So I may have disappeared off the blogosphere for a while, but the good news is I'm back with tons of pictures and even more to come as I try to get back into my old photojournalistic ways. Since my hiatus, I have wrapped up my undergraduate career, embarked on a four-month-long adventure through the highs and lows of South America, and returned home for an excruciating year of job scavenging in a jobless market.

My first catch was an unpaid internship that I kind of wish I had seen through, because it is the closest I came to the stories I'm actually interested in. My next catch: another unpaid internship at the high-end studio of a well-to-do Miami photographer. After a brief stint of trying out both ventures along with whatever else I could nibble on, I came to the realization that I am too experienced to work for free and too inexperienced to work for salary, considering the 3- to 5-year criteria minimum in the field. Well, how am I supposed to get the necessary field experience if no one wants to take a chance on teaching me? Anywho, this is the continuous conundrum I am in at the moment and that I will continue to be in unless I do something major...like blog! At the very least, keeping up with this blog on the journey to jobdom will sharpen my wits and stir whatever creative juices I have left. That said, here are the pictures from the continent that stole a lot more than my heart last summer (my Canon 60D included).        

Paranapiacaba- SP, Brazil. The day when Tati and Paula got headaches from speaking too much English with me and I showed them just how long I could shishi for.

 Lu and Vini and the Campinas sun.

Candomblé in Campinas. One of the most enlightening and exhausting experiences of my life.

Peru and all its color 

Blazing the Inca Jungle Trail- May 2011
These two ladies and I could've very well won an award for 'Best fall from a bike atop a mountain', if ever one existed.

The lizard man at the market, how could I not?

The Danes at the 'Casa del Mono'

4-for-1 happy hour with chips and guac included.

The three musketeers, one of them (on the left) in the habit of rolling back his eyes to show the white part to passing tourists.

A street-sweeper in Lima. 

The Festival of the Stars- Liberdade, SP, Brazil 

A cool convention of jugglers and street performers happening weekly in SP, Brazil.

So I haven't had the chance to blog since we left the comfort of Gaby's aunt's house in Brussels. And since then we have managed to hit Amsterdam, Paris, Florence and Padova in the span of nearly two weeks. I have no concept of time anymore since we've been on the road. The only times that matter to me these days are the arrival and departure times of trains at this and that station.
But fortunately, I just invested in a watch, so that will certainly help when time is actually an issue.
Like say for example, when I am at summer camp and a million little kids are pulling me every which way. With a watch, I will be able to maintain peace and order in these kids lives!
But that's a story for another day. My first priority right now is to recount the highlights of these past two weeks:
Amsterdam is a tourist's dream, especially if you are a guy. The red light district has a sight for every preference, as we found out on our second night. Our host named Sjaak and his friend Denis led us through a zoo of store-front ladies of all different shapes and sizes.

Then we woke up and took about 5 trains to get to Paris, where we were greeted by a freezing cold night and a host who seemed to have forgotten about us until midnight. We took the last subway train out of the Notre Dame station to her apartment and got the rest we deserved. The next week that we spent there only started looking up on the last two days, when the sun decided to come and not completely ruin our Parisian sejour. We saw a lot, met up with old friends and made some new ones, coincidentally, all named Mohammed.

The next stop was Florence. The heat hit us hard from the second we stepped off the train. I was in heaven until I realized Florence has mosquitoes too. Since then I have started a collection of red welts on my legs, arms, fingers...you name it. It's really been a nice look for me. But mosquitoes go unnoticed when you're having fun. And we have definitely been enjoying ourselves since Florence, in the company of three young college students in Padova, Italy. Every night has been a feast of food, music, good conversation and absolutely unparalleled wine and prosecco. At least in my book, that is all.

Our next and final destination, before it is time to put my watch to good use as mentioned earlier, is Valencia, Spain. But we will cross that bridge on Monday. Until then, we are letting the good times roll!

Hopefully I don't get sick of this girl =P

My Finnish brotha from anotha motha!

Courtesy of Vince's wide-angle lens and photo   skills to boot

 "While in Rome..."

reunited and it feels so good!

After what seemed like an eternity of travel, marked by alternating states of consciousness and deep sleep, I arrived at the Midi-station in Brussels to the sweet embrace of my best friend and travel buddy for the next couple of months, Gaby. Since then, I've been taking it easy and really enjoying the simple luxuries of a bed to rest my back on and hot water to shower in.  See out in the boonies of Berlin (the site of Couchsurfing's Berlin Beach Camp of 2009), you'd be hard-pressed to find a drop of hot water anywhere within a 5-mile radius. And that's how I spent my last few days in Berlin: roughing it in the wild with good company from around the world. Never in my life have I been received by so many smiles and warm welcomes. Within a couple minutes of knowing someone at BBC, they are already sharing their food, wine and any tent space they can offer with you. The kindness of a stranger there could work wonders at restoring a cynic's faith in people, not that I am one in need restoration. So despite the at-times unbearable cold weather and the slew of bugs swarming at all hours of the night in my shared tent with Kevin, I wouldn't trade this camping experience for the world. The last day was especially nice: After a very spontaneous decision to stay an extra night, we hit up the carnival of cultures in the heart of Berlin's Turkish quarter and danced behind unending floats parading the streets. Pictures to follow soon. As for the here and now, Gaby and I are getting ready to hit Amsterdam tomorrow. We've booked our first hostel called the Flying Pig, so I'd say that sounds pretty promising =)

Hooray for finished projects! They'll be posted up on the Berlin 2009 website soon for the whole world to see, and hopefully they'll help sell this study abroad trip a little more to the people that are contemplating it for next Spring. I don't want to leave this place, but I'm definitely comforted by the fact that I still have a good two months in Europe. And now that I'm free from the burden of deadlines, I can snap away at my own leisure. I'm planning on dropping off my laptop with Gaby's family in Belgium, so blog posts will probably be sparse. But I'll do my best to make it to an internet cafe at least once a week and keep notes on that week's experiences. So far, my worst fear of getting yelled at in incomprehensible German by the ticket validators never materialized, so I can't really complain. Freeman was one hell of a host, so I guess only time will tell if Berlin can be topped.

For a more detailed account of these last few days, see Freeman's blog:  http://berlinblog2009.blogspot.com/

update

Berlin is great and all, but I have almost forgotten that I am here to do school work. It's so easy to just relax here and let spontaneity govern your days. Getting lost has never been so much fun. On the flip-side, as of right now we only have a couple more days left to finish our project, and I haven't even made up my mind between two possible subjects. But take away the hovering rain cloud of an unfinished assignment, and you could say I've been having the time of my life here. There was a small blurb in the radar that is pretty typical when friends spend too much time together, but all that is resolved now and it's back to the Brady bunch. Let's just say I gave a couple of people a walk for the money a couple nights ago, and I'm genuinely sorry. On a lighter note, we've had it pretty easy these days: waking up in time to catch breakfast downstairs, then leisurely making our way to a market or a festival or something happening that day, then hitting up a cafe and finally we've been making it a point to meet the locals at night. Even if that means going out in the 40-degree weather in the skirts and light jackets we brought for what we thought would be a scorching summer. Some of the most colorful characters we've encountered include a prostitute, who basically told me to piss off in a less polite way while towering above me in her 9-inch boots. All I ever wanted was directions...

Shortly after that we were encircled by a newlywed and his buddies, who had minimal luck persuading all the girls in our group to put on the red lipstick they had handy and kiss the groom's shirt for proof that he's still got it. It makes for a funny story though. That's all I could ever ask for out of this trip: a couple of great stories to come home with.