hopefully my account of spendings helps future adventurers plan financially. Anybody looking to follow in my footsteps (my future self included) needs to keep in mind I was fairly extreme. No hotels in America (just my car, camping, and friends) and minimal public transportation, choosing instead to walk.

I kinda screwed up by closing my travel credit card account and not grabbing the documentation of spending history first. So I don't right now have access to how I spent money in Europe. I'm working on getting that information from my bank by special request. For now then I'll restrict talking about the money I spent to the time between leaving Indy and getting on the flight to Sweden. Hopefully I can get the records of how I spent money abroad, because that's the juicy stuff.

Prologue Portion

I started my trip with a car packed to the brim of all my belongings, leaving my apartment in Indianapolis and getting to...

• Cleveland, OH
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Collingswood, NJ
• Washington, DC

This is 15 hours of driving over 916 miles.

Southern U.S.A. Portion

In the south loop, I went from Washington D.C. to...

• Richmond, VA
• Virginia Beach, VA
• False Cape State Park, VA
• Raleigh, NC
• Winston-Salem, NC
• Charlotte, NC
• Columbia, SC
• Charleston, SC
• Savannah, GA
• Athens, GA
• Atlanta, GA
• Montgomery, AL
• Mobile, AL
• New Orleans, LA
• Baton Rouge, LA
• Jackson, MS
• Birmingham, AL
• Chattanooga, TN
• Knoxville, TN
• Johnson City, TN
• Roanoke, VA
• Luray, VA
• Annapolis, MD
• Dover, DE

And back to NJ. This ate up 50 hours of driving and 3155 miles.

Northern U.S.A. Portion

After relaxing in NJ for a week, I drove up to New York City and then to...

• Norwalk, CT
• Colchester, CT
• Hartford, CT
• Providence, RI
• Boston, MA
• Concord, NH
• Royalton, VT
• Montpelier, VT
• Burlington, VT
• Lincoln, NH
• Augusta, ME
• Acadia, ME
• Moncton, NB
• Fredericton, NB
• Québec City, QC
• Montréal, QC
• Ottawa, ON
• Toronto, ON
• Niagara, ON
• Albany, NY
• New York City, again

And back to NJ, for another week of rest before blasting off to Europe. The third leg took 42 hours of driving over 3488 miles.

All in all, I drove for 107 hours and 7559 miles in America. For comparison, it's about 40 hours and 3000 miles to drive coast-to-coast.

My expenses were as follows:
$640 withdrawn for miscellaneous cash expenses
$754 on camping gear
$1486 on eating out
$76 on Wawa
$306 on groceries
$722 on servicing my Kia
$580 on gas (~13 miles per dollar of gas)
$86 on museums
$77 on transportation, mostly bus between NJ and NYC immediately before and after my international flights
$169 on health insurance
$150 on parking tickets - thanks DC and Québec!
$101 on parking, nearly half of which is in NYC and Boston
$0 on lodging, except for the parking garages accounted for above
TOTAL: $5147

Second Europe portion

First Europe portion

Japan portion

From New Jersey, I bused to NYC to meet up with Phil and then...

• flew to Stockholm, Sweden
• trained to Copenhagen, Denmark
• flew to Brussels, Belgium
• trained to Ghent, Belgium
• trained to Antwerp, Belgium
• trained to Amsterdam, Netherlands
• trained to Berlin, Germany
• bused to Warsaw, Poland
• flew to Athens, Greece
• cruised to Santorini, Greece
• cruised to Crete, Greece
• flew to Rome, Italy
• trained to Pompei, Italy
• trained to Naples, Italy
• trained to Florence, Italy
• trained to Pisa, Italy
• trained to Venice, Italy
• flew to Paris, France (bye Phil, hello Mike and Mark)
• trained to Basel, Switzerland
• trained to Lucerne, Switzerland
• bused to Munich, Germany (bye Mike and Mark)
• trained to Bern, Switzerland
• trained to Zürich, Switzerland
• flew to Tokyo, Japan (via Dubai)
• trained to Kyoto, Japan

Following the Shinkansen bullet train back to Tokyo, I flew back to the east coast of America. After a family reunion, I started my job hunt which would reunite me with my DXRacer back in Louisville after about four months of searching.

This trip took me through 21 states (bringing my total up to 36 - I don't really care to visit any of the remaining states except Alaska and Hawaii) plus D.C., 5 of Canada's 8 biggest cities, 10 European countries, and Japan. I saw a lot of capitol buildings, drank a lot of root beer, climbed a lot of mountains, and slept in a lot of parking lots. There are however a few places I came near but couldn't quite fit them into my itinerary. On a future trip, I would like to get to:

• Norwegian fjords
• Prague
• Budapest
• Vienna
• Sparta
• Mt. Olympus
• Verona
• Geneva
• Zermatt
• Spain
• Moscow
• Mongolia

My longest distance walked in America was 15 miles in a day. My longest distance in a day abroad was over a marathon's worth. Whew.

UPS distribution center

What's new with me? Well, I still think I have the perfect job, but I am afraid all of the travel to Kansas City will wear me down. I'm in KC for about 2/3 of my days, and I want to live in Louisville, not KC. I'm missing some once-in-a-lifetime events! (Sorry Eric! Sorry Kasey 😟) And it is very difficult to schedule for others. My Indianapolis roommate, Jonathan, has his wedding out in Los Angeles in a few weeks. Certainly won't miss that - I'm a groomsman!

The lucky ladies

Lots and lots of ultimate. Summer leagues in both KC and Louisville, though I can't attend the Louisville matches often. I made the Louisville mixed travelling ultimate team, despite how few practices I can attend. I have tournaments for them approximately monthly. A lot of my free time is spent conditioning for that sport. I love my team. I am fencing sparingly, but there is a big tournament in early August for which I want to prepare. And there is a new season of 13 Reasons Why on Netflix! I'm only a couple episodes into it at the moment. I'll blog about that show when I can.

KOOOOOOORBEN! DALLAS!

I suspect this will be my final post regarding my 2017 travel (unless I have an addendum with the money spent in Europe/Japan), but I've got a few more posts on other topics already in the works. With all the downtime I have in my hotel room in Kansas City for my job, I can make time for typing up my thoughts. I want to review the new cities I have visited or plan to visit, including Kansas City, St. Louis, Topeka, Jefferson City, Frankfort, and Springfield. Also a couple cities I have been to before, Nashville and Indianapolis, but neglected to go through their capitol buildings. I want to discuss politics again too, especially in light of the supportive feedback I got on my last political post. Ooooh and how about religion, that'll be fun. Living in the Bible Belt is taking its toll on my sanity... something I didn't appreciate enough about New England. And lastly I need to share my review of the dozens and dozens of root beers I have had, for most of which I owe thanks to my brother.

Majestic pup.