Fall Travels

I got around in October and November. It was a busy couple of months on top of Q4 at Amazon and the ongoing house remodel, but traveling is good for the soul, and I also earned Alaska Airlines MVP status for 2018. Things are finally starting to look up for ol' Brian.

Copenhagen

Felicia and I spent four days in Copenhagen with our friend Lauren, who we also traveled to France with in 2015. The three of us stayed in a cozy Airbnb near the heart of the city, and we were able to get around exclusively on foot. The cobblestone streets and abundance of shops make Copenhagen a charming place for pedestrians. Everyone we interacted with was friendly and spoke English, which was a convenient surprise, and public places were spotlessly clean.

We saw the Little Mermaid, and we're not sure why everyone is obsessed with it. It's basically Copenhagen's Lil' Sebastian. We also viewed the Danish crown jewels at Rosenborg castle, and tons of viking artifacts at the National Museum of Denmark. The rune stone exhibit was my personal favorite.

Copenhagen has some fun contemporary attractions as well. We took a canal boat tour from Nyhavn, stuffed ourselves at a permanant street food festival in an abandoned paper mill, and spent an afternoon in the anarchist district of Freetown Christiania. We also had a delicious and eclectic sushi dinner at a Sri-Lankan owned restaurant. I was very impressed by the botanical gardens, which are free to the public. Unfortunately, Tivoli Gardens was closed while they prepared for their Halloween season.

Amsterdam

Felicia and I took a $40 flight from Copenhagen to Amsterdam for the last few days of the trip. Amsterdam was wild. I don't know how else to say it. I overdid it with the drugs and lost control with some strippers. It was bad. Security had to drag me out the banana bar with my pants around my ankles. That's not true - I wrote that on the bus and I wanted to have some fun with the person next to me. The banana bar is a real place, but I didn't go inside.
 
Amsterdam wasn't too different from Copenhagen, visually. Both cities feature canals, cobblestones, and cute townhouses. The city is very diverse culturally, and very open about sex and drugs. It's hard to walk 10 minutes without seeing a 'coffee shop' or sex toy store. At first I thought the red light district would be sad and uncomfortable. Prostitutes line the street in human-sized fish bowls while they wait for the next customer, but the women I saw working were having a good time and the atmosphere was very festive. Sexual assault, human trafficking, domestic violence, and STD rates would all go down (and tax revenue up) if prostitution was legal and well-regulated in more countries.

We did lots of touristy stuff on the rest of our trip. We had a great day with some fresh stroopwafels in the morning, visits to Hortus Botanicus and Vondelpark, and a pizza dinner on our evening canal tour. We also took a sobering tour of the Anne Frank House, and saw lots of classical art at Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum.

	me too, sister

Cajun Style

Less than a week after we got back from Europe we jetted to New Orleans for a group birthday weekend. Shout outs to Thomp and MarMar. We rolled 11 deep on this trip, and if you weren't paying close attention then you probably mistook us for a category:fun hurricane!

We got started with some hand grenades and jello kerosene shots while we walked down Bourbon street. Eventually we settled at a place called Ticklers to drink and watch the dueling pianos. There's no shame in my game, but I'll never be able to run for political office if I share too many pictures from that night.



I loved New Orleans. I want to compare it to Las Vegas because I go there once a year to have a fun long weekend, but that seems unfair to NOLA. Everything about Las Vegas is fake, but New Orleans is authentic and magical. The people, food, music, art, and architecture are all wonderful.

In one day we picked up street art at Jackson Square in the morning, caught a jazz show at Preservation Hall in the afternoon, then took a spooky ghost tour in the evening, where we learned about the LaLaurie murder mansion. In between events, we drank hurricanes at Pat O'Briens and ate beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Shout out to Cajun Carl.

The French Quarter is an amazing place to be even if you're doing nothing at all. If you grab some drinks and chill for a day, you might witness half a dozen second line wedding parades. Between parades there's always some ambient brass instruments playing. If you get hungry you're never more than a few steps away from a po' boy, gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee, red beans and rice, fried gator, or fried okra. You might even wind up at a BBQ and blues festival like we did. It was a ton of fun. I'm looking forward to returning and checking out all the cool stuff that we didn't have time for.

Scoop

My grandfather is a great man. We call him Scoop because he was a hall-of-fame journalist, but also because he loves ice cream. He's 88 years old and he's had some serious health scares in the past, so I didn't take it lightly when I found out that he was in the hospital. Thankfully there are dozens of flights daily between Seattle and the Bay Area, so I was able to squeeze in a couple of trips to visit him. I've mentioned earlier that I don't see my family often enough, and so it was a silver lining that I got to enjoy not only Scoop's company, but also many of my immediate and extended family.

From what I heard on the phone I expected the situation to be bleak, but when we were all togeher morale was high and we had a jovial visit. The Swindell men bonded by watching the world series together. Normally when I see Scoop it's during a huge family gathering. It was nice to have some quality time together in a more intimate setting.

Trouble in Paradise

Felicia and I spent Thanksgiving in the Bahamas to watch the Battle 4 Atlantis (A basketball tournament that Arizona was playing in). This is normally my favorite week of the year as a college sports fan because the basketball tournaments overlap with the football rivalry games. I was excited to soak it all in just like 2014 in Maui. Unfortunately, the tournament was an unprecedented disaster for the Wildcats and the football team lost the Territorial Cup as well.

Sports crisis aside, we still enjoyed ourselves in the company of some friends that also made the trip from Seattle. It's hard to have a bad time when you're basking in the hot sun, warm water, and cold drinks of Paradise Island. We had some fun outside of the resort as well, swimming with reef sharks and grubbing on Bahamian food at the Arawak Cay Fish Fry. Shout out to my new acquaintance "The Genie" who, within five minutes of meeting, offered to sell me cocaine, sex, and turtle meat.

Until Next Time

We'll be in Tucson over the holidays to visit family. After that I'm thinking either the Galapagos Islands or New Zealand. I'd like to visit some natural wonders and exotic animals before it's too late. Don't forget to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

TGIB