I forgot to put a title after posting but it let me edit

A lot of authors, which is of course what I consider myself to be, come up with their titles after having finished a work. So, I'll try that. I was thinking of a title for about 30 seconds; ideas included: something with Doha that included alliteration because that's where I currently am, but no D word was striking me, Tigers vs. Georgetown because that is what I want to be watching tonight but I figured that would not encompass the full breadth of this post (maybe it will), "A New Post" because that's what it is and "Drrrr" because I couldn't think of anything. So, the last thing I will do before I post this is create a title; it will most likely be the first thing you see, assuming you read this. If you don't, you will see none of this, but maybe someone else will and tell you about it.

Currently, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Doha, Qatar, having spent about 2 hours already on gmail and facebook, I figured I'd do a blog entry. I'm really getting a feel for the culture of the place, at least they have cheap internet. Will, my traveling companion, and I arrived in Doha yesterday in the morning from Cape Town, a city I recommend to anyone. We were taken to our hotel (the Al Liwan Suites) and found ourselves in a suite complete with a big den (for lack of a better word) with two couches, lots of pillows and a tv. There was also a full kitchen, bathroom and bedroom with two beds (Will's request). After surveying the place for about 15 seconds, we each plopped down on a couch, turned off the lights and jacked up the A/C. It was time to hibernate; this is what you are supposed to do in Doha.

Since traveling, Will and I have picked up Arabic. He's conversational while I would call myself fluent, although I still need to work on my accent slightly. This being the case, we would have been fine with the normal Arabic tv channels (which for some reason intersperse droppings of English, mainly in commercials for cell phones and soft drinks), but were pleasantly surprised to run across some English channels that would afford us the opportunity to practice our native tongue. After switching our brains back to English mode we were able to understand the BBC's anchors and reporters and basically got the gist that, to put it eloquently, the shit is still hitting the fan worldwide. If I've mispoken here, please let me know. Bored with the omnipresent negativity, I am after all a pessimist so why do I need these people to darken things for me?, I went to sleep, which was clearly the right choice. It was probably about 18 degrees in the cave. You can convert that if you want: 9/5C + 32.

I awoke after about 5 hours and decided to give the t.v. another shot. Will went to the sixth floor to work out; I couldn't handle that yet. I honestly can't remember what I watched, probably some more "news". I ate some gummi bears and then went upstairs to check out the facilities. I took the elevator since we were on the first floor and I was going to the 6th. It was the efficient thing to do. I walked into the weight room, saw Will sweating, felt sorry for him, then walked out. I checked out the pool, it was warm to the touch, and surveyed the men's bathroom, which had a sauna and steam room. I then walked into the poolside cafe and asked to see a menu. The grilled cheese, tuna sandwiches and burgers did not impress me. After all, I am in the Arabian gulf and damnit I demand a cultural experience. Give me something I would typically only eat late night.

Dinner at the Al Liwan Restaurant was not the best. I ordered hommos (hummus) and eggplants for an appetizer and something I forget the name of now but it was minced meat with oriental bread for my main course. Mohammed, our waiter, came back and told me they did not have the main course. I was disappointed but figured I could find something else without too much effort. I went with the Lebanese chicken fattah, not knowing what it was but it sounds good doesn't it? I had seven up to drink; this was probably my last drink with ice for a little while because i do not plan on using it in Asia (I fly to Bali in 10 hours and we have checked out of our suite, hence the internet cafe). I'm sure I'll forget and get dysentery; if not from ice usage, then from swallowing water in the shower or the sink or a river or some other place where my mouth and water have a chance of coming into contact.

Anyways, the hommos and eggplants came, along with Will's babaganoush and some pita and white bread. I had asked the guy at the front desk earlier if they had pita (served with the hommos). After I repeated this question a few times he said I would have to go to a 5-star hotel to get beer or whiskey; I have forgiven him because he does not seem to be a native Arabic speaker but it was a little annoying. The appetizers were a little oily for my liking, but the Lebanese chicken fattah was quite tasty complete with some grilled vegetables and what seemed to be fried beer, I mean pita. My stomach disagreed with my eyes and head and said no more for now. Mohammed boxed it up and I took it up to the room to the fridge without having to write my name on it. Next stop was the couch. This time I pulled the comforter and pillow off my bed, threw off some extaneous couch pillows, took the cap off my water and strategically set the bottle on the ground beside me within reach of my left arm, and placed my gummi bears under the blanket on my chest so I could grab them with my right arm with minimal effort. I was set up.

Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler were pretty entertaining in Anger Management (actually I think John Turturro, a companion of Adam Sandler's in anger management class who later becomes his "anger buddy", was better), but the movie could not hold my attention for longer than an hour. Will had gone back up to the weight room after dinner (an ambitious move I thought), and when he returned with renewed energy, he was pretty much a zombie at dinner after his first workout, I felt pretty lazy and worthless.

I hadn't really wanted to unpack my entire backpack to get to my tennis shoes, which were at the very bottom where they have been since Egypt maybe (6 weeks ago). There is a bottom entry to my pack, so I didn't have to, but I did have to when repacking them this morning, let's not split hairs here. I got up, put on supportive underwear, as opposed to boxers, (my jockstrap didn't make it through Turkey), smelled my shoes to make sure they hadn't lost their sweet, cheesy scent since the last wearing (they haven't) and made my way up to the 6th floor (by elevator). I stretched a minimal amount, got on an exercise bike and rode for 10 minutes, I was pretty sweaty at the end of the ride but was feeling good, the blood was pumping. I got off the bike and did some more stretching. I am very unflexible these days, I was doing some yoga before I left and had made some good progress. My hamstrings now feel like they're made of steel and not in a good way. I did some lat pull downs, curls, crunches, push ups (in sets of 10, weak) and that was about it. There were a few other people in there: an Asian girl and three Arab guys, one of whom was throwing around some kilograms. I could have taken the other two. The biggest guy ran the gym I think; he was the dj, playing such hits as Ace of Base's "Don't Turn Around", the Macarena (artist unknown to me) and Shaggy's "It wasn't me".

I just realized this has gotten pretty long and I have been rambling a decent amount. Just to let you know, I worked out again this morning and it went even better. I really feel like I am making progress and am confident that I will not work out for at least another two months. It is now exactly 10 hours until my flight. We fly out at 1:15am and arrive in Bali at 6:45pm, no clue what the time difference is. Thankfully, we are flying Qatar Airways, which is badass, with a large selection of movies, good meals and decent looking flight attendants (all female).

To recap, I have been in South Africa for the past month, traveling from Johannesburg to Cape Town, mainly along the coast but also through the mountains a little bit. I met and partied with a lot of people from all over (South Africans including Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Europeans, Israelis, Aussies, who are everywhere, and Americans), picked up a new nickname of "the lion" (only used by one person so far but I expect it to gain popularity), was called brew as the South Africans do (see Blood Diamond or talk to Robert Barnwell), which is also my nickname in Memphis, learned to surf a bit, did the world's highest bungee jump, dove with great white sharks (in a cage), had 4 days of diarrhea (probably the highlight), and a bunch of other stuff which made for an all around awesome time. I highly recommend the country for anyone thinking about going and could be down to join you if you want some company. Hope everyone is well and holler at me.

Peace out,
Brian

Leaving Roma

Been a while since I have posted anything. I cannot find the apostrophe on this keyboard so there will not be any contractions; anybody who cannot handle that should cease reading this post. KK came and met me in Rome two days ago from NYC. Her first time to Italy, my third, I win. Plus I am related to actual Italians as well. We cruised around the city pretty good for really only having a day and have eaten very well. The only thing we really missed was the Vatican, hope to hit that up on the way back. We are heading to Cinque Terre in about an hour. I have had three caffe americanos this morning (they were free at the hostel), so I am a little wired...Pre Rome I spent five days in Rhodes, Greece chilling on the beach pretty much and trying to conserve money. It helped that the girl i was traveling with was very thrifty and basically did not eat hardly anything, yet managed to buy clothes. We all have our priorities I suppose. I hope everyone is doing well and send me emails to let me know what is up with you and if you can employ me in some fashion when I return to the USA, or if anyone wants to meet up along the way. Allright, sorry this was not very exciting, but now I must adjourn to the bathroom.

Ciao,
BPP

Biding Time

It's 4:55 (just looked at my watch), Will and I are sitting in our hostel dreading walking in the rain to our ferry which leaves at 6:30 to Bari, Italy. We just walked home a little while ago from some Croat club, a guy we were with, a Brit, got semi-jumped walking by himself. I think he got kicked in the back. All is good though, he's a tosser (a good British term), not really though, he's actually pretty cool. My jeans are soaked and we have only paid to go one stop on the ferry, which is about an hour to this Croatian island but we are hoping to stay on and make it to Italy. Guess we'll see what happens, should be a pretty helatious ride...

An Idea

So, as some of you might be aware, America is electing a new president in about a month. I feel like I have been so disconnected that I dont know what the hell is going on. Thankfully, at the moment, I have access to fast, free internet with minimal disruptions; hence, I am a fiend (as you can see from the amount of posting I am doing).

I watched the first presidential debate on youtube and thought it was really good. I think the VP debate tonight should be a good one as well; I expect Biden to win that one. Anyways, my idea is to start a blog or at least document a portion of the international community's views on the upcoming elections, hopefully through commentary and video. People are pretty interested in discussing it in the first place, so it seems to make sense. Over the next month, I will be in Croatia, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Israel pre-election. If I actually follow through with this, I also think it would be interesting to have a post-election deal of the same sort too. Let me know your thoughts and if anyone knows an efficient way of posting this stuff.

Some captions to the pics below are (for some reason I cant wrap text around these pictures, still trying to figure that one out...and losing):
1) Stephen, Josh and myself in Barcelona enjoying some wine in August

2) This is my friend Arturo receiving assistance from a Spanish man in Monchil, Spain. Arturo was trying to fill up my water bottle after a few hour hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The water from this fountain only shot straight up, so there was a predicament here. With much patience and creative thinking these two were able to fill the bottle 75% in about 5 minutes. It was amusing

3) Me being pumped to go into the Vienna zoo

4) Me in Amsterdam maybe

5) A sunset over the ocean in Cadiz (south of Spain). The sun disappeared into the ocean in about five minutes; it was pretty amazing. If you click on the pic, you can see a sailboat approaching from the left. I have another pic with the sailboat directly in front of the sun (dont ask me why I didnt post that one).

Some pictures along the way

PROST!!!

This post comes from Munich where I am managed to survive a raucous 12 to 15 hour stint at Oktoberfest yesterday.

My Observations \ Thoughts:

~Many old people, more than I expected, guess they have nothing better to do maybe, which is awesome
~Next time I go, I will be in traditional Bavarian garb, the only way to fly, I bought a hat and managed not to lose it, but I need the shorts
~The beers are large and taste good (did not take long to figure that out)

Will and I arrived at around 11am probably and went to the Hoffbrau tent for an opening beer, we found a table easily and were next to some old german people, we couldn't communicate other than Prost!, which was fine with all of us I think. We drank that beer and then wandered around. It's like a fair too, which I did not realize, and Will wanted to ride a ride, so we did. He ended up riding a rollercoaster later on after a few more beers, I abstained.

After the ride, we went to another tent, which was packed, we found a spot with a german guy and two german girls who all spoke english and could speak our german for us if necessary, we hung out with them for probably the next 4 hours before splitting ways, dont know where they went, but we went where else? to another beer tent of course. By this time it was rowdy and table dancing had commenced. We ended up with a group of young people, mainly from Switzerland if memory serves me right. I don't know why they insist on the tables moving when you're trying to dance on them, but it can be pretty dangerous. Maybe it was just me. I now have a bruise on my shin, but it was worth it. Will and I got separated here somehow, I hung out for a while longer after I realized he was gone. Then i went searching for him, which clearly did not work. I ended up getting lost, going into a random bar by myself and hanging out for probably an hour and then getting a late night gyro before managing to find my way back to the hostel. Will was there when I made it back. He had taken a cab one and a half blocks and the cabbie laughed at him and didn't make him pay. I managed not to lose anything, a little miracle in and of itself. Allright my interenet time is just about up, just wanted to get this up here. Oktoberfest has my recommendation and for those who have not been, check it out. For those that have been, let's go again. Catching a train to Zagreb, Croatia tonight, hoping to be on the beach in a day or so. Wish I could post some pics to this site, but very time consuming. I had a mohawk for a day but it was rather high maintenance and pretty attention drawing.

Prost!!
Brian

This is in the Sierra Nevada mountains outside of Granada, Spain in a small town called Monachil. I can't really see the picture that well but that is my friend Arturo, an Aruban writer who talks like Christopher Walken, sitting on the front right and a Jordanian guy named Arabi in the back left. We hiked around for a few hours, got lost for a while, got surrounded by barking dogs, trespassed on farmers' lands and picked some grapes.

Travel Entry 1: Things Learned to Date

Some things I have learned so far on this trip:

1) The Europeans are very proud of their internet connections. I know this because I pay ridiculous amounts of money to use it. No mindless internet browsing, emailing can be quite stressful

2) These keyboards SUCK, adding to the already pressure filled atmosphere

3) I should write a guide book of clean bathrooms in cities around Europe (and probably around the world for that matter) because they are few and far between. Soap must not be seen as a necessity, a comforting thought.

4) Australians do traveling right, the Americans need to step it up. It seems to be part of their culture to get out and about in their early twenties and tear it up.

5) I am old. It's all relative, but i feel old at times.

6) Zero people in Europe like George W. Bush. That's pretty obvious though.

7) 100% of people in Europe like Barak Obama.

8) The EU is a nice setup for Europeans because they can work in any member state for however long. Maybe we should join...?

9) I prefer the smaller cities to the big ones, easier to get around and get to know, need more time in the big cities, plus I feel like they are somewhat the same once they reach a certain size

10) If I ever open a restaurant I will put bread on the table and charge you for it whether you eat it or not (Spanish style). Also, we overtip in the U.S. No more of this 20% for me; I'm backing it off 5 or so %. I will say the service in the U.S. is about 3000 times better than here.

First Real Post

This is my first real post as a blogger!!! hope you enjoyed it as much as i did

Brian's first post

Hi. This is my first post.. I'm officially a blogger... or Jeff is officially my blogger.