This is the final installment of the Travelogues content for the time being. I have a “Canada” and “United States of America” section, but I decided not to bother - there will be plenty of photos from those places coming in the future.

The final retrospective series takes us to Greece, where I spent a long weekend on a mission to photograph a man’s coin collection. That little bit of experience landed me where I am now in Southern California.

For the Greece trip in December 2004, I was armed with my Canon A70, and an old Minolta SLR that I was shooting slide film on. Image-quality wise, neither make the grade by today’s standards I’m afraid. Oh well, the next time I’m in Greece I’ll be better prepared to take candid cultural shots in the Athens Sunday flea market.

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Here’s the English leg of my European journey. Again, I’ll have to apologize for the formatting of the the captions of these photos. Some of them are quite long, and that may interfere with your viewing of the galleries. What’s interesting, looking back at these photos, is how much I did not include in the travelogues. I may have to make a separate gallery later on.

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My trips to France were brief when I lived in Europe. They consisted of daytrips to Alsace, which weren’t bad, Strasbourg was quite nice, but you didn’t really get a good enough feel for the place I guess. That’s why I went to Paris three years later on my own, a great trip in itself, but that’s another story.

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Here’s the next installment of my series of old content. It’s interesting to see all these old photos and realizing how far I’ve come.

One thing I’ve done in three of the last photos is something I haven’t done in a long time - panoramic photos from multiple exposures. Hopefully you have a big enough screen for them.

My 2004 introduction is as follows:

For many months in 2003 and 2004 I sought out work as a graphic designer. Unfortunately I was unable to find suitable employment. I blame society… and Bush… and the Canadian government. Anyway, what’s a graduate with little job experience to do? Go to Europe of course. I was offered a position with Berlitz in Karlsruhe Germany and so, quite quickly, I made the decision in April 2004 to go there to teach English.
Europe is a magical place filled with interesting and not-so-interesting food, smells, and people. This is a small chronical of some of my experiences there.

I arrived in Stuttgart on the 30th of April, 2004. It was a long, long flight with many waiting hours in many terminals. Victoria to Vancouver, Vancouver to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Amsterdam (the airport there seems to be loaded with ugly, ugly people), and finally Amsterdam to Stuttgart. I managed to make my way to the Hostel and then proceeded to sleep. When I finally awoke at around 4pm I was quite hungry… therein was the first challenge. Ordering from Germans in a German restaurant wouldn’t be a problem if there was actually one around. The only convenient place to get food was one of the many Turkish restaurants. Germany is loaded with the suckers.
So. My first experience with German food was to be with Turkish food. Of course the people there (being Turkish) spoke no English so ordering was agonizing. But I eventually order the Yufka… THE YUFKA! I had no idea what I was missing, a thin chewy flatbread wrap with either spiced lamb, beef or turkey with lettuce, tomatoes, red cabbage, onions and a mystery yogurt sauce. Convenient, inexpensive, delicious.

That Sunday I walked around Stuttgart, as there was nothing else to do because everything in Germany is closed on Sundays… except for Turkish restaurants. My tourist-like appearance must’ve been apparent because I distinctly heard someone call me a gringo.

It’s difficult coming to a country where you don’t know anyone, nor the language. You really have to seek the help of others and luckily the people I trained with at Berlitz were helpful in getting me adjusted to their country. I started training with Berlitz the following Tuesdays so my days were pretty busy… which was a startling change from my usual unemployed activities which included:
Web-based research.
Television program appraisal.
Tending to small household mammals.
The photo above is something-or-other near the palace. I can see a bunch of churches, buildings with red roofs, etc.

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In 2003 I was getting restless. Recently graduated, and still living at home with my parents, an urge began to fill me. A need to strike out and have new and wild adventures. Little did I know where I would end up at the end of it all.

Australia was first on my list. Looking back I have no idea why, but it was. Perhaps it was the furthest away from home. But the Australia trip, and the trips that followed, made me grow as a burgeoning new photographer. My old 3.2 Megapixel Canon A70 served me well… however with more experience comes more, well, snobbery. I wouldn’t tough a hunk of junk like that now.

So without further ado, here comes the first installment of the old content.

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