2011 was an amazing yet tumultuous year.  I rung in 2011 in Pasadena, CA at the Rose Bowl with my family and friends.  Although the Badgers lost, I got to see a friend I hadn’t seen in three years and had a great time.  The next week, I did an hour long interview for NPR for the first time while San Francisco for Entrustet.  I returned to Chile with Jesse to continue working on Entrustet in the Startup Chile program.  As 2011 rolled on, I got closer to my new friends from Startup Chile and now consider them some of my closest friends in the world.

Salar de Uyuni

I continued to travel, going all over Chile and into Bolivia.  The Salar de Uyuni still is the most beautiful place I’ve seen on earth, closely followed by Torres del Paine in Patagonia, which I visited with my brother and one of my best friends.  My parents made the trip to visit me in Chile and we explored Pucon and the lakes region.  Two of my best friends from Wisconsin came to visit and we went to La Serena and Valle del Elqui.  I got to Mendoza, Pichilemu, San Pedro de Atacama, Buenos Aires, Hawaii, Austin, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

2011 was a banner year for Wisconsin sports.  Although the Badgers lost in the Rose Bowl to start the year, they were in the National Title hunt for most of 2011 and I find myself going back to Cali (Cali), for another new year.  The Packers went on an improbable run to win the Super Bowl from the sixth seed.  I watched with an international group of friends in Santiago as the mostly pro steelers crowd changed “roth-leeees-bour-geeer” over and over.  The Brewers had their best regular season ever, winning 96 games and getting within two games of the World Series.  The Packers are 14-1 and are favorites to repeat for the Super Bowl.  2011 might well be the golden year for Wisconsin sports.

Entrustet continued to grow, but slowly.  We continued to get press and were mentioned in over 125 publications in 2011.  We continued to sign up lawyers and work with insurance companies to try to help people protect their digital assets.  Jesse presented at South by Southwest and I moderated at panel on the Chilean Startup Scene.  We even had our first user pass away, proving that our system really works.

Friendsgiving 2011

On a personal level, I learned Spanish, made some amazing new friends and really grew a ton living outside my comfort zone abroad.  I have a new appreciation for the simple things in life like being able to coast through mundane life situations and watching as things come easily for me.  I  traveled back for Friendsgiving, the annual gathering of my best friends from college.  It was amazing to see all my friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.  I saw some great music in 2011, going to Lollapalooza Chile, South by Southwest in Austin and many others and I ended my time with Startup Chile by giving a speech to the President of Chile, completely in Spanish.

Looking back, 2011 has been the year of big changes.  I left Madison, traveled all over, continued to be an entrepreneur, found myself growing and changing, loving, making new friends.  If 2012 can match how much I enjoyed 2011, I know I’m doing something right.  I have no doubt it will.

Favorite Posts

A Tribute  – My favorite post of the year

How to Live Before you Die: What I Learned From Running Entrustet

How to Talk to the Media and Get Quoted in Press

Disconnecting

The Customer is not Always Right: Sometimes He’s an Asshole

Apologizing

Overcoming Self Deception

A Reflection on Living Abroad

                          

I have stayed in a hostel in Santiago for the last nine days until I found an apartment yesterday.  When I went to take a shower the first day, it was great.  Nice bathroom, high pressure, plenty of hot water.  After 14 hours of traveling, it was exactly what I needed.  The next morning, I went to take another shower and everything was great again.  After about 5 minutes, the water got cold.  Frigid.  I had to get out.

Some days, there was no hot water at all and I skipped showering, some days I had the same hot shower as my first day.  You never know how good you have it until it’s taken away from you.  Luckily for me, I only lost hot water, not something more important like this young Packers fan. Because I knew what it was like to lose hot water, I got really good at washing my hair as quickly as possible.  I took my chance to shower with hot water with alacrity.  Big word, I know, but my Mom’s been saying that to me since I was 3 to get me to do things, so I had to use it here.

It’s easy to think that you’re living your life to the fullest, but you truly don’t know how good you have it until you lose it.  You can try to live like you’re dead as Dave Winer suggests in his yearly Thanksgiving post, but it’s much easier said than done.  For me, it’s easier to take a step back every once in awhile and think about all of the things I have: health, great friends/family, ability to travel, flexibility to start my own business, rather than the things I don’t have.  If you have a few basic things, you’re pretty much set.

When opportunities come up, seize them.  Take the trip, learn the instrument, start your business, go talk to people.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Live for opportunities and experiences, not things.  When you’re looking back, you’ll remember your experiences and the people you made your memories with, not the things that were around you.  Control what you can, let the rest roll off your back.  If Entrustet‘s taught me anything, it’s that in the long run, we’re all dead.  Don’t diminish what you have, because it could be taken away at a moments notice and when you have the opportunity to do something awesome, do it.  You won’t regret it.

                          

We’re going to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Rustanberg, Durban and hopefully Kruger National Park for a safari and we’re all excited.  It’s my first trip to Africa and I’m hoping its as amazing as World Cup 2006 in Germany was.  I’m confident that the South Africans will pull off a great tournament, just like the Germans did in 2006.

I’m not really sure what to expect out of the US squad.  I think the US got a fairly easy group compared to what they could have gotten, but there are not easy teams in this tournament, save North Korea.  I’m thinking the US will advance and most likely lose to Germany in the round of 16.  I’m looking for Landon Donovan to continue to build on his breakout performance in the 2009 Confederations Cup and his loan stint at Everton and really show that he is a world class player.  Clint Dempsey will continue to shine out on the left flank like he has for Fulham.

With Charlie Davies not fully recovering from a deadly car crash, the US is really thin at forwards.  Luckily, three previously unheralded forwards seem to be hitting their stride right at the right time.  Look for big things from Hurcluez Gomez and Jozy Altidore.  The most improved player from qualifying til now seems to be Jose Francisco Torres.  I think he can have a breakout performance at the World Cup, attracting attention from clubs in the best leagues in Europe.

The biggest problem for the US is at the back.  Tim Howard is a world class goal keeper, but the defense in front of him looks shaky.  Oguchi Onyewu looks amazing in 2009, but suffered a knee injury in qualifying.  He doesn’t seem fully recovered.  Green Bay’s own Jay Demerit looks solid as the other center back, but the outside backs will have trouble with fast players like England’s Aaron Lennon and Wayne Rooney.

The African sides look to be really strong this year.  Ivory Coast looks really good, but they have a really hard group.  Cameroon and Ghana looked solid, but both are suffering from injuries and the hosts, South Africa have a decent squad that will be boosted by the home support.

So who’s going to win it all?  I’d love to see Spain win it all, but I don’t see it happening.  I think they’ll make a deep run, only to come up short.  Argentina is an easy pick since they have arguably the best player in the world in Lionel Messi.  As Arsenal’s coach said after getting lit up for 4 goals, Messi is “like a video game player.”  Ultimately I can’t see Argentina taking it because they have a moron for a coach in Diego Maradona.  England, Germany, Portugal, France and other traditional powers look to be weak, but you never know when a team will catch fire, like Germany and France in 2006.  I’m going to go with the safe pick and choose Brazil, even though they left Ronaldhino at home.

I can’t wait to be in South Africa and hope to write a few posts during my down time, but I can’t guarantee anything.  I have 2 posts scheduled to post while I’m gone, but any new posts I write in South Africa will be about South Africa.  I’ll be back on June 30th!

                          

Although I am very lucky that I do not have any student loan debt and had a business where I made some money, I am not rich.  The reason I can afford to travel is that I value experiences over physical things.  Let me explain.

I value experiences like traveling, going to sporting events, eating good food and learning new skills.  I don’t value physical things like the latest tech gadgets, new cars, expensive houses, fashion and other material things.  That’s why I’ve traveled to Europe multiple times and am going to South Africa this summer.

I’m able to travel because I drive a scratched and dented ’95 Toyota Carolla (link isn’t my car, its too clean).  It is one of the cheapest cars to drive and maintain and my insurance is cheap because I don’t have comprehensive insurance, just collision.  I get 30 MPG and live close to my office, so I rarely drive.

I could afford to upgrade to a “better” car, but what’s the use?  I view a car as a way to get from point A to point B.  As long as the car is safe and reliable, why change?  I look at it this way:  I could have a new car or a trip to Europe each year.  The average US car payment is $400, or $4800 per year.  I’ll choose driving a “crappy” car every single day of the week if it means I can go to Europe once per year.

I also don’t need luxury living.  I pay $400/month to rent a room in a house that I share with 4 friends.  We have an entire house here in Madison and have plenty of space.  We have a great location, close to the Capitol, restaurants and bars.  I could live on my own for $700 or live with a roommate in a nicer apartment for anywhere between 600-1200/month.  That $200/month minimum difference in rent, or $2400, will more than pay for my flight to South Africa this summer.  It could also pay for my groceries, since I cook most days of the week.

I also have had the same cell phone for the past 6 years.  It’s functional, makes calls and I’ve had fewer than 10 dropped calls in that time period, unless I’m in an elevator.  Since I’ve had the phone for so long, I don’t have a long term contract and my rates are low.  I recently got an iPhone for business and the price difference is stunning.  My old phone costs about $40/month.  If this weren’t for business, a new iPhone can cost up to $100/month.

I don’t care about fashion.  Obviously, I want to look good, just like everyone else, but I don’t need to be on the cutting edge.  If I find something that fits and looks decent, I’ll wear it until its worn out.  I own (and wear) shoes from 2004, 2008 and 2009 that still are comfortable and look decent.  If you see me around Madison, you’ll probably see me in one of 5-6 different clothing combos.  I spent under $200 on new clothes in 2009.  I have friends who spend $200 on a single pair of jeans.  That savings will pay for my match tickets to 4 world cup games and my food while I’m there.

I also try to pack a lunch instead of going out to lunch.  A nice sandwich, salad and piece of fruit costs about $2 at most.  The average lunch at a sandwich shop costs $7.  That $5 per day difference goes toward eating dinners at interesting restaurants and trying new cuisines.

I don’t impulse buy.  I never buy cheap, plastic things that will only be used once.  I was talking with my friend Andy about buying things when we were on our way back from visiting our friends Mike and Pat in Chicago.

Andy said he remembered sitting in an intro Finance class sophomore year of college where the professor said “we all buy things everyday.”  She was trying to give an introduction to finance, but Andy couldn’t stop thinking to himself “No, I don’t buy things everyday.  Sometimes i even go 3-4 days without buying anything.”  I’m in the same boat.

In the US, you can say “we buy things everyday” and for most people, it is true.  I know when my parents were growing up, their families did not buy things everyday.  They bought a weeks worth of groceries at the store and cooked meals at home.  Eating at restaurants was rare and fast food places like Qdoba, Potbelly, Subway and others were nonexistent.  Going out was considered a special treat.  They wouldn’t buy candy from vending machines, cheap plastic junk from stores or close to 75% of the inventory in your typical Walmart.  It’s amazing that there can be stores in the US that only sell cheap plastic junk that will only be used once.  At least Walmart sells groceries and other necessities.  People buy all sorts of things without even thinking about them and many times, rarely use them more than once, if at all.

I think there are three subsets of people.  People who value experiences over things, people who value experiences over things, but get sucked into buying lots of material things and people who value things over experiences.   I don’t think there is a “right” way to live, although I personally can’t imagine being happy based on purchasing electronics, cars and clothes; everyone can be happy in any of the three categories.  The point of this post is not to chastise people who value things over experiences, but to point out that people in the middle group can get out of the “things” trap.  Instead of spending money on things to “keep up with the Joneses” they could save the money and actually do the things they’ve always wanted to.

What do you think?  Which category to you fit into?  What experiences would you like to be able to do in your life?

                          

In my travels I have come across pubs in London that have been around since 1666, churches in Paris built in 1207 and have seen pyramids in Egypt built in 500 BC. It makes you realize how young America is. It also makes you realize how rich in culture America is because it is truly a mix of nationalities from all over the world.

I think every American should Google their last name and find out a little bit about why their ancestors immigrated to the US. Even if its just to understand the origins of the name and historically understand what was going on in the world at that time. Then go out to those places and see where your family comes from. It will make you respect your great great grandparents more and will make you prouder to be an American. Visiting Berlin and Krakow truly made me saw the struggles my parents faced growing up in post WWII Poland and then it made me understand why they fled communism. Plus, you will add to the very low number of Americans out there traveling.

Another issue I wanted to bring up.  American backpackers!! Where are you? I have been traveling for a while and the number of Canadians, Australians and British people I meet far outnumber the Americans I meet. And in Australia? I can’t tell you how many Americans I did run into who have told me, you are the only American I have met traveling. Americans do travel yes, but just not to the same degree as other countries. WHY? We have much more people that Canada, the UK, or Australia.

Is it really because we are such a big country that when we want to travel we can just go to Florida or Colorado? That we really do not need to leave the country to vacation? Is it money? Perhaps, but there are people who can afford Hummers so there are people who can afford to travel. Non-American backpackers claim its America’s size that keeps Americans in its borders. I do not agree with this. I think it is time. Few Americans have the time to travel. And I think it is a shame. What is eating up all of Americans time? Is it work? School? To do lists? I don’t know, I could attempt to blame it on corporate America, but I know that wouldn’t be fair, or entirely true. This is a topic I have thought about a lot and will return later too.  It needs much more contemplation.

Only 20 percent of Americans even have a passport.  A shame.  Truly a shame.

—

After reading Beata’s email, I decided to include my response here.

So why don’t more Americans take time to travel?  I’ve seen it time and time again on my trips to Europe.  There are tons of Europeans and Australians and even a fair amount of Brazilians and Chinese.  I’ve seen about the same number of Canadians as Americans, yet Canada is about 10% the size population wise as America.

I don’t think it is size.  I think there are many factors.  First, work and vacation time.  Americans get the least amount of paid and unpaid vacation of any developed country.  Most companies start new employees with 2-3 days of vacation for the first year, whereas Europeans get at least a month.  Americans are putting in ever longer hours to keep up with the Jones’.  This leads into my next point.

Materialism.  There is a huge percentage of Americans who would rather have things than experiences.  They would rather spend their money on a big screen tv, a new Hummer or a house with an extra bathroom.  It seems to me that many people in the rest of the world would rather spend their discretionary income on experiences, rather than things.  Many Americans think in terms of things, rather than experiences.

Third, the bastardization of American exceptionalism.  I think that there is a decent sized chunk of the US population that thinks “America is the best, why should I go anywhere else.”  Whereas previous generations thought that America was great but still respected and wanted to experience the rest of the world, it seems that currently some think the rest of the world isn’t worthy of our time and energy.  This change is sad.  It’s the same phenomenon as when people made fun of John Kerry for speaking French when he ran for President.

                          

The defining event of the 2000s was 9/11.  I still remember being in geometry class my sophomore year when someone told me “planes had hit the Twin Towers in New York.”  We were scheduled to take a test that day and our teacher was one of the only in the school who didn’t want to get off track.  Instead of allowing us to watch the news, she told us “it was only a small private plane, like a Cessna, don’t worry, it’s not a big deal, let’s take the test.”  We took the test and by the end of class, we rushed out to the library as the first tower crumbled.  I remember watching as the 2nd tower fell and not really believing it was happening.  It looked like something out of a movie.  After school, it became real as I went to get a splint for my recently and unrelated broken wrist.  I remember the real fear the next time I heard a plane fly overhead a few days later.

So much changed after 9/11.  America went to war, we had to take our shoes off to fly on airplanes, cable news stations adopted scrolling bars along the bottom of the screen permanently and the media began its full descent into the all out 24 hour news cycle.  Americans had to think about terrorism and our role in the world.

The Internet matured and became a part of everyone’s daily lives.  After the tech bubble of the late 90s, Americas really started using the internet for everyday tasks.  Now, 95% of Americans use email at least once per week.  Throughout the decade, Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, Last.fm and tons of other online services changed the way we live, learn, work and play.

More personally, I got to travel all over the United States and the world.  Between 8th grade and my freshman year of high school, I took at trip with my Aunt and camped on the beach along the pacific in Olympic National Park.  The next summer, I went to Rocky Mountain National Park and camped for a few days.  I got my first taste of Europe just before I turned 16, when my Aunt and I walked across Northern Spain and went to Paris.  I got to see the running of the bulls in Pamplona and walked from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela.  I loved it and I knew I had been bitten by the travel bug.  I knew I would go back to Europe and see the world.

Back in the states, I learned how to drive and got my license.  I played a ton of soccer and still have friends and great memories from my soccer teams from the 2000s.  I also continued reffing soccer, a job that I had started when I was 12 in 1997 and continue to this day.  I even got to play high school football for a year.  I made some great friends in high school and had a ton of fun, learning along the way how to get things done.  I think my biggest lesson learned in high school is that authority figures do not know everything.  I think that this realization helped me get to where I am today.

I also continued to travel.  Our next door neighbors moved to Belgium to teach in an international school and we visited them twice.  By 2004, I was able to travel to Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany.  I biked around the Netherlands with my Dad, went to the 2003 Confederations Cup in Lyon, France (where the French booed our national anthem) and went to the top of an alpine mountain in Switzerland (and the site of a Bond movie).  I traveled around Spain with my class senior year and stayed with a great family in Segovia, Spain for a week.  I knew that I wanted to travel around the world.

In 2004 I applied to colleges, knowing that I really wanted to go to the University of Wisconsin.  At first, I was waitlisted.  After a few weeks, I finally persuaded admissions that I should be let in and was accepted to Wisconsin.  I remember being utterly shocked when I was waitlisted and even more angry when I lost the lottery for football tickets.  Little did I know that losing the football lottery would be one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

I got to college in 2004 and loved every minute.  I made some amazing friends, learned a ton and attended hundreds (yes hundreds) of Badger football, hockey and basketball games.  I went to the Wisconsin vs. Purdue game where Scott Starks returned a fumble for a touchdown.  I remember the crushing defeat at Mighigan State and then traveling to Iowa to visit a friend and go to the Wisconsin football game.  If the Badgers won, they would go to the Rose Bowl.  Unfortunately, they lost and it was a long drive back to Madison.  I was in Milwaukee with one of my best friends, sitting on the glass, when Wisconsin won its 6th hockey national title.  I rushed the court when Wisconsin won the Big Ten title and was there when Wisconsin had a #1 ranking in basketball.  I loved all of our road trips that my friends and I took as well as the fun times we had doing all sorts of things throughout college.  I entered college being able to cook a few things, but not that well.  I left loving to cook and being able to make a whole bunch of things.

I ended up buying football tickets on ExchangeHut my freshman year.  I was the 1117th registered user.  After freshman year, I ended up buying the site with one of my best friends from high school.  I learned a ton and met some amazing people and realized that I was an entrepreneur and didn’t ever want to have a boss again.  Besides my friends, this realization was the most important part of my college experience.

I was lucky enough that I got to testify before a Congressional Committee, compete in a business plan competition, travel to Facebook for their platform launch and pitch ideas to angel investors.  By the end of my first senior year, ExchangeHut had been acquired.  I took a second senior year and graduated with a degree in Political Science.  By 2009, I started my blog, a consulting company and another startup.  I started Capital Entrepreneuers and have started to become part of the Madison community.

I also was able to check a few things off the bucket list.  In 2006, I went to the World Cup in Germany and saw the US in action.  After the US was eliminated, my friend and I traveled all over Europe, trying to be in countries when the teams were playing.  I’ll never forget being in Paris when France beat Spain in the Round of 16, being in an Italian bar in Barcelona during the semi-finals and being in Dublin for the final.  It was a great trip and I decided that I would do everything in my power to never miss another World Cup in my lifetime.  I was lucky enough to get to live in downtown Chicago for a few months, attend the Superbowl and go to the Final Four.  This past summer, I was able to visit my friend Beata in London and travel with one of my best friends in Ireland, England and the Netherlands and went to my first two weddings of friends from college.  I also got to do the punt pass and kick competition at halftime of the Wisconsin vs. Michigan game and succeeded.

The 2000s were amazing.  I can honestly say that each year has gotten better than the one before it.  I can only hope that my next 10 years are as much fun as these past 10.  At the end of the next decade, I will 34.  That seems old, but not as old as 24 seemed when I was 14.  I hope to travel to South Africa this summer to see the World Cup and be able to visit Australia, China and the rest of Asia sometime in the next decade.  I would love to go to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup and tour South America.  I know I want to live in a foreign country for at least a year at some point and become fluent in Spanish again.  I want to continue working for myself and continue to create successful startups.  I hope to be reading at least two books per month and continuing to write my blog.  Maybe even write a book.  Who really knows.  I hope that I am healthy, happy and continue to have the good fortune to live like I have in the past ten years.

What are your best memories of the 2000s?  What do you think was the defining event for the world and for you personally?  What are your goals for 2010s?

                          

August 5, 2009
16 degrees 55 minutes South
145 degrees 47 minutes East
Safe & sound in Cairns, Australia
2901 miles to Singapore

Linda & I, on our sturdy and capable 37 foot sailboat have crossed the Coral Sea in route to Cairns, Australia. If you don’t know where the Coral Sea lies in the scheme of things, you could say it is the westernmost part of the Pacific. Sinbad the Sailor who sailed the 7 seas probably included the Coral sea on his list! But this is a sea and not an ocean. It doesn’t have the giant lingering swells of the Pacific. The waves are confused and closer together which gave our tiny ship & ourselves one heck of a ride. The southeast trade winds can strengthen here quickly and gales & storms can become unleashed with little notice – which they did.

When we left Vanuatu and pointed B’Sheret out to sea, all was well. The winds were light and the seas were small. All that was to change.

The next day out winds were up to 33 knots with 9 foot waves. A wave would strike the side of her hull with a loud “THUMP!” We were like a small rubber duck in a bathtub with little babies splashing around. But this wasn’t fun at all. We reduced sail quickly. Our jerry fuel jugs started to come loose from the rail as the lashings that held them in place slowly worked their way out. A wave buried the side gunnel (side of the boat) and made our life sling deploy. Out it went 300 feet or so with the life ring with it. Good thing we had it tied on well. Even by slowing down it took all our strength to get it back aboard. Then the wiring for our solenoid on the propane tank to our stove broke. Too sick to sit on the back pushpit clipped on of course with a life jacket, I couldn’t deal with it. We had no hot food, soup or hot tea for 3 days. I finally was better and wired it back in. Then one of our inflatable life jackets opened when a giant wave entered the cockpit. It surprised us as it inflated in front of us. At least we know they work. Books that were wedged in tightly on the shelves below were now strewed about the cabin. We stumbled as anything that was loose found its way to the cabin sole (floor) . It was a challenge to live like this for the duration of the crossing. It was a picture seeing Linda bracing herself at the galley trying to dig food out of the fridge and cooking it on the gimbaled stove. Not many women or men could do this great balancing feat.

We shortened sail some more to cope with the rising wind and the huge seas. We had a third reef in the main and what Linda calls a handkerchief of a jib for a headsail. We finally slowed from 7.5 knots to an easy 6 knots of speed. We learned later that Peter & his wife Fiona on Sayonara, 2 days ahead of us on their 35 foot Cheou Lee ketch, suffered a knockdown as a huge wave picked up their boat from a trough and flung it over onto its side. Water poured down below knocking out the GPS, radio, and electronics. The boat quickly righted itself and they were OK. For our 10 day crossing we were battered by wind and rain and sea. Our other friend, Peter on Mr.Percival, commented that we have gained a lot of experience in rough weather.

Today Linda & I are sitting comfortably in our berth at Marlin Marina. It is civilization again with big city life, great food & great people. It was like the crossing never happened, but it did. Looking back at what we just went thru we couldn’t recommend this route to Australia to any sane boat. We are now definitely seasoned sailors but we never want to get thrown into that frying pan again.

Michael & Linda
S/Y B’Sheret

                          

I really enjoyed his thoughts on merging from two lanes to one lane.  An easy example is a construction zone on the highway.  Usually about a mile ahead of the lane closure, drivers will see a sign that says “left lane closed 1 mile, merge right.”  Do you merge right away or do you wait until the end and try to move over then?  Many people move over right away, but Vanderbilt cites a study that shows that it is actually better to merge late because it fully utilizes the available road space up until the last minute.  The study found that there were fewer accidents and quicker communes if people merged late.  As a late merger myself (who has been yelled at by both friends and family for it), it was great to have my ideas confirmed by an actual study.  Check out Traffic if you are interested in reading about America’s traffic problem.

Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) – Anthony Bourdain – I’m a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel, No Reservations, so I had to pick up Kitchen Confidential.  Bourdain grew up wanting to cook and Kitchen Confidential details his rise from a cocky, inexperienced line cook to a successful head chef at a NYC French restaurant.  Kitchen Confidential is billed as a look behind the scenes of restaurants in New York City during the 80s.  Bourdain battles drugs, the mafia, spiteful and dumb owners and many other problems in his quest to be a good chef.  From seeing his show, I hadn’t realized how deep into drugs he was in his past.

While I enjoyed many of his war stories about crazy owners, chefs and his escapades as a young, drugged out cook, I was really interested in his chapters about cooking, traveling and the restaurant business.  Bourdain spends a chapter explaining how to spruce up home cooked meals so that they taste (and look) more like they were created in restaurants.  There are a few chapters on what makes or breaks restaurants and how to spot a failing restaurant from a well run place.  I was most interested in the chapter about his first trip to Japan.

Bourdain talks about being completely immersed in a foreign culture where he couldn’t communicate.  After the first few days of wandering around, he finally works up the courage to walk into a noodle shop and point to what the guy sitting next to him was eating to order “whatever he was having.”  Bourdain’s story about being worried what others would think, but then deferring to the rest of the people made me think of a time I was in France for the Confederations Cup in 2003.  We were in a restaurant where nobody spoke any English and simply pointed to another table to say “we’ll have that.”  It ended up being a great meal.  Bourdain’s book is a quick read and shows how he launched himself into TV stardom.  It’s well worth the read.

The Help – Kathryn Stockett.  The Help pulls the lid off of a social circle in Jackson, Mississippi during the heart of the civil rights movement, but tells the story from the perspective of the maids who work in white family homes.  The book is very well written and a fun read, even though it deals with some heavy subjects.  Stockett makes you feel like you are listening to the thoughts of each character, using unique metaphors throughout the book.

Some of the chapters are a little slow to get through because Stockett uses the dialect that some maids would have used in the 60s.  It’s a little hard to get used to, but by the 2nd or 3rd chapter, you are up to speed.  It’s completely worth it.  Without spoiling the book, it was interesting to read about some of the double standards that white women had in the 60s.  White women were perfectly happy to allow their maid to touch their child when the maid was cleaning, feeding or clothing their child, but they would not let the maid sit in the same room to eat or use the guest bathroom.  It seems like a convenient suspension of segregation that, looking back, does not make any sense (not that segregation made any sense at all.)  The Help is a really good book and potentially one of my favorites for the year.

                          

Today I fly out to Egypt and I begin my six weeks of travels. I have been living and working in London for about 8 months and wanted to save all my travels for the end of my trip, right before my big move to Australia. I am going to Egypt, Budapest, Berlin, Munich (OKTOBERFEST), Interlaken, Zurich, Paris, and Krakow. I haven’t written a single thing about where I have actually been or done while living in the UK, so as a personal record for myself and travel advice for all my friends, here is my UK wrap up.

St Patrick’s Day

This was celebrated, where else, but in Dublin. I have now been to Dublin twice and each visit was on St. Patrick’s Day. It is really fun. Two years ago the weather was horrible, rain, snow, sleet: everything in one day. All the hostels were booked so a group of 5 of us shared a hotel room by the airport. My best memory is of my friend walking around with a video camera asking the Irish what St. Patrick’s Day meant to them, and all replied “freedom from the English.” (This is not what St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of, but the Irish love to constantly emphasize their freedom from English rule.)

This year’s trip was a little different. I was smarter. I knew I didn’t need a hotel/hostel room. The airport would be enough. I flew in early St. Patrick’s Day morning, changed at the airport bathroom into a ridiculous green outfit and stored my bag at an airport locker. I then went to the city centre to meet my friend Carly who arrived by ferry. We then met my friend Meredith at her hostel, ate the hostel’s free breakfast (I’m sure the free breakfast was for the residents, but oh well!) and got ready for the parade. Parade was crowded and hard to see anything, but you were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with the IRISH!!! How cool is that? It didn’t matter that all you saw was the top of a Lucky Charms float, and waited another 20 minutes for the next attraction. Everyone is dressed up in costumes and starts drinking at 10am. The best way to describe it: A mix between a Wisconsin vs. Michigan game at 11:00 and State street on Halloween. Insanity.

After the parade we went to a bar where we heard tradition Irish music. This was awesome. The Irish are so much fun. You just want to get up and join in their tradition folk dances. The end of the night was spent partying in TEMPLE Bar, which is basically an overpriced area of bars. If you go to Dublin, cross the river and you will notice a pint of Guinness is half the price. A fun memory involves my tourists. At the this point I had been a tour guide in London for about a month and a half and I had at least 10 people come up to me on the street in Dublin and yell “London tour guide!”  Then at about 3 am I took a bus to the airport, where I joined about 100 other fools dressed in green to board my 8am flight back to London.  I recommend that everyone experience this festivity even once.
CRUFTS, The World’s Largest Dog Show – Birmingham, England

My friend used to work at the Dog Kennel and was given free tickets to Crufts, the World’s Largest Dog Show, which is hosted in Birmingham every year. At this point I had adopted the philosophy of saying yes to pretty much everything, so when she invited me on a trip to Birmingham for the Crufts, I immediately said yes. This would definitely be interesting. And yes it was. We stayed with absolutely the nicest people. A friend of her’s played host for the weekend and he was amazing. I truly am impressed with British hospoitaly. Everyone is always offering a couch or bed for you to sleep on.

We saw a bit of Birmingham and I am not a fan of the city. The downtown area is clean and nice, but small. Everyone says that the bullring is awesome.  It was a nice shopping centre yes but I wouldn’t go back. I did enjoy our night out by the college. There is a university in the area and our host invited us to his friend’s gig. The band was awesome and the bar was cool. I was told Birmingham had good nightlife and this I am sure this is true. I enjoyed the one night we went out.

But now for CRUFTS, the highlight of the weekend! Dog people are weird. Very weird. There is this whole posh dog society that I had never known existed. And you know the phrase that dogs kind of look like their owners? SO TRUE. Big hairy people would have big hairy dogs. Petite ladies would own poodles, etc. The coolest part was seeing all the different varieties of dogs. Some dogs are so cute!!! But it broke my heart so see how expensive they were and they fact that people could pick a champion female dog and another champion male dog and pay money to have them mate so that they could have the best dog ever. The whole idea just seemed weird. Especially because there are so many stray dogs in kennels that need homes. I don’t understand why people would pay 15,000 pounds for a dog just because it is pure bred.  We watched a few competitions. They measure a dog’s tail, see how fast it can run, and do dog tricks like if they can find a hidden ball. It was all so odd. It really was just like on TV.  Crufts, an experience as I said, but not one I would recommend or repeat.
Stonehenge – Summer Solstice

This is without a doubt one of the coolest things I have done here. So Stonehenge is a site of these ancient rocks about an hour and half outside of London. Like the pyramids, no one is exactly sure how they got there. These huge stones are in the middle of nowhere and have been there for thousands of years. The stones are a huge tourists attraction, but they are not allowed to be touched. You can look at them from a distance. EXCEPT for the summer solstice. To celebrate the longest day of the year, or the shortest night a huge festival is held by the stones, and you can go right up to them, and touch them and everything. It is an ancient ritual to celebrate there and it is continued to this day. It was so cool, druids playing the drums, hippies wearing white, pagans dancing and us. A group of fools with lots of food and liquor. The idea is to stay up till sunrise. Partying from sunset to sunrise, or perhaps playing drums and dancing to the summer Gods who are about to bless us with a nice summer that will produce a good harvest. My friend and I succeeded to see the sunrise, but some people fell asleep. The experience is hard to describe. You are overwhelmed with the number of people, while at the same time shocked at how calm everyone is. There weren’t drunk fights, or people puking everywhere. Everyone was there to enjoy the experience. And a lot of people were there to truly celebrate the ritual. You can tell they had been doing it every summer. This is the only day of the year I would recommend going to Stonehenge. If you go any other time you will be disappointed, because it is only a pile of rocks. Don’t waste your money, or more importantly your time.

Oxford and Cambridge

So before I went to Oxford and Cambridge I sort of pictured two college campuses with tons of parties with hot posh British boys. Even though this is not how the universities are, they are absolutely beautiful and everyone must see these cities. First of all both schools do not have a campus. Both cities are filled with university buildings where the lectures are taught. These are the colleges, so there is the college of literature and law, etc. They are scattered all over the city and there isn’t any sort of quad or student centre really. The cities are gorgeous though. The nightlife is calm. People are out partying yes, but not like what you have on like Madison’s campus for example.

Oxford is beautiful. Gorgeous. We even saw boys playing croquet!! How cool is that. I went with three of my friends. We saw some boys playing and sat down to watch them. Then we started to take pictures. Then a huge crowd formed behind us. They were all taking pictures as well. Poor boys, they became a tourist attraction! A professor in Oxford wrote Alice in Wonderland and the story supposedly takes place there so we visited the Alice in Wonderland shop. There is also a very pretty river walk filled with trees and most of the buildings are covered in IVY. If you have a picture of Oxford in your head, it probably looks like that, except prettier.

Cambridge was very similar, but out of the two I think Cambridge is prettier. We stayed with a friend of a friend who is an absolutely amazing host. She is a tour guide on the river so she took us on a tour.  We went punting on the river and had our own personal guide. We learned a little bit of history about the very prestigious university and observed the many students who had just finished exams, rented their own boats and drunkenly were punting down the river. Then of course it started to rain, but this is England and it rains all the time, so what better way to end the tour than at the local pub. We had a laugh then parted our ways. Cambridge is breathtakingly gorgeous. Visit this city!

Stratford upon Avon, Cotswolds, Burford

One Sunday I decided to leave London and visit the Cotswolds which are cute villages outside of London. I took a day trip there with Viator tours. My group consisted of 7 people from Japan who did not speak a word of English, and American couple and a mother and daughter also from America. The group was interesting. As I did not speak any Japanese I hung out with the Americans. They were all nice, but at one point I was talking to the American mom and telling her how I was going to take a 6 week backpacking trip in a few months. She seemed very concerned, as I was a girl doing this alone. I told her it was perfectly safe and that I had done it before so I was not worried at all. When the sun was setting she came up to me and asked, “So Beata when it gets dark right about now, what do you do with your backpack? Do you just camp somewhere by the road and continue walking in the morning?

I thought she was kidding. But she wasn’t. She literally thought I was going to WALK from one European country to another with a backpack. And what is funny, the American couple thought the exact same thing. Oh Americans, sometimes we are so silly. I explained to them I’d be flying, taking buses and trains, and sleeping in hostels. Anyhow back to the villages. SO BEAUTIFUL!

We visited Burford, which I was very excited about because I talk about Burford on my tours. The villages are very pretty and picturesque.  There are rivers and lakes running through them, and they are very small. We visited about four different villages and you could walk each one in about 15 minutes. They are also very quiet, so a nice escape from London. On the trip I also visited Stratford Upon Avon. This is where Shakespeare was born. Super cool. I love Shakespeare and could not help but think of Mr. Bertenshaw when I was there. This teacher probably had one of the greatest impacts on my life. As I kept walking around the town all I kept thinking about was Mr. Bertenshaw jumping up and down and saying, J C. Juliet Capulet, Jesus Christ. I have to say though, learning about someone or something in school and then seeing it in real life is a pretty amazing feeling. We saw the building where Shakespeare was born, the house his daughter lived in and the church where he is buried. Definitely recommend a day trip from London.

Scotland

I loved Scotland and wish I had lived there for a bit. It is such a cool country and the people are amazing. I spent a week there and started in Edinburgh, which is a beautiful city. It looks like it comes straight out of a fairytale. I did the free walking tour there. When I do the tours in London I always hear about an amazing guide in Edinburgh, Grant, who wears a pink hat. So I went on his tour, and turns out he had been on my tour in London. What a small world. I also ran into a lot of people in my hostel, who had just been on my tour the week before. (Apparently I am a mini celebrity in the backpacking world!)

I then went on a 3 day haggis adventure tour with Busabout Tours. Recommend it very highly! This trip was awesome. I had a very outgoing guide Kyle who made the trip super fun. I met the three most amazing girls from Australia and the trip was ideal. We went to Loch ness and visited Nessie, the lock ness monster. Now, obviously I did not see her but we took a boat over Lock ness and watched all the sonar devices. Apparently the sonar will often get signals that are unexplained, and this is where we get the idea that there is something in the water. There are stories that villagers have seen a massive animal in the water but nobody really knows if it is true. The town where the loch is located is called Inverness and it small, cute and quaint. The Australian trio and I attempted to go out and meet some of the locals. This didn’t last very long as it turned into us and the bartender sitting at a table, then getting invited to a big party, which consisted of a total of 4 people. Instead we hung out with the group at the hostel bar and watched the most entertaining dance off I had seen in my life.

The next day was spent visiting the highlands. We went to the Isle of Sky. To say that the Scottish highlands are beautiful would be an insult. They are breath taking. I had no idea the extent of this beauty until I had seen it, a mixture of beautiful cliffs, lakes, and mountains. We also saw many castles, including the one from the movie, Maid of Honor, with Patrick Dempsey. We also saw lots of men in kilts playing bagpipes. I did not try haggis but I did eat a deep-fried mars bar, two of the famous Scotland dishes. The Mars Bar was yummy, but you really can’t eat more than half of it, it is sooo rich.

As for the haggis, as yummy as I hear it is, I really cannot bring myself to eat it. It is diced sheep liver, intestines, and heart etc, cooked in a sheep’s stomach. Apparently delicious, but not my cup of tea. I ended my trip to Scotland with a music festival, T in the Park. This was fun. I saw Kings of Leon, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, and the View. What is funny is that the night before we went out to a bar and met some guys who claimed to be in a band. I was like, yah right, sure. Every guy says that. Well the next day at the festival the band really was there. I felt like the biggest idiot, I missed an opportunity schmoozing the band to meet some of the headliners. Oh well…..next time.  Scotland is a country filled with a lot of pride to be Scottish, they blame everything on the English, just like the Irish. The entire trip was filled with stories of battles and of William Wallace, (Braveheart) we even saw his memorial, which is HUGE. I loved Scotland and for sure recommend going.

                          

Soccer Against the Enemy- Simon Kuper.  Kuper is an English journalist who covered soccer at the start of his career, moved to finance and economics but got bored and moved back to soccer.  This book is similar to Franklin Foer‘sHow Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, one of my favorite books from last year.  Kuper travels around the world attending soccer matches right after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Each chapter could stand alone as a short story, but they flow together well enough to create a narrative about soccer around the world.  My favorite chapter in the book was the one about Dynamo Kiev, the biggest and most successful club in Ukraine.  Dynamo has turned into a huge business, not just a soccer club.  Any foreign company that wants to do a joint venture in Ukraine tried to partner with Dynamo for tax reasons and because everyone in Ukraine knew Dynamo and would be more likely to support the project.  It’s interesting to see how sports teams become bigger parts of an economy and become “Més que un club” or more than a club, which is FC Barcelona‘s motto.  If you like soccer, check out this book.

The 4-Hour Workweek – Tim Ferriss.  I had skimmed this book a year ago, but had not gotten a chance to read it carefully.  Whatever you think of Ferriss, the book contains so some worthwhile time management skills, business strategies and ideas that make you reexamine your lifestyle.  Ferriss tells the story about how he went from an office job where he worked many hours per week to creating a product that lets him travel the world and only requires him to work as little as four hours per week.  I agree with his ideas that “mini-retirements” should be spread out throughout life, rather than working your entire life to retire when you are in your 60s and I enjoyed hearing how he has used the new global supply chain to launch a product with minimal up front costs, but he lost me with his story about how he won a gold medal at the Chinese National Kickboxing Tournament and has a world record in Tango.  While Ferriss comes across as a bit of a loner who believes that the ends justify the means in pretty much all facets of life, it would be a mistake to completely dismiss the book because of the arrogance of the author.  I’m confident that if you read the book, you’ll find at least a few of his ideas worthwhile.

A Pint of PlainA Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change and the Fate of the Irish Pub – Bill Barich.  I started this book because I had just gotten back from a week in Ireland, visiting, among other things, a few Irish pubs.  The book is about Barich’s attempt to find a traditional Irish pub to be his “local.”  The book starts off well, but is pretty slow and delves too much into each pub’s individual history for my taste.  His chapters on how Ireland has changed in the last 5-10 years as a result of globalization are interesting, but the most interesting take away from the book was his stat that bars in the UK that change formats to and Irish pub see 3x greater turnover than from before the format change.  There is something powerful about the Irish pub that makes it successful all over the world.  I wouldn’t bother reading this book.  Instead, check out your local Irish pub or go take a trip to the real thing in Ireland.