On the Road

Well actually on a train currently.

*Disclosure: this is a travel blog for the next month. You have been warned.

A quick recap to set the scene.

July 2nd. Moved my belongings into my Cambridge apartment. Packed my travel clothes/stuff into an orange, 45 liter REI backpack. Flew to Nantucket to hang with my parents and brother.

July 7th – 10th. Flew to NYC. Stayed in DF’s Hamptons sharehouse for the weekend. Got drunk for the first time in almost 2 months. Then got drunk again the next day. Took the train directly to JFK for my (delayed) red eye to Paris.

July 11th. Arrive at my hostel around 9am. Drop my stuff. Start walking around Paris and pump myself full of coffee and bread. Walk by The Louvre and then hang in the Tuileries gardens for a bit. Walk to the Eiffel Tower and take the required picture to post on Instagram. Rent a city bike and head back to my hostel (more like a cheap hotel frankly) while simultaneously dodging traffic and trying to look at my google maps. Check in to my room, take a shower (Paris was a sunny 95 degrees every day), and walk to a cafe nearby with my journal. Crush a light lunch of steak frites and an ice cream sundae. Take a nap back in my room. Bike to meet up with DM for dinner in The Marais. Fun night, incredible food. Roll myself home.

July 12th. Culture day. Take a guided tour of Musee D’orsay – just the guide, me, and an American family of 3. Much more enjoyable when I understand the context of the art I’m looking at – worth it. Impressionist art is awesome, although neo-classical ain’t too shabby as well. Grab lunch, then head over to Musee Rodin. My second time there. Still probably my favorite museum. Did the audio tour. Reconnected with The Thinker. Walked home, but stopped on the way for another ice cream sundae. Did I mention it was 95 outside?!? Had an early-ish solo dinner, 3 courses. Burrata with avocado infused cream-fraiche was incredible. Stuffed like a pig.

July 13th. Had to visit 1 church so walked through Montmartre to Sacre Coeur. Paid the 7 euros to walk to the top of the church dome. There were probably 15 signs of encouragement announcing how far you were from the top of the stairs…whole thing probably took 4 minutes lol. Haven’t worked out in a week, but my cardio isn’t gone yet. Had lunch at a chic fish place situated in a covered market (Eataly vibes). Consumed my favorite dish in Paris: eel and escargot. Started walking home and noticed I was right by the Picasso museum so popped in and did the audio tour. Pretty cool but not my favorite museum – focused on his family life, while I was there for the cubes. Felt I had earned more food after this unexpected culture injection, so snagged a banana crepe. Then walked by a schwarma place that looked delicious, so grabbed a pita for the 15 minute walk home.

July 14th. Made my last boulangerie run, checked out of my room, walked to the train station. Train was 30 minutes late (so much for amazingly punctual European train system…although it is France…). Which brings us to the present. En route to Grindelwald, Switzerland via Basel and Interlaken. Lots of hiking awaits.

Some reflection.

Does solo traveling illuminate one’s true self given there are 0 external pressures to do anything? I hope not, because when left to my own devices I seem to focus on eating and then simply walking to the next eating destination (very primal lifestyle lol). Yes, I did visit some museums, but those were just to kill time between meals (jk?). I guess we shall see how my lifestyle changes upon leaving the food capital of the world.

I feel that I’m only half committed to the backpacking lifestyle and spent zero effort trying to meet new people in Paris, although I was coming off of several days of continual socializing. While writing this blog, I decided to book a very social hostel in Munich when I go there in about a week, thus ensuring I give true backpacking life a shot again (I stayed in plenty of ratchet hostels in Asia when I studied abroad in Hong Kong).

Unrelated, but CPI came in at 9.1?!? USD hits parity with Euro. Gold gets punished as market assumes Fed will act more hawkishly. GDPnow tracking -1.2% in q2! “Exciting” times in markets. Maybe the answer lurks in Jungfrau. That’s all for now.