I have many more posts to post about my trip. I just wanted to throw this one up quickly. I wrote 5 blog posts on the plane ride back to SF and this is the first. All photos taken by me, last week in Miami.
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I feel so old in my young age. I’ll be 24 in five months. Seems like I was going to be 23 forever. What’s interesting is that I’m in this time warp where I spend so much heart and emotion into these blog posts that really only take me half an hour to write but the heart involved in these posts means that I remember where I was and how I was feeling each time I wrote one. I can read the first line of any post and it’s clear where I was when writing it. This is why the post I wrote just 2 weeks before my 23rd birthday makes me feel that I’ve only been this age for a few short months but really it’s been 8 months since I sat at Sugar Café and angrily typed out my fears of being one year older and the events following that blog post have shaped so much of my life. I really used that post to make some pretty drastic changes in life, many of those changes that I regret but it was a lesson that I’ll never forget. I can’t promise myself that I won’t make those mistakes again when I turn 24 in August. We’ll see.
I write this from the plane on a flight from JAX to IAD on my way to SFO. Airport Call signs seem so native to me now. I speak in call sign. I took my first vacation last week. My boss at Brightkite encouraged me to do very little work on this trip and I took advantage of that. I don’t need to fill in the details of what I was doing on this vacation because my adventure was already pre-blogged 2 weeks prior to leaving. It was 8 days and I had the time of my life.
One of the most stressful and time-consuming part of my trip was WMC / UMF. It wasn’t a problem once I was in Miami but the lead up of getting travel arrangements, party tickets and RSVPing for events was seriously very hard as I’ve never done WMC & UMF before. Basically, WMC is like the SXSW of electronic music. Where SXSW is mostly a conference for live rock music, WMC is in Miami and focuses on techno. UMF is 2-day festival right in the middle of WMC that hosts over 100 of the best DJs from all over the world doing their thing on 9 stages in one park for 12 hours each day. It was insane. Those of you that saw my photos would agree that I had an incredible time.
I always stay in hostels because I’ll pay 1/10th the price of a hotel and it’s the chance to meet some incredible people. It took two days to make over 5 friends who accompanied me to UMF for both days. I met a new friends hailing from Detroit who I could consider a festival nut and attends music festivals all over the country. Kimberly, my new friend from Denmark came to the US for the first time just for UMF and the other three friends were from Germany and Italy. I met youth from all over the world who came here just for this festival. Seriously, it’s a huge deal. For $30 a night, the Miami Youth International Hostel right in the dead center of South Beach had beer and club outings every night, three meals a day served and fast Wi-Fi. They’d randomly order pizzas for people at 2AM who were just getting in from the clubs and kept the place super clean. It was the best hostel I’d ever stayed in. On Friday, I just sat in the front lobby chatting with random strangers all morning as the hostel blasted techno over the speakers.
My only complaint about the Europeans that I’ve met is that they all smoke. Every single time I meet someone from western Europe, they smoke heavily and complain about cigarette prices in the US. Other than that, the guys were totally laid back and the girls were as well. It was fun to meet new people and have outings every day with my new friends.
I laid out on the beach and attended pool parties during the day. The day pool parties that I paid to get into were awesome. Imagine being in a pool, sipping a beer and right next to you is a DJ playing Tribal or Trance music and a few hundred partiers are dancing along in and out of the water. This is what WMC does to South Beach. Not a single roof, pool ,beach or venue is without a DJ playing music that makes your ears bleed. In fact, my friend Victor said last year both Starbucks on South Beach had a live DJ inside right by the area where you put sugar in your coffee! Yes. Starbucks had a DJ.
If you love Techno, WMC is the place to go and I didn’t attend the conference because there were so many events from noon to 5AM every day to keep me busy.
I don’t think non-techno lovers understand when you say to someone, “I walked to the pool party and danced for 6 hours. I walked to the club and danced for 4 hours right by the woofer and then after dinner, I went to an afterparty and danced for 4 hours and then at 5AM, I went to a club that plays techno and serves you breakfast in bed as strobe lights and disco balls spin from the ceiling.”
Lovers of techno would call that a perfect day but everyone else looks at you like you’re insane. Yes, you read that correct. Me and 2 friends, walked into a club, laid down on a bed and were served breakfast as DJs and acrobats spun over our heads w/ strobe lights. It was awesome!
I started partying Wednesday morning after taking the red-eye out of SFO to FTL. I didn’t sleep. Why? Cause the Virgin America flight was full of WMC attendees. Nearly 25 people were in the Virgin America in-seat chat room talking about WMC and the events we’d be attending. I spent 5 hours chatting with people from my seat, making friends and sharing phone numbers. After checking into my hotel, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos then went to a pool party at noon. This trend continued until Sunday when Victor and I drove back to St Augustine so I could spend the next 4 days with family.
There’s not as much to say about my time with family. I’ll try to summarize.
Dad and I talked, a lot. This is not unusual. We explored so much and he gave me excellent advice as always. My sisters are awesome. I’ve stayed true to my goal of coming home to visit every 4 months. It’s nice to see my sisters growing up so fast. They’re two exceptionally talented and beautiful little girls and I’m making plans to fly my sister out to LA in August to spend a week with me. She’ll be 14 in July. Marley will still be 10 in December but I want to fly her up to Denver and take her Skiing as a Christmas gift. I’m saving up now so I can do that. She has to keep her grades up though. Mom was awesome. She’s doing very well. I worry about her sometimes and I have every reason to be worried about her but after talking to her today, I am assured she’s going to be fine. She just needs that helping hand and encouragement sometimes.
My once a quarter Aikido class was on Monday. It was very emotional. Each time I go home, I attend as many martial arts classes as I can as my Dad is the instructor and I trained for 21 years before moving to SF and was his lead instructor. It’s emotional to come back because everyone’s skills are improving but mine are staying the same. Matt, my best friend and training partner has replaced me. He’s doing so good and I’m very proud of his progress. The core group of 10 people who go to 5 classes a week and train 2-3 hours a day are still there. I love those guys and they mean so much to me.
My 2 year anniversary of moving to San Francisco is on May 31st. I won’t see those guys until after that so I made a speech. I’ve never done this before but I wanted to express some thoughts. I wrote it down.
Guys, thank you for the great class tonight. I wanted to share a few things about me and how things are going. First of all, I miss you all so much. It’s been nearly 2 years since I moved to San Francisco and I think about you all each day. Every time I come home and attend a class or two, I feel more and more a rift like we’ve all grown a part or another feeling like I simply don’t belong anymore. I think I know why. I left you all and moved far away. I abandoned the class and moved on. The truth is, this isn’t the case. I didn’t move to the big city and neglect you all for a bunch of hicks in Florida. In fact, I’m the hick in San Francisco where I still love BBQ and driving a truck. I’m still one of you and I’ve never left.
Everyone said thank you, we took a group photo and I left. It’s hard to see all of my family every 4-6 months for one night but it’s the way I chose to live my life for a brief time. My adventures may take me to another city, another country or maybe I end up back in Saint Augustine next year. I have no idea where it will all end up but I’m thoroughly enjoying my time in San Francisco. This trip home only solidified my decision to be in California and I never feel that I abandoned anyone. I’ve only moved but remain close as ever to my friends and family.
