WHERE I'VE BEEN

• Bike riding in Amsterdam. It was cold and Dutch kids laughed at me taking selfies. I was excited to tell everyone we were riding omafiets, just like the one I have at home (everyone makes fun of me for it).
• Inadvertently eating raw meat throughout the Netherlands. The first was ossenworst at the Brouwerij 't IJ in Amsterdam. The second was broodje haring on too much bread and not enough sauce in Delft. I will eat practically anything and travel is the best excuse to try everything.
• Watching Birdman at a Pathé theater in Amsterdam while my friends tried to get drunk and high at the Bulldog. I then proceeded to lose my camera in the theater. This is why I lack enough photographs of the rest of my travels through the Netherlands (I do go back for the camera).
• Riding park bikes through the Hoge Veluwe forest. No one knew that this was going to happen and a lot of people were unprepared. I found it to be the best way to relax after days of mad dashing about the Netherlands. The trees were tall, there were plains with dunes, there was a statue in the middle of a great field (General De Wet), and there was a hunting lodge by Berlage.
• At the end of the bike ride through the forest, we wandering through the sculpture park and art museum of the Kröller-Müller. Some of it was strange, some of it was familiar, some of it cried out to be walked upon. At one point, I sneaked off so that I could be lost in the forest and lose myself in looking up at the canopy. I miss the sensation of losing myself in the infinite.
• Consuming a heavenly stroopwafel with just the right amount of sweetness, having a religious experience trying truffle oil for the first time, and regretting not buying more than one (giant) coconut macaroon in the Markthal Rotterdam (by MVRDV!). I also refused to pay to go to the toilet.
• Eating a single bite of a Belgian waffle in Antwerp. I had spent the night before eating a large pancake in Amsterdam and could not tolerate more sugar in my system. I both regret and believe this was a good move to make. I am both haunted that I didn't eat more but I also cherish the bit I did eat. A Belgian waffle tastes like the syrup was baked into it. It is childhood in the palm of your hand.
• Paying twenty cents to pee in the Antwerp mall.
• Getting lost in the Borgerhout neighborhood of Antwerp. I was only crying because people were stressed out about me wandering off. I wander off all the time, precisely the reason why I had bought a cell phone. I was lost in the part of Antwerp where all the buildings looked exactly the same and there were no people outside and the land was flat. Basically, the worst kind of lost. Always have a paper map.
• Running and giggling breathless down the hills of Madrid with my friends in the night. Walking seemed too slow and the weather was bitter.
• Wandering for miles to the north of Madrid because my friends sent me in the wrong direction home. I was very angry and was tired even before I set out. I am still upset.
• Wearing the same tight pants for four days in Madrid because I forget to pack another pair. Was horrified when I came back home and saw that they had made marks into my skin. My roommate who wears tight pants all the time says that this is a thing. Still upset.
• Making a last-minute mad train dash to Tarragona. There was time only to wander through the Roman ruins. There was a door portal that time had formed into the shape of a dick. There was a gypsy woman who wouldn't go away. My companions were the worst mix of people ever. From the Roman walls we looked out upon a school party going on below. We plucked oranges from the many trees and they were small, sour, and sweet. Our day ended at sunset. I never touched the beach.
• Climbing Montserrat with a subsection of the group with terrible dynamics. They insisted on not following the trail and so for the next three hours I complained often about how terrible everything was (even after we split into two groups). I hadn't eaten since the oranges in Tarragona the day before, so I bought a baguette which was gone by the time we reached the monastery. Then we visited the most beautiful church I'd seen during my travels. We tried to climb to the top, but that was another three hours, so we bypassed. I fell asleep on the train back into Barcelona.
• Stumbling upon the Easter festival in Prague and getting to sample Czech delicacies without searching too hard. Also drinking hot wine over and over again thinking that it would taste different each time.
• Eating a motherlode of cheap-as-hell baklava dripping with honey in the middle of Kreuzberg.
• Discovering the greater varieties of baklava at a gyro shop in El Raval. Now that I'm back in America, I feel cheated by all the baklava options that are either pistachio or walnuts and cost $4 for a tiny piece.
• Climbing underneath doors to get into the Fotoplastikon of Warsaw. It's not free like what the internet says. But it was cool.
• Finally getting into the tiny restaurant Lo de Flor, having three courses plus wine, and then vomiting up everything later that night. I hadn't had an appetite for the whole week and was sick of it. Eating very rich food was not the best decision. But I do not regret that meal. Please waste your money there.
• Walking to the very end of the city's coastline at Diagonal Mar (from El Raval!) then going all the way back. On the way I met a French man who set my insides in all sorts of knots in the weeks afterward.

WHERE I'M GOING

• Climb the other half of Montserrat.
• See the aurora borealis.
• Hike the Appalachian trail.
• See the Atomium in Brussels.
  • 50 53' 41" N, 4 20' 28" E
• Visit the Mendel Museum of Genetics in Brno.
  • 49 11' 27.46" N, 16 35' 34.85" E
• Have a field day in the Galápagos.
• Find the Paris Arago Medallions that mark the Paris meridian.
  • 48 50' 4.23" N, 2 20' 11.41" E
• Make a pit stop in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, the birthplace of Pierre de Fermat.
  • 43 52' 58.63" N, 0 59' 15.40" E
• Visit the Museum Plagiarius in Solingen, Germany.
• Roam the botanical garden at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
• Check out the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
• Go spelunking!
  • Rumbling Falls Cave, Tennessee, USA
  • Stephens Gap Cave, Alabama, USA
• Return to Berlin in the summer.
  • Visit Tempelhof.
  • Peruse Museum Island (we didn't have time to go!)
• Rent a car and/or a bike and roam Girona and the Costa Brava.
• Take the time and enjoy beer in Bavaria.
• Look out over the Tokyo skyline and imagine myself falling among the lights.
• Climb Table Mountain in Cape Town.
• National Parks
  • Yellowstone
  • Big Bend
  • Sequoia
  • Yosemite
  • Grand Canyon
• See Haring's Tuttomondo in Pisa.
• Finally roam Lisbon. For some reason I'm subconsciously obsessed with it.
• Explore the Lost Coast of California.