Category: Blog
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Braving Winter in Canada
At my hostel in New Orleans, as I sat huddled against the brisk evening winds clutching a cheap beer in my right hand and listening to the sweet sounds of jazz emerging from the impromptly put together stage to my left, I begun to question whether I had ever actually thought about the realities of…
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Day One: Huffy Lost to NYC
To give you an idea, here is how the first day of owning a bike went. It started off well when, on my first proper travel day from New Orleans to Birmingham, I almost lost my bike completely. I had arrived at the station 30 minutes in advance, instead of the 60 minutes recommended on…
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Introducing Huffy the Bike
Getting a bike has perhaps been one of the most impulsive things I have done during my travels. Within the span of two full days, I went from marinating the vague and far-off idea of hypothetically getting my own two-wheeled steed, to stepping into a Walmart and acquiring the cheapest one. The very next day,…
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Austin, Where Legend Lives on in The City that Once Was
Going into Austin, all I knew about it was that it was not like the rest of Texas. Going into Texas, most of what I knew was that it was a deeply-rooted red state where people love their guns more than anything, wear cowboy hats, fashion leather boots and drive large pick-up trucks (a sweeping…
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American Car-ture
When someone tries to tell me that Americans have no culture, I can’t help but laugh. “What do you mean?” I ask, deeply perplexed by their statement. I have personally found that there is tons of culture here, after all. In fact, it is at all times everywhere around me, with some 283 million cultural…
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Tales from the Hound
Once I decided to return to the United States (a questionable decision on its own, I am aware), I knew exactly what I wanted to do: take only Greyhound buses from West to East. I figured that this way I would be able to see more of the country, experience first hand its infamous ‘open…
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A Love Letter to Arizona
The one thing that will keep pulling me back to the United States time and time again is definitely not its politics. Nor is it its cities, whose tall buildings reach up against our limitless sky into worlds that aren’t quite ours to own. Instead, it is my love and admiration for its diverse landscapes;…
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Jack in the Box, 4PM, One Day Before the Elections
Today, one day ahead of the U.S. elections, I’m attempting to dive into the world of gas stations. By foot, of course. At the first one, right around the corner from where I’m staying for the week, I buy a donut, extra large and glazed. The most American of all breakfasts. Just cheap enough to…
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Beyond The Ballot (PART II)
As depressing as it is to say, I have sensed that a very large group of people in the United States have lost faith in the future of their country and politics overall. This is not an exclusive feeling to Americans, and even in the Netherlands these are sentiments that we are growing more familiar…
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“The Ballot Won’t Save Us” (PART I)
“I have never seen a president refuse to drop a bomb, but I have seen them turn school funds into boxes of guns, and that is how I know the ballot won’t save us. We must save us,” poet Hernan Ramos spoke his words with such depth that it evoked a sense of deeper understanding…