Month: July 2017

Oh, my Lovers, are you in for a treat. I knew my Tomorrowland post would be one of epic proportions, but even in my wildest of Random imaginations, I never would have considered what an A D V E N T U R E Tomorrowland would actually be. There was bike drama (lots of it). I was an entourage. We got in a fight with a taxi driver. I got hit by a car. I’m battered, bloody, bruised, and flying home to Budapest on a delayed flight with a throbbing head and a black eye that’s growing by the moment, and somewhere between all of that I attended the most epic music festival in the world, danced to my hearts content (in the rain more than once) and forged more life long friendships. Let’s first answer the question that is burning in all of your Loving minds. Did I partake in mind altering substances to enhance my Tomorrowland experience? I hope I don’t lose any of your Love when I tell you that I did not, and instead fueled my weekend with double shots of Jameson and more sugar free Red Bull than any one human should consume, and as the events of the weekend unfolded, this further proved to be the correct decision. Brace yourselves for the Randomness that was: Tomorrowland.

For two weekends each July, nearly 180,000 people descend on the quaint town of Boom, Belgium to unite over music at one of the greatest festivals worldwide. This year, my first decision after joining Remote Year was to be one of those 180,000. As mentioned before, I’m travel weary from overloading (overloving?) my plate this month, and the night before we leave for the festival the crew gets together to celebrate the Russian Beauty that is Milana on her birthday in another dance filled late night eve that includes me running through an open fire hydrant and ruining the hair I had straightened just a few hours before. Despite the late, whiskey laden evening, I’m up bright eyed and bushy tailed in time to shower and make breakfast before our two hour flight to Brussels. Once we land, our overly gracious AirBNB host scoops us up at the airport and we join the crew that is already settled in. Hair, makeup (because, as Jen once told me, festivals are all about the makeup), then festival. Our host as provided us with bikes so we can get to the festival in about 10 minutes. The Princess Meilz, J Lee and I take off to dive into the madness headfirst. The festival itself is a gorgeous setting of circus themed stages placed throughout a massive park with trees, lakes and bridges. J Lee is a hit and made me get in every pic that was requested of her, so I have strong urges to scour Instagram #tomorrowland to see if I can actually find any of the entourage pics.We kick it off with Cederic Gervais at The House of Books, hit Alison Wonderland at The Garden of Madness, get some Mainstage on with Marshmello and Tiesto before hitting the other end of the festival for Paul Van Dyke on The Freedom Stage and, my personal fav, Seven Lions at The Rose Garden, where the #PIC saw me twirling my little heart out on the live feed.

Dizzy from whiskey and dancing, we head back to the bikes for a whimsical ride back to our Boom digs. We uncouple our bikes, mount up to go, and J Lee’s bike doesn’t move – she’s got a tire lock on her bike and it has somehow gotten engaged – and the key is nowhere to be found. We look. And look. And L O O K. That sucker was G O N E. Meilz heads home ahead and I stay back with J Lee to walk the problem bike home. I have to pee before we go though, so I pop a squat, where I proceed to lose my ID – for the first time. Recovered in the most unsanitary of fashions, we proceed with my driver’s license in pocket, and I quickly realize this >2 mile walk will go much quicker if I clean this sucker up to my shoulders and carry it in a manner that all of my weightlifting coaching has prepped me for. This bike is heavy, and we are stopping nearly every five minutes so that I can rest and switch shoulders. After a good mile and a half, several switches, a scary detour into a park that is NOT as happy as Tomorrowland, we stop to rest and I realize my ID has once again escaped the confines of my person. This time we aren’t so lucky, so after J Lee retraces our steps without any success, we forge on just the two of us until Julian arrives like a knight in shining armor to help us with the last half mile. Lovers, usually I tell knights to ride the fuck on because I have my own white horse, but I was quite grateful in this instance. I’m just as grateful for the Jameson I bought at the duty free on the way in.

Day two starts with a family breakfast, hair, makeup, trampoline jumping and pregaming with champagne before grabbing a cab to the festival because fuck those bikes. Upon arrival we revisit the lost key area from the evening before and find said key in less than 90 seconds. Into the belly of the beast, it’s The Garden of Madness for Valentino Khan before Mainstaging it for Nervo, then down to The Freedom Stage for Sebastian Ingrosso – who I confused for Ferry Corsten – and the best set of the whole weekend. He killed it. We shoot over to The Arch for some Brennan Hart before Mainstaging Armin Van Buren and attempting to find the real Ferry Corsten. We eventually abandon our quest and head for the taxi line where we grab the only cab from a cashless festival that doesn’t take credit cards, a fact we don’t realize until he takes us to the wrong address for a second time. Once we finally manages to get us to the correct address, J Lee and I throw 20 Euro at him and bolt for the house as he screams at us from the street. Grateful again for the Jameo.

Day three we decide to give the bikes another shot after waiting out the rain, and we don’t get a block before I have to pull out my childhood bike mechanic skills and get J Lee’s chain back on. After washing my grease covered hands – I still have bike grease under my fingernails – we head for the Mainstage and dance in the rain to Yellow Claw and Oliver Helden. The next stop is the Freedom Stage for Nicky Romero, which is the only indoor stage and is extra packed due to the rain, but I don’t care about any of that as some overly excited (and rather short) guy behind us lifts me up on his shoulders for my favorite song “I Could Be The One”. Our escape from the overcrowded stage leads us to the Rose Garden, where I remain for the rest of the day with Jonas Blue, Feder, Robin Schultz and Klingande. This is also where I spend the most time with the non-Earhart Remotes that are at the festival and feel part of an even bigger family, The Remote Nation. Some of these guys have finished and are re-uniting. Some are in month 11, some month 4. We give each other pro-tips on cities and group dynamics between dance sessions and rain storms and bond over the mutual crazy that brought us not only to Tomorrowland, but also on this unbelievable journey.

Leaving the festival, I get separated from the group and end up having to bike home alone. On a bike that’s too big for me. With no light. In the dark. And the rain. I’m hugging the curb when a car comes up beside me and swipes me just enough to throw me off course. The bike hits the curb and stops – I keep going – until the right side of my body makes contact with the sidewalk and my head smacks the ground with the most sickening crack I’ve ever heard in my life. I still attest that the driver had no idea, because they kept going and I would like to believe in the goodness of people – luckily my faith was restored by the car behind that did stop. I tried to assure them that I was ok, but when I turned into their headlights and the guy’s face went white, I confirmed with them that I was not actually ok. Luckily it was all scrapes and bruises and one knock to the skull with no concussion symptoms, so we locked the devil bike to a tree and they drove me back to the BNB where my fellow Earharts patched me up while – you guessed it – I calmed my nerves with some Jameson.

So there you go my Lovers. That’s your Specifically Random rundown of my weekend at Tomorrowland. I am battered and bruised and I have one hell of a shiner from my abrupt pavement encounter, but I wouldn’t trade one second of the shit how that was leaving Tomorrowland for any second of being in there. I have never smiled, laughed, and danced to my heart’s content so much in my life. Tomorrowland was my happy place, and all the things that happened when I left only served to tell me one thing: next year, I’m camping.

Randomly Yours,

SR

Guess what?  Pictures have been updated! Budapest, Prague, Tomorrowland and MORE!

Are you following the adventure on Instagram?

Ah, my Lovers of Random… I’ve had just enough to drink after a visit to the Ruin Bars to think that writing my latest Love Letter to you is a good idea.  I will preface this post by letting you know that I’m missing “home” much more today that usual.  Between the Snapchasts from the Goddess, the FTs with the #PIC and the subpeoans from transgressions past (not my own), home is haunting me in the most delicious and tortuous sense. But I went on this trip to live a better life, so instead of delving into the delectable demons that are haunting me at the moment, let me instead tell you the tale of Prague…..
Shortly after returning from my Cali trip, Marky Mark and I boarded an overnight bus to Prague to visit the one European city I was most excited about that wasn’t a part of the Earhart itinerary.  Jet lag from Cali had set in like a fiery bitch, but I wasn’t about to let that put a damper on everything that lay ahead of us: and I’m glad I didn’t because Prague was my F A VO R I T E adventure to date, jet lag v health issues v breaking down in rando no where Czech be damned. 

Is it Praha or Prague?  Czechia or Czech Rebuplic?  Depends on who you ask and for what reason.  We arrived E A R L Y AF and still hungover from the water bottle of rye that we fueled our trip with, it didn’ take two seconds for me to be swindled at the ATM out of my first withrawl by a guy looking for “change”.  Call it a life lesson, and my only saving grace is that it wasn’t an expensive one.  After downing some coffee and some carbs, we figure out the subway system and find our way to our hotel and drop our (my) 45lb packs and catch a cat nap before venturing out.  Friday we don’t have much leeway as we both have to work, so we meander our way to the workspace – which happens to be an old embassy – and nod off in respective corners while attempting to be contributing members of society.  We rally ourselves back to the hotel after some convos with the local team and take advantage of the wifi and D E L I C I C O U S fare in the hotel bar before taking advantage of the local *literal* underground bar scene that Prague has to offer.  These bars are epic, and the deeper you go, the deeper it gets – the music, the people, all of it.  We come across one that offers a mask with admission, so Marky adorns me with our right of passage cardboard and we dance until we can’t stand, learn that the cloves the #PIC so graciously supplied are like gold here, pour ourselves into an Uber and head back to get some much needed rest.  

Being the sick and twisted fitness freak that you all know and love, I’ve already researched running routes through the sights of Prague, so once we get up and moving, Marky (bum ankle and all) and I set off for a fitness filled castle tour of Prague, including The Prague Castle, the Petrin Lookout Tower, a hidden castle we discovered, the John Lennon Wall and a super cute French market we just happen to stumble upon.  It’s Remy’s birthday, so we shimmy back to the hotel to get all fresh and clean for our dinner date with the birthday boy.  Eska is the restaurant de jour, and while the steak was over cooked, the company was fantastic.  After a sparkling birthday dessert and an embarrassing happy birthday serenade, we make an attempt at the Hemingway Bar, but get shut down without a reservation.  They shuffle us off to their sister bar (that I can’t remember the name of to save my life) where I sip on rye old fashions and toast our new friends.  Our next stop is Propoganda Bar, a straight up  speakeasy where they say eff you to the rules of bar curfews and smoking bans.  We get back to the hotel just in time to watch the sunrise, which we actually couldn’t see, but we laughed about it as we sat atop a wall that separated a mall from a cemetary – me in the hotel bathrobe over my disco ball dress to keep warm.

Sunday is not a good day for me as I’m racked with fever from an infection I’m powering through.  Being his awesome self, Marky lets me get some extra sleeps, after which I pull myself together and we switch to our new (swanky) hotel closer to Old Town.  Right outside our new digs is a Hare Krishna festival, but we skip the long line for free food and post up at a local spot and order the Czech specialities – Marky’s was better and I had total order envy, but he’s s sweetheart in all senses, including sharing his food.  After lunch we wander off into Old town, grab a bottle of wine and sit in the Square and people watch.  We catch the top of the hour at the Astronomy Clock and decide to catch the sunset up on Sunset Hill.  Unfortunately for us, it’s cloudy, so we suffer our second sun related defeat in one damn day, but it’s a chill atmosphere and there are no regrets.  We leave the Hill and make a second attempt at Hemingway, this time a successful one, drink craft cocktails that resemble snow globes and come in the oddest glassware before grabbing a kebab and heading back to the room.

Monday brings another location change, so we grab breakfast and relocate to our Air BNB by the famous Dancing House.  Despite the pain I’m in, we lace up for another run to hit the sites we missed on our previous trek.  Back up the hill another 700ft, but worth every *literal* breathtaking second when we reach Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.  Other Hartthrobs have arrived, one of them saving my life with some meds from home, so we run down the hill – with a much quicker pace – and meet up with them for the handoff and a beer.  Needing to work, we head back to the BNB and knock out some gangster society contributing fueled by grub from the local place across the street.  After hitting it hard until nearly 3am, we grab some brews and post up in the mushroom park across the street to unwind.

Tuesday is our last day, so we try to hit up anything we missed, but end up just walking along the river, negotiating on some Prague art and crashing an Earhart lunch before heading to the workspace.  I’ve got scattered calls and training, and Marky is up against a deadline, so I grab us some Indian food while we finish up before cutting it way to close for my comfort to get to the bus home.  Seriously, running with my backpack – not cool.

Budapest feels more like home than Split ever did, so as sad as I was to leave the ever so beautiful Prague and the unbelievable time we had there, I’m happy to be back home where I’ve already caught up with Duffs on the steps of the Basilica with a bottle of wine and attempted to find others at the ruin bars – quite unsucessfully, but I did find a second set of Harts that I crashed instead.  I’m here for a few days before heading off to Tomorrowland, so stay tuned my Lovers.  There is plenty more Random to come.  Next edition – festival style.

Randomly Yours,

SR

Dear Lovers,

If I was the type for apologies, I might throw one out for inundating you with two posts in one week, but if we are being honest with each other (and let’s be honest), I don’t think you mind much at all.  In fact, I’m sure there are some of you who greatly appreciate my dedication to updating you on the reg.  And in the spirit of honesty, there’s nothing more I would rather be doing in this moment.  So, with a rye whiskey in hands I (thank you duty free) and a clove burning (thank you #PIC), let’s dive into this month’s chapter – Budapest.

The month is far from over, but tomorrow night Marky Mark and I are boarding a bus to Prague for some epic exploring- but more importantly, Remy’s birthday- so I wanted to give you an untainted rundown before that detour.  I have to admit that I am slightly disappointed that I’m traveling so much this month, although I’m quite certain that each adventure I take will leave me with no regrets.  Budapest is quickly replacing New York as my favorite city ever, and that’s saying a lot, because they don’t have the Yankees here. Our arrival was slightly hazy after our Split airport experience (see Sleep When I’m Dead for reference), but the next morning revealed a gorgeous apartment with large rooms, tall ceilings and a balcony overlooking the Budapest Eye. The best part of our apartment – besides my top notch roommates, Kitty Kat and The Princess – is that I have enough space to get unpacked and have a clean room – something I never achieved in Split.  Stepping outside we see that we’re on a cobblestone street lined with restaurants and shops, and it is just the cutest thing ever.  Princess and I meet up with the breakfast crew for brunch at a beer garden and the Dinster sums it all up by refusing to stop saying how happy she is.  After brunch we wander to the Danube, where the Red Bull Air Racing Championships are taking place – awfully fitting for the arrival of the Earharts if you ask me.  We cap the day off with our city preview, where we learn that Hungarian is a very dirty language.  After that, we sample the local cuisine, find a bar with a pool table, sample the local libations, and head off to bed.

Photo cred MRandall

This city is b-e-a-utiful, with every turn revealing old world architecture mixed with a big city feel, and my walk to the workspace is no different.  Each day I get to round the corner and cross the courtyard in front of St. Stephen’s Basilica on my way to be the productive human that none of you believe I’m actually achieving.  It’s July 4th, and our city team has arranged a day at the water park for us, so after some work at the cafe, Duffs, Yogi and I head to meet the crew.  I’ve just removed the dressing from my fresh ink, so I pass on the partaking of the community water slides, but while I’m just chillin with the group, the Dutch Lover convinces Duffs and I to join on a pub crawl of the local ruin bars that evening.  The ruin bars are an interesting story, as they were created out of a need to repurpose old bombed out structures from the war, and the tour begins and ends at one that takes up an entire city block and is three stories high.  This place is a maze of rooms, each one with a different theme and soundtrack, and it isn’t long before we’ve all lost each other.  After meeting some football players from England (actual football, not soccer), a guy with called himself Christmas, and a Belgian in town for a festival, I give up on my quest to find my crew and Taxify (Buda’s Uber) it home to prep for my Cali trip. (See Life in the Pit Lane)

After losing all of Monday with a 9 hour time change and 23 hours of flying, I arrive back on Tuesday and make the best decision I’ve made in the city so far and buy a transit pass. Home just in time to unpack and cross the aforementioned courtyard to the workspace, I hop on a call to meet my new fearless leader at HPC.  RY had arranged an event for us and I’m running late – I’m also still figuring out the transit system, so after an exhaustive search for the subway station and an initial hop on a train going the wrong way, I miss the rural bus that is supposed to carry me to our city leader’s mom’s house, where we are having traditional Hungarian cuisine prepared with ingredients all grown in a local garden.  Not one to miss out on that, our city leader guides me via WhatApps onto the correct bus and the sweetest little Hungarian lady ensures that I get off on the correct stop 35 minutes outside of the city.  Kiwi is waiting to walk me to the house, where we chat with the ladies that make up this cooking club while they prepare Goulash and other dishes for us over an open fire pit in the backyard.

I have another call at 21:00, so I hustle back to the workplace, where I’m once again persuaded to join the crew out on the town. Damn Whatsapp group chats.  I make the 5 minute walk back across the Basilica to drop off my valuables, and on my way back to 360 bar, I’m intercepted by a group of Remotes drinking at the steps of the church.  Plans here change on a dime, so I join them instead and we run through bottle after bottle of local wine until the rain starts to come down.  As the party retreats under an grove of trees, I venture out into the middle of the courtyard and stand in the rain, soaking in every drop and every second of this beautiful experience.  It was a light drizzle at that point, not the steady rain that occurs when Marky talks me, Momma Joe and his visiting girlfriend into joining the birthday girl MRandall out for a drink, trekking nearly 20 minutes and being soaked to the bone by the time we get to them – but I couldn’t have been happier about it.  Remy and his Russian beauty are there as well, along with Wake Jeber who has lived to tell the tales of Pamplona.  We toast the birthday girl, I struggle through a convo with some traveling Italians, and call it a night VERY early (late) in the AM.

Jet lagged and partied out, I didn’t start the next day until 14:30.  I was feeling like a very non-productive human being, so I ventured out and bought some running shoes to take a 4 mile breathtaking first run in almost 6 months around Budapest.  Not my best time, but I kept getting distracted by the amazing views.  I have another call and some invoicing to do, so Marky and I run the night shift at the workspace until each of us is too hungry to continue. Agreeing it would be our best bet to try to find something before midnight, we close up shop and take a left down the main drag, where we stumble upon a late night spot, order the meat on meat platter, and grab a few happy hour drinks to sip on.  Akvarium Klub is a local spot, well known for people taking some drinks, taking their shoes off and dipping their feet in glass bottomed the pool that houses a bar underneath.  When in Rome – or Budapest….

After partaking in the local customs and having some chats about life before, during and after RY, we decide to venture over to the Danube to scope out a light show I had literally run across earlier in the day.  The show had been set up for the upcoming FINA World Championships this weekend, which we will miss while we are in Prague, but we did get a sneak peek of the light show, and this was happening across the way:

Breathe easy Lovers, you are now caught up on the first half of the Budapest version of my year long adventure.  I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately that seem to include the inquisition of regrets and whether or not I have any.  The answer is no.  This trip is the best decision I could have made for myself at this point in my life.  Every day I have to keep reminding myself that this is in fact my life, and it is incredible and beautiful, and I get to share this experience in real life with 47 other amazing souls, and virtually with all of you, my Lovers of Random.  I hope I’m doing the journey some justice, because even if I broke down every moment of every day for you, it still would’t come close… there are just some things that words and pictures can’t capture.

Specifically Yours,

SR

Dobar don my Lovers.  I started this post from a quaint little courtyard cafe that I stumbled upon while walking through the breathtaking streets of Belgrade, and I’m finishing it from my 15ft ceilinged room in Budapest.  I am fully aware that I am WAY behind and there’s much of the adventure that you need to be updated on, from jazz bars to summer parties, road trips, cliff jumping, bay swimming, yacht club hanging, private dinners, solo wandering, farewell parties, illegal activities, and the best airport dance party ever.  And that’s just the last weeks of my time in Split.

In the interest of keeping this post to a manageable reading length, I’ll try to keep it to a 10,000 foot view of the adventures, and only delve into the details of the juiciest of activities.  This is going to be a challenge for me, as we tend to pack 3 days worth of life into every day. A quick check of my sleep app has me averaging 4.5 hours of sleep each night, and while I occasionally go down for the hard 11-12 hour slumber (actually just woke up from one), the energy that is created internally by the amazing people I’m surrounded by makes powering through a simple task.

The Summer Party

After a week that contained a lot of work (yes, I do actually work), entertainment of visitors from Remote Year Kublai, spectating of a Hartthrobs soccer match (that Duffs said I wasn’t allowed to participate in because my voice hadn’t returned), I was prepping for an easy night when this happened:

First, yes, we salsa.  every Wednesday.  Well, they do – I have never actually indulged. Second, IDK about you, Lovers, but I see a post like that all thoughts of Netflix and chill go out the window.  We got there around 11, got the dance party started (because let’s face it, we don’t need a crowd, we are a crowd), and the place was a madhouse before you could say “summer solstice”.  We crawled on outcroppings, sat on vans, took shots, danced our little Harts off and left in the wee hours of the AM covered in sweat (ours and others), drinks (ours and others) and with what I’m starting to think is a broken big toe.

Dubrovnik

After spending the next couple of days knocking out work, knocking interviews out of the park (I’m employed my Lovers!) and hammering out a 22 persons, 2 van, 1 car, 5 Air BNB, 2 city trip (with the help of The Remote Yogi), we loaded up and headed off for Dubrovnik and Montenegro.  We crammed 9 into our van, took a coastal route and enjoyed view after view of the most breathtaking scenery.  Dubrovnik itself was magical (and I won the AirBNB game for realz) and included a stellar outdoor DJ set with intense visuals, but my favorite part was the 30 foot cliff jump I executed from beneath the castle walls. Sorry Lovers, no pics of that one.

Montenegro

The next day we are onto Montenegro.  Van karaoke, Bosnian border crossings, car ferries and another AirBNB win in the bay of Kotor.  I’m going to eventually have to stop saying that “this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been”, but it was pretty spectacular.  We did a family style dinner, hung at a swank ass yacht club, climbed 1,300+ stairs for the view and the sunset (and the ‘Gram, of course), had a private dinner provided by a local who sang traditional songs for us, consumed copious amounts of local wine, stared at the stars, and bonded further as a tramily.

Belgrade

Don’t take this next sentence the wrong way, because I adore each member of my Earhart family, but after rolling 25 deep for the last three days, I’m not disappointed about boarding a flight to Belgrade all by my lonesome to roll dolo for a couple of days. I meet up with my temp roomie, run into DL (who is on his way back to Split), settle into a cafe to get some work done before heading off to grab some dinner as a prelude to turning in for the aforementioned and much needed crash session. The next day I learn how breathtakingly beautiful Belgrade really is.  It has a vibrant city atmosphere with an old world feel.  I walked almost 12 miles around the city, taking it all in. I went to the two tallest building and denied access to the top of both.  I explored the Fortress, where I was humbled by the fact that this part of the world was at war in my lifetime.  After the temp roomie and I caught an epic sunset , we boarded the Ambar train and had 16 courses of mouth watering local fare, washed it all down with some good bourbon (no rye in this town either) and headed back – but not before I danced through a fountain.

 

Mosor

The next day, client issues forced me back to Split earlier than anticipated, so I had some interesting airport conversations, pulled out the Southern Charm, and made it back home in time to climb Mosor, the big mountain you see in the background of all the pics for Split. Guided by Nate, past remote and avid climber, we took the path less traveled, and endured a grueling climb up to the little red hut where we left our names in the books at the top.  After rest and refuel, Nate pointed to the next peak and said let’s go. Lovers, I have never done a ridge climb before, and I spent the next hour or so exhausting all my adrenaline stores to achieve crawling across this ridge to the next peak, but fuck, how amazing I felt when I got there…. there’s just no describing it.

The Final Days

We got back and showered just in time for the Farewell party.  We boarded a boat to Joe’s Beach, swam in the sea one last time, and sat on the shore after sunset and had a Hartthrobs sing along. Friday was our last night in Split, and we had decided to close the month out exactly as we had opened it – with a dance party at the open air club.  But first – ink.  Duffs and I got our Split marks needled in, and The Remote Yogi even joined us for some Hakuna Matata. After that, we left our mark on Split by tagging the wall outside of the workspace before heading to Old Town for one last Croatian edition of Danceharts. **This actually turned out not to be the case, as after our chartered flight from Split to Budapest got delayed 3 hours (and after 5 bottles of liquor, 4 cases of beers, 4 bottles of champagne and 4 bottles of wine), we started a dance party in the airport.  All 48 of us.  Earharts can start a dance party anywhere.

Ok Lovers, you’re all caught up on the first 35 days.  The Budapest adventure started Sunday, but you’ll have to wait for the updates on that.  For now I’ll tell you I’m in love with this city, but I’m reserving my Random raving for now.

Until next time, my Lovers.

Specifically yours,

SR

Guess what else I updated?  PICTURES!