Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Prologue: 

I am now exactly 3 weeks behind on my blog, and in an effort to catch up, I am pulling a Hail Mary and doing a quadruple-feature. FOUR FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! I am so jealous of all you lucky readers. Below is the most epic blog post I have ever written and will ever write.

Part I: Sepanta Arash Miriam Barcelona
Get it? Kind of like Vicky Cristina Barcelona except with our names. God I am SO the next Woody Allen.

Song: The Tallest Man on Earth - "King of Spain"

• song is super relevant because:
• talks about Barcelona
• looking for love <3
• talks about flamenco
• leather boots (even though I don't have any it seems relevant

Also, here is a picture of me with The Tallest Man on Earth (musician not the actual tallest man on Earth)(he's actually really short)(this was in Boston, not Barcelona)

He is the one next to me in the middle.

Anyway, we took the plane to Barcelona on January 1, and decided to do it Miriam-style AKA not book a hostel. We arrive in the early afternoon to the greatest/cleanest airport in the world. I didn't take this picture but this is what it looked like:

I should pause here to say that I had forgotten my camera so none of the pictures on this trip are actually mine. Also, I am going to keep it pretty quick since it was so long ago and I barely remember anything. For further reading, you can relate to Arash's post (which was actually surprisingly halfway decent):

http://tspingthrougheurope.blogspot.com/2011/01/leather-up-its-going-to-be-legen-wait.html

Anyway, after trying to figure out how to get out of the airport for half an hour, we got into a bus and got off in the middle of the city (it was also the cleanest bus ever). We walked around and found a hostel (it was called Paris Hostel or something). We headed out to walk around, had free dinner at a bar and I don't remember what else.

The next day we checked out of our hostel and headed out to the famed Kabul Hostel. We moved into our 8-bed room, where we were greeted by 2 Argentine guys (forgot their names) and 2 Brazilian girls (named Mariana and Mariana) and one random person that I don't think said anything the entire time we were there.

Anyway, that day we did some things (probably not exciting) and then decided to go to the Barcelona game that night. We took the metro to the stadium and waited in the crazy lines and eventually got super good seats for 50 euros each. This was our view:

Unfortunately, my boys Lio and Pique didn't play but it was still a good game.

After the game we went back to the hostel and then met up with my friend Joana.

Jo:


Jo is probably the happiest and most carefree person I know. To give you an idea, she spent last summer volunteering at music festivals, and then hitchhiking from California to New York to catch her flight back to Barcelona. Right now she is hitchhiking to Timbuktu.

She took us to a flamenco concert that was really great (it was on my list of things to do in Barcelona). Their music was beautiful and it was like seeing 3 Idins at the same time.

After that she took us to a free rock concert where we ran into our waiter from earlier that day.

Me rocking out. (being me)

Song #2: I'm From Barcelona - "We're From Barcelona"

• relevant because:
• isn't it obvious?

By now it was almost 1 AM so it was time to go back to the hostel...and get our night started. We changed and got ready to go to a club with our hostel at 1:45 to a Brazilian party. For some reason, none of the Brazilians went, and we learned why. It wasn't that much fun and it was too crowded.

One thing I learned about Brazil: Mariana #1 was telling us how it was annoying that everybody always thought Brazil was a land where beautiful women walked around naked all the time and that's all that people thought. Apparently, she said they are only naked SOME of the time. (I never knew any of this before.) I think I'm going to go to the World Cup in 2014. Anyone want to come with?

OK, I am writing too much about Barcelona. The rest will be quick.

The next day we went to Parc Güell which was amazing. While I was there I decided I want to go back to Barcelona again really soon. This is what it looked like:

Later that night, we went to a club, this time the Marianas came. It was better than the night before, but it wasn't until Arash and I went to the bathroom that it got better. We were peeing and some British guy was yelling, and the guy peeing next to us yells "F-CK THE BRITISH!" and Arash as a joke is like "Yeah!" The guy turns to us and is like "What do you know? You're probably Persians." And we're like WTF how does he know? He said I had an accent which is crap but anyway, he turned out to be really nice. He was a professional poker player from Finland of Turkish origin and his sister had just married an Iranian and they had VIP at the club. They invited us up and we got free drinks for the rest of the night and met all of his friends. I even lost my sweater at some point and he ran up to me as we were leaving with it. He is on the left:

After that we went to get some gyros with the Marianas and then went to bed at 6 AM, for what I can say would be a pretty typical Barcelona Monday night.

The next day we saw the amazing Sagrada Familia and it was by far the greatest cathedral I have seen. (As much as it hurts to say, it was so much better than Notre Dame.)

Then I stayed in that night to study for my finals and Arash and Miriam went out (I am so boring). At the airport I joined the Barcelona team and we said our goodbyes.

Part II: Piggyback Murder
(Sorry I really can't think of a better title.)

Song: Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele - "Oh, Paris!"

• relevant because:
• I returned to Paris
• Dent May is super hot

So after Barcelona, I returned to Paris and took my finals (don't want to talk about it), and then was left with nothing to do for 3 weeks. So, I decided I would begin my transformation from "awesome" to "awesome and independent". This became a theme for the next couple weeks.

Saturday night, Seamus and Justin invited me over for dinner and chillin' and after a few drinks, Justin decided to give me a makeover. He used a real blade and carved out an R&B singer from my face.

The next night was Steph's birthday. People gave mixed but generally positive reviews on the new look. We went to Pastapapa, the greatest chain restaurant ever. They had fresh pasta (apparently normal pasta isn't fresh) and the largest portions ever. Unfortunately, Arash wasn't there to finish my leftovers. After that, we walked around and went on the metro while I played guitar. I am going to just believe that the looks we got from people were of enjoyment of the Justin Bieber medley I was playing and not of disapproval (such a poorly written sentence). After stocking up on more wine, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, first by metro, then by walking, and eventually after about an hour and a half of walking we made it there, where Jonny was waiting for us.

(For the rest of the night, I entrusted my camera to Lili, so I can neither take credit/blame for the rest of the pictures.)

Some of my favorite pictures that she took:

Ok, but really I have to thank her or I wouldn't know what to write on this blog since I've forgotten everything that happened and am just going by her pictures.

After our Eiffel Tower jam session, we headed to Aurélien's place. For some reason it took us another 2 hours to get there, and not without some drama.

First this happened:

Then this happened:

Then, naturally, this happened:

Yes, that's red wine.

The crime scene.

Then we got to Aurélien's place. There are not too many pictures of once we got there (it's better that way) but after a couple hours Jonny and Steph passed out and the rest of us had deep conversations about Facebook, French desserts, and relationship outlooks.

Part III: Time to Say Goodbye

Song: Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman - "Time To Say Goodbye"

• relevant because:
• Arash was leaving soon and it was time to say goodbye

The next day, Arash returned from his Spain excursion. It was good to see him again, and we went to Disneyland to catch up. But we only went to the movie theater there and saw "Somewhere". It was pretty good (he'll disagree). The next morning I took him to the station and we bid each other goodbye. This was the last I saw of him as he left onto his journey of adulthood and suithood:

I went back to my apartment and slept. Until I was woken up by a phone call from Lili telling me Arash was outside my door. I thought it was a joke, but I checked and sure enough, he was standing there. Apparently he never got a ticket...

Do you know when you say bye to someone and then wish you'd told them things that you hadn't, and then spend the rest of your life regretting it? It was kind of like that but not at all. Arash slept for most of the day and then we went out to dinner with Lili and Corinna. It was good to have Arash back to finish my leftovers (the pho bowls were huge!).

Then the next morning Arash left for real. To America.

I just realized there wasn't even enough time for the song to get to the part where the guy sings (the good part) so you can take a break and just listen to the song now before reading the next part.

I'll wait.

Part IV: Bring it, Martha Stewart

Song: Unknown Artist - "Martha Stewart Song"

• relevant because:
• I am dethroning Martha Stewart as greatest housewife

So, this leaves me with last week (almost caught up). Arash left and I decided to get to work. The first thing I learned was to make French toast (it seemed fitting). Here is a picture of my breakfast that morning:

Feeling a little bit cocky, I decided to try my hand at rice that evening. This is what happened:

No, those are not spices, cheese, or anything else. Just rice. I still ate it. And it only took like 3 hours to clean the pot. Feeling like I had to master it before I moved on, I tried it again, this time with chicken.

Better, but I knew I could do better. And so, for one final time, I made the same dish, and this time it was amazing (I am totally unbiased).

Rice, chicken, sauteed onions and mushrooms, baguette, millefeuille, and a glass of milk.

I can't decide if I should be a professional chef or a food photographer, it all looks so good! In fact, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it so I'm going to go make some food right now. Blog Break!

Ok. Now that I mastered cooking, I had to move onto my next skill: laundry. Who knew I was a natural?

Before

After

Slowly but surely, I'm getting there. I just ate some double tomato bruschetta, and even though I should blog about this next time I can't resist showing off.

Now, I am making some zereshk polo. It's going to look something like this when I'm done:

Epilogue:

Anyway, in other news I just got back from Marrakesh. I'll write about that tomorrow (AKA sometime in the next month). And the reason the writing got so bad towards the end is that I don't actually expect anyone to read this far. If you're still reading this, you get a prize.

Grab Your Glocks When You See Sepanta

This post will kind of have a gangsta theme. You'll see why later.

We left Aachen after our train was about half an hour late (classic!). We were back in 2nd class so there's nothing to write about. Arash and I played Pocket Tanks while families around the world were feasting on Christmas dinner. It's ok, don't feel bad for us, we probably had more fun. I'd like to think we were pretty evenly matched, but that's a lie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_Tanks

Anyway, we got back to Paris, and there was no one there (because they were all feasting on Christmas dinners). Here is a picture of how empty the biggest station in Paris was. It was kind of like being in a movie theater all by yourself (if you've ever been lucky enough to see a movie bad/hipster enough that nobody else wanted to see it).

So then we came back to the apartment and wrote our blogs (the last posts).

The following day we went out with Miriam and her cousin Hind. We walked around for a bit, and as we were walking towards Notre Dame, guess who I ran into? None other than CLAIRE KAIRYS (she goes to BC for all non-Eagles).

One of my life goals (I have a lot) has been to have a totally crazy random encounter with someone I know in a far away place, so I can gladly say I checked this off the list. After a solid 10 seconds of flipping out, we said we would hang out the following day and said our goodbyes.

After hanging out around Chatelet for a while we went to watch the couples ice skating at the rink at Hotel de Ville. Instead, we were greeted by the most gangsta ice skater of all time. Here is a fully edited video:

                                        

Now that that's over, I can unleash the song I wrote for Arash. It took a lot of time so please listen. Also, it's the censored version because my little sister reads this blog (hey Navva! somehow even the clean version has swears so don't listen):

Okay, maybe I didn't "write" it per sé but I added my own touch.

Anyway, we were mesmerized as the ice skater swaggered his way through the crowd. Then we went to a hookah bar and did Arash's (really it's Roshan's) psychology test. I forget the results.

So the next day Arash left for Strasbourg. Before he left, I collected a euro for the bet we had made earlier that Roshan would post on her blog. I said Roshan would (and she did) and here is my prize. Little does he know I promised Roshan half the earnings:

It was the first time we were separated, and I got really lonely.
Here was me that day:


                                                                :(


Notice all the empty space around me signifying my loneliness. Also, as a sidenote, I'm trying to use more emoticons to convey my emotions. It's kind of a New Years' Resolution. Anyway, Arash decided to use my 12-25 discount card since we're cheap like that, and ended up getting caught, having to pay a 100 euro fine, and I still have to go get a new one. Also, I just noticed this but am I starting to write kind of like Arash? I hope not. Maybe it's just because when I read it in my head I hear his voice in my head. OK, this is weird. Moving on:

Anyway, later that day, I hung out with Claire. We went to the Bastille area (I still don't know Paris well enough so that is where I take everyone) and went to some bars. Here is me with a girly drink (and Claire):

After I dropped Claire off at her hotel (I am such a gentleman) I was walking and I had to stop by this place and get a picture. It took me a long time to figure out how to work the timer. It seemed cooler that night but this picture makes me look like a ghost: (God why is my writing so bad? Damn you Arash)

Then I saw a car wash that was just sitting there. I've always wanted to walk through one (another life goal) so I did. Here is a picture of it:

The next day I was lonely again. I have no memory of what I did, so I will just say I was non-stop partying and blacked out for the next 2 days. Nobody was even back yet from Christmas so I just went by myself. It was aight. On the 29th I met up with Lily but I found out she was just using me to carry up her suitcase 8 flights (I am such a gentleman). We talked about colored elephants (what color would you rather have, pink or green?)

Then I biked back home at 4 AM because Arash was supposed to arrive back in 4 hours.

I slept through Arash ringing at my door and woke up a couple hours later. We reunited and it was kind of like this:

                                                       :D  :D

Later that night we went to Steph's place. It was nice to see some Americans and Arash and I cuddled. We got a lot closer on this trip (why am I even putting up this picture?):

We took the nightbus home that night (it was Arash's first time) and then slept.

The next day was New Years. It was pretty forgettable, worst holiday ever. If you disagree, I will fight you.

After not the best sleeping arrangements (I won't complain because Arash had it worse, he was actually the gentleman by letting me take the air bed (there wasn't much air in it though)). We woke up after 3 hours to grab our things and head to the airport for BARCELONA. That will be a new blog post because I need to spread it out so I get more views because Arash is getting dangerously close to beating my view count. But he should grab his glocks before he blogs (that even almost rhymed!). Another life goal (this one's actually realistic): come out with a rap album. I am open to suggestions on rapper names and album titles.

Acne Ah!

After spending hours trying to think of a clever blog title involving "Aachen", I give up and just use an anagram of it. ("Acne Ah!" just barely beat out "Acne Ha!")

Don't go to this blog or this blog, because they suck.

I am going back to my normal format, but I'm going to keep the song thing. This one is because I miss everyone and wish I was home. There. I said it.

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDRLW748j68


After Brussels, we took a train to Germany to visit some family. But what would a Mohseni/Majdi trip be like without some sort of transportation complication? So after a half-hour delay we boarded our train, 1st class. Here is Arash taking advantage of the complimentary Wi-Fi.

We were also served orange juice, a tuna sandwich, and a little cake. Living the high life. I can't believe I didn't take pictures.

Also, I forgot to include this in the Brussels post, but here is a picture I took of Arash. I thought it had to go somewhere.

Anyway, after getting to Aachen (where?) an hour later we were greeted by my friend Lilian.

After narrowly escaping from that lion, we dropped out bags off at her apartment and then went to an all-you-can-eat place where I only ate one dish (I don't want to talk about it). Afterwards we went and hung out with some Germans and Arash and I got a pitcher of Sangria, which ended up being 50% off. I love it when things end up being cheaper than you thought. Not to mention, I managed to interject into the conversation with some knowledge I learned in my Democratic Change and Authoritarian Resilience in North Africa class, and I felt pretty accomplished. This is the best picture of me and Arash ever. Notice the perfect tilt (those Germans know their hipster photography), but then our heads are tilted to compensate, so our heads look straight and our bodies are crooked. A lot went into this.

After the place closed up, we went back to Lilly's and she read our blogs and agreed mine was better. Then we talked about interesting things until 4 AM. Arash and I cuddled for the second night in a row (this will be a new trend). I got to know him a lot better over this trip.

So here's the crazy thing about Lilian. She has an aunt who lives in West Hartford, CT (15 minutes from me) that is pregnant. I have an uncle who lives in Aachen (15 minutes from her) who just had a baby a month ago. WHATTTT

Anyway, the next day my uncle came to pick us up, and we got to meet Lilian's family too (they lived at another apartment, it's complicated). Arash was intimidated by her mathematician brother. Then we went to my uncle's.

After being anti-social for a while, we went into the Christmas market for its last day. The first thing I did was buy an Alemmania Aachen scarf.

Erik Meijer, legend.

At the Christmas markets they had mostly food and carousels. We had bratwurst, a pretzel, potato things, and a crèpe that made me miss Paris. After about half an hour we got cold and went to hang out in a bookstore for an hour. Here is me with a horse:

Arash read a really weird comic book, maybe you can ask him about it. Afterwards they had a playground thing outside and I went and climbed it. People frowned upon me which made me feel cool and like a rebel.

The Zissou pose.

We retired for the night.

The next day we did nothing except eat and go on the internet, until about 11 PM when we attended the Christmas eve ceremony at der Dome. I had unrealistic expectations since the only thing I'd seen before was in Home Alone when he goes to church and there is a little girls choir singing. Instead there were a bunch of men singing in German, but it was still good. And don't listen to Arash, the cathedral was actually pretty cool (as long as you don't compare to Notre Dame). Here is a picture I am a little proud of (I had to hold the camera still for like 3 full seconds!):

Woah! Did you notice that^? The end of the parentheses and the colon together make a sad face. How funny (and sad) and unintentional!

Interesting conversations that were had on this trip:

• EU immigration
• Arash and my types of girls (you can ask me but I will ask what you think first)
• cute vs pretty vs hot
• how my blog is better
• personal discussions through which I learned more about Arash
• morality vs utility (in the form of Lilians and a fat man)
• New Years Resolutions (see below)
• other things I don't remember

We talked about New Years Resolutions, and although it's not New Years yet and I didn't want to post these until then, I will comment on it briefly, because Arash wasn't completely right. Though I would also like to get better at writing stories, my #1 goal (the same for all men) is to get big. My goal is to be the first jacked film director:

Wes Anderson

PT Anderson

Coen Brothers

Sepanta

Ok fine, my real New Years Resolution is to learn Photoshop. Just kidding, I'm already awesome at it. I don't have a resolution yet but maybe I will by New Years, so to find out, keep following my blog! Yeah!


Here are some quotes to live by:

Nakkisa: your blog truly is better than arash's.

Ramin: i read your blog

  and only skim arash's blog

Arash: i am weird

Arash: hows blog update?

  about aacehn

  I WANT TO READ

  and lol

  i love you btw

I think that's it for now. I love and miss everyone and wish you all a belated Festivus!

TTP (Or "I Loved Brussels So Much I Might Give Brussel Sprouts Another Chance")

Prologue:

There is a war coming.

Arash Majdi and several of his compatriots have had the audacity to attempt to uproot and destroy my blog, so this post will not be like normal. I need all able friends to click "Follow" on the right and proceed with instructions. Then, refresh the blog page by how many years you've known me x 5 i.e. if we met 4 years ago, then refresh 4 x 5 = 20 = a minute of your time. Please? Pretty please? I'll even give you a cherry. I recommend everybody do a quick skim (skim and not read because that's all you need) of his blog so that they will understand the new layout/format of this blogpost, as it is meant more or less as a parody. I have come under harsh criticism for the regularity (or lack thereof) of my updates and I want to silence the negative Nancys. (Nancies? Whatever) 

Arash, suck it. 

(but really I love you)
__________________________________________________________________________________

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7P5jWu9JLo

What this blog post will be like:

Everybody says my blog is dead and it makes me sad. My blog is not dead but it is struggling and it could really use the support of people instead of the hate. LOVE MEEEE. It's like telling a cancer patient "Why bother?" So please stand by me when the night has come and the land is dark.

WARNING: THIS WILL NOT BE A REEL BLOG POST. DO NOT JUGE ME BASED ON WHAT I RIGHT THIS TIME. I AM ONLY MAKEING A POINT.

Amsterdam:

Not all it is cracked up to be. Arash covered it in his blogpost and I don't want to repeet but it was really cold and we don't have good time. EVERYONE IS TALL AND HAS HUGE BIKES:

Just pretend Amsterdam is a ship and this is me (more like the other way around):

Then we went to Brussels.

Brussels:

By the way unfortunately we took most of the pictures with Arash's camera (phone) so now I am resorting to Google and Youtube. To be honest it's a lot easier.

Nazanin:

In Brussels I met up with my long-lost cousin (I hadn't seen her in a year) Nazanin and her boyfriend Moulay. Her name in Persian means "dear" or "cute" and she is all of these things, not to mention hipster. After Amsterdam we needed a win, and we got it. Brussels was like a super mini-Paris (I mean that as a compliment) and even more hipster (in fact, it was so hip I felt like a bro). There were street paintings everywhere and Nazanin's boyfriend knew all the artists and which ones had done what (he's a graphics designer).

My cousin did a tarot card reading which basically told me I will create something "new" in the next year, and there was a suspicious amount of hinting (i.e. the card had a picture of a man touching a woman's stomach) that it would be a child. So I'm breaking the news to everyone now. Here is me with my Asian tea learning about my future:

After hanging out at their hip loft we went into the city for the Christmas markets and had some hot wine (it was the processed version, we had to wait to get to Aachen to get the real kind (more on that later)) and then went out to dinner. 

Moulay:

He is the coolest person ever. He is a graphics designer and he designs graphics. He also paints and draws and plays the guitar and a general artist and he doesn't even wear hipster clothes (so ironic!). Arash is writing the exact same thing but you heard it here first. For all you non-hipsters, take a minute to educate yourselves:

He would have won in that contest/Olympics (or not, depending on whatever's more hipster). Honestly, he probably wouldn't even sign up. Here is his website if you want to check out his stuff:

http://www.moulayguisse.com/

I learned a lot about the kind of person that I want to one day pretend to be like.

This is me with the coolest people in the world:

Second Song:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3xwDDLuLcY


Vancouver:

That night we were at a bar (a couple bars) and at the first one we got B52's. Believe it or not it's not a kind of plane or gun or anything dangerous like that. Basically you light the top of it on fire and then drink it:

If you can't see anything, Arash filmed it.

Then we went to another bar and we were hanging out and Arash took my camera and started taking pictures of this random guy and then he came over and talked to us. He was here from Vancouver and really social. This is the picture:

Not sure what else to say except that he was social.

Oh also in Brussels earlier that day (and the next day) we had waffles. Belgian waffles.

And now we're in Aachen, but I can't write about that yet because I'm going to save it for later because everybody is hating on me. I'm going to pull a Harry Potter and just delay the release. Fair?

Now, you're probably wondering why my blog is titled TTP (actually probably not but I am going to talk about it anyway). I'm glad you asked. TTP is an abbreviation for something called the Traveling Tourist Problem. Now I know that nobody cares about this but I am going to talk about it anyway and maybe math nerds (do I even know any?) will appreciate it/correct me on the many mistakes I will make. I think I'm just going to talk about it for a little bit and then go into detail after but nobody has to read this or should. I am just writing it for fun.

Basically, as a tourist you go to a city and there are lots of things that you want to see. But what is the smartest way to see them all? This is where TTP comes in. The Traveling Tourist Problem is about how to maximize efficiency (I am an Econ major so <3 efficiency) in seeing all of the sights that you want to see in the least amount of time/money. This could mean metro, walking distance, other modes of transportation, their costs, times of day that are better for certain monuments, and many other random features.

If you take factorials then you end up with big numbers and there are like a jillion ways to move around a city, but there is always a best way. Since it's a factorial it's not linear or exponential but it's even faster so like 4! is 4*3*2*1=24. As you can see we end up with really big numbers, which means lots of choices when you're trying to decide how to tour a city. Also, peanut butter with Orea cookies aren't even that good. Basically, the best way to visit a city is to at least know someone that can show you around (something we learned after Amsterdam).

Lastly, I want everyone to comment saying which hand has skinnier fingers (left or right). We are actually taking this semi-seriously and have not been able to come to a consensus yet.

_________________________________________________________________________

Epilogue:

If this blog sucked, it's because it was supposed to. I was trying to write like Arash. Hopefully it still didn't suck though. Sorry. PS-I had 3 bloody noses today, new record. Anyway, next post will be good, I promise(that I'll try). Basically, we need to stop this from happening:

Arash: god

  blog getting so much ass