Achievement Unlocked: I Turned 30 and Survived

Whelp, now I'm in my 30's, so I guess that means it's time to become an adult and become mature and stop eating four bowls of Lucky Charms for dinner.

As some of you know (except for the random people from China who apparently visit this blog nearly as much as visitors from the US), I've been keeping a list of bucket list items of things I wanted to accomplish by the time I turned 30.  I called it my "Under 30 List" and I didn't shut up about it.  I wrote it (mostly) the day after graduating college, and for whatever reason set my 30th birthday as an arbitrary "you better have accomplished some of the things I want to do, future self" end date.  I think it might have stemmed from that one Scrubs episode where J.D. turned 30 and realized he hadn't accomplished any of the things he thought he would have by that age.  We really loved Scrubs at Dodgeball Haus.  But I'd be DAMNED if I let that happen to me.  And that's the childish rationale of my incessant pursuit of checking off bucket list items.

For my 30th birthday, I wanted to check off as many of the remaining bucket list items as I could, which turned out to be a great excuse to drink around the world at Epcot and then Mardi Gras with amazing friends.  WHAT A PARTY INDEED.  It was definitely the best birthday of my life, which certainly helped avoid that "holy crap I'm a new decade in age now" depression. 
Here's also why my 30th year wasn't all THAT bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp79N7RfM7Q

Now that the hangover from my Mardi Gras 30th celebration has finally started to subside, two weeks after returning from New Orleans, I suppose it's time to reflect on some stuff.  I guess that would be the ADULT thing to do.  Whatever.  You can't judge me; you're not my Mom (actually, if you're reading this blog, there's a 80% chance you are my Mom).

Live in California
This is kind of funny now that I've lived in San Francisco for a year and a half, but at the time I had never even been to the west coast.  I wanted to check out this "Cali-Fornia" place people kept talking about, and then I made a blog about it called "Goin' to California" and now you're reading it, so looks like I win this round!  That first stint out Californy-ways was just a three month rotation on a Naval Air Station in the middle of the state, but as a result I traveled all over California because I assumed it'd be a long time before I returned.  And now I live in California again because YOU CAN'T STOP THE JUGGERNAUT.

This isn't actually from one of my road trips into California, but from a drive around Lake Tahoe.  The sentiment is the same though so relax.

Eat the Spiciest Burger in the World
Oh fuck my whole life for adding this one.  If you want the entire story in gory details, check out the San Antonio portion of my California to Boston road trip entry here: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2010/06/lost-journal-entries-2-return-trip-east.html
TL;DR - I wanted to eat the burger from Man vs. Food that has the four hottest peppers on it, including the ghost pepper, and it ruined my world.  One of the three times in my life where I was positive that I was going to die.  So yeah I ate the fucking spiciest burger in the world in San Antonio and I regret every second of it.

The pain is still palpable on my face an entire hour after eating the burger

Skydive
Oh I guess I blagged about this one before too: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2010/07/apparently-i-enjoy-jumping-from-high.html
But yeah I moved back to Boston from the three months in California and was like YEAH it's time to rock out some more of these life goals!  Boom: jumped out of a plane.

Those little hats were entirely worthless other than making us look mildly penis-shaped

Go to Yellowstone
Another one of those moments where I said "fuck it, I want to go do that awesome thing on my list" and then made an entire road trip around it and convinced others to join me.  Six days exploring Yellowstone, headbutting Bison (not really), fighting bears (yes really), and ass sledding down snowy hills.  (One of many journal entry days: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2011/07/epic-roadtrip-journal-61511-yellowstone.html)

Steam spouts and bison - it doesn't get much Yellowstone than that

Hike the Presidentials
For those of you who don't know about the Prezzie Traverse, first off shame on you, secondly it is a chain of 8 mountains in the New Hampshire White Mountain Range that are over 4000 ft, including the highest mountain in New England - Mt. Washington.  To hike the entire traverse means 21 miles of intense terrain all while your knees are exploding.  We started our hike about an hour after sunrise and finished just after the Sun was setting.  It was bonerific (that means good).  Oh look it turns out I actually used to write in this blog occasionally: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2011/08/presidential-traverse.html

This is around mile one billion when our legs ache and we stop giving a shit about the views along the ridge

Brew Beer
I had wanted to brew my own beer for a while, so once again I said "fuck it, let's do this thing" one weekend and bought a beginners kit.  And then I learned that it looks waaaaay more daunting on paper than it actually is.  It's kind of fun and makes your entire house smell like delicious hops and malt that you can't drink for 6 weeks.  So now I occasionally brew my own beer and that's a pretty cool skill to have: RESUME BUILDER.

Eat the Vermonster
The Vermonster is this monstrous bucket of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream that you should only eat if you want to evolve into the fatter version of yourself.  It's 20 scoops of ice cream, a bunch of bananas and brownies and toppings and stuff.  Seven of us dove into it one evening and HOLY SHIT I AM JUST NOW LEARNING THAT THE VERMONSTER IS FOURTEEN THOUSAND CALORIES.  That's 2000 each from just a bucket of ice cream.  Worth it.  Especially because then we carried that empty bucket into every bar we went into that night and drank our beers out of it.  My favorite part of the evening was when a bouncer was like: "what's with the bucket?"  And my response was "it's an empty bucket."

It doesn't count unless you lick the bucket clean

Go to Bay to Breakers
Nooooohohohohoooo I didn't run Bay to Breakers, but rather did the typical San Francisco thing of walking the race route in a goofy costume while drinking.  A few of us visited Joe and Rebs for the weekend in SF, got up early to pre-game and get dressed up like Sexy Amish, and then meandered drunkenly down to Golden Gate Park.  Where I ended up taking a drunk nap until the weather got freezing cold and my phone battery died, all the while wearing nothing more than Jorts and suspenders.

Get Master's Degree
I guess my past self was feeling particularly academically driven the day after graduating Tufts undergrad, and as a result I had to sign up for a multi-year, part time Masters degree while working full time.  It's ok though: GE paid for it.  And now I know a lot more about lightning strikes to wind turbine blades, so that's good too.

Wear my Greenman Suit to a Sports Game
Ok it may have only been a pre-season Eagles-Patriots game, but it was the only time the Eagles came up to New England and I'll be damned if I wear the Greenman suit for a non-Philadelphia team.  Also the Eagles kicked New England's ass.

If you get heckled by a dude wearing a Greenman suit then you are doing something wrong

Hike all 48 4,000 Footers of the White Mountains
So the Presidential Traverse is actually a subset of ALL the White Mountains over 4000 feet.  Once I finished the traverse, I was like "well... I've already done 8, might as well do the other 40" and then I THREW IT ON THE LIST.  And then hiked them all.  This included my first microspike and snowshoe experiences and now I'm all the wiser for it.

Holding an ice axe makes you feel like a badass no matter what your achievement is

Climb Kilimanjaro
This is one of those bucket list items that takes a lot of careful planning, budgeting, and research.  Or in my case: blindly signing up while frustrated by a long day doing thesis.  Luckily Korin was also Down To Kilimanjaro and thus the adventure was scheduled.  Months later I realized I should get my ass in gear and maybe start training?  It was a hell of an experience: first time in Africa, first time climbing one of the 7 summits (and only... for now), the lack of oxygen, the temperature differentials, and then getting to see all the Jumbos on our post-Kili safari.  It was by far the most epic of my under-30 goals.  Here's more brazen over exaggeration: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2013/01/tanzania-hiking-kilimanjaro.html

That is all of Africa below us

See Firefly Mating in Smokey Mountain National Park
Imagine entire forest filled with fireflies but they all synchonize their blinks and light up at the same time, and fill the forest with light to the point that it almost looks like day.  Every ten seconds.  Yeah that's a thing that happens on our planet sometimes and I got to see it.

No photos of the fireflies unfortunately because I don't know how to operate my camera in the pitch black and rain, but here's the Smokey Mountains

Go to Bonnaroo
As part of that same road trip, I went to my first multi-day music festival and it blew my freaking mind apart.  Learned some new bands, met some crazy people, and oh yeah I saw Paul McCartney live, which is bittersweet because it was incredible, but at the same time I knew that I was seeing the best possible concert that I could ever see in my entire life and nothing would ever be as good, so that was mildly sad.  But overall it was incredible and here's some proof via journal entries: http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2013/07/tennessee-road-trip-part-4-bonnaroo-at.html

"Prepare yourselves, things are about to get weird"

Paint the Tufts Cannon
Painting the cannon is a Tufts tradition where you paint it at night with whatever your design or cause is, then stay up all night defending it.  I never had a chance to do it while a student, so I did it in my final days of living in Boston before moving out to San Francisco.  It was a great experience: we used Tufts Brown and Blue to paint messages of thanks to Boston and of course, Dickcat.

DAMNIT I couldn't find a photo of Dickcat!!!

Oktoberfest in Munich
Not even a month into my new job in SF, I used the vacation time that I didn't have yet to fly over to Munich and Oktoberfest like a damn champion.  The food was amazing, the partying included plentiful cheersing, and I had more than my fair share of delicious German beer.  http://sevsgoeswest.blogspot.com/2015/01/oktoberfest-in-munich.html

The only problem here is that we only have one Stein each

Learn another Language
Ok so this one is a technicality.  I mean, where do you draw the line?  I was able to communicate effectively enough while I was in Germany and Spain my past few visits to be able to get around and get what I need to get, so I'm going to call that a win.  You can just deal with it.

Here's bullfighting from Spain because I don't have a photo of speaking a language

Backpack in the Alps
Nobody likes to see two technicalities in a row, but that's what's happening.  I didn't fully "backpack" around Europe, but I did travel through the Alps via bus/car/train during my Oktoberfest trip so I'm going to count this one too.  Ok yes it was a duffel bag but SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I'M ALREADY MOVING ON TO MY NEXT ITEM.

I'm touring around the Alps, this counts

Complete an Olympic Triathlon
At first I was going to count my Sprint Tri as doing a triathlon, but no sir, I went back and finished an Olympic length in Napa.  One mile swim, 26 mile bike, 6 mile run - I was one hungry dude after this one.  And let me take this opportunity to say that open swimming with people kicking you in the face every 6 seconds is a miserable experience.

Just one of my training runs.  It was real long and I was very sweaty when I finished.  A lot of people were impressed by how big this one was.  At the end it felt great.

Surf in Hawaii
I'm not saying I was good, but I was still out there and I still surfed, however briefly it may have been.  A bunch of friends/roommates from Boston all went out to Hawaii for James and Carrie's wedding, renting a beach house on north shore Oahu.  We spent half our time slothing on the beach with Pina Coladas and half the time doing some of the most dangerous hiking I've ever done.

Nice.  We rode a single wave that day.

Run a Marathon
Graduating Tufts, after seeing quite a few Boston Marathons, I had assumed that running one myself was an impossibility.  I had never run more than a 5k in my life.  But I signed up for a few races here and there with friends, and then found myself running the Philly Half.  After finishing with some energy left, I realized that I hadn't yet found my limit.  So I signed up for the San Francisco Marathon in 2015 and finished it.  I mean, miles 22-25 were some of the most brutal moments of my life, but at mile 25 I shoveled the best tasting watermelon in my entire life into my face and finished.  And then I ate all the food in the entire Universe.

If my knee sweat is any indicator, I'm not actually this happy in real life at this point in the race

Drink around the World at Epcot
I decided to make my 30th birthday the biggest party I could imagine, so Michelle and Rick joined me in Orlando to help me achieve a very important life goal: having a different, culturally-relevant themed cocktail at each of the 11 countries in Epcot.  We started with Mooseheads in Canada, and by the time we got to England I was feeling mighty pleased about this little project.  The only detriments were to my liver and my bank account.

I'm not even sure why Epcot is open to children

Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras
Well I can't think of a better birthday party than Mardi Gras.  The Epcot trio met up with a bigger group of amazing people in New Orleans to enjoy the music, food, parades, and 50,000 tons of beads.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and watching the Sun rise over the Mississippi after staying up all night listening to music and people watching on Bourbon street was easily the best possible way to start my 30th birthday morning.  By the end of this trip, my sleep gauge was on empty but my joy gauge was maxed out.

I still don't know how we snuck up there to that balcony

There are, however, a few things on the list that I didn't get to before I turned 30.  If this were a thesis, I would put these under the section "Future Research Opportunities" because whoopsidaisy, I ran out of time.  But these can be the first items on my next bucket list:

Get a dog
Well... all the apartments that I've lived in since college have been anti-dog, so that kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.  Also my work hours are too shitty to take care of a dog.  Also I'm not responsible enough or adulty enough yet.  So I've had to make due with making lists of names for my future dog instead.  Current favorite: Dr. Spaceman.

Learn how to solo on guitar
Ok so this is one I'm actively working towards.  My new years resolution this year is to practice the guitar more, and once I get back into the rhythm of a healthy practice cycle I'm going to sign up for actual formal lessons.  You know, that thing I've never done ever.

Go to Japan
WHAT AM I, MADE OUT OF YEN?  Ha Ha do you get it, because yen is the currency there.  But seriously I haven't had a giant pile of money to send me off to Asia yet.  Plus too many other traveling opportunities came up and I'm not made out of vacation days either.

Wow that list is way shorter than I thought it would be.  Not bad.  Now on to my next decade of adventures.

Oktoberfest in Munich

If you're making a list of things that are awesome and ridiculous on planet Earth, and Oktoberfest in Munich isn't on that list, then you, sir or madam, are a terrible list maker.  I know because I went there this past September and also because I make a lot of lists.

The adventure started early because evidently when you fly from California to Germany, you WILL experience stress during that horrific day+ of traveling.  I flew from SF to DC, then to Amsterdam, then to Munich, and each and every plane had some form of delay, which is always awesome when you have layovers in foreign countries.  There was not a SINGLE airport in which I was not sprinting.  Somehow, I ran across the fucking mile that is the Amsterdam airport in time to make my flight to Munich by the skin of my teeth.  And then I figured out the train situation to the Air BNB just outside Munich.  Thankfully I was hopping onto the pre-made travel plans of a responsible person, the one and only Jimmy McCormack aka Jizzle McC.  He, his wife Tassi, and his friend Nick had arrived the day before on the first day of Oktoberfest, and were on their way to not-sobers-ville as I arrived into the city.  Once I met up with them (how did that even HAPPEN without cell phones???), we were on our way into the Oktoberfest grounds to enjoy the remainder of the day with delicious German beer.
Now, weekends get CRAZY crowded, especially at night, and this being Caturday late afternoon, we had zeroish chance of getting into one of the tents.  We were insanely lucky to find space at a table for the four of us outside the Hofbrau Haus Biergarten.  So we promptly sat down and let the beer flow like... beer.

The crew and the random German guy that we didn't know at the end of our table

Baby's first Oktoberfest beer (you can tell because I'm not a mess)

There are literally people vomsing and peeing and passing out all over out the back of the tent.  Weekends are a mess.

So essentially you sit down, and when the sturdy, strong-shouldered beer serving ladies arrive, you just tell them the number of beer liters you want.  Each tent only has one kind of beer - their Oktoberfest beer - and they only come in one size - a liter.  So you just order in numbers.  And if you want food, get ready for the BEST FUCKING FOOD OF YOUR SHORT, SWEET LIFE.  Fried pork hunks, gigantic pretzels, and friend halves of chicken.  The smell alone has been known to drive men insane.  So unbelievably delicious.  I was essentially surviving off pretzels during my stay in Munich (they are everywhere and are the cheapest thing around).  So anyway we had a few liters and then called it a night since the tents were too crowded to get into late at night and the biergartens were shutting down.

I did manage to sneak into one of the tents during a "language miscommunication." This is Haufbrau Haus and it is enormous.

On Sunday we avoided the crowds and rented a car in order to check out the Alps of Bavaria.  I was lucky enough not to be hungover that morning.  Nick was not.  That's how it goes though.  Enjoy those windy mountain roads!
We went from small town to small town, exploring beautiful countryside and eating great food.  If there's one thing to take away from Bavaria it's that they are hyper efficient wood stackers.

wtf, that's the most precise woodstacking I've ever seen

It's actually kind of terrifying in a way

We were able to go to the Neuschwanstein Castle, which of course is one of the castle Disney based a movie castle of.  Probably because it's gorgeous and has crazy turrets all over the place.  It was a nice little walk through the woods to see it.

Do you know what it's like to ask a complete stranger to take photos several times because the first ones aren't good?  Tassi does.

Someone said "I like that you're both leaning the same way." My response was "the camera was tilted."

Gravity is not the same in Germany

meh

Dibs 6th window on the west side of the northwest turret!

One of several courtyards I think

Are you freaking kidding me?

SO GERMAN

On our way back into the city we stopped for even more Bratwurst and beer at a local brewery.  We were saving our big Oktoberfest Days for Monday and Tuesday, so we had an early night in order to prepare our bodies.
Monday morning we explored the city a bit, climbing some towers and walking through a few different plazas.  It's a beautiful city; I wonder what it's like when the Oktoberfest tourists aren't all in town.

Dinobombing in Munich

What are we even looking at

Panorama from the top of the church tower

They ALWAYS have to do construction on buildings when I'm visiting

So after sufficient touristy stuff it was on to the festival.  We wanted to go around to all the tents first to see all the decorations before we decided on one to spend the day in.  The way the tents work is that you can only be served if you're sitting at a table, and table space fills up early.  Like 2pm early.  So you have to claim a spot earlier in the day.  But all the tents are gorgeous and enormous, fitting between 3,000 and 10,000 people each.  It's just surreal.

Checking off one of my "Under 30" list items

This is quite literally how they bring the beer into the Oktoberfest grounds

These "tents" are just ridiculous

IT JUST KEEPS GOING

We ended up staying at Augusteiner today

The Augusteiner Tent

The tents are such a blast.  You become good friends with the random strangers around you and inevitably stand on your benches all singing with the band.  Every 20 minutes they play the "Prost" song, which means "cheers."  It's incredibly simple and FORCES everyone to keep drinking, because if it's one thing the German's hate, it's sober people.
So as the day went on, we ended up having probably 6 liters each, along with delicious food.  And then holy crap we randomly bumped into a Tufts friend, who sat down at OUR TABLE out of all the tents and hundreds of tables per tent.

Obligatory two liters of beer photo

And Dodgeball Steve randomly finds us!

Things got out of hand early

Um... so LATER when I start remembering things again...

It's just a really pretty festival area

Ok so Tuesday started and I did NOT feel 100% to say the least.  Today we had planned to take the train all the way out of the city and do a short hike to a little monastery in the countryside.  A really pretty church and a brewery - that sounds pretty freaking unique.  Unfortunately the train ride was doing horrific things to my digestive tract.  Two stops from the end, things started churning a bit too much, and to make a long story short I dropped a serious Barf NOT on the train, but on the train platform one stop away from where we wanted.  While this happened, my train (and incidentally all the people I know) left without me as I voms'd, so I had to wait for the next one.  Fun times.  The hike up to the monastery was actually really nice and the fresh air certainly helped.  The church was really nice, and the brewery was full of amazing beer and German food.  Sadly, the smells of these foods was too much for my frail stomach, and I dropped yet another barf.  But then I was good to go for beer and pork.

This is the place you want to spend your morning after dropping a serious Oktoberfest barf on the train out of the city

Back in the city, Tassi wasn't interested in another Oktoberfesting (intriguing that someone would go to Oktoberfest if they didn't like beer, but hey I'm the guy who bought tickets the week before the festival, what do I know), so it was just the three of us off to the Paulaner tent.  And it was a magical evening.  We were Prosting like champs and spent 90% of our time standing on our benches, singing with new friends from all over the place.

A liter is a lot but it certainly goes quick

New friends made the night pretty damn fun

This is actually from Monday but I'll be damned if I put it in the correct spot in the photo timeline

So that was that.  We survived Oktoberfest.  LUCKILY I stashed one day of vacation for traveling to Switzerland to visit Zurich!  A city that is as expensive as it is beautiful.  BONUS FEATURE: Emily and Chris live there, so we were able to at least have some tour guides (partially) to show us a bit of the town!  Well when they weren't at work.  And I sadly selected a Jewish holiday as the one day I visited, so they were both busy at night.  But still it was great seeing them for a little, and they provided a place to sleep so that was pretty awesome too!  Hey did you know they don't use Euros in Switzerland?  I learned that... IN Switzerland.  That was a fun surprise.
We toured around a very pretty city during the day and had some great recommendations for bars and restaurants at night!  And we FINALLY got that Doner Kebab that I had been craving for days.

SO EUROPEAN

Yay!  Meeting friends in other countries is great!

I'm not even sure I know what this is

Awwwww yissssss

I'm a world traveler... ladies

I wish I had more time to explore Zurich, but only the one day unfortunately.  Oh one of the really cool things about the city is that every fountain in the city is fresh, drinkable water.  So awesome to just walk around drinking from various fountains all over the place.
And now for the final story of this epic journey, my return home.  Ooooooooooooooh maaaaaaaaaaaaaan.  That was a doozy.  Go make some popcorn kids.  This is going to be wild.
So in order to go to Zurich from Munich, we had purchased bus tickets, and the form of ID is oddly enough the credit card that you bought the ticket with.  Kind of strange.  Especially since my bank thought that it was a fraudulent purchase and closed my credit card when I purchased said bus tickets.  Oddly enough it went through.  So now I had to bring a closed, expired credit card to Europe to use as my ID, because there's no way my passport would provide sufficient evidence of my identity.  Anyway, the bus to Zurich went without a hitch.  It was returning to Munich where things started to go awry.  My bus back was incredibly early in the morning, like 7:02 or something, in order to make it back to Munich with plenty of time to make my flight back to the US.  Well not really - it was a 10 hour flight to Vancouver, and then a flight down to SF.  Hey, at least it's only two planes this time, right?  So Chris and Emily are kind enough to not only wake up with me, but Chris walked me to the light rail station that would take me to the bus plaza, and then he even paid for my light rail fare with the Elf Coins that Switzerland uses as currency.  Such incredible hosts.  So I make it to the bus station with plenty of time.  But my 7:02 to Munich was nowhere to be found.  After 20 minutes I got nervous.  It was nearly 7 and the bus wasn't there yet.  FINALLY a bus that said "Munich" pulls in, but the timing was way off.  I asked someone in line if this was the 7:02 to Munich.  Several translators later people are pointing at my ticket and one person goes "this is a train ticket."  You have got to be fucking kidding me.  At 7:05 I found out that my 7:02 to another country is not a bus ticket but a train ticket.  Because, sure, why wouldn't this one be a train when we arrived via bus?  So I booked it to the train station, right next door, to the platform on the ticket... right as the train pulled away.  Mother.  Fucker.  Whelp.  Now I'm in a country that isn't the one I need to be in to catch my flight with no internet or phone service.  And that train station is like as big as Delaware.  I was walking for what seemed like days, reading signs in a language I barely speak, to find the "information" office.  Thankfully the woman there spoke English really well and was supremely helpful and got me a train ticket for the next train to Munich... in two hours.  Ok this was going to be tight.  The two hour delay meant that I now would be pulling into the center of the city and had to catch a city train out to the airport, get my ticket, go through customs, and reach my gate all in only 40 minutes.  Do you have any idea how stressful a four hour train ride is when you know you have the tightest deadline in the world when you get to your destination?  WHAT IF THERE'S A DELAY FOR EVEN A FRACTION OF A MINUTE???  So that was INSANE.  I got off the train, hopped onto the train to the airport (paying for a ticket?  Ain't nobody got time for that!), arrived at the airport and RAN as fast and loudly as I could to my gate.  I arrived 30 seconds before they shut the door after final call.  And only because there was a 15 minute delay to the flight.  ARE YOU JOKING???  And then a 10 hour flight to Canada, which is not high on my list of "fun things you should definitely do in your life."  Guess what: that 15 minute delay now meant that my layover in Vancouver was going to be a nightmare.  AND IT WAS.  What is going on???  I ran through more customs gates, the slowest process ever, and only barely made THAT flight.  WHAT AN INSANE DAY.  But I survived.  And in the end, isn't that really all that matters?  Thanks for the beer, Germany.