For those who'd like to read it, I've written the summarization of my 2006. It contains most of the major things I did last year. I do this every year but have decided to make it public for the first time.
Later in January I moved to San Francisco to start school at San Francisco State University. I lived in a place on Montana Street through May. I would ride my bike to school on non rainy days up some incredibly steep hills. People would actually cheer me on and praise me as I rode them.
Starting school at San Francisco State University was such a proud moment for me because I had really looked forward to it for a long time. Community college wasn't bad, but I never was totally sure if I would be able to get into a University easily. I have grown to love my school more than I would have ever imagined I would and I have made some really great friends. My girlfriend at the time, who I met almost as soon as I arrived in San Francisco, helped me adjust to life here and showed me really important things like how to understand driving in the busy areas of town, taking public transportation, shopping at local markets, etc. I'm quickly on my way to becoming a San Francisco expert!
Some things I was able to do early on to get accustomed to the city were attending a big reggae music festival at the civic center, and visit the SF Zoo. The American soccer team played their first game in San Francisco in 30 years in February and I was able to attend that too! They played Japan and beat them 3-2.
In March I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the baseball World Championships down south where I anticipated being able to see the Americans kick butt on their home turf. Unfortunately, they were knocked out of the tournament early and the championship game ended up being between Japan and Cuba . Japan won! I ran into one of my old professors at the game too. While down there, my mom, Steve, and I also went to the desert and saw some beautiful sights.
During that semester I was also very busy with the grueling application process for the Tokyo study abroad program that I hoped to participate in. It was so tedious and consumed as much of my time as some of my classes did! I was eventually notified that I would be on the waiting list because there were too many Americans trying to go to this prestigious school. Finally, in June, I was notified that I would not be able to go in 2006.
May was special because I was able to celebrate my mom's 50th birthday with my family in Ukiah. We had a great time! May was also when my first semester at SFSU ended and I am proud to say that I made the Dean's list!
Shortly after the semester ended, I was able to embark on my trip to Europe that I had been planning for many years and had been saving for all of 2005. It all started with madness, actually, when I went into the hills west of Ukiah on my first day of Summer vacation to make an audition tape for a reality show. I made a mistake and didn't follow directions correctly and ended up on a clinically insane man's property. When he saw me with my video camera he freaked out and I thought I might die or be held captive. As this peculiar man, wearing an eye-patch, rambled on and on to me he touched on many subjects such as how "The United States is homophobic" and "The Mendocino County Government is corrupt." He even took my picture a few times. The more mysterious the situation got the more I wish I had not tracked onto the wrong property. Luckily the ordeal ended nicely and I was able to make my tape somewhere else.
The next day I started getting really sick and it lasted through that weekend when I had planned on watching my dad and an old classmate of mine perform at the Summer Arts Fair. Instead, I was in bed the whole weekend with strep throat and was at my sickest the morning before I was supposed to fly to Germany. I went to the hospital, got a penicillin shot, and made the very grueling sis hour drive to Tahoe the same day so I'd be ready to fly out of Reno in the morning. I was so sick, though, that I contacted the airline to see if I could get a refund if I had a doctor's note (they said yes).
Feeling a little better in the morning, I was easily able to catch my flight out of Reno, which brought me to Las Vegas, and from there I was to fly to Germany but my flight was canceled. I was re-routed to Los Angeles then to Paris where I decided to get off and just take a train to my friend's house in Germany. Unfortunately for me, my suitcase never left Los Angeles so I had to file a claim with the airport in Paris and I was compensated 100 Euros for my troubles. I am not superstitious, but I wonder if this had anything to do with my departure date being 06-06-06.
I got into my friend's town at 11PM on the 7th of June and met him and his two friends. The four of us, 3 from Humboldt and one local, went to a bar and got drinks. I told them about my story for a while until we all got tired and headed home. When we got there my friend offered me a bite to eat and it turned out to be a sausage made of blood. Yummy.
In need of some major rest I slept in very late my first night in Germany. In the late afternoon my friends and I Walked around the city, got some Italian food, and played hackey sack in a park. It was really nice weather the whole time I was there and we were able to wear shorts and t shirts all the time.
I noticed that I experienced no culture shock for the first time in an international excursion. The two countries I had been to before, Japan and Thailand, really took some getting used to. My first experiences in France and Germany though didn't feel much different than the USA to me.
After going out to eat with some of my friend's German friends for dinner that first night, we decided we would spend the next day in Munich where the opening game of the World Cup was to be held. We had the freedom to travel as much as we wanted because we bought unlimited train passes which are available to foreigners only.
Munich was a very beautiful city, and the center of an explosion of anticipation being released by the world as the FIFA WORLD CUP was finally going to start. Being the host country, Germany was in the opening game and they were facing Costa Rica. Whenever there was a German game the streets and restaurants and pubs were full of locals and people from around the world who came to celebrate this incredible month long sporting event showcasing the best soccer on the planet. We started by just following the masses out of the train station onto the streets of Munich. We bought lunch and drinks in a busy section of town and took it to a bench under a huge statue and ate. We roamed the city on our own for a while, taking in the sights, and then took some time and relaxed in a park. We got some pizza at a place with outdoor seating in a quieter side of town and decided that we would search for the fan fest after that so we could watch the game on a big screen. On the way there someone gave me a free T Shirt saying, in German, that second string Oliver Khan should be Germany's starting goalie instead of the guy chosen for the job. Our search for the fan-fest was long and tedious because we kept hearing that the official fan-fest was full and all other public places to watch the game were full too. We finally found a trendy little restaurant/bar with a big tv hanging on the wall with nobody sitting in front of it yet. We watched the game here and it was so fun. Germany won 4-2 so the crowd was happy, and the city had reason to celebrate. We had a long train ride ahead of us so we took off shortly after the game. The ride home was long and confusing due to some unclear train transfers. Since the whole country was celebrating Germany's victory and the beginning of the World Cup, there were lots of drunks on the train. Two drunk guys came and sat by me and one of them looked like he was ready to puke my lap. He fell asleep and when we got to their stop his friend tried, unsuccessfully, to wake him, and so he just left him on the train. About five minutes later he falls on the floor but stays passed out. Then, when we see the ticket checkers coming, we quickly move because we were not supposed to be in first class, but then they ask us why we were going to be cowards and leave our friend laying on the floor. In German, my friend pleaded that we had no idea who that guy was and unfortunately they called the police to detain him. They even kicked him pretty hard and he didn't wake up! I don't think we got home until around 3.30 AM so the next day we slept in very late. We just took it easy and with the tournament now in full swing, we just watched some games and went to the next door elementary school and played Frisbee and ping pong.
The next day, June 11, my friends and I went to Paris to see a German girl I know from Japan that is going to school there. After our train was like two hours late, we arrived and got to hang out with her for around six hours. She took us all around and spoke for us when needed. We saw a few of the typical Paris sights but the most memorable was a Church of some sort which overlooked the whole city. I stupidly forgot my battery for my camera, and my friend's camera ended up breaking so we have no pictures from Paris! Luckily my German friend studying in Paris mailed me some of hers.
What I will probably remember the most about Paris is how crowded and busy it was. It was also the hardest place in the World that I've visited to get by with English.
The next day, back in Germany, we went to the fan-fest in Kaiserslautern, another host city where games were played. Each city that hosted games also had an official fan fest on the streets where there was a huge screen, block party, and cheap food for all the foreign tourists and German soccer fans. Under the blazing sun we watched Australia demolish Japan, and The Czech Republic obliterate the USA. One of my friends started getting pretty annoyed with the Australians and almost got us into some trouble, but everything ended peacefully. I can still hear the Australians chanting "Auzzie! Auzzie! Auzzie!, Oy! Oy! Oy!"
After the games the fan-fests turn into a huge party until around 2AM. My friends stayed until around 1, but I stayed in town until 4.05 AM waiting in the loud train station with dozens of drunk Australia fans still cheering their victory. I was waiting for a train to Frankfurt so I could pickup a friend of mine, Leif, at the airport. I ended up falling asleep on that train and missing the stop for the Frankfurt airport, but I still ended up making it there on time to meet him. We were all tired and just hung out and watched games on TV the rest of the day.
The next day we decided it was Leif's turn to experience a fan-fest so we went back to Kaiserslautern to watch Germany play Poland. First, though, we went to the Kaiserslautern stadium to get our tickets printed for us that we had ordered over a year before. Finally we had priceless World Cup tickets of our own to hold and cherish!
The most memorable thing about this day at the fan fest was observing Leif experience an unfortunate side-affect of Jet Lag and too much alcohol. He ended up falling asleep by the outhouses at around 3pm and according to him he slept pretty well except for a few security guards waking him now and then.
Germany had a game that night so the fan-fest was loaded with people! And to make festivities even greater, Germany won their game 1-0 against Poland in the final minutes. It was so cool! A big party followed that victory and we headed back home that night by train around 1AM.
Of course, because this was a night that Germany played, there was a lot of partying going on and that meant the train systems were full of people. Unfortunately, drunk people don't keep trains very clean. One guy was puking out of a window upwind from us and it was splattering all over our window. It was somewhat artistic actually.
I'm going to have to be a little more brief with the rest of my Europe details. I was later stayed with a friend of mine, Markus, who went to my high school as an exchange student. We got to go to a World Cup game together and go sight seeing as well. I also got to stay in the German countryside with the family the German girl I saw in Paris. Additionally, Leif and I made short trips to Belgium and Amsterdam. We went really low budget but we had an awesome time. In Amsterdam we roamed around all over and stayed in a really eclectic hostel. We also went the Van Gogh museum.
After my time in Germany was through I was to fly to Manchester England to stay with friends in Nottingham. I wrote down the wrong times though and missed my flight so I was forced to make up a huge lie and use it to get sympathy from a ticket sales clerk so I could get a discount. Alas, I made it to England.
England was really pleasant, but I came down with a cold for most of my stay there. I spent a day in London, visited some country side, and got to go to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert! My friends there were really kind to me and treated me to some really good Vietnamese and Chinese meals. One thing I really appreciated about England was that every town seemed to have a large, beautiful park. I really want to go back to Europe. It is expensive though and I couldn't have done it without all my friends helping me out. You all have a free place to stay in California whenever you need it!
I arrived back to Reno on July 6th, just in time for my eldest sister's wedding weekend which started the next day. It was held in the Mt. Shasta area of Northern California and was defiantly one of the best weekends of my life. Everything about it seemed perfect to me. I DJ'd after the wedding and seemed to please the crowd.
The first weekend in August meant another Reggae on the River, and my 21st birthday. It was my first Reggae on the River since 2003 that I didn't get sick! I spent my birthday just working at the show and enjoying the sunshine.
The next week I was able to squeeze in a brief, but necessary, Usal camp trip with lots of close friends. It was awesome!
Straight from there I headed back to San Francisco and moved into the place I am currently living in. It is a major upgrade, and yet, I pay less than before! Living by the beach is a dream come true so life here is good!
The Fall semester began soon after that. I missed some school the first week of classes because I got to film at the Monterey Reggae festival. That was really fun, and another great experience. Two weeks later I worked at Earthdance again.
The Fall of 2006 brought me one of the craziest nights of my life which was Halloween in the Castro district. My homemade costume was a HUGE hit. The night ended on a sour note though as some people near me were shot in a gang shooting.
In November I began my exciting paid internship on the film crew of NBA games. It has been really educational, and fun and I can't wait to see what kind of doors it opens for me in my future. The combination of my internship and my 17 units this fall really had me busy. I never had such a difficult time with finals in my life! It was such a relief when they ended in December and I was able to relax and celebrate the holidays with friends and family.
On December 27th one of my closest friends I had while studying in Japan came to visit. He is an Australian, and he is currently staying in Los Angeles. We met in Reno and spent time in Tahoe snowboarding. We also went and saw some pretty good comedy, and gambled with Al and Levi.
New Years eve was another fun night. I hung out with a bunch of friends all night in South Lake Tahoe playing the Nintendo Wii, and celebrating at the block party on the strip. We went to bed around 4AM but some people didn't sleep until at least 7AM.
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