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Where the HELL have you been? [Travel Thread]
Posts
Ooh, Colorado! I love Colorado. Where did you go? Denver is a pretty shitty place, but if you head South into Colorado Springs you'll find some really cool local culture. Seeing Old Colorado City is a must.
so i go to greece frequently
my list so far includes:
england
germany
austria
italy
greece
dominican republic
cuba
costa rica
panama
japan
usa
japan was pretty cool because i was all alone exploring tokyo, so it was a learning experience i guess
costa rica was beautiful
if you enjoy rich scenery and to be surrounded by awesome wildlife, for the love of god, take a trip to costa rica before tourism fully rapes it.
i want to go to brazil next or tanzania.
haven't decided but this will probably go down next winter.
Most of the time he's visited countries in Europe it's been with just one of his kids
He gets a break from home and has a chance to catch up with how we're doing
europe's not a country, both greece and spain are a part of it, silly pants.
you're like that woman on are you smarter than a fifth grader!
It depends how touristy you want it to be. There's a lot to do there that locals do (go to Old Colorado City or hang out downtown) on a regular basis, and it has a very large outdoor scene. Lots of cool little restaurants and stores that thrive, which is nice to see.
However, head even more South towards Woodmen Hills and you will see the ugliest, most horrible suburbian hell being built. It used to be nice grasslands that turned into a forest, but now it's all houses, big chain stores and dirt.
Err, yes, of course!
I want to see Europe, especially Greece and Spain.
hahah
if you ever get to greece, go to crete
then go to agio apostoli
and go into the pub
tell them you are a friend of alexandra neonakis, dimitri's daughter.
they will give you a place to stay for free and probably kill a goat for you cause that is our village and oh god they love visitors (almost as much as they love to kill goats)
Are you retarded?
Americans know exactly how great America is. I thought half the reason why people hate us is that we remind everyone else on the planet on a nearly constant basis what a fucking awesome country we are?
I'm putting this in a text file and if I don't see any goats killed in front of me I will find you
Other Countries:
Canada (Toronto)
Italy (Rome, Venice, Verona)
Austria (Bregenz, Faussach (didn't spell that right)
Lichtenstein
Switzerland (Lake Constance area)
Germany (Munich, Frankfurt)
France (Paris)
Belgium (Brugge and Brussels)
England (Lived for 6 months in York, toured all around)
Scotland
Ireland
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
British Virgin Islands
Puerto Rico
Mexico
Holland
States:
New York (Lived)
Pennsylvania (Live)
Virginia (Lived)
Maryland (Lived)
New Hampshire
Vermont
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Massachusetts
New Jersey
DC
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Colorado
Texas
California
Arizona
Tennessee
Illinois
Ohio
West Virginia
That should about do it.
I think I wasn't clear. I enjoyed my time there because it wasn't touristy. Just blending in and eating in a sweet seafood place in some sidestreet is exactly the kind of time we wanted to have, and achieved. Sightseeing is something I abhor. I stayed in New York for a week and not once visited the Empire State. My outlook on visiting faraway places is that getting to know the place as the locals see it is more rewarding and interesting than the superficial plastered on tourist outlook.
Plus, living in london I see tourists every day, huge cameras, union jack hats and a gaggle of fifty small asian people wandering around and blocking the escalator down to the tube making me late for work. Those people I hate.
I will give Silmaril what is referred to in those parts as a "jolly-good rogering".
I assuming this means we will get a Jolly Roger pirate flag and wrap him in it and take some pictures or something.
I'm kind of excited about it, I really like pirate flags.
Going to call you out on this one.
In, I dunno, maybe a year or two.
Don't hate the poor asians, they think that's how everyone goes on vacation.
They don't know.
Oh dont get me wrong, I agree.
U S A
U S A
and all that.
But I mean the landscape, the sprawling forests and vast unimaginably huge areas of natural habitat. Everyone I met who ran these places, rangers, nature trust workers all commented that americans always take for granted the wild parts of the country. As someone from the UK I cant tell you how envious I am of people having five hundred acre backyards when I dont even have a garden myself. I met people who parked their cars in the middle of their fields because they have the space.
I mean shit, I walked down streets with no people walking down them. big streets, with shops.
the amount of open space in america is almost mind boggling to a brit. like, colorado is larger than the entirety of the british isles and has less than 1/10th of the population.
i will be amazed if you make it through a trip to greece and don't witness the slaughter of at least 10 goats.
those people love eating goats
it is their very favorite thing to do.
one of my first greek memories other than splitting my head open from jumping on a bed was after a wedding.
it was late at night (greeks don't sleep) all of the men had gone up to the patio on top of the pub, which is also my uncle's house to do men things like smoke cigars and drink raqui (moonshine only legal on crete)
so my dad comes and is like "Alexandra, it's time for you to become a man"*
and i'm like "what? i'm 5 and i'm a girl"*
but he brings me up there anyways
they are all gathered around a table, laughing and stinking like old dirty greek men
i'm like "oh god i don't like this"
so i get shoved and jostled forward, amidst merry laughing and a lot of angry-sounding hollering.
on the table is the head of the goat that we had eaten for supper.
it has been cooked somehow, it's absolutely grotesque
it's mouth is hanging open, it's tongue is all purple and gross, it's eyes have this weird black film over them.
i am instantly terrified
then one old guy takes a lobster fork, jams it into one of the eye, twists. it makes this sickening crunchy popping noise, he pulls it out and shoves it towards me to make me eat it
i am like "please sir, no" but they can't speak english so they just keep yelling "FIE! FIE!" which means "EAT EAT I AM YELLING AT YOU SO DO AS I SAY"
then he eats it with great relish and i feel sick
so one of the other guys is like okay, she doesn't like goat's eyes, let's see if she likes BRAINS
so they saw off the top of the head
at this point i start crying and running to find my mother and hide from my awful dad.
then last year when we went back, some old lady roasted a rabbit for us
dad rips the head off, bites one of the shrively stubs where it's ear used to be, looks at me, starts bouncing the head all over the place singing "here comes peter cotton tail" in his thick greek accent.
my dad.
still traumatizing me, all these years later.
if you actually go, tell me and i will find you a place to stay in crete, they love guests.
if you go up to Manitou Springs there's a rather touristy little area near Pike's Peak, but it's fun to look around. From there you can take The Cog railroad up The Peak or hike up Barr Trail, which takes about 14 hours to summit.
If you're into hiking, I recommend going to The Incline, which is a 1-mile staircase made of old railroad ties that gets really steep at times with a grade up to 68%. Here's a picture from HWY 24:
that scar going up the hill there is The Incline. It's brutally hard, but a real accomplishment if you can do it in 30 minutes or less.
Of course the people that work there take it for granted. They see it every day. It is their job.
Of course it is awe-inspiring to you. You haven't been seeing it since you were 5 years old.
I'm not about to say that people don't appreciate it all its myriad facests the wonderful things we have in this country that few, if any other people have
but we didn't just make up this "best country ever" out of anywhere.
I went to the Grand Canyon a few years ago for something like the 50th time. We brought some relations from Bilbao, Spain.
They cried looking at it. I was baffled and somewhat uncomfortable until I did the math and realized I'd been seeing this vista since way before I could ever comprehend that it is a thing one can find nowhere else on the planet and that seeing it for the first time in the latter half of your life when you have seen nothing else like it is probably a moving experience.
Also, of course they kill goats.
How else are you going to eat one of the most delicious creatures on the planet?
Well shit, now I really have a reason to go.
you can probably just stay in the 500 year old house that we have there
it belonged to my great grandmother
there is an old winery inside that hasn't been used in decades
it's all dusty with these big old oak kegs and a place to stomp grapes
also lots of old pictures and statues, it's fun, but haaaaaunted
nay
the ghosts of goats
edit: true story
once when i was there a goat just sort of wandered in
we didn't know who it belonged to, but we didn't mind so he just sort of hung out for a few minutes, looking at stuff then left.
they just let their livestock wander around
my dad was always capturing me baby goats to snuggle
then expected me to eat them without crying later
December 26th-January 5th
come hang out, me and Stale are going to a pub in the middle of nowhere to drink delicious beers.
Stop me if you have heard this one
let's clean that place up and start a winery
our we will call our label
"Beavermonkey"
guffaaawwww
i bet if you tasted the wine in there it would either be vile and gone bad or the best wine you've ever tasted ever.
Oh man Oh man Oh man...
$1,170 round trip next october. Hm.
Stale or Sil?
Damnit
you're there till the 5th you say? I could swing this.
all i will say is bring your own bed sheets
because man, the ones there don't get used in months, so they get all dusty and bugs get in them cause the house is old and not really bug-proof
there's random holes in the walls that i guess are supposed to be either windows or places to shoot canons out of.
just a table wine that you can drink like water
those are the best wines for day to day.
Sil
I get them confused occassionaly because they are both awesome and also "S"es.
YES, DAVE DO IT IT WILL BE AWESOME.
Wait...are you putting me up in a hovel? I mean, I'm not complaining but I would like to know if I need to bring a can of Raid and maybe my own canon.
room for 1 more :winky:
where are we going drinking?