Travels: 2009

Because this is my memoir, I get to jump from story to story without worrying about time and space.  This past weekend, I was talking with my parents about their recent trip to Ireland and my mom told me that I needed to write down some of my stories from my time in Europe because my memories won't always be so vivid.

Listening to their stories about stopping in pubs, seeing traditional Irish music, and just general travel stories gave me the motivation to recount some of my finest travel tales.

Mississippi River Barge from the Top of Caruthersville Elevator

After graduating from Indiana University in May of 2009 I started a training program with Bunge, a commodities company.  I started the training program with two weeks in Miami, 8 weeks in St. Louis, 4 weeks in a small town in the bootheel of Missouri, Caruthersville. Then I started to work my way towards international travel with a quick trip north of the border to Toronto for 3 weeks.

St. Louis Arch

While in Miami I was with 6 others just starting the training program and we were in for quite a good time.  In the group there was, Charlie from San Francisco, Warren who I randomly went to high school with for a year, Eric from the western suburbs of Chicago, Danny from New York, Harry from London, and Deepti, the only girl in the group, from Hyderabad, India.  We had speakers come and discuss commodity trading basics and then after our work we were able to experience the better side of business travel and training; dinners.  We were 7 strangers and we stopped being polite and started being real. Wait no, that is Real World.  But we were 7 young people with fresh AmEx cards and someone else picking up our tabs.  We had plenty of delicious meals and nights out while in and around South Beach.

Tacky Niagara Falls

After spending a few weeks in the Midwest, I moved to Toronto, in December.  It was bitterly cold and they were having a dry (as in no snow) winter so there wasn't even anything white, it was just freezing and gray.  I took a trip to Niagara Falls and was impressed with the size and sheer power of the falls and was disappointed with the incredibly tacky and touristy feel of everything else.  But I did enjoy the casinos and sports books which gave me reason to stay the night and gamble on college football.  (Be warned, the sports book would only allow parlays and no single game bets.)

Niagara Falls

Although I didn't spend a whole lot of time in Toronto, I did make it out one night with a coworker, who later would become a good friend while we both lived in St. Louis.  We went to some underground dingy bar that had some great bluegrass / twangy type band playing.  I don't remember the name of the bar or the band and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I would have remembered it even the next morning.  I do remember the massive headache the next morning and the annoying chills I got when trying to find a greasy hamburger in downtown Toronto near my hotel.

Following Toronto, I made quick trip back to Chicago for Christmas, which included a classic college reunion weekend with my former roommates living in Chicago.  I landed at O'Hare and got picked up by my parents and little sister.  We went to a pizza place that we used to go to with old friends around Christmas.  It was great to be back with family after not seeing them for so long but I was also anxious to get downtown to meet up with Adam, Chachi, and Jones.  We went to a Chicago Bulls game and then got picked up by a trolley with a bunch of friends and friends' friends.  We drank all over town and had a grand old Christmas themed trolley party.

Family Stockings over the Fireplace

After the weekend downtown, I got to spend the week with my family at home before I was going to be heading over to Europe to continue my training.  My time at home was wonderful! The whole family was around and we were all in great Christmas spirits.  Also, my childhood friends were around and we got to hang out like we were kids again without many worries to get in our way.  This included spending massive amounts of time outside in the snow building a giant snowman that we then spray painted to make it look like he had clothes on.  But before I knew it I was headed back to O'Hare to meet up with Eric and Warren as we were going to Amsterdam for a few days including New Years Eve before we had to report to work in Geneva, Switzerland after the 1st of the year.