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[DiscoBallClock]

Any particular places to go? Like Osaka for instance? This is a very early days, spur of the moment type idea. All I have planned so far is to stumble around Tokyo for a bit.

Any interesting stories from your time there?

spoiler: no concrete advice or very interesting stories, just runaway trains of thought sorry

My program was based in Kyoto, so I only spent a few days in Tokyo. I'm looking at a travelogue entry for details here. I took an overnight bus trip through a company (Willer Travel) that was fine, but sent me unsolicited promo emails for maybe a couple of years afterward. Travel and lodging would have been cheaper if I'd booked it in advance.
I was there with a few other people from my program for some of those days, and I think they might have put more into deciding on places to go than I did. My notes say, like, "park, temples, science museum." This does not jog my memory. There are a shit ton of temples and shrines, some more interesting than others. I described the science museum in Ueno as "a lot of fun," but I might have denied ever having been to "science museum" if you'd asked me 15 minutes ago. I ate convenience store prepared food a lot, because I'm a coward and it's cheaper/easier than fumbling through ordering at a restaurant. Tagged along while my friends were looking for video game stores, and in the process, accidentally ended up in a store where we were greeted by a cardboard cutout of some underage ero game heroine. A "we weren't, um, I wasn't..." moment for sure, not that anybody was watching us.

If I get the chance to go back again, I%u2019ll make sure to reserve a hostel bed and bus tickets early, figure out some concrete places to go (not just neighborhoods) and maybe even find some restaurants beforehand, and actually take pictures. I%u2019ll try applying the LIFE LESSONS learned here to other travel plans in the near future, too.

What I really remember about this excursion, well documented in my travelogue, is that the day I checked out of my hostel, after I had lunch, I was afraid of missing my (night) return bus. It was to depart from someplace in Akihabara, and so I tried to kill time, staying in the vicinity, on my feet and with a full backpack on, no doubt, for like 12 hours. Instead of, like, finding another interesting place to go. Which seems like a no-brainer these days, but at the time (late 2011) smartphones were just starting to happen in Japan; we students had been outfitted with flip phones, and that kind of research would have required a computer. So the strongest parts of the memory are half-waking overnight bus trips and/or plodding around killing hours before my return bus, soundtracked by a bossa nova mix I was listening to a lot at the time.
To double-check the details of my bus trip I went to an Internet cafe, but it wasn't a "buy a coffee please, swipe your card to use this workstation for 30 minutes" place -- if you've ever heard of people going to "all-night" karaoke so as to crash in the booth until morning, it was the kind of place that would facilitate that. I checked in at a front desk, you had to register (with postal address) for a membership card that would enable you to use the facilities. It was a sort of labyrinth of intentionally dim, essentially private, leather-seated cubicles containing computers you could use, and vending machines, or something similarly discreet and anti-social, outside the cubicles to provide necessary hydration.

anyway even though we've all got smartphones now, I guess the moral is that deciding to go to "a neighborhood" doesn't necessarily put you anywhere you want to be. I also think of Tokyo, specifically, as a city like New York where there might be interesting stuff going on, but it's very important that Major Sportswear Brand has a flagship store there, and there's gotta be Starbucks and so forth, and it's those places that are always right in front of you; the people of (Tokyo/New York/LA) are here to be the cutting edge of international cool as the rest of the world watches. To an extent, The Biggest City in the Area has no personality. There's so much space to explore, and so much of it is filled with things that are of no regional interest. If you wanted to find someone in New York City with a New York-sounding accent, you'd probably have more luck the further away you got from Manhattan.

I guess, also, my travel philosophy is now something like "I'm probably already seeing/hearing what people in The Biggest City, and those who move there from Iowa, are trying to do; but I probably have no idea what the coolest people in Des Moines are up to."
Of course, if you're just after things like historical sites, museum artifacts, natural beauty and such, those are pretty easy to find on a map. But even something like "a creative, but not extremely hyped and expensive, restaurant" is the kind of thing that happens somewhere between Biggest City and Bumfuck Nowhere. (Did GreyClock ask about this? Did GreyClock ask me anything that wasn't about Japan? Why can't I just shut the fuck--

so Osaka is a big city in a part of the country where another dialect is spoken (in English translations of anime, characters from Kansai are often given an American Southern accent). It has characteristic foods and such. I felt like it had more personality and strangers were friendlier. But I spent a pretty short time there, too, and I was never on any mission besides "see the sights and try the food." I did both, but again... had I been looking for something in particular, I might have found more. Once in New York, I decided to go to an interesting event at Union Pool, a bar I'd never been to, and on the way, I unexpectedly passed Desert Island Comics. "So that's where that place is!" But I'm not confident at all that I'd have ended up at either place, if I'd never been to New York, but thought I'd try walking around Williamsburg a bit. There are places in Brooklyn where I've done just that and come up with nothing.

I haven't seen Parasite (sorry) but the area I was talking about is Shinsekai. I don't remember seeing a lot of homeless people, or even piles of trash like you'd expect to see elsewhere, but for instance, there was a sort of covered shopping street nearby where most businesses looked shuttered, and one of the couple of open spaces was someone selling secondhand clothes, much of which was uniforms or workwear for manual laborers.

this was a lovely read VCR

(quoted bc new page)

[GreyClock]

(Did GreyClock ask about this? Did GreyClock ask me anything that wasn't about Japan? Why can't I just shut the fuck--

No, go right ahead. I enjoy reading this stuff. (Also posting it, as you'll find out presently.)

I'm not much of a "fine diner" or whatever. I went to the Bubba Gump Shrimp thing on Times Square once. I enjoyed their fried shrimp, it was only later that I learned it was in fact a tourist trap and shithole. Nah, going to a restaurant in the middle of Times Square is probably a terrible idea. I also had probably the best pizza ever after walking into a random empty Italian run place somewhere in Lower Manhattan. (Might've been a mob front!) I get the general idea behind what you're saying. In fact, I wrote a post once about how I'd like to go on little trips by train and stop off in random towns I've never heard of. I can't find it anymore though, NOW WHOSE FAULT IS THAT HUH?!

Connecting my stay in New York with that philosophy, I do regret not going down Long Island. It's probably mostly a suburban hell, but something about that place is just strangely appealing. I don't know what that is exactly, for example with this (tentative) Japanese trip I have a strange urge to walk around a college campus over there? Can't put my finger on the why.

Anyway going to Tokyo is probably the antithesis of that idea. Maybe doesn't matter though. I can eat Big Macs from Mickey Mouse's laminated asshole in the M&M Store one moment and turn around and knit a scarf out of locally sourced eels with some old Japanese lady the next. Find some sort of balance. Why not?

Before the lockdown I went to German city of Oberhausen on one of those little trips.

This is the Google Maps thumbnail for that city. I had a beer right there under that patio umbrella on the left.
That square was probably the highlight of the trip. The rest of the town was mainly tacky jewelry stores and places to turn that jewelry into tattoos or vice versa.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. It was just a day trip. Let's call it an experience.

[DiscoBallClock]

On the topic of travel experiences, a few years ago a small group of friends and myself had decided that we wanted to spend our NYE in a different way. So we decided to book an Airbnb in Alcácer do Sal, a town which is a 1h drive from Lisbon. Our rationale was that Tróia (a sort of resort-town for the wealthy) was nearby, meaning that we could hit some bars if we wanted to, but we could also just chill at home if we didn't feel like it.

We arrived at Alcácer at around 7pm of the 31st of December. It's a small town with nothing much to see, even though the view of the river was alright. We wanted to get some dinner, but soon noticed that there was not a living soul on the street. Worse than that, there wasn't a single bar, restaurant or café open, which meant that we had no opportunity to get said dinner nearby. We drove across the entire town and I don't think we saw a single person or any open establishment anywhere. Naturally, the next idea was to go grab something from the supermarket to cook at home. But alas, even the Walmarts of Portugal (disclaimer: not actual Walmarts) close at 6pm, so even though we drove for an entire hour, we couldn't find anything open either. At 9pm we were distraughtly munching on small cans of Pringles that we'd just bought at a gas station convenience store.

After driving some more, we finally found an open restaurant at about 10pm. It was a typical portuguese restaurant: the paper table cloth, the old and almost opaque glasses, the standard bread/butter/olives/cheese couvert, and the age-old menu which wasn't really different from any other portuguese restaurant's menu. We figured that a group of families was having their NYE dinner there, because the whole place was empty save for them: little children ran around the place while their red-faced fathers laughingly downed beer and wine. The waiter was surprised at our presence there, and after we explained how we got there, he said that nothing ever happens over there on NYE anyway. So much for crashing rich people bars, then.
Anyway, we gorged down on food (it was 10pm after all), got a bottle of wine and headed to the beach right before midnight. Turns out some kids were there; they'd brought fireworks, so at midnight we were on a small corner of the beach, looking at the sea and its reflection of the fireworks some random kids had set off. It was actually quite nice.

At the end of the night we decided to wander around the ghost town that was Alcácer do Sal. Granted, there wasn't much to see or much to do (and neither was there anyone to be seen) but there was a castle, so we went there. There was something rather eerie but exciting at looking at the stars (a privilege we don't get in the city) atop of a medieval castle.

I can't say the whole thing was exciting, or that we saw interesting things. But the whole experience was really fun. I'd choose something like this for this year's NYE.

[VCRClock]

Connecting my stay in New York with that philosophy, I do regret not going down Long Island. It's probably mostly a suburban hell, but something about that place is just strangely appealing. I don't know what that is exactly, for example with this (tentative) Japanese trip I have a strange urge to walk around a college campus over there? Can't put my finger on the why.

My hometown isn't on Long Island, but it's like Long Island in that it's full of people who take a train every day to work in Manhattan. I haven't travelled in Long Island extensively, but I feel like if I did, I'd probably first end up in a "beach town" staring down stores carrying salt water taffy and wooden tchotchkes. On the other hand: De La Soul, Public Enemy, and Biz Markie (among others) all came out of places on Long Island, and started out performing there.

What's weird about Japanese schools, in my experience, is that they seem to be exactly what you'd expect, though I was mostly on one college campus with a couple of visits to other schools. Maybe schools will look a little different on the outside, but "generic school hallway background" isn't too far from the truth. American schools could look like something that was built in the 1920s, or a sprawling prison complex. Every US school I attended had classrooms in all sorts of weird shapes resulting from how the building was built. I'm pretty sure every Japanese classroom I was in was a formulaic square or rectangular purpose-built classroom. It's strange to me that Japanese schools will just devote entire rooms, likely in a secondary building, to storage and activity space for clubs and stuff, which can be a more serious commitment than American school clubs where it's not a big deal if you can't be there for some reason.

I've been out of college for 7 years now, but last year, my job regularly involved making deliveries to a college campus during class hours. It was a strange thing to come out of my fairly solitary 30th year, the handful of people I know and work with, and walk through a sea of young people who are probably trying to fuck each other, may not have found their best friends or decided what to do with themselves yet, have so much possibility ahead of them. I'm wistful because I got into a narrow rut at the beginning of college and stayed in it until I graduated. Oh well. Go get 'em, kids.

On the topic of travel experiences, a few years ago a small group of friends and myself had decided that we wanted to spend our NYE in a different way. So we decided to book an Airbnb in Alcácer do Sal, a town which is a 1h drive from Lisbon.

This was interesting. I had a similar kind of thing happen -- I visited Marfa, Texas, where the gist is "it's really remote and sleepy, BUT a bigshot artist bought a bunch of land there in the 70s? and put some art on it, so that building that would be an abandoned gas station is now some other bigshot artist's personal studio, BUT it's still the middle of fucking nowhere." It's a tourist destination for Instagram reasons and bigshot artist reasons, but what I didn't know is that "operating like a tourist town" means that if you show up on Tuesday, instead of on the weekend like a normal person, several tourist-oriented places won't be open for business, and "several" feels like a lot when you're in Marfa. Marfa is the kind of place where if you live there (and some non-artist small town people do), there are some things that you have to drive to another town 30 miles away to buy.

No conclusion intended. Just another experience. (There was a reason I was there on Tuesday, but I don't have time to get into that in this post.)

[DiscoBallClock]

Connecting my stay in New York with that philosophy, I do regret not going down Long Island. It's probably mostly a suburban hell, but something about that place is just strangely appealing. I don't know what that is exactly, for example with this (tentative) Japanese trip I have a strange urge to walk around a college campus over there? Can't put my finger on the why.

(...)

I've been out of college for 7 years now, but last year, my job regularly involved making deliveries to a college campus during class hours. It was a strange thing to come out of my fairly solitary 30th year, the handful of people I know and work with, and walk through a sea of young people who are probably trying to fuck each other, may not have found their best friends or decided what to do with themselves yet, have so much possibility ahead of them. I'm wistful because I got into a narrow rut at the beginning of college and stayed in it until I graduated. Oh well. Go get 'em, kids.

I teach in college - senior year, no less. When I look at my students I sometimes find myself musing at how things were in my senior year and how much they've changed for me since then. I can relate to their troubles, their struggles, and their thoughts, whenever we talk about that in class. But sometimes it's kinda mind-boggling to think how life has moved on since then. I think about how my thoughts and worries have changed so much, but if I focus hard enough, I can remember how nerve-wracking it would be to talk in front of a whole class, especially when not too long ago I was sitting in those chairs. It's a feeling of familiarity and estrangement at the same time.

On the topic of travel experiences, a few years ago a small group of friends and myself had decided that we wanted to spend our NYE in a different way. So we decided to book an Airbnb in Alcácer do Sal, a town which is a 1h drive from Lisbon.

This was interesting. I had a similar kind of thing happen -- I visited Marfa, Texas, where the gist is "it's really remote and sleepy, BUT a bigshot artist bought a bunch of land there in the 70s? and put some art on it, so that building that would be an abandoned gas station is now some other bigshot artist's personal studio, BUT it's still the middle of fucking nowhere." It's a tourist destination for Instagram reasons and bigshot artist reasons, but what I didn't know is that "operating like a tourist town" means that if you show up on Tuesday, instead of on the weekend like a normal person, several tourist-oriented places won't be open for business, and "several" feels like a lot when you're in Marfa. Marfa is the kind of place where if you live there (and some non-artist small town people do), there are some things that you have to drive to another town 30 miles away to buy.

No conclusion intended. Just another experience. (There was a reason I was there on Tuesday, but I don't have time to get into that in this post.)

Oh hey, a good friend of mine did a USA roadtrip a few years ago and he was in Marfa, Texas. From what I remember he did tell me that it was quaint, but kinda deserted and in the middle of nowhere. I think he also mentioned how good the food was. Then again he's a huge fan of American culture, so it's possible that that could've been the reason for his fascination with the place.

Regarding Portugal, you're right, it was the kind of place where everything is spread far apart. But that happens due to the fact that investment (public or otherwise) is done mostly in Lisbon, Porto and in the south of Portugal (because beaches and tourism). Everything else is kinda empty, and it gets worse the more you move away from the coast.

[DiscoBallClock]

On a similar note, I love traveling, but I love coming back home. For all the faults Portugal has, it's a pretty neat place to live in. (You guys ever seen The Good Place? Portugal is kinda like the Medium Place that appears at one point) That means that even if I wouldn't mind living somewhere else for a while, I'd always want my main home to be here.

However, a few years ago I went to the Netherlands to visit a friend of mine who lived in Amsterdam. It was pretty cool, I loved the city. But then we went to Haarlem, which is a nearby town, from which he hails. And let me tell you, that place was beautiful. It's not like there was a lot to see or to do, but that town irradiated a certain sense of tranquility (while not being too far from Amsterdam) that made me think...yeah, if I had to move out, this would be a good place to go to

[GreyClock]

On a similar note, I love traveling, but I love coming back home. For all the faults Portugal has, it's a pretty neat place to live in. (You guys ever seen The Good Place? Portugal is kinda like the Medium Place that appears at one point) That means that even if I wouldn't mind living somewhere else for a while, I'd always want my main home to be here.

However, a few years ago I went to the Netherlands to visit a friend of mine who lived in Amsterdam. It was pretty cool, I loved the city. But then we went to Haarlem, which is a nearby town, from which he hails. And let me tell you, that place was beautiful. It's not like there was a lot to see or to do, but that town irradiated a certain sense of tranquility (while not being too far from Amsterdam) that made me think...yeah, if I had to move out, this would be a good place to go to

Amsterdam has some decent areas here and there, but for the most part I dislike it. It's too crowded and kinda grubby. I know, I'm seriously considering going to Tokyo... but it's a different kind of crowd. Just boatloads of halfwit tourists who apparently feel obligated to be on drugs all day. "When in Amsterdam..." Relax, guy. It's ten in the morning, have a glass of milk and fuck off. Narrow streets and sidewalks are quaint as hell, but not so much when you're constantly stuck behind groups of stoned Spaniards, who might as well be crawling along. Haarlem is indeed nice though, similar to Leiden and Delft. You ever been to Belgium? Cities like Ghent, Antwerp and to a lesser extent Bruges blow any Dutch city out of the irradiated water. Speaking of quaint, great atmosphere, great bars with better beer.

What do you teach?

[RobClock]

[u2]0k7zPP3uNYw[/u2]

[PhantomCatClock]

some thing that is awful, for you

[u2]KnH6gxxsVBY[/u2]

someone sent me that right after I beat that game

[RobClock]

 Better than Crystal Skull

[PhantomCatClock]

was any porn company brave enough to make one called crystal skullfuck

[VCRClock]

was any porn company brave enough to make one called crystal skullfuck

hey this isn't the roller derby name suggestion thread

[pop-tart]

I had that Indiana Jones game. I don't think I finished it.

[DiscoBallClock]

On a similar note, I love traveling, but I love coming back home. For all the faults Portugal has, it's a pretty neat place to live in. (You guys ever seen The Good Place? Portugal is kinda like the Medium Place that appears at one point) That means that even if I wouldn't mind living somewhere else for a while, I'd always want my main home to be here.

However, a few years ago I went to the Netherlands to visit a friend of mine who lived in Amsterdam. It was pretty cool, I loved the city. But then we went to Haarlem, which is a nearby town, from which he hails. And let me tell you, that place was beautiful. It's not like there was a lot to see or to do, but that town irradiated a certain sense of tranquility (while not being too far from Amsterdam) that made me think...yeah, if I had to move out, this would be a good place to go to

Amsterdam has some decent areas here and there, but for the most part I dislike it. It's too crowded and kinda grubby. I know, I'm seriously considering going to Tokyo... but it's a different kind of crowd. Just boatloads of halfwit tourists who apparently feel obligated to be on drugs all day. "When in Amsterdam..." Relax, guy. It's ten in the morning, have a glass of milk and fuck off. Narrow streets and sidewalks are quaint as hell, but not so much when you're constantly stuck behind groups of stoned Spaniards, who might as well be crawling along. Haarlem is indeed nice though, similar to Leiden and Delft. You ever been to Belgium? Cities like Ghent, Antwerp and to a lesser extent Bruges blow any Dutch city out of the irradiated water. Speaking of quaint, great atmosphere, great bars with better beer.

What do you teach?

To be fair we mostly wandered around the centre of the city because he had the luck of living nearby. I found the canals and the narrow streets and buildings quaint - but I do see your point about the crowds, there are some busy streets there. From what I've heard you guys have a housing/tourism problem, right? (We have one too, but covid threw a wrench in that) I imagine that the reputation of "fReE wEeD aNd pRosTiTuTeS" might attract a specific type of unpleasant person. I'm not a fan of walking around an unknown place blazed out of my mind, but... (I gotta say though, I find the Red Light District kinda offputting for some reason)
Sadly I've never been to Belgium, but I'd love to check out Bruges sometime. Every photo of that place I come across makes it look like some sort of Winter Wonderland.

I teach Private International Law (Conflicts of Laws for the American friends in here) in a law school, but I research all kinds of Private Law. It's a real hoot

[DiscoBallClock]

oh we're back to shitposting, huh

well, here goes

[u2]rMJWL1CczMI[/u2]

[k9]

On a similar note, I love traveling, but I love coming back home. For all the faults Portugal has, it's a pretty neat place to live in. (You guys ever seen The Good Place? Portugal is kinda like the Medium Place that appears at one point) That means that even if I wouldn't mind living somewhere else for a while, I'd always want my main home to be here.

However, a few years ago I went to the Netherlands to visit a friend of mine who lived in Amsterdam. It was pretty cool, I loved the city. But then we went to Haarlem, which is a nearby town, from which he hails. And let me tell you, that place was beautiful. It's not like there was a lot to see or to do, but that town irradiated a certain sense of tranquility (while not being too far from Amsterdam) that made me think...yeah, if I had to move out, this would be a good place to go to

Amsterdam has some decent areas here and there, but for the most part I dislike it. It's too crowded and kinda grubby. I know, I'm seriously considering going to Tokyo... but it's a different kind of crowd. Just boatloads of halfwit tourists who apparently feel obligated to be on drugs all day. "When in Amsterdam..." Relax, guy. It's ten in the morning, have a glass of milk and fuck off. Narrow streets and sidewalks are quaint as hell, but not so much when you're constantly stuck behind groups of stoned Spaniards, who might as well be crawling along. Haarlem is indeed nice though, similar to Leiden and Delft. You ever been to Belgium? Cities like Ghent, Antwerp and to a lesser extent Bruges blow any Dutch city out of the irradiated water. Speaking of quaint, great atmosphere, great bars with better beer.

What do you teach?

To be fair we mostly wandered around the centre of the city because he had the luck of living nearby. I found the canals and the narrow streets and buildings quaint - but I do see your point about the crowds, there are some busy streets there. From what I've heard you guys have a housing/tourism problem, right? (We have one too, but covid threw a wrench in that) I imagine that the reputation of "fReE wEeD aNd pRosTiTuTeS" might attract a specific type of unpleasant person. I'm not a fan of walking around an unknown place blazed out of my mind, but... (I gotta say though, I find the Red Light District kinda offputting for some reason)
Sadly I've never been to Belgium, but I'd love to check out Bruges sometime. Every photo of that place I come across makes it look like some sort of Winter Wonderland.

I teach Private International Law (Conflicts of Laws for the American friends in here) in a law school, but I research all kinds of Private Law. It's a real hoot

Haarlem is a beautiful place, very colourful and neat though seemingly very tightly packed together. I think I read Haarlem as Harlem and I was very confused lol. The nicest places seem to be more confined ones, but not to the extent of say Kowloon lmao.

I think I echo the same sentiment as DiscoBall about home. I always hear people say they wanna move to America or Canada, but I don't think I could ever leave Ireland. The mindset of leaving here seems to be more common over here in Northern Ireland, which I can understand because it's a bit of a troubled area, but I love it here.

Though that being said I'd love to go to America or Japan, or anywhere really. mainly America because it'd almost be surreal, I see so much about America on TV and in media, that I almost forget it's a real place sometimes lol.

[DiscoBallClock]

On a similar note, I love traveling, but I love coming back home. For all the faults Portugal has, it's a pretty neat place to live in. (You guys ever seen The Good Place? Portugal is kinda like the Medium Place that appears at one point) That means that even if I wouldn't mind living somewhere else for a while, I'd always want my main home to be here.

However, a few years ago I went to the Netherlands to visit a friend of mine who lived in Amsterdam. It was pretty cool, I loved the city. But then we went to Haarlem, which is a nearby town, from which he hails. And let me tell you, that place was beautiful. It's not like there was a lot to see or to do, but that town irradiated a certain sense of tranquility (while not being too far from Amsterdam) that made me think...yeah, if I had to move out, this would be a good place to go to

Amsterdam has some decent areas here and there, but for the most part I dislike it. It's too crowded and kinda grubby. I know, I'm seriously considering going to Tokyo... but it's a different kind of crowd. Just boatloads of halfwit tourists who apparently feel obligated to be on drugs all day. "When in Amsterdam..." Relax, guy. It's ten in the morning, have a glass of milk and fuck off. Narrow streets and sidewalks are quaint as hell, but not so much when you're constantly stuck behind groups of stoned Spaniards, who might as well be crawling along. Haarlem is indeed nice though, similar to Leiden and Delft. You ever been to Belgium? Cities like Ghent, Antwerp and to a lesser extent Bruges blow any Dutch city out of the irradiated water. Speaking of quaint, great atmosphere, great bars with better beer.

What do you teach?

To be fair we mostly wandered around the centre of the city because he had the luck of living nearby. I found the canals and the narrow streets and buildings quaint - but I do see your point about the crowds, there are some busy streets there. From what I've heard you guys have a housing/tourism problem, right? (We have one too, but covid threw a wrench in that) I imagine that the reputation of "fReE wEeD aNd pRosTiTuTeS" might attract a specific type of unpleasant person. I'm not a fan of walking around an unknown place blazed out of my mind, but... (I gotta say though, I find the Red Light District kinda offputting for some reason)
Sadly I've never been to Belgium, but I'd love to check out Bruges sometime. Every photo of that place I come across makes it look like some sort of Winter Wonderland.

I teach Private International Law (Conflicts of Laws for the American friends in here) in a law school, but I research all kinds of Private Law. It's a real hoot

Haarlem is a beautiful place, very colourful and neat though seemingly very tightly packed together. I think I read Haarlem as Harlem and I was very confused lol. The nicest places seem to be more confined ones, but not to the extent of say Kowloon lmao.

I think I echo the same sentiment as DiscoBall about home. I always hear people say they wanna move to America or Canada, but I don't think I could ever leave Ireland. The mindset of leaving here seems to be more common over here in Northern Ireland, which I can understand because it's a bit of a troubled area, but I love it here.

Though that being said I'd love to go to America or Japan, or anywhere really. mainly America because it'd almost be surreal, I see so much about America on TV and in media, that I almost forget it's a real place sometimes lol.

I think that it's common to everyone living in poorer countries. A lot of people here see living and working abroad as some sort of ultimate goal. I mean, I get it; there's no way Portugal can compete professionally with Germany, France, the UK, or the USA. But then again, the quality of life here is amazing. With a good salary (which isn't hard in my field) you can live quite comfortably. We also have great weather, great food, and the possibility to go to beaches, fields, mountains, rivers, and pretty much everything else you can think of.

I guess I'm trying to "make it big" (whatever that means) here. After all, no reason as to why that's not possible in today's internet age. Even if I have to travel a lot, I suppose that's an acceptable compromise.

Also, that's a very true thing about America. I already find it exciting to be in a different country, I can only imagine what it might be like to be in America, a place I've seen thousands of times without actually being there. I'd love to go sometime, if only the flights weren't so damn expensive

[PhantomCatClock]

scients

[Slurpee]

ok who wished on a monkey's paw that the forums would be more active

[pop-tart]

A++ brilliant fkkn popst right there Slurpee