galavantion tour picture slideshow

here's some of the highlights that were captured on the galavantion tour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvbYSGtgN34

majestic return to DC today?

had a fun time in NYC when i got back and baltimore this past weekend.

So school starts soon, have a month or so still to write up, but if I only had the time (to the tune of wizard of Oz)

anywhoo hope everyone enjoyed the read, the rest of the stuff just ask me for bedtime stories =]

i might post a video of pics, but i have almost a week free in DC so anyone around come visit


penguin out.

Aldstadt: "only stupid Americans use the incorrect tranlsation World's Longest Bar"

know who this is? guess and it'll be The Game

Couch Surfing in Dusseldorf

Luke and his friend Laura pick me up right outside the bus station in Dusseldorf. We head to a cafe, and Luke has a beer, I have some mango juice because I am dehydrated. Laura has some coke because she is trying to detox. Sad, she might not come out tomorrow night because she doesn't want to drink. Come out and not drink, I do it all the time and have fun. Luke is a cheerful, genuine guy. Music buff. He is Australian but has a lot of family all around this area because his Dad grew up here and went to Australia when he was 23. So hes Australian but German descent. He got a German passport, and if you get one of these, you basically get money for rent, furnishings, stipend, basically unemployment money. The only thing Luke really has to do right now is take German classes, which he takes for a few hours each day in Dusseldorf. Though everything is pretty much paid for in life right now, train tickets, apartment, etc etc. Good life and he's not even a citizen yet. This lasts a year until more stringent criteria, so he is just almost ending the honeymoon period. Luke and Laura tell me about their circle of friends, its pretty international and also inclusive of 7 or so Germans. Luke and Laura also apparently both leech off a separated couple.

This is where the story gets interesting. So Laura is Luke's friend from Australia. Luke apparently is dating/used to date Catherine who was married to Ian. Laura is dating Ian. Innocent and everyone is friends

Both Ian and Catherine work for vodafone. Ian is french canadian.. or canadian. Catherine is british, been in Germany for last 9 years, has an amazing apartment with a projector and 70s amp with vintage speakers. Luke and Catherine watch curb and arrested development

They tell me that Ian and Laura both are quiet. Sometimes Ian just says “I like how we don't have to talk around each other.”

We go to Luke's aunts house to pick up bedding for me. This is an example of how medicine is universal. While I am diving into this field because partly of lack of other viable options, I do like certain aspects of it. Luke's Aunt does not know any English so they talk amongst themselves and Luke serves as a translator for me when we communicate. So apparently Luke's Aunt has a brain tumor, 2.9cm large and underwent a gamma knife procedure. She hasn't told anyone else in the family.

Luke describes his aunt: Shes not rigid, but has a nice dark side. Drives 70 in a 30, buys beer for Sgt she knows and 2 higher ups to get out of a ticket. My kind of gal.

Luke and I get to his apartment. It's pretty nice but apparently when people move out of places in Germany, they take EVERYTHING. Stove, cabinets, you name it. That's why they give you “move in and furnishing money”. Makes sense.

We return some bottles to the store, buy groceries. I propose to make chili and I want German good so he gets fixings for a simple one. We invite Laura and Catherine to come over for dinner. They are coming at like 8:30ish, so we have time to relax.

We sit out on the patio and talk and relax to music. I love that Luke is a huge music buff because this is probably one of my favorite experiences, just sitting outside talking and listening to music with our like 13 cent beers from the grocery store.

Words of Luke:

There's a crazy shirtless guy that just hangs out his window across the field of view from us. Only time he moves fast is when there is the sausage bell. There are 3 Bells – sausage, milk, take shit away, and flowers.

Altstadt – World Longest Bar... incorrect translation its really just a street of bars. (Only Americans come here thinking they are going to see the longest bar) I'm going to stay playing ignorant American and say I've been to the world's longest bar though.

We make dinner. Laura and Catherine come over to join us. I make chili with fresh chili peppers, sausage and the ground meat that is half beef half pork. Chili turns out delicious with grated cheese and sour cream. Luke makes a German dish with potatoes sausage and onions and basil. Very simple but tasty.

Doonie – blanket thing

Luke goes to class and I sleep in, I planned on a run, but didn't do shit obviously and chilled to some music.

Germany loves their dogs.. trained so well. Luke telling me a story of a 3yr old that was trained so well normally they are so energetic.. you could put this dog on a square of carpet and

I'm luke's first couch surfer in his new place. Yay!

Luke.. when u come home late craving something.. you want meat .. had some vegmite with toast and butter.. pretty good. Vegemite was what nate dog and the aussies were talking about too. Its like the sludge left over after the yeast extraction process or something.

Sia Furler.. girl vocalist in distractions zero 7..[READ: BEAUTIFUL VOICE] shes Australian moved to Britain when she was 22 or so.

Catherine, I rather take him, he might have to be the prize. We talk about threesomes for a bit. Gets dirty before it gets cleaner.
Lukes girl catherine.. we are staying with her tonight in dusseldorf.

Pictures from Last Night in Amsterdam

Meetup Central still... A'dam

I wake up lazy and don't leave the GuestHouse till like 2pm.

I meet up with Amy, wow she's gone from a city to hang out with me, more than David or Matt recently. I've lived with Matt and Dave and Amy I've known, but not been through that much with like Matt and Dave. We have coffee and some food by the guesthouse. Share stories and talk for a while. I show her pictures so far of our trip and just have some good relaxing conversation. I drop her off at the train station and David Dutch calls me later to meet up.

I head back, change, and head into the city to meet up with David and Shyam.

We catch up over food and drinks and learn more about Dutch culture from the Dutch himself. Its good relaxing times.

We kind of join a pub crawl and have fun with that.

At some point in the night we go to a coffee shop and Shyam so smoothly goes up to a table of girls and says “can we join you guys? “ we sit down and talk to these girls who are from tel aviv. They were just about to leave but we end up keeping them there for another 15 minutes.

Next morning when I wake up:
Shiva: we met girls from tel aviv last night
Naren: the tv show?
shiva: STUPIDEST SMART PERSON, totally an aman comment

Highlights:
shyam goose stepping.. British girls we were talking to.. we have to go now

Tembe (British girl) , her friends giving me the L, and I don't care and continue dancing with her
Irish guy comes up to me and is like why are you dancing with my girlfriend? And grabs her and starts dancing with her. I call bluff and start dancing with the guy: I start thrusting my crotch into his ass so thoroughly hard and forceful that I am going to get imprints of penguins on my skin from my boxers. Irish guy gets overpowered, and I continue dancing with Tembe, but her friends drag her away. I love how I've been grinding with the Irish guy moreso than the girls.

Australian girl who's dad sends her pictures of penguins all the time

I'm at a club at the end of the night and sit down at a circular booth with a bunch of people talk to them for a bit then excuse myself to go hang out downstairs.

Girl next to me: Hey I want you to stay with me, sit here.
Shiva: “why, you i'm not letting u use me to keep that creepy guy away”
Girl: That’s my boyfriend.

Also random dream
dream: sreenath me kalyani and in river. dog shaped birds egg ,sreenath dumps baby bird in river and I try to save it yet cant

Party on the 8th floor. Penguin in Pajamas once again.

There's a party on the 8th floor that Jana tells me about, its kind of a going away party for everyone that are leaving in the next few days.

This party is super fun because I am drinking out of a wine bottle this penguin point wine I bought. I don't really want to drink because I am detoxing, but its hard to pawn off wine when you are in pajamas and are drinking right out of the bottle. Nevertheless I successfully pawn off the wine. I'd love to keep the bottle, but when you live out of a small carryon, its quite tough.

I see Jana out on the balcony, and yell PRINCESSSSSSSSS. She hates when I call her that, but she starts to walk over. This guy taps me and I look over to the right of me. I just see chest.. look up and there is a HUGE probably 6'5'' guy standing right next to me. Jana is taller than me at like 6'1'' or 6'2'', but this guy dwarfs her. In a loud booming voice, he is like Hi I'm Mike, Jana's boyfriend. Do you two know each other?
Shiva: Uhhh... no I've never seen you before? Are you new here? Because I've lived here for years and haven't seen you.

Unless the construction hat is coming with the SWAT team, I think I will refrain tonight from moving further.

I try some slavic alcohol from Jana and continue on talking to all my other friends that I haven't seen in weeks. Quentin and the rest of the French crew is there, the other side, read French Quarter of the 8th floor is off to the side, there's some drama because no one really asked if they could have the party on the balcony. Not my business, I'm just the guy in pajamas looking for a good time, Ladies. Wow that does sound really creepy.

Meet some other Czech girl Lenka and chill with her for a while.

It's time.

Naren and Vinay say their goodbyes to everyone, and I tell everyone I will say bye tomorrow because I have another night still. Mike, Jana's boyfriend is actually a very nice guy it seems. He gives me a proper warm handshake and tells me it was nice meeting me in a genuine way.

Eugenio, who is very good people by the way, and I help Naren and Vinay with their bags to go to the airport. We wait I think almost an hour for the night bus. When the night bus comes, the driver says the bus is dirty and can't take us. Odd because it doesn't look that dirty, and doesn't make sense because there are people on the bus. Anyways Vinay is freaking out like usual and they hypothetically plan times and shit and wonder to wait for the next bus. They plan out times for the train, cab to the stop they have to go to for the airport bus, and costs and shit. I say they should just get the next cab because it is like 3am and cabs aren't even seen that frequently, let alone these mysterious night buses. I only say this once because I'm of course, always too apathetic to argue all the time. But IMO for the sake of convenience for everyone (including us two that are waiting, Shiva missing out on a party, and Eugenio on sleep), it's worth it to pay the few extra Euros for the cab. These kids aren't paupers either, I'm the one from a state employee mom and captain irony unemployed father. Eugenio and I are tired but we wait because we are good friends, but these kids are freaking out and indecisive. After over two hours, they grab a cab to go to the next station where they can get an airport bus. Say our goodbyes, and head back to the Guesthouse. I go to check if there is any party going on, but at like 530am, there are only ghosts and flying things around. Bah.


James bond solo missions:

Pretty worthless today, in pajamas till about 9, shower and change out of pajamas for the first time in three days. Decide its an old trick if I got to parties in pajamas again. Head over to this guy roman's party which is in a decent dorm compared to the guesthouse. Good amount of new people there.

People leave as they are going into the city to go to Paradiso. Head over to the cafe with marvin and Leslie is there. She apparently is reading A Song of Fire and Ice, so we talk about fantasy books for a while. Leslie is from Canada, so automatically she is from TORONOOOO.. and she lives in an igloo. She is from Nova Scotia and lives in a salmon. Josh the Canadian is there with his friend, they are going to sardenia.. woot. Girl from madrid, she is going back july 16, cool!


Say bye to everyone that's outside at the guesthouse party. evee tells me not to drink too much in dusseldorf.

Talk to kamal on google video. Kamal Patel has told me to be careful. What is this world coming to?

August 2nd.. current post for once!

The rest of the posts I'm still about a month behind, but I'm just chilling in Karenina's apartment bored right now so I'll do a quick update.

Flight out tonight, meeting Jonathan, Rishi and his bro in ibiza tonight for some hardcore partying.

Last night went out to the Barcelona Fountains show, (naren you would be proud) made some australian friends on the metro and watched the fountains with them. They are an interesting group, one girl is spanish from galicia but her english is australian english which is hilarious. She let me humor her with my amigo amarillo and my attempts to solely converse with her in Spanish. There's a french girl in the group and she is shy, just like all french girls it seems. One of the guys is named Natcho, which is pretty sweet, NATCHO CHEESE GANGSTA.

Anywhoo was at the fountains till like midnight, went out to chupitos chupitos for a bit and then the bar by Sunset. Both instances, shitton of french people. On the most part, they have been annoying to talk to. Content with a amazing show at the fountains, head home early and mentally prepare for ibiza with rishi.

Back Home in A'dam

Back Home in Amsterdam

While I have to see obviously all the people back at the Guesthouse. Amsterdam seems to be meetup central. Amy happens to be in Utretch, which is a town close by, and everyone is hopping in and out these next few days. Friday night belongs to Ketan and debauchery. Other than I have to see Jao, Hersch (with Dennis and Ryan), Amy, David, and Shyam.

Through Ketan being a douche hat and stupid, we end up not meeting up with him till the evening. Meanwhile, Elif, Martin, Naren and I hit up a bar close by and grab a few brews. We meet Ketan finally with his MBA buddies for their cocktail hours at their Concierge lounge. We are like kids at a candy store. I am taking out 4-5 beers at a time and opening them all faster than any of us can finish them. Elif takes a bottle of wine, and the guys also present her with another one because she isn't drinking beer. The cute girl working is just smiles and fills up the booze fridge over and over like a champ. Ketan and I go up to their hotel room to grab his backpack to get some booty back to the room.
Hindisght comment: other than mine, this is the only booty that is going to go to that hotel room.
We get about 50-60 beers in total methinks. Before we leave, there are like 6 wounded soldiers so Shiva chugs like hes never chugged before. Way too much beer . Stupidity clouds the rest of the night. Ask us about it. But Ketan and I end up passing out, eating amazing Dutch Apple Pie when Naren comes back from taking the rest of the MBA kids to the Red Light District, and then epic failing at getting Ketan to leave and futile attempts lead me passed out in bed with Ketan, something I only want to do as infrequently as possible in this life.

I wake up with a cut on my jeans and white stains near my crotch. Ketan says its wax. Ketan, you are my anti-drug.

–

Next up to meet, Hersch, Dennis, and Ryan. We meet up with these cats at their hotel, the heart of Amsterdam which is conveniently located right on the canal of the Red Light District. We play some My Team Your Team and try to find some fun bars to go to. We are in expensive area and need to get to some sort of party. We head over to Co Co's where I've been before to watch the UFA championship game. There seems to be locals as well as a pub crawl there. These guys just want to sit outside and chill with a beer, but I want to be social a bit. I have a lot of energy so I go into the bar, start talking to people and dancing around a bit. The guys are like we are going to be outside, I go outside for a bit and see a cute blonde girl. Start talking to her and she is catching some train with her friend. British Elisa is really interesting; she is British but has been living in Amsterdam for the past year or so and does Parkinson's research. Oh that was a fun summer of rat surgery for me. Talk to her for a bit, I have a Dutch cell phone so I get her number and start looking for the boys. Walk around and call Naren and he says there at a table right outside, see them, they were 8 feet from where I was talking to the girl. Uh, you could have just told me? Naren: Oh we were all just watching you. Hah, glad I'm your guys new TV show.

The pub crawl is leaving, but there are still a good amount of people in the bar, and I want to stay a bit, so I tell them to give me half an hour and I'll come back and walk around with them. I am around the bar and talk to a French guy who knows DC and Dupont Circle well. Cafe Citron was his favorite place. I can only say I've strutted around like a ninja there in ninja get up. Hersch is at the bar getting a beer and there are a couple Dutch girls there. I ask them which one of us they would pick to be their doctor. I think Hersch gets a vote and I think I get a vote, or probably not because one of them said I look like I just would tell jokes with a penguin shirt on. My dream actually. I take Lucy to dance a little aways and am just playing around doing my American dance. I am dancing with my back on her back and Hersch seems like he needs a little help so I throw in a stupid comment. Hersch says nice meeting you and goes to leave. “NO, stick around come dance.” Hersch: “I'm fine”. Dance around with both of the girls for a bit and go outside to grab Hersch. Don't leave when I tell you not to buddy. Go back in and there's a super cute girl a purple dress just standing at the bar by herself. Her name is Linda, she's Dutch, xxx, looks like she is having too much fun just standing there. Chat a bit and bust on her for being a lamppost. Come dance, no? Okay, I go dance on a table with a couple girls in a bachelorette party I met earlier in the night. The guys want to leave so I tell them 5 more minutes. Go and grab Lucy and get her phone number and get the Lamppost Linda's phone number as well.

Forget where this came in, I think during dinner, but the guys tell us about this guy Constantine and their amazing time on the Spanish Steps in Rome. I am making meeting Constantine my to do list for Rome.

A guy comes out and asks us if we have any gum or mints. Sorry bro. He just threw up in the bathroom, but its onnnnnnnnnn with the girl. Hey, just give her a peck and don't let her get anymore. That'll work, trust me. Cheers.

I'm having fun here but I'm going to hang out with the boys. We go walk around the rest of the Red Light District and play some My Team, Your Team. Only eventful thing is when there is a prostitute dancing to music in a window. I am about 30 ft away and start dancing facing towards my friends and back to the prostitute. She says in some Russian accent “GO home and HAND JOB”. She believes I was mocking her. Rather hilarious.

Priya quote: If Kamal brought those girls, they would have charged us a 100. (instead of 20)

Me + Ketan > Priya + Kamal. Any day. Even when me and Ketan just cuddle for the night. Don't ever say you will have more fun than us.


Not a great day, my eye is throbbing and is constantly watering, I feel kinda ill. I think I slept on my eye or something. I also find out my great grandmother passed away. We kind of knew the time was coming up and she went peacefully. Another note, I've thought a lot about my grandfather (Thata, my mom's dad who passed away when I was fairly young) this trip. Probably out of the males in my family, one of the only good role models. This trip, I've found myself a good deal, all the while losing myself more and more.

While I usually do my own thing and don't care about what people think of me, it seems people think positive rather than negative about me. I guess I like this. [Random thing that made my day: the cute backpacker tourist responsible girls from our Hostel in Prague that were just amazing people and really nice sent me a facebook message:

Hey!

Hope all is well...it is so funny that you friended me because we were just talking about you and how we thought you were great! hope the rest of your trip goes well :)


Little pick me up this day.

If you were to talk to any of the people that knew my grandfather, they were in love with the man. He's left his mark on the world in the people he's touched and in such a positive light it seems. I bet he exemplified my definition of brotherhood better than me or anyone I know. “A Brother is someone who does the right thing even when he knows no one is watching.” A lot of the time when I need to make decisions or decide how to act, especially this trip, I've thought, what would Rajarao Thata do? While some of my rebellious and debaucheous side seems to take over because some things make for a good story or laugh, most of my human interactions, I've been thinking of my grandfather's would be actions.

Okay back to life. I go to the city with Naren and Vinay, we meet up with Hersch & Co. They don't really want to do anything and just sit around a coffee shop. I'm not really up for this, so I take a tram home and go to bed early.