#whereishuy

[whereishuy]

I'm Jay from New York

Back at UT I met this Russian girl who graciously informed me that my name, Huy, is a vulgar word for penis in Russian. 

Thanks!

Just to confirm, I decided to fact check through the two most reputable sources I know, Wikipedia and UrbanDictionary. Sure enough, хуй, lovingly means "cock" in Russian.

Thankfully at the time, I never planned on making any diplomatic visits to Russia or the Eastern Bloc, so bullet dodged. Phew.

Fast forward till about three weeks ago.

My friend Luis and I found ourselves in Chișinău, the capital of Moldova in the heart of the Eastern Bloc. Along with a German guy in our hostel, we went out on a night on the town.

As the night wane, a group of Russians came up and talked to us. They're from Moscow and currently live in Chișinău because they do "business" there.

The conversation finally culminated into the dreaded question, "What's your name?"  

Luis says his name. German dude says his name. I turned to my friends and asked, "Shit! What do I say to them?"

"Just tell them your name."

Ok here it goes. My name is Huy.

Then all hell broke loose! No way they said. You know that your name in Russian means --

Yeah I know. 

"We don't believe you. Show us your ID."

I show them my ID and that only further exacerbated things. 

Haha, get your laughs in, but this went on for 15-20 minutes and they just could not let it go. 

Dude if that's the reaction people are going to have about your name, we can't be going around calling you Huy since we're going to be rubbing elbows with mad Russians in KaZantip. We gotta give you a new name.

And that's when Jay was born. Short, simple and an homage to my man HOVA.

Little did I know, Jay from New York would be a rockstar.

The craziest things happened to me in the last few weeks. From our journey through Eastern Europe to partying on the Black Sea with some of the most beautiful women in the world.

The next few entries are going to be tough to write, but I'm going to try my best to put into words the ridiculous escapades that I saw and got myself into. Honestly though, I don't think I could do it or if anyone would actually believe what has happened to me.  

But just a preview.

I woke up, pants down and around my ankles sitting on a public toilet. Barefooted. iPhone gone. Money gone. Hulu Chucks gone. And one sock in my right pocket. 

[whereishuy]

KaZantip Bound

VICE visits the Republic of Kazantip, an annual month-long rave/orgy on the southern coast of the Ukraine.

Currently I'm in Odessa in the Ukraine with my buddy Lou who has met up with me in Budapest and we've spent the last week backpacking through the heart of Eastern Europe on our way to this huge party called KaZantip in the Black Sea.

Check out the video. It's definitely NSFW. It's pretty much the coup de grace of this part of our trip.

It's a two-week long party that some would call a rave on the beach while others would call an orgy. Either way, I'm going to be a little MIA for the next couple of weeks.

I'll post more about the party and our excursions through Eastern Europe in a few weeks.

Right now we're waiting to catch the midnight train from Odessa to Simferopol. We got sleeper cars so that's going to be clutch. We'll be able to sleep and wake up and catch a shuttle to the beach.

If you don't hear back from me, hopefully I've found myself a nice little Eastern European honey and now running a "business" in the Ukraine.

Probably not.

Ciao for now.

[whereishuy]

Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information– often an unfamiliar word or name– and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. - UrbanDictionary.com

A friend of mine had a going away party in LA back in April while I was in town for work. 

"Where you going?"

"I'm leaving for Spain next week and I'm going to walk across the entire country."

"Hmm. Cool."

To each their own I thought. At the time, I personally would rather have spent a few weeks doing anything other than walking across Spain in the middle of the hot summer. El Camino de Santiago as this trek is known and it was the first time I have even heard of it. But once I landed in Spain, I couldn't seem to NOT hear about it. 

"Oh I've down the Camino."

"Oh meet too!"

"Oh I'm doing it now and this is my fifth time."

Left and right I felt like everyone I met has walked across the entire length of Spain, but me. So after some research, and by research I mean Wikipedia, I discovered that the Camino de Santiago is a Christian pilgrimage that dates back to the medieval times. It's still a Christian pilgrimage for some, but more and more people are just doing it for the experience and the community that comes with it. 

There are many routes that you can take, but all roads lead to the town of Santiago de Compostela. I didn't even know this town existed until on behest of my CouchSurfing host, I was encouraged to check it out.

So... I checked it out. 

I booked a hostel in town for a couple of nights. Now keep in mind that the last two hostels I stayed in were in Portugal so coming to this hostel took me down a few notches. Nothing fancy. Just a bare bones hostel.

What was weird about this particular hostel was that their were more staff members than guests staying at the hostel. During my couple of days, I kid you not, there were only three guests including myself and a couple who had just down the Camino. 

Again, a little strange. Apparently, the owner of the hostel accepts "volunteers" to run the place in exchange for accommodations. What I soon discovered was that the entire volunteer staff were originally guests of the hostel and just parlayed it into a volunteer gig for free room and board. The end product of this is that there are nine volunteers just hanging out all day doing practically nothing. On top of that, there hardly were any guests that came through, especially it being the middle of the summer and there are so many backpackers coming through doing the Camino.

Anywhoo, the final destination of the Camino is the this old medieval cathedral called, shockingly, The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It's a pretty impressive cathedral with levels of detail I haven't seen in any other cathedral I've been to.

After talking to a few backpackers who have done the Camino, I've come to take it as an experience you should definitely do at least once in your life. 

Well, that gives me another reason to come back to Spain.

[whereishuy]

Surf's Up

As I mentioned in a previous post, northern Spain consists of a lot of smaller towns that are a bit off the beaten path, so hostels aren't too common in these parts. There are hotels sure, but they're a bit pricier and they're not going to be able to give me the opportunity to meet people.

I'm not particularly new to CouchSurfing. I've had an account on this bad boy for awhile, but I've actually never surfed before. And what better way to start than on this trip. 

While posting up in Porto, I decided afterwards I'll hit up the town of Vigo in the area of Galicia in Spain. I sent a messages to 20-30 or so CouchSurfing hosts in the town hoping that someone could put me up. A couple of days went by and I either got a flat 'no' or no response. 

Hmm... ok I get it. I don't have a lot of recommendations from other CouchSurfers so I understand the hesitation from potential hosts.

It started to feel like trying to apply and get the interview for that first job. They want someone with experience, but how do you get that experience if no one wants to give you a shot?

A catch-22. 

So I decided to Google "tips on writing the perfect CouchSurfing request." Hey I was getting a little desperate. I soon discovered that in recent years, CouchSurfing has degenerated a little into "SexSurfing". Basically people are starting to use it as a hookup site. Guys won't respond to you if you're a dude. And girls won't respond to you unless you have a few positive references from past CouchSurfing hosts. I read through some horror stories about some hosts implying or making moves on their guests and viceversa.

Well shoot. That puts me in a pickle. But I decided to not give up and kept trying to secure myself a host. There still has to still be some genuine and optimistic people out there willing to host a wayfaring traveler. 

Then lo and behold I get a reply from this lovely lady, Olalla.

"I work early in the morning and don't come home till late in the evening, but you're more than welcome to crash at my place."

Not ideal, but I'll take it. We exchange WhatsApp numbers and kept in regular touch for the next day or so before I left on the bus due north. 

My bus arrives into Vigo later than I originally told her so I hastily scrambled to get to her place as fast as I can. By the time I arrived at her door it was nearing 11pm at night, but we're in Spain and people are just now eating dinner... right?

Around the corner is a bar that had a WiFi sticker on the door so I asked to use the WiFi. I checked to see if there were any messages from her and there were none, so I shot her a few messages on WhatsApp to let her know that I'm here and that I'm around the area. 

No replies. 

Alright now the staff is starting to stack the chairs around me giving me the subtle hint to get the hell out. 

It's about midnight now, so I decided what the hell I'll just sleep in front of her building and figure it out in the morning. As I'm walking up to her door she comes from around the other corner.

Olalla?

Huy?

After the exchange of "sorries" and "oh no don't worry I just got here" we went inside. Her "friend" Juan also came up after parking his car. She said he would also being staying over, but in her room. 

Cool.

Juan comes in and immediately takes off his shirt and drops down to his shorts.

Cool. Europeans. Totally get it. 

Juan was a bit of an intimidating character. He was tall and had a little bit of crazy eyes. He started rolling cigarettes and hand them to me and then we started to talk about the economic crisis in Spain and he explained why Communism failed in the Soviet Union while using an analogy about farming marijuana.

I guess Olalla had him over to size me up and see if I was safe to have over. I passed. 

I woke up the next morning to a strange ringing sound. Juan storms out of the room naked and picks up his phone which was what was ringing.

"Hola Huy!" he waves to me as he's talking on the phone... naked.

"Hola Juan!" I replied as my head hit the pillow. 

Then he proceeded to make me coffee on the stove, got dressed and wished me luck on my trip as he won't see me that night because his son was staying over. 

That night, Olalla and I had drinks at her local spot which was ran by an Irish guy that was born and raised in Manchester, but now was living in Vigo and oh yeah he plays the banjo.

It was also my last night so we stayed up throwing back beers and some homemade moonshine this bartender brewed in his home. We talked about traveling and music. My two favorite things. We crashed out pretty late even when Olalla had to work in the morning.

She bounced out early but left me a flash drive with all her music.

Bad ass.

All in all, it was a great experience and I would later travel on to Gijon and CouchSurf with this guy named Pablo who also looked like Stiffler from American Pie. 

[whereishuy]

The Conquest of Spain and Other Things

You can't rock a fedora, sunglasses, an Ed Hardy shirt and a cane into a club. Pick one douchey item and toss out the other three at the door. Then in the morning, burn the item you've selected. That's the memory that stood out most for me after coming home from a boat party on the Seine River in Paris.

It's been over two weeks since my last entry and I apologize for the lack of updates. While backpacking through the north of Spain I got pretty ill from the traveling and then a couple of buddies met me up in Barcelona and Pamplona which led to a bender that lasted over a week. 

I made it to Paris on Sunday and am currently crashing with my cousin Thierry. It's been awhile and it's great to be back in Paris to see the fam as well being able to eat anywhere and know it will be good. The food in Spain was hit or miss and a majority of the time it was mediocre at best. But, the hits were incredibly exceptional.

When I arrived on Sunday, it also happened to be Bastille Day which is the equivalent to our July 4th, except the French aren't back-to-back World War Champs. There were a ton of boat parties that were going on the Seine, hence why I was at a boat party on a Sunday night.

Picking up where I last left off. After leaving Portugal I headed back into Spain with the plan to backpack across the north of Spain until I get to Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermin or to some, running of the bulls. 

The north of Spain consists a lot of small towns that are no so touristy, so a lot of these towns do not have hostels for me to hit up. Instead, I opted to try out CouchSurfing. I'll go into more detail about my CouchSurfing experience in a later entry, but for you all of you who don't know, CouchSurfing.org is a place where travelers can create an account and find hosts in certain cities in the world who would host them for a few nights. It's a pretty genius idea. You get put up for free and it's a unique opportunity to get a feel for a city from a local's perspective. This works vice-versa as well and you can log on and find people who are coming through to your town to host if you have room at your place. Think of it as hitchhiking, but you're going to someone's house and they could kill you in private and bury the body in the backyard instead of leaving it in the trunk. Just kidding. Only a little.

In a span of about three weeks, I went from Porto -> Vigo -> Santiago de Compostela -> Gijon -> Oviedo -> Bilbao -> Barcelona -> Pamplona -> Paris

I did a great deal of damage in Spain and between this trip to Spain and my previous one, I've seen a good part of the country except for Andalusia in the south. That, I will probably have to come back for.

Nearly a month of my trip have been spent in Spain. Mainly the reason for such a long stay in this country is because of the need to kill some time while I backpacked my way to Pamplona to run with the bulls (more on this in a later entry). What I discovered in the end is a rich country with a rich history and whether you're rich or poor, people love to get down and party. There's absolutely no place I've been to that party as hard as Spain. Dinner time is typically at 10:30pm at the earliest with some clubs not opening their doors until 2am. Coming home around 8am after leaving the club and having breakfast is completely normal. 

Spain never was on my list of places that I MUST SEE. What originally started as a visit to see my friend Alex who lives in Madrid nearly two years, has turned into an itch that I can't seem to scratch. And I totally understand why people find the need to keep trying to scratch that itch.

[whereishuy]

That awkward moment...

when you're the only Asian person at some random field party in the north of Spain and Gangnam Style comes on and everyone immediately looks at you.

[whereishuy]

Roller Coaster

Traveling is a serious roller coaster ride.

You meet some great people at your hostel or wherever you're at. You guys go out have a good time and bond. Then the next thing you know, they're gone the next day heading to their next destination and the next batch of travelers arrive and you repeat. 

Oh and it doesn't help when you wake up to that reality after a long night of drinking. 

The highs are really really high and the lows can leave you pretty lonely.  I guess I'm hitting my lull at the moment, but would I want it any other way? Hell no! Like I said you meet GREAT people, everything is always new and could you imagine all the weird shit I've seen?!?

[whereishuy]

Porto, Portugal