Taylor Vafiades

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”.

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!

When I arrived into England from my last trip to Amsterdam and Berlin I decided to go and meet Eric at the airport since his flight was landing in just a few more hours. When he arrived he told me that his uncle had past away and that he wanted to make it to the funeral which was the following day. We rushed home, repacked and were on our way to France via ferry that night. We drove through Belgium and made it to Holland sometime around 4am. Although the circumstances were tragic once Eric paid his respects we had the rest of the weekend to burn. We were able wander around Holland a bit while he showed me where he used to hang out as a kid in Rotterdam. It was interesting traveling with someone that actually knew the language. He was also able to show me all the authentic things to eat. One notable item was fries that you order as “oorlogstijd” which means “wartime” in Dutch. It was basically fries with onion, peanut butter, mayo, some hot sauce and ketchup. The stroop waffles were also incredible. We checked out Den Haag before we left Holland and made our way to Ghent. The old churches and castles were amazing and so were the pancakes! I also saw some of the most attractive girls I have ever seen in Ghent. We pretty much just drove through France to get to the Ferry back to England but not before customs gave me a really hard time about getting back in. I eventually convinced her that I was in fact leaving next month and she let us go. I have tons of pictures to post and have been lagging badly since all I wanted to do once I got back after that 3 weeks was relax. I am in the process of posting them right now but wont be finished for a couple of days because I’m headed to London in about half an hour to party for the rest of the weekend. Huzzah!

One more thing. A picture of Eric, Brian, Shelly and I at Stonehenge made it onto the Ohio University website. Check it out!

Well in a few hours Eric is off to the states and I’m headed into London with him. I got two days to mill around before my flight leaves for Holland. The most important thing I have to get done before I leave is finding a power cable for the Tom Tom GPS Eric is letting me use. This thing is sweet and I should have no problems navigating around as long as I can keep it powered up. Also, I was able to pick up a cell phone while I’ve been here. It also keeps me logged into skype so I can send and receive text and voice over IP calls too while I am in England. Anyone that has a computer can download it and install it for free. That part wont work on my cell while I am traveling for the next two weeks however. I should be able to have a lot more time to sit down and post descriptively and email people assuming I can find Internet cafes along the way. Eric and I have basically been out every night since I got here and its been a total blast. Now I’m ready to do ton of walking and take some pictures!

Phone number is 0 7533355265

skype is buffw1

Here is a picture of me and two Italian girls we met at Brainfeeder last night.

I was finally able to get my first batch of photos off my camera and uploaded a few of them here. This photo site is also available by clicking the hobo turtle on the right. I’m still working on getting the slideshow to work on the blog page and will move it up once I do. I spent most of yesterday at the British Museum . For those of you that know me I don’t have to tell you I went right for the Egyptian and Mesopotamian artifacts. I ended up walking through the entire museum twice to make sure I did’nt miss anything.

I’m off to get ready Eric should be here soon and we are headed into London for the rest of the weekend. Cheers!

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.