Every Sunday I walk by Santa Maria del Mar and see this lady on the street with her cat, who is usually wearing lays or other accessories. He just sits there and sleeps right next to her. Keira calls him Zen Kitty, which is totally true. He is so disciplined. If you give the lady money you can pet the cat.

One day I was standing there and a Spanish woman walked by, paused, looked at the cat and yelled “¡Que guapo!” which means “how handsome.” It cracked me up because I’ve never heard anyone say that about a cat. I’ve called people guapa before but to human beings!

I asked the lady what her cat’s name is and she said Noè, but pronounced “no-eh” which is the Catalan name for Noah. I told her that the word gato in english is cat, so Noè is CATalan. She laughed.

If you are ever near Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, go meet Zen Kitty and call him “Gato Guapo.”

On my last day in Paris before flying to Barcelona, I decided to go find it. It was a bit tough because I had no cellular data in Europe (or at least willing to pay for International Rates) so had to just look quickly on a map of where it was. By the time I arrived to Montmarte, I got distracted with Sacre Coeur and the Salvador Dali musuem.

Crap, I forgot where it was, and time was running out.

I decided to stay the course and find it. How? Oh you know, by walking up and down every street in the neighborhood until I ran into it. At some points I even asked people in French where the “Amelie Poulain cafe” was. I spent about 3 hours walking through the neighborhood to find it. As I was about to give up, I saw this little cafe with a red cover in front of it.

I walked in, and as I was about to ask the waitress where the cafe was…I realized I was standing in it.

My face had a permanent smile on it. Here I was, finally at the cafe of Amelie Poulain. I’d be lying if part of my brain was hoping for her to appear. It was as beautiful as I remember it.

I sat down and of course had to have a coffee with the Creme Brulee named after her.

Seriously, one of the best days of my life.

The bottom line for myself is that I’m not going to wait for people if they’re not going to join me. There is way too much in this world to see and I will see it all by myself if I have to!

If you travel for a while, loneliness will strike you at some point. Here are the moments that it has happened to me:

• When you go around a park or a romantic place and see other couples.
• People taking group photos of their friends or loved ones.
• Having dinner.
• Not knowing what to go do.

There are a lot of different ways to remedy lonliness when being abroad by yourself. Here are a few things I’ve done:

Surround yourself around people, even if they are strangers.

When I was in Barcelona in the beginning, I would go to my local cafe and read outside. I was around people, but wasn’t really talking to anyone. After a week or so I started sitting at the bar to talk to the baristas. That’s another story though. The point is you need to put yourself in a place where people can talk to you. Having your headphones on and reading a book is not going to likely have someone engage in a conversation with you. This last one applies for people back home in Seattle as well.

Find people to interact with

I have had many conversations with people where the intial question was “can you take my photo?” or “how do I get here?” I have to confess that once I did ask a cute girl for directions despite knowing how to get to the place already. You will find along the way that there are a lot of people like you traveling alone and they are possibly looking for someone to have a conversation with as you are.

Have something that you can do everywhere you go

After seeing Amelie for the 7,000th time, I decided to buy a Darth Vader action figure and photograph it all around the world. With Vader Vacation, it gives me a challenge of looking for places to discover while being put at risk of getting laughed at. I’ve had many good conversations about why I take a Darth Vader action figure around everywhere.

Get out of that comfort zone

One of the best things I have done so far was in Paris, when I asked the cab drive to drive around for 10 minutes and just drop me off somewhere. I made it a point to get lost and find a way back.

Conclusion

Traveling can get lonely, but there is so much you can do on your own to make it an adventure. If you get lonely or homesick, email your friends, share your adventures or call them on Skype. Here are a few benefits of traveling alone:

• You have absolute control over what you want to see and do.
• It forces you out of your comfort zone to meet other people and potentially build some confidence.
• You become better at navigating through cities and public transit.
• Gives you a lot of time to reflect and think about your life out of the context of being at home.

It’s great to travel with friends or loved ones, but there is much to learn when traveling alone. Happy travels!

I know this is a bit of an obvious statement but, I live in Spain. It amazed me to think that I have been here for more than a month. This isn’t a vacation. It wasn’t a “Vegas Baby!” kind of trip where you party as much as you can. I moved here to live here for a while, to figure out what I am looking for and to seek it out. It was simple…I wanted to take my life and move it somewhere for a while.

The good news is I might have found it. The bad news is I might have found it and it is thousands of miles away from what I call home—Seattle.

Some of you may know that I have a love/hate relationship with Seattle at the moment. Aside from my friends, I don’t know if I like Seattle—doesn’t feel like the city for me. When I’m in Europe, I feel at home. I get more work done, am more social and have lost weight since I’ve been here. I like the lifestyle here a lot, especially in Barcelona. I love the fact that there is time for everything here, the design and art is so inspirational and it is so easy to just hop on a plane or train to go to another city or country.

I would be lying if I said I thought about not coming back. Hey, the girls actually like me here, why wouldn’t I think about staying here?!

However, I have my cat back home and I love him too much to just leave him with my parents. Maybe I need to fly back and get him back here—sail the word with a cat—now that’s an adventure you can take to the bank.

I have been doing a bit of research on what it would take to work with US clients from here. Right now I’m just flirting with the idea. Typically I don’t like to talk about my plans or waste time with saying what I’m going to do, but I am at quite a bit of a loss right now. My friend Alix did make the suggestion of living in Seattle as the “home base” and traveling the rest of the year. I actually like that quite a bit.

To be completely honest, I have some anxiety in returning to Seattle:

• I’m afraid I’m going to revert back to my bad habits.
• Really going to miss my friends in Europe.
• Seattle is a very comfortable city. I’m afraid if I come back, I might just stay there.

I have a lot of thinking to do. There is still plenty of time here and very much to see. My plan was to come back to Seattle as a better person and there is a lot of work to do there.

The truth is I don’t even know why I dislike Seattle. Everyone else who lives there seem to love it and think it’s the greatest city in the galaxy. Like relationships with people, perhaps there is a compatibility factor with cities. I thought being gone for so long would make me miss the city I once loved.

Maybe it’s time for a change…whether it’s the city or myself.

April in Paris

Scenic view of the harbor city of Split, Croatia

Reading with Parisians at Luxembourg Park.

The Parisian Promise of one day, returning to retrieve their locks.

The cafe in Amelie in Montmartre.

Harbor in Barcelona

In the midst of political unrest, children are playing.

The clearest ocean water I’ve seen in my life.

The back of Notre Dame Cathedral.

A sign of hope in Bosnia.

This photo is of one of my favorite places. It’s a small park behind Sagrada Familia. It’s no bigger than 1000 sq ft but has a pond that is surrounded by park benches. I sat here to get inspired, whether it was reading a book on my kindle, looking at the massive Modernist church in the background or people watching.

I ended up reading here for about three hours before it started raining and I walked back to my apartment.

I have a feeling this place will be a moment of realization and inspiration as I reflect upon my life when it is all said and done.

A day where I woke up at 3pm turned out to become one of the most inspiring days ever. I’ve had a really hard time sleeping in Barcelona and usually turn in around 5am each morning…yes, morning. My flexible work schedule and friends back home (timezone difference) are the reasons I think I’m staying up late.

I decided to spend the day in Gracia (which is my favorite neighborhood) to grab some food and walk around. Little did I realize I was so close to Sagrada Familia, arguably Antoni Gaudi’s most famous work. I quickly finished my tapas and worked my way over there.

I didn’t even need my GPS to know where I was…just followed the giant spires over the horizon. When I got there I was blown away. I’ve seen my share of Gothic and Baroque buildings, but never seen a Spanish Modernist church before. It looked like if minimalism and Baroque had a baby!

It took two hours for me to completely experience the structure and I even went up to the top. Here’s the thing I realized…

I want to build cathedrals.

Yes, I realize that Sagrada Familia is actually a basilica, but “I want to build basilicas” is a bit more ambiguous! Just roll with it, k?

This is the analogy I’m telling my colleagues at Xhatch. We need to build web apps as cathedrals. I am now convinced that Gaudi is one of the greatest User Experience Designers ever. Every element has been considered in how it’s made and what the user is supposed to feel in that instance. This is how applications should work too.

The other aspect is the quality and craftsmanship a cathedral takes. Now when I work on code for an app, I’m going to refine and refine, similar to those marble stairs I saw.

Every little detail has been considered.

I have never been so inspired in such a long time, and I will dedicate my life to build cathedrals, whether it is in the form of a web app or some other aspect of my life.

Thank you, Antoni Gaudi.

As I’m packing a box of items to ship back to the United States, I can’t help but sit in disbelief that I’ve been in Paris for weeks and that it is time to move on. The City of Lights is a city I can always call home, and someday might call it home—permanently. Here are a few things I did:

• Retraced my steps from my last visit (2005) on the first night.
• Stayed with one of my best friends and collaborated on projects together. This is what I want—to be able to travel and work.
• Randomly meet up with my friends Lorraine, Rachel and Vivian to have coffee or hang out.
• Revisit stores and get to know the people living in the Marais.
• Converse with Parisians in French.
• Visited the Apple Store four times. This was actually not cool because it was about replacing my MacBook Air, which died.
• Had a MacBook Pro shipped from the United States.
• Went to the top of the Eiffel Tower…and took a picture of Darth Vader.
• Tried to roller blade from Bastille to the Eiffel Tower…failing miserably, but tried nonetheless.
• Sat outside at cafes to people watch and read my new Chuck Klosterman book.
• Be able to stay in and not say “Oh man, I’m in Paris. I need to go out every night.” The fact was that I lived there and there was no rush.
• Take naps daily.
• Went to Easter Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral.
• Eat a bunch of cheese.
• Read all the notes in Shakespeare & Company.

That’s some of the things I did…probably a bunch I’m missing. The reality is I have to go back to Paris in about a month to pick up the repaired MacBook Air, but it definitely won’t be the same. I am so thankful to have made so many friends during this trip, revisit friendships and have solid conversations.

I got what I want, which was just to be a Parisian for a while. It was so pleasant to sit at a cafe, ask for the WIFI (pronounced “wee fee”) an forget where I was. I’ve really discovered my home. No, it’s not Seattle, Washington. Home is where I am at with my friends, whether they were people I was Skyping with in San Francisco or physically with me. Location is overrated and people use it as an excuse.

Tomorrow I’m getting on the plane and going to Barcelona, Spain. In my continual quest to simplify, I am sending back a box of gifts and other items I don’t need to try to lighten up my backpack. Yes, I only packed one backpack and still am wearing ONE pair of shoes. Count them ladies, one pair of shoes for an indefinite trip.

How long am I going for? As always, the answer is…

I don’t know.

My traveling theme song is “Voyager” by Daft Punk, who are from Paris. Here’s another remix of this amazing song/lifestyle.

Crazy to think I’ve been in Paris for about ten days now. I love how the people are getting familiar, I know where I’m going ad it just feels like a temporary residence. Those who know me know that I love lists. Here are a list of things I love about Paris so far:

• People walk everywhere. No wonder people are so fit here. Part of it is probably because of all the people who live here and traffic is terrible, but it’s such a norm to walk everywhere here. Definitely does not remind me of Seattle, where you have to take seventeen buses to get to another neighborhood.
• The girls are so simple here. Everywhere we go, there are pretty girls everywhere. However, it’s a simplistic pretty. They are so stylish here, but it’s not overtly extravagant and they don’t wear much makeup here.
• Emotions are reserved for authenticity. People don’t smile here often, but when they do, it feels very synthetic. It’s not that they’re not happy here, but a smile, a touch, and dare I say…a hug is reserved for when they want to express emotions deeply.
• People love to read. When we were strolling Luxembourg park, I couldn’t tell you how many people I saw, quietly reading a nice book. They were there for hours as well.
• The buildings are beautiful. Even a bad building seems good here. Perhaps it is because of the age of the city of lights but it seems as if every building has a story, a purpose, and a new purpose.
• People are very much in love here. As cliche as it sounds, it is so true. Young and old alike, couples here seem to be constantly holding hands, sitting along the Seine and having conversations. It amazing how a gesture of a woman putting her head on a man’s shoulders can express so much love.

There’s definitely a theme here: simplicity. How does a city so large have such a simple lifestyle? People here have all the time in the world, it seems like.

Hello from Paris, France! I’ve finally settled into my new temporary home after an adventurous and epic trip to Croatia and Bosnia. I live in the 4th arrondissement, which is actually known as the gay district, but you know there’s good food, shopping and it’ll be clean! It’s in the northern part of Paris and is literally a five-minute walk from Notre Dame Cathedral. Here are some quick thoughts about Paris thus far:

Parisians are very nice
I don’t know why people say the French are stand-offish but they are quite nice. Then again, I think New Yorkers are nice. I think people in the United States are used to small talk, so when a Parisian server is short and to the point, people think it’s rude. Even though my French isn’t that great, I try to converse in their language, which they appreciate. I tried ordering a baguette the first day and seemed to only get half a loaf. Shawna told me that I ordered half a loaf. Whoops!

Bonne Vie (Good life)
The lifestyle here seems so simple for such a large city. Maybe it’s just from what I’ve seen, but people seem so joyful here. I could sit for hours watching people walk around the city eating baguettes, riding their bikes or sitting and having conversations. I am still working full time over here, but I don’t feel like I’m ever in a rush. Perhaps the 9-hour time difference helps, but I am very much at peace here.

Few things I’ve done

• Ordered a full baguette (winning)
• Went out to a bar with Adam and ordered drinks in French
• Visited Notre Dame Cathedral and Sainte-Chapelle
• Had Crepes Suzette per Shawna’s recommendation
• Living my life normally as I would in Seattle

The streets are so beautiful to walk around. Everyone j-walks and people run red lights, but it’s okay. The city has such a unique energy to it. It’s not as fast-paced as New York City…almost as if everyone has time for everything here.

Yes, I stopped by the Apple Store. Don’t tell me you are surprised.

Revisiting Sainte-Chapelle, one of my most favorite gothic structures ever.

It has been an amazing journey so far and it is amazing to me that it’s only the beginning. I’ve definitely learned to live a simpler life. Hope you all are doing well. I’ll post updates whenever I can.