Epilogue

Seriously, what an experience. After coming back home, I was able to reflect and look at my trip as a whole. I'm definitely a blessed and lucky dude. Here is a fancy map and some random tidbits from my travels:

View Pert Backpacks through Asia & Europe in a larger map

• Total miles traveled: 30,176

• Total countries visited: 11

• Total cities visited: 38

• Total number of planes/trains/buses/boats taken: 49

• Total number of hostels/hotels/houses stayed at: 32
• Weeks without doing laundry at the end of my trip/pairs of underwear I brought: 3.5/6 (you do the math)

Oh yea, also here's how the "beard" finally turned out:

I look like I didn't sleep for a day and half because I didn't sleep for a day and a half.

Thanks for following me as I wandered around and sharing my experiences with me! I'll leave you with a quote that helped spark this whole adventure:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. 

-Mark Twain  

One Last Stop: Iceland

I was there for 12 hours and it was cold and wet. That's it.

Fin.

On my flight to Paris I was both super excited and slightly bummed. Super excited because I had been really looking forward to seeing Delphine after parting ways in Vietnam. Bummed because this was my last few days before heading back home. Don’t get me wrong, I had been excited to go home for a while because I missed my friends and family. Actually, really excited to get home. But I was still sad to end my time exploring.

My time with Delphine and the rest of the gang in Vietnam was one of the most fun experiences of my whole trip, so I literally felt giddy that I would be able to hang out with her for a few days in her hometown of Paris. I originally was only going to be in Paris for a day because it was a cheaper flight home, but Delphine, being the generous person that she is, said I could crash at her place and that she’d show me around, so one day turned into three and a pit stop turned into one last destination. (On (yet another) side note, I still am amazed when I think back to my very first encounter with Delphine when we met while waiting for a boat to take us island hopping in Nha Trang and thinking that in a couple of months, I would be hanging out with her in her home city. Let the self-pinching continue).

Delphine picked me up from the airport and what was my first request? Croissants, of course. We stopped by a local bakery and I was in heaven. Honestly, every pastry I had in Paris was like the best pastry I had ever had (until the next pastry I had). After snacking, Delphine decided to show me around a few smaller neighborhoods, places I would never have even known to check out. We wandered for a few hours before ending at the Champs Elysees. We bought some fixings for my very first home made French dinner, then went to the famous Laduree for some macaroons. The line was insane, but after tasting the macaroons, the wait was definitely worth it.

First meal!

Notre Dame.

Macaroons at Laduree.

I’d say I’m a relatively effusive person, but especially so with Delphine because she was the best host anyone could ask for. After taking me around and not letting me pay for anything (trust me, I tried to fight her), we headed back to her place where she cooked an amazing dinner. The main course was a dish called “chicken with no head” which was basically chicken wrapped in ham, pan fried, topped with cheese sauce and served with mashed potatoes. In addition to that, we had some foie gras with fig jam and a fresh baguette. Like I mentioned back in my Singapore post, having a home cooked meal after backpacking for such a long time was the best thing I could imagine.

 

Enjoying a home-cooked meal.

The next day, we met up with one of Delphine’s friends for lunch where I had my first ever Croque Madame! So tasty. After lunch, we walked past Notre Dame, headed to Arc de Triomphe, then finished our sight-seeing walking up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. After saying no to buying a miniature Eiffel Tower for the 100^th time, we headed to one of Delphine’s favorite little bistros where I order steak and fries, or as the French say (and the reason I ordered it) steak frites. A great way to end the night. (Side note number two: If you remember one of my posts in Vietnam, I wrote about how Phong had a way with the locals there. Really smooth and friendly and everyone loved being around him. Delphine had the same air about her. She interacted with anybody and everybody and you could tell they warmed to here immediately. A great trait to have.)

Croque Madame.

Arc de Triomphe.

Steak frites.

My third and final day in Paris, we decided to head to Versailles to check out Louis XIV’s castle. What stood out to me the most was the beautiful and immaculately kempt garden. After a couple hours roaming the grounds, we took a train back to Paris to see the last thing on my list: the Louvre!

Versailles.

Inside the palace.

We saw the famous pieces of art such as the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory, but I was there for one thing: the Gummy de Milo, something I had wanted to see since my middle school days of watching the Simpsons. All joking aside, the Louvre was amazing. We walked around for three hours and probably only saw a third of it, but it was a great experience and I probably could’ve stayed a lot longer if my legs only held up.

"Give me that sweet can..."

Mona Lisa.

For our last meal, we headed to a little brasserie where I ordered some long overdue duck with honey. And for dessert, I had to order crème brulee, which was a great way to end my eating adventures.

Final meal in Paris. Duck!

I was super lucky to be able to fit in a few days in Paris before I headed home and could not have asked for a better host. Delphine being Delphine, she sent me home with some foreign currency from all over the world and a bunch of old stamps because I told her my dad collected them (dad, you’ll get them one day). Again, how awesome is she?. Paris with Delphine: no better way to end my three month adventure. Next stop: home (and clean underwear!).

Continued Homeless Adventures in Venice and Milan

We got on the train from Cinque Terre bright and early around 7am, unsure of where the destination would be due to the train strike. Oh the joys of backpacking. Our next planned destination was Venice, but with the train strike we weren’t sure when we would be able to get there if at all. The train stopped at La Spezia, so we got off to ask when the next available train to Venice would be. The train lady (who wasn’t really that helpful) said that trains would start back up at 9pm, but there wasn’t a guarantee that anything would take us to Venice. Not having anywhere to go other than the train station Mcdonald’s, we decided to venture into the city and explore. La Spezia was surprisingly pleasant. There was a really cool open air fruit market, Sunday street market and some beautiful parks.

As you’ve seen in photos up to this point, I was starting to look pretty shaggy, not having shaved for 2+ months. I looked homeless, but didn’t think people really treated me differently because of my appearance. That is until I went to buy some fruit in La Spezia. I walked into the fruit stand, grabbed a peach and went to pay the .25 euro. To my surprise the cashier (probably younger than me) didn’t let me pay, pushed my hand away and gave me the “you need this more than I do” look. I couldn’t really argue with him, so I took my bounty and proudly ate the peach that took me over two months to earn. Totally worth it.

After walking the town for a bit, we decided to take a day trip to a small town called Portavenere where we had a few scoops of gelato, grabbed lunch, and laid by the pier for a few hours as Tristan and Kevin completed their tanning competition (Tristan won).

Day trip to Portavenere.

More rays.

We got back to La Spezzia around dinner time, so we grabbed some pizza and headed back to the train station hoping that the train would arrive like the lady said. If you’ve ever seen “The Terminal” you know about the departure and arrival time signs that flip as they change. We looked at those signs with bated breath for an hour hoping our train would arrive. Finally, our eyes lit up as we saw the train we needed to take to get to Venice. It was about 930pm and this was train one out of three we needed to take to get to Venice. We got on board, hoping for continued good news as we got to our next stops. Good news not so much.

After a couple hours on our first leg, we got to our next stop and luckily only had to wait 45 minutes before the next train came. But we weren’t so stoked when we got onto the actual train. It was literally packed to the brim. And these trains had the little rooms in them with private seats, so it was packed like sardines. One car was insane; it had a family of like 8, all packed on top of each other sleeping. I had to sit in the hall way, scrunched for a few hours, but hey we were on the move. Our luck ran out when we got to Balogna. We arrived around 1am, but the next train wouldn’t leave for Venice until about 7am. And because of the strike, the actual train station was too full to sleep in, so we went full backpacker mode and set up camp on the train platform. Since I was already 2.5 months into my trip, I was use to roughing it, but Kevin didn’t enjoy it as much J. What added to his disdain is that he mistakenly thought we got him Mcdonald’s when we actually told him we would get it separately (and we had been talking Mickey D’s for a while, so the buildup was excruciating). At the time, it was very not funny. But thinking back, it’s less very not funny.

Waiting to get stuffed onto a full train.

Home, sweet, platform.

Anyways, we got through the night kind of sleeping on stone benches, while trains zoomed past us the whole night. It wasn’t the most fun experience at the time, but hey it makes a good story. At least that’s what I tell myself. 7am couldn’t come fast enough, so when the train arrived, we got on and greedily hogged a few seats each, so that we could catch a few hours of sleep before we (finally) arrived in Venice.

My first thought of Venice when I stepped off the train was that it looked fake. In a good way. It was like I was looking at a painting. The gondolas, the canals, the small windy streets, the bridges. Pretty amazing. We got in around 10, and decided to unload our stuff as quickly as possible and just wander the streets. We first stopped at St. Mark’s Basilica, famous for all of the pigeons. We then headed to the famous Rialto bridge where we looked for our lost loves, but didn’t find any so decided to get gelato instead.

Trying to catch some pigeons.

Tapas, Italian-style.

Like a painting!

We also met up with Federica, a couch surfer that Tristan contacted and who agreed to show us around for the day. She was awesome. Took us all around town, gave us tidbits here and there, and gave us some pointers on what to eat. After walking and sitting and walking and sitting, we parted ways with Fredericka and stopped by a local fair/carnival and had some delicious BBQ ribs. I’d been missing American BBQ for a while, so this hit the spot. We then proceeded to our actual dinner of seafood risotto, famous in Venice.

V-necks, unite!

Federica! Best guide ever.

BBQ'd meats, how I missed thee.

Seafood risotto.

Panna cotta.

The next morning, we said our goodbyes to Tristan as he headed back to Poland and Kevin and I headed to our final destination together: Milan. We wanted to stop by Milan for a day to check out the fashion scene (and as you could tell throughout my pictures, my dirty t-shirts and mets hat screamed fashion sense). Only one miscalculation on our part: all the stores are closed on Sundays, the only day we would be in Milan. Oh well, we decided to walk around and window shop instead. Besides window shopping, we also did a lot of people watching in front of the cathedral, ate toooooons of food (pasta, gelato (some of our favorite on the trip), lasagna, gelato (more of our favorite), pizza – all within about 6 hours).

Milan Cathedral.

2nd to last amazing gelato.

Last amazing gelato.

We ended the night with some cold pizza in our hotel room while watching tennis in Italian. Exactly how I pictured my last night in Italy. Seriously, hanging out with Kevin was a blast and I was super lucky to be able to spend that much time with him, all while exploring Italy. I still can’t believe it all happened because Kevin facebooked me when I was in the Philippines asking if I wanted to meet up somewhere in Europe. Funny how things work.

Going out with class.

Although my love for pizza and gelato never wavered, I was ready to move on. I said my goodbyes to Kevin and Italy, and got on a flight to my final destination: Paris!

Cinque Terre and the Mystery of the Missing Trains

After leaving our ragu, I mean Florence, we made a quick stop to Pisa. Mainly because we couldn’t go to Italy and not take the oh so original leaning of tower pictures where we’re pretending to hold it up. Genius. After our two-hour train ride, we were surprised to be welcomed by rain in Pisa - the first and only rain on our trip. To be honest, Pisa was pretty dull besides the leaning tower of Pisa. We went, took our obligatory pictures, and got out. But not first without joining in on a human pyramid with seven other wet and sweaty dudes. Hey, at least that was an original-ish picture.

Yup, really original...

We got back on the train as fast as we could and headed to our most-anticipated stop: Cinque Terre. Out of the five villages, we decided to stay in Corniglia. It was probably the smallest village, but it was cheap, and cheap became more and more attractive as my backpacking adventure went on. You could probably walk from one end of the village to the other in five minutes. And the central part of town was one alleyway with restaurants and a small piazza. With all that said, I really liked it. Very quaint, quiet, and amazing views of the ocean. Oh yea, and did I mention it was cheap?

So one of my most vivid moments of my trip was when we first got off the train in Corniglia. It was right before sunset, a little rainy, but with the sun still peaking through the clouds. The train runs literally on the coastline, so as I got off the train, I was welcomed by an amazing panoramic view of the sea. It was breathtaking. I don’t remember many times in my life where I couldn’t stop smiling if I tried, but that was one of them.

View from our train!

Perma-smile.

The first night in Corniglia, we dropped our bags off, soaked in the views, found some dinner (pesto lasagna!), grabbed some much-needed gelato (at this point, gelato was a mandatory post-cursor to any meal, and many times a pre-cursor, too). And that night was also the first time someone asked if I was Chilean. I know I was dark, but Chilean? Moving on…

The next morning we set off to hike through three of the five villages. Many people hike all five in a day, but since Corniglia is the middle village, we decided to break it in two. The first day we walked through Vernazza to Montorossa, the village with the biggest beach. I’d heard a lot of great things about the hike prior to getting there, but the views exceeded what I imagined. The weather was perfect and seeing the ocean and all the villages was pretty indescribable. We also got a delicious porchetta sandwich in Vernazza, so that was beautiful as well. The hike was about 2.5-3 hours, but flew by. We got to Montorossa at around noon and spent the next four hours or so camped on the beach where Tristan and Kevin began their contest to see who could get darker/less pale. Kevin had a head start since he had been in Italy for about a week already, but Kevin is also an albino, so I had my money on Tristan. What’s more amazing is that somehow we randomly met up with our friends Pip, Joanna and Kierra we met in Sorrento.

Gorgeous views from our hike.

After getting our rays, we trained back to Corniglia, grabbed dinner and then took a little midnight stroll down to the docks. On a side note, that dinner I finally realized what bread fiends we had become. Since pasta was so expensive and not always filling, bread was what kept our stomachs full. Since bread also costs money, the restaurant gave us crappy breadsticks for free and we commenced destroying these crappy breadsticks like they were cheap sushi at a Chinese buffet.

Let the competition begin!

Crab penne.

Sardine spaghetti with capers.

We finished out our time in Cinque Terre (kind of) hiking the remaining two villages. Since the trail to one of the villages was shut down, we trained half and walked the rest to Riamoggiore. There wasn’t much to do in Riamaggiore, so we decided to train back to Montorossa and continue the sunbathing competition.

That night we heard there was a train strike that would last for a day, the day we were supposed to travel to Venice. We woke up super early the next morning, hoping there would be a train. There was! But to where? Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnn!!!