First Class

Welcome back. So I was sitting in class today, and a crazy thought popped into my head. Hear me out on this.

So it's CalcIII, not particularly an easy class but whatever, and I'm sitting about midship in the classroom. I'm in a good seat, not too far back and I'm pretty much in the middle. I'd have to say I was certainly happy with it. But then a thought occurred. Why not sit in the front row? There's the most legroom in the front row by a huge margin, you get the best view, you're the closest to the door so you don't have to wait for people to get their asses out of the way when class is over; it's first class.

And then I took it a step further. What if there was a first class, just like the airlines, for everything? Like a first class lecture: you get to sit in the front row, unlimited leg space, the seats are comfortable recliners, and the best part? Free beverage service. Imagine throughout the lecture a cute lecture attendant comes up to you and offers you a selection of cheap beer, wine, or diluted soft drinks and juice? And like halfway into class a steaming hot meal is handed to you, so while you take notes and struggle to pay attention you're wining and dining in first class.

Of course the problem with this is that first class tuition would be in the hundreds of thousands. In fact first class anything would be way too expensive. In fact even flying first class is way to ridiculously expensive for me to even want to do it. But once you sit down and think about it, in the age we live in everything is first class.

Thanks to the sweat shops out east, pretty much everything is relatively cheap to the average American; clothes, education, proper shelter, good food. Compared to how things were a century or two ago, we live at a higher standard than most people across the world and across could have imagined. If you can afford a phone you're somewhere above like the 80-90th percentile of wealthy people in the world already. Compared to everyone else, a lot of us in America live a first class life without realizing it.

Flying the airlines is the perfect example. Most people on Earth will ever get to fly on an airplane. In fact before 1900, not a single person in the world got to. So out of the hundreds of billions of people who have ever lived on this planet, if you've flown on an airplane you are the 0.000000...% who are lucky and blessed enough. And we bitch about it constantly! "He took my pillow. My seat won't go back any further. My flight is delayed 20 minutes. Why don't you serve wine after 8am?"

This is all part of the reason why when on a plane, I feel like I'm royalty regardless of first class or economy. I sip my cocktail, rest my eyes, listen to my favorite music, look out the window and smile. No one really acts like flying is a privilege, no one really acts like anything in life is a privilege. So instead of bitching incessantly at every chance I get, I treat my life like it's first class. Because it is.

Until next time...

Dreamflight

What's up world. I'ts like 10am here in the Patterson Office Tower, and I'm in between classes so I thought it'd be nice to crank out a blog post.

I had a really nice breakfast this morning; it was definitely in the top five best breakfasts I've ever had. After PT a few other cadets and I went over to the restaurant in the Wildcat Lodge. The Wildcat Lodge is the dorm where all the UK Basketball players live. It's pretty much a really nice condo. It's ridiculous how good the living standards are for the basketball team. Anyway there's a restaurant there, where the players eat a lot, and for whatever reason we're allowed to eat there.

We get treated pretty well there. Each table has it's own little TV and the waiters give us the remote so we can watch whatever while we eat. There are pool tables and recliners in front of  a massive TV, for those who require a lot of entertainment while they eat. And of course the food is really really good, none of that greasy crap from K-Lair or Commons.

So it was definitely a pleasure eating there, being treated with just as much respect as the basketball team for the first and most important meal of the day. I wish all breakfasts were like that, luckily I'll be getting two per week. One great perk about traveling, is that pretty much anywhere you go except America you're likely in for a great breakfast. Regardless of which hotel, which airport, which city, country, or continent; you're most likely in for a great breakfast.

In other news I'm definitely starting to get excited for this Miami trip. Nothing get's me crazily excited like South Beach does. Not many places have the power to lasso me back time after time like Miami does. As much fun as South Beach will be, I'm equally excited for this flight down there.

I always said back in senior year of high school and on into college that it would be so much fun to deck an airliner out with bars and lounges, throw in a big sound system, and turn the jet into a party plane. And if I had access to such an aircraft, I'd take my girlfriend or bros and enjoy a few drinks on our way down to whatever tropical party paradise we were destined for. Wouldn't that be such a fun flight!? Cruising the airways listening to music with some of your favorite people in the world for hours? Then maybe taking a stop in a nice busy airport to stretch your legs and become immersed in the chaos, before climbing back on board to enjoy more drinks, music, and laughs with the people you love. And then when you finally get to your vacation destination, despite likely being a bit tired, you're in some awesome city for a week! Yes, this was the dream for me a few years back.

But wait a minute! Now I'm older, more wealthy, and more experienced in the traveling department. Now it's a couple times a year that I'm flying somewhere amazing with my best friends. And honestly, what I thought of as a "dream flight" years ago is now a reality I get to play in every now and then. Karen and I lived it for 9 hours on the way to Madrid, and in less than six weeks we do it again!

Of course when I daydreamed about it when I was younger, I imagined my own private A330 (decked out to my personal taste) which I'd fly to Miami with my girlfriend and day-drink vodka and sprites for three or four hours, while not forgetting a stop in Atlanta. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WERE DOING FOR SPRING BREAK (minus the privately owned A330).

We'll be clinking our plastic cups together before our descent into the busiest airport in the world! We'll be playing "find the foreigner" in the underground trains of Hartsfield-Jackson! We'll be watching the Georgia country side turn into the Florida coastline which will then turn into South Beach just before our arrival at the sexiest airport in the world! And after a quick walk through the concourses and a quicker bus ride to the hotel we'll be on our way to Tom's NFL, the iconic wing joint which no flight to Miami would be complete without. And before it gets too late, we'll walk across the street to the very edge of the airport, and watch the heavies take off for Europe.

That's the first FIVE HOURS of my Spring Break. This is why Karen and I are dropping dough to fly to Miami instead of cramming into a room with 30 other drunken idiots in Panama. This is why I need to make more money. Unfortunately we still have six weeks to go, which isn't the most terrible wait in the world considering I waited 172 days for my final Spring Break of high school, but still we're pretty far out.

Anyway, I hope every flight I take is like the flight to Madrid, Dallas, Miami, etc. (obviously the ones I'm not flying myself). I hope I maintain this ability to have copious amounts of fun wherever I go. I really hope I don't turn into those obnoxious travelers who just bleed stress nonstop (You're in a tube going 500 mph!!! Your ancestors would kill to be you!!). But truthfully I don't think I have anything to worry about.

Until next time...

Alien Nightclub

What's up world? I'm chilling between classes right now in the big old Patterson Office Tower. The weather's been pretty shitty outside, ranging from temperatures in the teens to snow. It's just awful. I don't understand how people like this weather.

I really need to start making more money. It's too hard to travel with low income. I honestly don't understand how people can just sit and  spend their whole life in the confines of one country, or worst one state. I just can't comprehend that.

And do you know what? I'm ready for us to make contact with aliens. I realize that saying that makes me sound like a nut case, but hear me out. Making contact with aliens will completely revolutionize the travel industry. Instead of being exotic by going over to Africa or the Middle East or wherever, people are gonna be going to meet up with aliens. Yeah let that sink in.

Ok think back a few centuries, when the Old World discovered the New World in like the 15th century. Could you imagine when that happened how many people were like, "Hey I'd like to go there." And then the super rich ended up buying "research vessels" to make the journey on, and long story short going to America was cool as hell for a while.

The Earth is finite, so there will likely come a time when I have experienced at least most of it. We need to figure out where the damn aliens are living so I can start saving up to book a trip now. Like people talk about culture shock by going overseas and seeing all the stop signs in different languages and everyone's dressed differently than you, but think about going to the alien capital city. You'd be completely mind blown.

You wouldn't be able to eat anything, I mean it'd probably be something that your body has no snowball's chance in hell of being able to process. The language barrier would be awful, I mean you wouldn't be able to understand or say anything at all; and gestures wouldn't work there, they don't know what a smile or a frown is. Their social norms would be so far off from ours, you'd likely disrespect them somehow in everything you do.

In fact it probably wouldn't even be fun. You'd be so uncomfortable and freaked out that the time you spend there would actually be quite miserable. But let's say for the sake of the entertainment of this post that the aliens accept us and don't hate us, you can speak the language enough to get by, you've gotten vaccinated and everything so you can't get sick, let's just say everything that you have to worry about has been taken care of. Well in that case it'd be the most fun! Imagine seeing the alien equivalent to nightlife in that situation.

You get all dressed up and pampered in the hotel before leaving, which is completely pointless because it's not like you're going to pick up an alien. Then there's the pregaming to be had, you suck down a few drinks or whatever aliens consume to unwind (which in reality will be most likely something similar to heroin). Then it's time to hit the alien nightclubs.

You gotcha buzz on, you're riding to the club on some Pandoran-Avatar-Horse motherfucker or whatever the aliens use as taxis, it's a good time to be had. On the way there you're passing more foreign shit that you never knew existed like super-huge street sweepers and the rebellious alien youth doing drugs. Then you get to the club and it's game on for the alien party scene.

You go up to what most resembles a bar and use your alien language skills to buy a drink, or MDMA or whatever the aliens are into, and you get to use your cool looking alien money. Then you head to grab a seat next to the alien dancefloor while you scope out the alien hotties. Ok so you probably won't know which aliens are the hottest, and there's a good chance their dancing will throw you off.

In fact the more you sit on the couch the more it sinks in that you are the most different person in that building by a huge factor, and the more you convince yourself not to attempt the alien dancing with whoever other human your with. Eventually after for or five drinks (or meth pills or whatever fucked up alien vices they have) you'll probably make the mistake of attempting the alien dancing, which will just result in some stares.

Going to an alien nightclub to drink and throw down with fucking ALIENS actually sounds really fun. But the more I get into writing up this hypothetical scenario, the more I realize that going to nightclub on another continent and partying with locals is pretty similar to what I just described. Obviously it's not as cool as clubbing with aliens, but truth be told if we end up finding alien civilizations we're not gonna be partying with them.

Oh well, any nightclub beats frat parties. Damn that's the third post straight where I've mentioned exotic clubbing and how much better they are than frat parties. I'm snobby. Until next time...

Devil's Playground

So this is an excerpt from my travel blog on Morocco. It was too good to not put on here. Enjoy:

Saturday, 12/29/12, 21:34 (GMT)

In huge Arabic hotel room

This was no doubt the coolest hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Nearly everything about it put a smile on my face. Hotels like the Zalagh Parc Palace are why I yearn to travel: I went my whole life not knowing that a place on Earth as cool as this existed, and then once I find it my mind is completely blown. There are places in the world that you find that leave you so captivated you have trouble writing it all down , and you know that no matter how the story is told no one is going to understand how amazing that certain place was.

The grandeur of the lobby of this hotel alone was enough to have me writing about it for days. But on top of the opulence was a layer of mystery we uncovered upon exploring the palace. While enjoying Wi-Fi and Vodka Redbull in the lobby, we heard rumor that there was no electricity on the 5^th floor. There’s nothing I love more than an adventure, so we downed our drinks and embarked.

Let me tell you about the elevators in this joint real quick. There were 5 floors, and a roof. The elevators would tell us it was at the 15^th floor, 23^rd, -4th, 36°, or really whatever the hell it felt like. There were buttons to go up to 9 floors. As luxurious as this hotel was, it was equally janky. Anyway we left our cups in our rooms and left for the 5^th floor.

Doors close, we press 5, we ride, doors open, pitch black. This wasn’t like “I turned the lights out and can’t see as well anymore” no this was like I cannot see shit blackness. It was so dark we couldn’t even orient ourselves; after walking a few feet away from the elevator, we realized we needed some form of light.

So there we were 5 minutes later with flashlights. Now that we had light, we realized that the 5^th floor was just as beautiful decorated as the rest of the hotel, but without lights. It was completely dark, but with $1,000 vases and paintings all over the place. We trekked our way through the blackness, through lounges, conferences rooms, dining halls, balconies, and finally found a hallway with light. In an attempt to find the 23^rd floor, we started climbing stairs. Somehow we found the roof.

I had been in Africa for less than 8 hours, and there we were squeezing our way through a blocked door onto the roof of our palace hotel, overlooking the slums and lit up minarets. In clear view was the gated entrance to the hotel with armed guards ready, gently reminding us that with adventure comes potential danger. The longer we stayed there in awe looking at the distant medina, our chances of walking away peacefully became lower and lower. So we trotted straight back down to the lobby, the Americans needed to tweet that out ASAP.

That is why I love traveling. That’s why I make an effort to save my money and someday buy a ticket to a new exotic place. I never know what I’m going to find abroad, that’s why it’s so much fun. Every place is like an Easter egg, you don’t know what’s there and what it’s like until you go.

After our rooftop escapade, Karen and I decided to roam on our own a bit more. We didn’t see much that was new to us, more stairs that lead nowhere, secret hallways, and barricaded passages. We decided to head for bed after one of the stairwells lead to a pile of furniture. Tables and chairs were stacked up from the basement, and piled up a flight or two into the stair well. We were tired and just rolled our eyes thinking, “Whatever Morocco, you do your thing.” On our way to the room we found another barricaded door, but this one was rattling due to how loud the music was being blasted on the other side.

Well that’s peculiar… It appears we have found a secret nightclub! After consulting with Enrique over the safety of having a drink in the secret nightclub, we made the conscious decision that we had to go.

Partying in Morocco is equally eye opening. The club was part of the hotel, a place where only the wealthy are accepted. The entrance to this place was like an ally of New York City, just looking at it made you feel unsafe. The closer you got to it the scarier it felt. It’s a good thing I’ve developed the habit of keeping my cool in stressful situations, because if not I’d have been shaking like a leaf. At the door were two or three huge bouncers; if you nodded confidently and acted like you belonged they didn’t come with any trouble. On the contrary, I’m sure they wouldn’t have allowed someone to enter that place on accident.

Once you’re past the bouncers you travel down a few flights of marble stairs to a truly underground world. The nightclub was as luxuriously decorated as the lobby of the hotel; complete with fancy gold columns, chandeliers, aquariums, and lounges with first class furniture. There were beautiful girls wearing sexy little dresses, making their rounds; they were prostitutes, and like the alcohol they weren’t cheap. They blasted the hell out of this Arabic music, and just like America they didn’t forget their lasers and strobe lights. And the final reagent to the most exotic nightclub in the world was a wait staff in tuxedos serving anything you ordered, including of course women and hash.

Karen had to hold on tightly to me, or else she would’ve been asked her price. I had to give a few stern looks at the local men whose quick glances turned into extended stares. I got quite used to it. Karen would just wrap around my arm and lie her head on my shoulder; and I’d get the message, find the son of a bitch, narrow my eyes and sit up a little straighter. Every single time, the man would just look somewhere else, and not look at Karen again. To them Karen was my property and they didn’t know if I was interested in selling my property or not. Once they knew I was not interested, they respected us.

The following night we went back to that nightclub. This time there were belly dancers and more prostitutes. Using the bathroom was a trip. There were no male/female symbols, no French, and obviously no English signage; just Arabic. I ended up having to ask a group of prostitutes which was which by pointing at me, then pointing at what I suspected to be the men’s room. They were very nice, and smiled and nodded. But then the thought crossed my mind, “Shit I better not have just bought someone.”

Luckily no one died either of those two nights. But that's definitely the closest I've ever been to the devil's playground.

Palace Life

What's up world? I apologize for not blogging much over the past month. Of course you know I've been traveling and I wrote this travel blog thing that I've been working on and adding to recently so if you're desperate for my writing you can always read that.

So you know what was really really clutch? Morocco. I wasn't expecting to enjoy the Arabic/Muslim culture as much as I did. And it wasn't just the culture that was crazy cool, but the architecture was amazing. If you were on the wealthy side of the spectrum, then you deserved a palace.

In America, a palace is always a hyperbole for the super luxurious. When American's think of a palace, we imagine something so lush and expensive that even the rich can't afford it. A palace is just a money pit that no one really has. Some people can afford mansions, or yachts, or Lamborghini's, but palaces just really aren't are thing.

But then I get to Morocco, and our hotel has palace in the name, and it's fucking huge, and theirs gold and silver and silk and pretty tile and marble everywhere. Now I've stayed in the Ritz, Loews, Sheraton; I mean I've stayed in some sexy hotels; but I've never stayed in a palace. But after only a few nights of staying in a 'palace' I now definitely want to live in one.

Every palace has a tea set, so when you have guests you can properly welcome them into your palace. There's a nice seating area with couches, ottomans, huge rugs, incense, the whole bit. There's room to chill, room to enjoy your tea, room for the French to smoke their skinny little bitch-cigarettes, but definitely plenty of room for anything you need or desire.

Then, not far from the grand lounge, is the bar. They need to be close so you can easily hop between the two. The bar is as extravagant as the rest of the palace of course. The yellow lighting must be dim, and the Arabic elevator music must be loud. The alcohol must be of the highest quality; and if you worry about the price then you don't belong in a fucking palace.

Partying in a palace is a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I can't stop thinking about how I want to do it every night of my life. I feel bad for people who will spend their entire youth without ever experiencing some of the coolest action the world has to offer. Sorry I'm getting off topic.

Keep the cervezas coming and the dirhams flowing as the night matures. Maybe have one of those gross French smokables if you're drunk enough. But as the time pushes passed midnight, the bar begins to thin out, and the loud Arabic singing which never seems to end starts to get old. The best part is still yet to come.

It's not hard to realize that the many of the people leaving the bar aren't going to bed. Some are headed to the nightclub. Yup, every palace needs a nightclub within it's walls. Probably underground, probably not 100% legal, probably a little bit scary at first; but it's there. So outside and around to the back corner we go. We head onto the red carpet, passed the three guards (rendering a confident nod), down two or so flights of stairs, and into the debauchery lair.

A palace nightclub is fucking cool. I can't even be poetic when I say that. If your palace doesn't have a nightclub, like what are you even doing? Anyway, so one thing stays consistent about the club and that's the furnishing, ornate tile and decoration, and the expensive booze. Just like the bar, if you have to worry about the price of the alcohol then you don't belong in a PALACE NIGHTCLUB. The Arabic music is still loud as shit but at least you can dance to it now. Some people dance, some people chill and look at the prostitutes; who are lining the bar dressed up like sorority girls trying to make a few thousand dirham.

I wanna live in a palace. I want a beautiful lounge with ottomans and tea sets and rugs and ceramics. When I go out, I wanna see the wealthy underworld and if I decide to drink it's not going to be Heaven Hill or Natty Light. The palace life is the life for me.

And frat parties are for pussies. Until next time...