Taylor Vafiades

Well it’s been about almost a month since I got back from Europe and I have to say its really good to be home. Although I enjoyed my time away it really made me appreciate being back in the USA. I will take the California sun over England’s constant rain and clouds any day! My only regret was not having time to say goodbye to all the great people I met along the way. Hopefully some of you will come out to visit! In the short time I was back in California I was able to go fishing with Glen a few times and make it to Nocturnal Wonderland with Brian and Shelly before jumping on a plane to New York. I’m going to be here for at least another week or two handling some business with my Mom and should have the opportunity to take some great photos. The air is remarkably clear here so I’ve used the past week to cough Europe out and get back to exercising. I ran two miles last night which isn’t much but after 3 months of partying you got to start somewhere.  Some notable pictures so far are this grocery store in Queens that looks like a prison, this egg at Wholefoods and a line of 50 people outside of Trader Joes Manhattan.

I like to think of myself as a pretty open minded guy but this I just couldn’t get my head around black pudding. And because of that I wanted to try it and came pretty close to doing so. Eventually I realized that there is really no reason these days to eat such a thing. Organs I understand in rough times but I can’t imagine the situation that would come up where you would need to eat blood. That’s super rough. At least I found my limit which I don’t think is too bad.  My trip to Scotland was great except the hotel I stayed at was in the middle of nowhere and was about 20 miles from town. Plus they didn’t have any food really except breakfast where I could get some lovely black pudding. I had one really good day of weather there so I did manage to take a boat out on the Loch, go to the Foyer and see the Eilean Donan Castle where Highlander was filmed. I was also able to snap a pretty good shot of Nessie below.

I met a pretty cool cab driver who took some pictures of me also. I didn’t eat much while I was there and ended up catching the Scotch Flu as Toenails put it. It’s basically just a really horrible cold and I ended up passing it to Eric and Mark when I got back. In fact I have been in England for a few days now just trying to get geared up for driving up to Holland with Eric and TIffany tonight. Copious amounts of rest combined with Trailer Park Boys and Futurama over the past few days and I feel great today and ready to take the ferry to France! Waste of time? Nope. I am, after all, on vacation.

Tiffany just got here and we’re getting ready to leave when Eric gets home from work.  Only two more weeks in Europe and then its back to California. I’m only in California 6 days and then I’m off to New York for a month with my Mom. Originally I intended to keep this blog just for my Europe trip but I think I’m going to continue to keep it for my trip to New York and travel beyond. I can’t wait to get back to California and work on Media Medic with much support from friends like Brian and Shelly and Jurgen. Working for myself should allow me to continue to do the things I like to do and travel and still be in “the system”.

So I’ve been trying to get a few websites up before I leave to the beach because lately the weather has been shitty here in England. It’s given me time to dust off my HTML skills and think about new ways to generate traffic. I was thinking Spain but might just go down to Cornwall and chill out for a few days before I begin the last stretch of my trip.  I have also been trying to keep up on emails and getting pictures up. I was able to get a few for DOTS that Eric took but I have tons more for it as well as Brighton , Ghent and Rotterdam. I will do my best to get this done before I leave in the next few days. I wasn’t sure if anyone actually read this blog for the first month or two but it’s worth all the time I put into it knowing that some people do even though they might be busy with other stuff. I have been listening to a lot of good music out here in the UK as well and wanted to make a video section on this blog but it didn’t work out. I can’t link most of the stuff I want to from youtube. Sam Sparro - Black and Gold is the first song I really heard in the UK. I dig that new Weezer video Pork and Beans and Perfect Situation too. Euro late night MTV is unmatched. Time for me to go upload some more pictures.

Eric got his .mobi address for his http://www.pixelfactor.org website which is really great because it can be accessed via cellphone now. Below is a blurb from his new http://pixelfactor.mobi address. To the right is a few other blogs I enjoy reading from different people I know.

These past few weeks in England have been great! I’ve had a chance to really clear my head and see what’s important. I am very lucky to be alive and in the position I am in. Although we made it to D.O.T.S. and the Brighton birthday bash for Celina Eric and I have mainly been getting businesses started to have ready for when I arrive to the states. I have really enjoyed this Europe trip and will be headed to the beach somewhere soon for a week or two to hash out some of the ideas we’ve come up with. I also have a number of personal projects I need to get started. This trip has made me realize I don’t ever want to go back to a 9-5 for the man. I’ve been blessed with the money that I was able to earn when I was younger and have enjoyed not working for several years now. The hard times are way behind me and the past few years reconnecting with people have been great. I am eager to put my money into a few ideas and see if it grows now. The life of being care free and traveling is certainly the life for me. I am ready to put my creativity to the test and technical skills at hand to work. It’s been fun paying 2-4x more for everything for the past two months but I am ready to get back to the states. After my time at the beach it should be around the time Tiffany and a few of her friends arrive here in England from the states and we rage again in London and Holland and wherever else this crazy trip takes us.

Pictures to follow for D.O.T.S. and Brighton and others that are missing. Its 2am here and I haven’t been able to get to my laptop much. I have TONS of photos to post.

Also if anyone has a website out there please link me and I will do the same if I haven’t already. I want to build my link popularity in order to keep a good Google ranking. Cheers!

I’m guessing some of you are wondering why I haven’t posted any pictures. Well, quite simply, getting an American appliance(i.e. laptop) to work in Europe can be a major pain in the ass. At first I thought I fried my laptop and I still might have but I’m leaning more towards this US power adapter I brought being a piece or the fact that Eric has this power strip I’m plugging into bridged off like 3 other power strips. Or it could be solar flares I really don’t know. Either way I’m only able to charge my laptop for about 15 minutes before this adapter gets too hot and in turn stops charging. That’s with the laptop off. If I turn the laptop on the adapter lasts about 5 minutes before meltdown. So what I’m doing is plugging it in and charging then unplugging and waiting. I should be able to get enough juice in it this way to at least get my pictures off my camera. If I don’t figure out this power problem soon though I may have to shelf my laptop and go to plan B.

My non-stop flight from LAX to Heathrow was pretty uneventful. I managed to drown out the 3 screaming babies that I was sitting next to by watching movies on the touchscreen that was mounted behind the seat in front of me. Cloverfield was amazingly different and 10,000 BC was a major disappointment. Once I arrived it was 1pm local time (4am my time) and I was in need of some coffee if I was going to make it to the end of the day before sleeping. I bought a coffee for 2.50£ ($5) in the terminal and got my first taste of how much more things cost in England. On the bright side it came in a really nice ceramic mug on a plate instead of a paper cup.

Once Eric arrived I purchased my oyster card to travel on the subway system while I’m here and went and had a late lunch in London at Garfunkel’s. From there we met up with a few of Erics friends in Southern London before getting onto a train and heading out through the English countryside to a town called Milton Keynes. When I finally got to sleep that night I ended up sleeping until 6pm the next day which worked out well because that’s just about the time Eric got home from work. That night we met up with a few more of Erics friends and went out to a pub named The Cock and got a pint.

This morning we drove into the neighboring town of Buckingham and had breakfast. I had baked beans and a hash brown which turned out to be really good. Right now I am at Erics place in Buckingham and will probably be staying between here and his place in Milton Keynes when I’m not traveling. It’s overcast and raining right now which apparently is the norm but after I’m done with the computer I’m going to venture out and explore the town a little bit. I’m really glad I bought a good raincoat before I left.

I’m using a computer that’s in the kitchen here because I haven’t had a chance to get mine working yet so I don’t have the ability to post any pictures right now. My power converter that I brought worked well but I still need to get one more adapter for my laptop to work properly. Over the next few days I’m going to get settled in and establish a home base while I book my flights/trains for the other countries I want to visit while I’m here.

I just got back from Idaho and my trip was a success. My passport was just where I left it and I’m ready to head out on Saturday. Seeing as how I’m not much of a writer I’m off to go buy a good camera right now to document as much of my trip as possible.