publish mr-worldwide pt 1, and add next/previous in series links

2 files changed, 684 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/_posts/2018-09-20-mr-worldwide-pt-0.md b/_posts/2018-09-20-mr-worldwide-pt-0.md
index 508030a..882b047 100644
--- a/_posts/2018-09-20-mr-worldwide-pt-0.md
+++ b/_posts/2018-09-20-mr-worldwide-pt-0.md
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: >-
     Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 0: Bailtrain to Bailtown
 description: >-
     Wherein I quit my job and prepare to leave the country
+series: mr-worldwide
 ---
 
 ## Denver
@@ -198,4 +199,4 @@ have to do".
 
 ## Bailing
 
-In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_. Stay tuned!
+In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_.
diff --git a/_posts/2018-09-29-mr-worldwide-pt-1.md b/_posts/2018-09-29-mr-worldwide-pt-1.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c51591
--- /dev/null
+++ b/_posts/2018-09-29-mr-worldwide-pt-1.md
@@ -0,0 +1,682 @@
+---
+title: >-
+    Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 1: Europe
+description: >-
+    Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love tomatoes.
+series: mr-worldwide
+---
+
+# Munich, Germany
+
+I arrived in Munich late at night on January 14th. My friend Caitlin met me at
+the train station, and walked me over to her house to drop my stuff off. Jetlag
+hit me real good at this point, so I only barely remember her taking me to a
+nearby biergarten to get some food and catch up. The next day we headed down to
+the center of the city, and she showed me around the sights, like Marienplatz
+and the Frauenkirche (one of many famous churches in Munich).
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-victory-gate-2018.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="Siegestor (Victory Gate), Munich, 2018"
+    %}
+
+As we walked and ate our way through the day Caitlin updated me on all of the
+things that I should expect to be different in Europe, like how water is never
+free anywhere, nor are public restrooms; like how many buildings which are still
+used and lived in are older than our entire country; like how people use cash
+instead of card, and get irritated if you make them break a large bill, or they
+just might not do it at all; like how even in a large city like Munich
+everything can still be closed on a Sunday.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-moosach-2018.jpg" width=3036
+    descr="Moosach neighborhood, Munich, 2018"
+    float="right"
+    %}
+
+The thing which struck me most about Munich was how quiet it was. The din of
+traffic is so ingrained into me that I don't even hear it until it's not there.
+And to not hear it inside of a city was very strange. More than sound, there was
+a quietness of life. It didn't feel like people were rushed, with too much to do
+and too little time. People crowded onto the subway, but not with impatience,
+and people walked home from the train station after work without hurry. It was
+like the priorities of the whole culture were different in some fundamental way
+that I could never quite put a finger on.
+
+Caitlin worked during the week, and so I was set free into the City for a few
+days. I visited more churches, ate more food, hung out at the library figuring
+out the next steps of my travels, and just generally wandered around the city.
+
+One snowy day I had lunch with a distant relative on my mom's side, who is an
+artist in Munich. I met her at her studio, and from there we wandered around
+various museums, where she gave me a private guided tour of the exhibits. We
+talked about politics, and about how immigration is affecting it, and about
+Trump (of course), and about art, and school, and our different cultures. She
+told me that Europe had always looked to the U.S. as a kind of older brother,
+but now that image was starting to fall apart, and I told her about the tiny
+house and minimalism movement that is hopefully picking up steam in the U.S.,
+and about my friend who is living in a van and traveling around the country. I
+learned a lot that day, and when I headed back to Caitlin's afterwards I felt
+much more at home in the country and continent than I had before.
+
+A week after arriving it was time for me to continue on. One cold morning I
+hopped onto a bus, rode through a snowy Switzerland, and hopped off into a
+bright and sunny Milan.
+
+## Milan, Italy
+
+My first impression of Milan was: "Wow, this place is sketchy". The streets were
+dirty, old, and covered in graffiti. There were homeless everywhere, people
+selling bootleg clothes in the street, scammers targeting tourists, and a
+general disheveldness which Munich didn't have. But on the other side of that
+coin, Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, and everywhere I looked
+there were also beautiful people in expensive looking clothes, driving fancy
+cars, and eating at fancy cafes. Where Munich was simple and wealthy, Milan was
+lavish and disparate.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-street-2018.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="The streets of Milan, 2018"
+    %}
+
+My hostel in Milan was called the Ostello Bello, and was probably the best one I
+could have gotten as my first hostel in Europe. The hostel's downstairs area was
+a restaurant/bar, with some tables reserved for hostel guests. Upon arriving
+they immediately sat me down at one of those tables, where others were sitting,
+and said "this is Brian, talk to him". They did this with every person who
+arrived, as well as giving us free food and drinks, so that every night turned
+into a small party.
+
+It took a while for me to fully break out of my shell and get used to meeting
+people in hostels, but if it weren't for Ostello Bello it might not have
+happened at all. Every night I got to hang out and make friends with people from
+South Korea, Scotland, Argentina, France, Switzerland, and locals from Milan
+too. So despite all the negative things I'm going to have to say about party
+hostels later, I'm grateful for Ostello Bello.
+
+As far as Milan itself, the thing which impacted me the most was the Duomo. And
+boy did it impact me, so much so that I visited it twice. It's the third largest
+church in the world, but my experience of it was even better than when I would
+go to St. Peter's, the first largest, later on. The interior is so cavernous
+that all sounds echo virtually forever, creating a low hum which reminded me of
+the Hindu Om. To think that the words of a book carried such force that, 2000
+years later, people were erecting and maintaining incredible structures like the
+Milan's Duomo in their honor floored me. There's a lot of criticism which could
+and should be leveled towards the Catholic Church, but damnit they know how to
+build a building.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-2018-0.jpg" width=1292
+    descr="Milan's Duomo. In the lower left, tourists being scammed by a dude with pigeon food, 2018"
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="Interior of Milan's Duomo, 2018"
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-1.jpg" width=727
+    descr="Milan Duomo's creepy ass statue of Saint Bartholomew, 2018"
+    float="right"
+    %}
+
+Besides the Duomo I also visited some museums and other sights, like the Sforza
+Castle, walking from one to the other as the days went on. Walking became a
+frequent past-time for me during my traveling. Between Google Maps and the
+external battery pack I always had with me, there was never a worry about
+getting lost, and with hostels generally being clustered near the sights it was
+rarely more than a half-hour walk to any given thing I wanted to see. So I got
+used to walking a lot, and taking public transit infrequently, and never once
+used a taxi or rental car while in Europe.
+
+Five days after arriving in Milan I left it, having made many friends and
+having learned a lot about Italy and Italians. I also learned I was spending too
+long at each city: It was almost 2 weeks into my 3 month-max trip (for visa
+reasons), and I'd only been to two cities! From then on I kept to two or three
+days per city, depending on how much I cared about it, with a couple of five
+day-ers when I really needed a rest.
+
+## Ravenna, Italy
+
+After the hecticness of Milan I needed something more quiet. Before leaving the
+U.S. a friend had told me about Ravenna, the once capital of the Western Roman
+Empire and now small Italian city, where some of the world's oldest Christian
+structures still reside. Mosaics retain their original quality over time far
+better than many other mediums, and Ravenna was full of ones from as early as
+the 6th century. While not as glamorous and fast-paced as Milan, Ravenna really
+hit me with the depth of its history. As someone from the U.S., I'm not
+accustomed to seeing anything built before 1500, and yet here were buildings in
+excellent condition which were built a thousand years prior.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 2018"
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-1.jpg" width=727
+    descr="Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, 2018"
+    float="right"
+    %}
+
+Something else which took some time to get accustomed to was using cash (what a
+segway!). By this point in the trip it had become somewhat second-nature, but
+only by way of many mishaps previously. In the U.S. using cash is usually a
+backup option, with credit/debit cards ruling supreme. ATMs never give out bills
+bigger than $20, and no establishment would ever complain about having to break
+a $20 except for maybe the smallest purchases. In Europe the ATMs (or cash
+machines, whatever) almost always give out €50 bills, which absolutely no one
+wants to break except big chain stores. It's a giant pain. I still remember the
+exact location of an ATM in Munich which gave me €10 bills, it was that exciting
+of a find, and I went out of my way to go back to it more than once.
+
+So in addition to needing to keep an eye on your cash and get more out
+periodically, you also need to keep an eye out for places which will break your
+bills, and plan accordingly. Before leaving the U.S. I had gotten a debit card
+with free international ATM withdrawls at any ATM, so finding places to get cash
+out wasn't a problem, but breaking it always was.
+
+But by the time I got back home, I missed doing everything in cash, and even
+kept doing it for a while in spite of my culture. While having to find places to
+break fifties was a pain, a little friction to making random purchases wasn't
+necessarily a bad thing. Instead of impulsively buying whatever was in front of
+me, I was incentivized to wait until a better opportunity arrose, generally by
+waiting until I could buy multiple things at the same time, which generally
+meant buying more efficiently because I was putting thought into it. Also, by
+always paying in cash, I had a better sense of how much I was actually spending
+day-to-day. In the U.S. we abhor inconvenience, but in my opinion our reluctance
+to use cash is a good example of how that abhorance can be to our own detriment.
+
+## Florence, Italy
+
+The train from Ravenna to Florence (or, as Italians spell it, _Firenze_) was
+uneventful. Finding the best route between cities turned out to be pretty
+straightforward. There's an app called GoEuro which helps compare different
+methods like bus, train, plane, and taxi/ride-sharing. There's another app
+called Rome2Trio which does roughly the same thing. And there's a bus company
+called FlexBus which I used quite a bit; their prices are good, their buses are
+new, and the UI of their site was made in the last decade.
+
+Florence was by far my favorite city in Italy. On the one hand it was very
+trourist-friendly, and on the other it still retained the feeling of being a
+historic city. I split my time there between visiting museums and churches and
+finding the best/cheapest spots to eat. Before leaving home, a friend had told
+me to avoid any restaurants with pictures on their menu; they're targeted at
+tourists and priced accordingly. So my strategy for finding food involved
+marking off hole-in-the-wall spots in my maps app whenever I came across them
+during the day, and returning later when I was hungry
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="Florence's Duomo near sunset, 2018"
+    %}
+
+On my second day in Florence I was sitting by the Uffizi, eating a panini, and I
+randomly met an art history student from Madrid who was also visiting Florence.
+Together we went to a bunch of museums, saw the David, and just generally hung
+out. I asked her a lot of questions at the museums, because, to be honest, I'd
+never understood what to make of art in museums.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
+    descr="River Arno, and the houses which still stand on it, Florence, 2018"
+    %}
+
+I'd already learned that, even if I could see a picture of something online,
+seeing it in person is way different. In person the colors in a painting pop out
+more (many even have gold leef paint which doesn't really show up in pictures at
+all, but makes a world of difference), there's a lot more detail to be seen, and
+the size of some is absolutely baffling. I also enjoy learning about history,
+and the history of art is effectively the history of the world. So museums had
+become a meditative place for me; I could go to one and just wander, taking in
+art pieces at whatever rate I liked, learning and thinking about history as I
+went.
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-0.jpg" width=2688
+    inline=true
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
+    inline=true
+    %}
+<p><em>Not pictured, the crowd of selfie-ers behind my trying to get a shot with
+The Birth of Venus, Florence, 2018</em></p>
+</div>
+
+What had always confused me, though, was how to _judge_ art. As in, what makes
+one piece better than another, or what makes one artist better than another? Why
+do some paintings become famous and others remain obscure? What my friend from
+Madrid told me is that there's not really a metric. Some paintings become famous
+for historical reasons, either due to where they were originally displayed or
+some story associated with them. Same for some artists. Ultimately it's up to
+the individual to judge them. There was a painting in the same room as the
+famous Birth of Venus painting which I liked far more, and was happy to admire
+it alone as throngs of other tourists vied for good selfies with the more famous
+piece.
+
+I left Florence with a greater appreciation and understanding of museums, as
+well as a good friend who I would be able to visit later while making my way
+through Spain.
+
+## Rome, Italy
+
+Rome surprised me when I got there, though, to be honest, it's not clear what my
+expectations actually were. The city center, aka the tourist center, is
+absolutely _massive_, and all of it is completely tourist-centric. Living in
+Rome must feel like living inside of Disney World. The city no longer exists for
+its residents, but instead has been completely swallowed by the tourism
+industry. Every street corner and storefront is filled with souvenir shops,
+overpriced food, clothing stores with "I <3 Rome" shirts, gelato shops, walking
+tour agencies, bike rentals, "experience" vendors (helicopter rides over the
+Colosseum! Oh my!), shitty jewelry stores, and so much more, all aimed at
+someone who has too much money and not enough time to spend it all.
+
+My hostel was one of the cheapest I could find, but I was only staying two full
+days so it was fine. Seeing all of the sights of Rome in only two days is not
+recommended. The first day I went straight to the Vatican, getting there as
+early as possible to try (unsuccessfully) to beat the line. St. Peters is the
+largest church in the world, but being rushed I wasn't able to enjoy it like
+Milan's Duomo, and a lot of it was closed off unless you wanted to pay more. I
+wasn't able to spend enough time in it to enjoy it.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-3.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="Pope for the day, Rome, 2018"
+    %}
+
+The Vatican museum was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. For starters
+it's huge, with tons and tons of things to see, including the Sistene Chapel. I
+took my time wandering around. After the museum I left the Vatican and wandered
+over to some other sights, like the Castel Sant'Angelo and the Pantheon. As the
+day wore on, and more and more tourists started pouring out, everything became
+impossibly crowded. It was difficult to really enjoy anything, what with
+everyone taking their phones out to capture anything and everything the
+guidebook said to, without really taking the time to take in the thing itself.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-2.jpg" width=4048
+    descr="Did you know that Rome has more Egyptian obelisks than any other city in the world? That's a rock fact. Rome, 2018"
+    %}
+
+This was something I began to struggle with while I was in Rome. It wasn't
+always clear to me _why_ these people cared about these sights, with myself
+being included. My pessimistic self would say that people just want the social
+media points gained by a nice selfie in front of Trevi Fountain, and that the
+tourism explosion which has started in the last decade is driven by that
+narcissism. My more charitable self might say that everyone understands that the
+journey matters more than the destination, and that seeing the sights isn't
+really the point, but rather prefer the adventure taken with friends and/or
+family, and so they snap a quick picture and continue on with their good time.
+
+The reason people travel and visit tourist spots is really only their business,
+and I can't be one to judge. It just seems unfortunate to take an entire city,
+arguably the most important city in written history, and turn it into a theme
+park for the sake of people who don't actually care all too much about it. I
+carried this realization with me for the rest of my trip, that tourism is a
+deal-with-the-devil; it takes the money of people who, ostensibly, find some
+place interesting, in exchange for driving away the original inhabitants of that
+place who made it interesting in the first place.
+
+Later on I would learn that the creep of tourism and the dreaded plague of
+"gentrification" were spoken of as the same thing in popular destinations. The
+problem of wealthy people driving out the inhabitants of a city in order to take
+part in the city culture, which the original inhabitants created, is a global
+one, and one I'm certainly a part of. I moved to Denver because I liked the
+culture of that city, and was fortunate enough to be able to afford to do so,
+but then left only three years later, and was now doing the same in even shorter
+time periods in cities the world over.
+
+I obviously didn't stop being a tourist after Rome, but I made a conscious
+attempt to be a better one. I put down the guidebook (or, in my case, the guide
+app) and tried to explore more naturally, taking in each sight as I found it,
+and learning as much about it as I could. Rather than trying to see a little of
+everything, I would find something which really called out to me and focus on
+that. It's a tough predicament to be in; it's important to go out and see the
+world, to meet people from all different cultures and see all the ways they
+live, but doing so is, often, detrimental to those cultures. It was tough to
+find a balance I was comfortable with, and I'm still not sure a "correct"
+balance actually exists.
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
+    inline=true
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-1.jpg" width=1920
+    inline=true
+    %}
+<p><em>All that said, the Colosseum was pretty baller. Rome, 2018</em></p>
+</div>
+
+My second day in Rome I spent at the Colosseum and the Palatino, but I was so
+utterly exhausted and brain-melted I barely remember them. I left Rome
+with a ton of things left unseen, but without any regret about it. Italy itself
+had far too much for me to do in this trip, and I knew I'd be back one day, both
+to Italy and to Rome itself. On the third day I hopped on a plane, flew across
+the sea, and landed in Spain.
+
+## Barcelona, Spain
+
+Barcelona definitely made my list of favorite places I visited. Having come from
+a city which didn't feel like much more than a playground for tourists, it was
+refreshing to be in one which felt more real. Spaniards seemed to be friendlier
+than Italians as well, and my hostel was filled with characters from the UK to
+Brazil to Russia.
+
+There was an architect in Barcelona named Antoni Gaudí, who died in 1926, but
+left an indelible impression on the city. If I hadn't known when he lived and
+died I might have thought he founded the place, he's that ubiquitous. His style
+is completely strange; his exteriors look like something out of Candy Land,
+while the interiors seem to come from a utopian sci-fi.
+
+What blows my mind is that, for whatever reason, they let him build a church.
+
+La Sagrada Familia isn't actually completed yet. Gaudí took it over in 1883, a
+year after it had been started, and worked on it until the day he died. He knew
+he wouldn't live to see the completion of the project, and so laid out the plans
+such that it could be completed without him. The church has been slowly
+constructed using private funds and donations since then.
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-outside-2018-0.jpg" width=1080
+    inline=true
+    %}
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-outside-2018-1.jpg" width=1080
+    inline=true
+    %}
+<p><em>Outside faces of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
+</div>
+
+The outside presents two faces, one a mishmash of sculpture which resembles
+melting ice-cream, and the other highly geometrical, both filled with biblical
+scenes and small details. Neither really prepares you for what the inside will
+be like.
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-0.jpg" width=1080
+    inline=true
+    %}
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-1.jpg" width=1080
+    inline=true
+    %}
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-2.jpg" width=1080
+    inline=true
+    %}
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-3.jpg" width=1080
+    inline=true
+    %}
+<p><em>The incredible interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
+</div>
+
+I'd been in a lot of churches and cathedrals up till this point. Even when they
+were as mind blowing as Milan's Duomo, they all followed a similar pattern:
+gothic, brooding, ornate, almost dark in a way.
+
+La Sagrada Familia is none of those things. It shirks the gothic style almost
+completely, instead adopting one inspired by natural shapes and patterns. It
+feels more like being under a canopy of trees than being in a building. There's
+light, and color, and organic shapes, like the tree-trunk-like columns and the
+flower ceiling. And yet there's also a geometric pattern-ness to everything,
+which hints at an order and intent for everything in sight, so your eye is drawn
+in to investigate every detail without needing ornamentation to grab it.
+
+It's lucky that I hadn't made any other plans for that day, because I spent
+nearly two hours at that church, walking around, taking it all in, sitting
+and contemplating, holding back tears a lot of the time, not being successful at
+it the rest. This might have been the first building I'd ever felt gratitude
+for. Where the traditional catholic building has, as a foundation, a call to
+authority, this one had a call to nature and humanity. And rather than being the
+crackpot dream of a single person, it had been carried on and supported and
+built by many others long after he had died. It was a reflection of an ongoing
+change in a society which I was grateful to see.
+
+I left Barcelona with a new understanding of churches, and what they might
+represent, even for someone who's not catholic. They're a space that's been set
+aside with the fundamental purpose of sitting quietly and thinking about things
+larger than oneself. Thinking about one's place in society, or in nature, or in
+the universe, and thinking about how that affects one's actions. Every society
+on earth has these spaces, though they go by different names, and have lots of
+different decorations. Each one of these spaces carries a message about what
+that society has ascribed importance to, and the message La Sagrada Familia
+carried with it was refreshing.
+
+## Madrid, Spain
+
+Originally I hadn't planned on going to Madrid at all, but in Florence I met
+someone who lived there and so decided to spend a couple nights hanging out.
+Going on a tour of a city is one thing, but going with a local is something
+completely different. We saw some of the things a tourist is supposed to see,
+like the opera house, the palace, and whatever this building is:
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="madrid-2018.jpg" width=3036
+    descr="This Schweppes building is called the Edificio Carrión, and is famous for reasons. Madrid, 2018"
+    %}
+
+But more than that, I got to see what it was like to actually live in a city
+like Madrid, as a normal person. A fancy tapas restaurant is too expensive
+there, so we went to a local bar that did it more simply and cheaply. We also
+ate kebab, which is the European equivalent of the corner mexican or chinese
+joint in the states; a place with cheap, good food, open late, run by
+immigrants.
+
+Mostly, we walked around and talked. We talked about colonialism, and oppression
+and guilt, and about the Spanish Civil War and fascism, and about Catalan and
+its desire for independence, about capitalism, and the pain it causes, and about
+tourism and gentrification, and about royalty and aristocracy, and about
+language and culture. Like in Munich, I learned a lot, and felt a lot closer to
+Spain than I had when I arrived.
+
+I only spent one full day in Madrid, and afterwards took a bus, continuing
+south, down to Córdoba.
+
+## Córdoba, Spain
+
+It was on the bus to Córdoba that I remembered to actually book a place to stay
+there. I quickly grabbed an AirBnB in town, though, as it turned out, messed it
+up and it didn't get reserved. So there was an hour there, waiting at the
+Córdoba bus station, where I was trully homeless. I spent it booking another
+AirBnB, properly this time, and eating some bread and cheese from my backpack,
+and watching some birds fight over a loaf someone else had dropped.
+
+This was the first AirBnB I'd gotten in Europe so far, up till this it had been
+only hostels (and one hotel, in Ravenna). While I'd enjoyed hostel life
+initially, especially my first taste of it in Milan, it had begun to wear on me.
+
+What I'd found is that, first and foremost, hostels were trying to hit a certain
+feel. _Good vibes_ were words which I saw in many a hostel description and
+review, though didn't often actually experience. It's in the public
+consciousness that backpacking through Europe, going from hostel to hostel, is a
+journey filled with new experiences, new people, and lots of partying. And while
+that is _true_, a lot of hostels ignore hospitality in favor of playing up to
+that fantasy, to their own detriment.
+
+A hostel's primary goal, like a normal hotel or AirBnB or whatever, shouldn't be
+to provide you with experiences, or help you meet new people, or enable your
+drinking and partying. These are certainly secondary goals it might have, if it
+wants. But the primary goal should be to make you feel comfortable and at home.
+And while the conceit of a hostel is that you are exchanging some physical
+comfort for cost, by having shared bunk rooms and common bathrooms and all that,
+comfort can be established through more than a fluffy bed. Some hostels I stayed
+at got this, most didn't.
+
+If someone feels comfortable in a hostel they'll open up on their own, and
+naturally want to meet the people around them, go out partying, and have cool
+experiences. Or not. They'll do whatever the fuck they want to. But if a hostel
+is too focused on being cool and hip and showing off how good its vibes are,
+it's neglecting the basics, and then there's no partying, and the vibes aren't
+good.
+
+So I was tired of party hostels, as I began calling them, having just been in
+one in Barcelona a few days prior, and instead spent the night in what turned
+out to be a brutally cold old building which had neither heat, sealed windows,
+or cooking device with which to make a hot meal. Which is what I get for being
+a snob, I guess.
+
+In the morning I visted the Mosque/Cathedral of Córdoba. This site has had the
+odd history of having originally been a church, having then been converted to a
+mosque when the Moors took Spain in the 700s, and then converted back to a
+christian church in the 1200s when the catholics took Spain back, and has since
+been designated a cathedral. It retains much of the Moorish architecture, but
+with a church in the middle, and is an utterly fascinating place which I
+neglected to take any pictures of.
+
+## Granada, Spain
+
+This was probably one of the most interesting places I visited while traveling.
+Granada was once one of the most important Moorish cities in Spain, then briefly
+became a Jewish state, and then the seat of the Nasrid dynasty (the last Muslim
+dynasty in Spain), and then eventually went back to being a part of the Catholic
+empire. During this time it also had a large influx of Romani, and out of this
+mishmash of culture it became one of the birthplaces of flamenco.
+
+My bus got in at night, but I was lucky enough to catch the last public bus from
+the bus station towards my hostel. It dropped me off in the Albaicín, an old
+Muslim quarter in the city, where the houses retain the old architectural style
+and the streets are narrow and winding. From there I walked uphill a ways to
+the Sacromonte neighborhood, the traditional home of the Romani in Granada. Here
+the people had dug out caves in the side of the mountain, and made them into
+homes. My hostel was in one of these caves.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="granada-2018-0.jpg" width=1329
+    descr="The view from my hostel, Alhambra on the left. Granada, 2018"
+    %}
+
+The hostel was small and quiet, overlooking both the Alhambra (the castle on a
+hill, built by the Nasrids) and the rest of the city. The guys running it
+were chill; the owner was Dutch, and the other was Scottish. The Scott had come
+to Granada to live and study flamenco, and it was obvious from how he spoke
+about it that he was completely in love with the art and the people. On one
+night they took me out to a "real gypsy bar", as they called it.
+
+The flamenco artists in town, the singers and guitarists and dancers, make a
+living performing for tourists, but this bar is, according to my guides, where
+they go after the shows to hang out. There was no music in the bar, but, as the
+night went on, three or four cliques formed up naturally, each around a guitar
+player and singer, with dancers circling around, the rest clapping to an
+indecipherable rhythm. The Scott knew the names of a few of the people playing,
+and told me that it was at gatherings like this that the musicians tried out new
+things and pushed the art further. It was the "real" flamenco.
+
+After that we got kebab and went back to the cave.
+
+Sacromonte is situated on the face of a valley, with the Alhambra being on the
+opposite side. So to get to the Alhambra I had to venture down to the valley
+floor, where Granada proper is, and found a very familiar tourist district
+filled with all the crap I'd seen in every other city. The Alhambra itself was
+interesting, but also packed, and I hadn't realized they only sell a limited
+number of tickets per day to get inside the castle, so I missed a lot of it. So
+I went back to the peace and quiet of Sacromonte.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="granada-2018-1.jpg" width=1329
+    descr="Sacromonte and the valley below. Granada, 2018"
+    %}
+
+Being uphill and difficult to access by car, the Sacromonte was, in many ways,
+warded off from the wave of tourism which has swept the world and sucked the
+heart out of its cities. Only those willing to carry their bags 20 minutes
+uphill could disturb it. I found the absolute best spot possible, with benches
+overlooking the Alhambra and the city and the sunset, sitting and drawing for
+hours, and was only disturbed by one or two couples sharing the view in all that
+time.
+
+I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking
+with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to
+Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did.
+
+## Lisbon, Portugal
+
+Sometimes called the San Fransisco of Europe, Lisbon is a city with beaches,
+historical buildings, perfect weather all-year round, earthquakes, and a large
+orange-red suspension bridge across a bay. Unlike San Fransisco, it's an
+affordable place to visit and the people who live there haven't been priced out
+by tech companies ([yet][google-lisbon]).
+
+Part of why I liked Lisbon so much is that, while tourism is an absolutely huge
+industry, it didn't really feel that way. The Baixa district, where my hostel
+was, was certainly an area just for tourists. But it wasn't very big, and once
+outside of it you find yourself in somewhere like Alfama, which has been a
+blue-collar district since the Moorish invasion, and retains its winding
+cobblestone streets and narrow alleys. If you look at the skyline of Lisbon you
+won't find any highrises or office buildings, just 4 to 5 story apartment
+buildings and churches. It's a city meant for people to live, first and
+foremost, with business being secondary. And so, despite being the biggest city
+in the country, and 9th most visited city in Southern Europe, it still feels
+quiet and cozy.
+
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-2018.jpg" width=1772
+    descr="The facade of a museum I was too poor to go in. Lisbon, 2018"
+    %}
+
+Another part of what made Lisbon stand out to me was the hostel I stayed in, and
+the people I met there. The hostel was _homey_. There was a small dining area
+with a single long table, a small living room with couches and chairs
+arranges in a circle, a decked out kitchen that anyone could use, and free
+sangria every evening. Rather than focus on partying and yolo and whatever, the
+owners focused on making it a home, where people would cook and eat and talk and
+hang out together. So that's what we did, every night, and in the mornings we'd
+meet up one more time to eat unlimited free pancakes from the kitchen. It was an
+amazing time.
+
+While I was there, a museum had an exhibit devoted to M.C. Escher, the Dutch
+artist known for his tesselations, fractals, and generally paradoxical work.
+Escher had always been an artist I was aware of, and a year prior to this I had
+read the book _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter and become even more
+interested. So I couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in person. And boy,
+did it leave an impression on me.
+
+Having traveled to Córdoba and Granada in his early twenties, Escher was
+impressed by the Moorish architecture, specifically the tesselating tile
+patterns they used in decoration. He began trying to replicate their work, and
+ended up following what amounted to a mathematical investigation of geometry, in
+the context of art. The museum presented his work in largely chronological
+order, and, in seeing the progression of his ideas over decades, it really
+struck me both what a genius he was and how dedicated he must have been to have
+spun his wheels on the same problems for most of his life.
+
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-escher-2018-0.jpg" width=513
+    inline=true
+    %}
+{% include image.html
+    dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-escher-2018-1.jpg" width=341
+    inline=true
+    %}
+<p><em>Tesselations, paradoxes, and tricks of perspective, Lisbon, 2018</em></p>
+</div>
+
+For the rest of my trip, even through Asia, I would spend my time doodling
+tesselations of my own, trying to find the tricks that Escher found which let
+him make such complex images. I would find some, but certainly Escher still has
+the leg up on me.
+
+Having traveled most of Southwest Europe at this point I flew back to homebase,
+Munich, to recuperate and figure out what my next steps would be. I left Lisbon
+promising myself that I'd be back, even considering finding a way to live there
+one day. While my life plans have since changed, it's not something I've totally
+ruled out.
+
+[google-lisbon]: https://econews.pt/2018/01/29/from-google-to-amazon-technological-companies-are-moving-to-portugal-why/
+
+## To be continued
+
+In my next post of this series I'll tell the story of the second, and longest,
+leg of my European tour, where I go to Belgium, the UK, Scandinavia, Prague, and
+Berlin!