* The title of this post is inspired by the “Where The Hell Is Matt” project. I have wished I could travel like him, and I am thankful that I now have this opportunity to see the world.
This is my first full weekend in San Diego — after a week since I got back. Technically, I got back late Sunday night and had to work the next day .. so needless to say, didn’t have time to write much. As I have previously mentioned, I was backpacking western Europe. This is the first of my deferred blog post series on this little life-changing experience of mine, where I’ll wrap up in a final post on lessons learned, etc. I would have liked blogging live while I was actually traveling but am faced with certain constraints, such as: internet access wasn’t too easy to come by (I veto’d against taking a laptop at the last minute), I have to pay for ‘net access in euros (uhh, weak US greenback doesn’t help), the time writing and searching for access is wasted instead of exploring Europe.
So why go? Why backpack Europe, why travel alone, how do you justify this expense, what is the return on investment here? Why go on a vacation anyway? Aren’t vacations for people who are lazy and can’t stand what we call “working in the real world”? When I first started working, I pooh-pooh’d vacations. I loathed what was to me, a waste of precious time and money. Needless to say, after 3 years of “real world work” just right after my bachelors, it was really tough for me to admit that I was losing my sanity, and a vacation *gasp* was in order.
My doctor didn’t _explicitly_ recommend that I take a vacation, so it was even tougher to justify. I couldn’t say “oh, my doctor recommended it”. In the end, I read this great story here, and decided that enough is enough. My sanity is far more important than any job I will ever have in my life. What’s the point of having a great job if you are insane? You can’t function anyway. And so that justified the expense, I bit the bullet and paid for my flight. *I highly recommend workaholics to click on that link to the story
At this point in my life, money is nothing more than an enabler for me. If I don’t use it to enable me to do something, especially when it means to heal myself when I am sick, then why make money in the first place. Money making is just a skill. If I use up that money today, I can make that money back with my skills. I am confident in my skills. You could rob me of my money, but not my skills. Sanity, I rather not risk, since I don’t know if I can get that back. (Lack of sanity also means loss of skills?)
The backpacking trip was pretty much a marathon: 3 weeks, 12 places (2 repeats). Yes, I traveled alone — and I lived the pros and cons of that (cons include having to negotiate with a mugger/extortionist in Amsterdam, more on that later). I was careful though, to pace myself and take a breather, to say smell the flowers, and actually enjoy the scenery. Last thing I want is a vacation from my vacation. I wasn’t going to “work” myself just to hit up all the places I had on my mind. I was going to relax and enjoy this.
Since I was making the trip up as I went, I didn’t know what my final journey would look like while on the trip itself. I only planned a 24 hours ahead, sometimes only a few hours (like3-4 hours) ahead. The joys of unpredictability and randomness 
In my normal life, I am very structured and I plan meticulously. Being this ad-hoc and unpredictable was not easy, but I got used to it, and look, I got back home in one piece!
I flew out of Los Angeles to London because its much cheaper than flying out of San Diego. My drop off point for my sprint across western Europe was London. I would land there, and depart from there. In case you’re wondering (I get asked this a lot), I got a return trip from LAX to London-Gatwick for about US $560 (from www.priceline.com’s “name your own price” game — which I must say, wasn’t too easy to game :/ I tried).
Just to mention, London has multiple airports. The London Heathrow (LHR) airport is probably the main one, and was a bit more expensive than if I were to land in London Gatwick (LGW), hence I took the latter. The Gatwick airport is a 30 mins train ride away from downtown London, not that much further than Heathrow. The train ride (Gatwick Express) takes you direct from the airport to the Victoria Station in downtown central London, a good starting point for backpackers. Each train ride costs about 18 pounds sterling, or about US$36.
Here’s my final itinerary:
- Arrive in London from Los Angeles
- Bruxelles, Belgique (Brussels, Belgium)
- Paris, France
- Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
- Interlaken, Switzerland
- Venezia, Italia (Venice)
- Nürnberg, Deutschland (Nuremberg, Germany)
- Berlin, Deutschland
- Hamburg/HafenCity, Deutschland
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Bruxelles, Belgique
- London, UK
- (and back to Los Angeles)
Here’s a map of my route (in orange). I went in a counter-clockwise direction. The places circled in blue was the places I had hoped to hit, but could not — did not have enough time, and as you can see .. were a little bit further from the circle around Europe I was taking. (Sorry I couldn’t make it to visit you in Sweden, Mathias! Rain check?)
Alright, so .. get on with the pictures already and stop babbling!
I arrived in London, but my trip really began with Brussels. I arrived in London in the morning, fought of a bit of a jet lag (stayed just 1 night), and took the “Chunnel” — a super high speed train across the English channel to Brussels. Cost was 60 pound sterling, and took 2.5 hours.
The beginning of my “Watch out world, here I come” 2007 western Europe backpacking trip. Yes, I do it like Hans Solo — me, myself, and I If nobody wants to do what I want to do with me, then I will do it myself!! (I decided that “Watch out world, here I come” would be my motto for this little trip of mine)
Looks like an airport, does it not? Security was about as tight as US airports, when it came to boarding:
Me and the “Chunnel”:
.. and some Canadian chicks!
Next stop .. Gare du Midi, Bruxelles! “Gare” means “station”, “Gare du Midi” means “south station”. My first time in a non-English country. Wow-wee, should be fun fun fun.