Song of the Open Road

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New Vagabond Journey
2008-04-24 00:09:00
New Vagabond Journey .com . . .againI realized that the Vagabond Journey index page was beginning to lag a little, so I scrapped it and started anew. Look at the new index at Vagabond Journey.comRead about why I did this at Raising a Travel Website Child"yesterday, I sat down, gathered up a little steam, and put all of my website making skills to the test. I came up with a new index page for Vagabond Journey. I worked it out almost from scratch, I know what all of the code in it does and means. I had to learn how to speak its baby language. But I did so, and know I can communicate with my own kid. I like this incarnation the best."So, this is where I stand with the site, tell me what you think!Thanks,WadeEight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com

Pucaya Volcano Photos
2008-04-22 17:43:00
Pucaya Volcano Photos The following photographs are from a visit to the Pucaya Volcano of Guatemala. I got to get realy close to lava and feed a muffin to the volcano. Good fun.Click on the links to go to the below photos:Pucaya Volcano- Horseback riding Pucaya Volcano Guatemala Pucaya Volcano Guatemala Hot Lava Pucaya Volcano Guatemala Go to Vagabond Journey Travel Photos - check out the places you want to travel to before you go!Wade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 22, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com

Carhartt Work Boots for Travel
2008-04-20 19:04:00
Carhartt Work Boots for Travel The footwear that I tramp in are a pair of trusty Carhartt working man's boots. They have been going strong for over two years and have not let me down yet. Go to Carhartt Work Boots for Travel."Carhartt makes gear that is meant to be used, beaten, and battered. They make gear for the working man. I push my travel gear to the breaking point, and I have found that my Carhartt boots not only hold up to the test of the working man, but also that of the horizon struck wanderer."Read the full posts at:Carhartt Work Boots for TravelFollow the above link to read more about these boots that I have found to be virtually perfect for traveling.Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com

Vagabond Journey Travel Blog Directory
2008-04-20 16:55:00
Vagabond Journey Travel Blog Directory As part of my experiment to begin writing this travel blog on Vagabond Journey.com I have put together a link directory that allows for its navigation. Visit the Vagabond Journey Blog Directory. Craig from Travel Vice has suggested that I begin working from a Word Press system that is downloaded to my own server. This is not a bad idea, I must say, as Word Press seems to be more versatile than Blogger. But my only reservation is that I will still be working from within the bounds of an easily identifiable blogging system. I do not know that if, in the end, this will much different than Blogger. I want to try to keep everything very simple - I want to throw up made-by-hand pages that do not have much clutter.Craig's site and travel blog does look very good though, it must be said, and I think his navigational system is very easy to use and highly effective to prevent posts from being completely buried in time. Word Press seems to work for Crai...

Photos from Honduras
2008-04-20 16:25:00
Photos from Honduras The following pictures were taken in the Copan Ruinas region of Honduras during the spring of 2008. They are of the archaeology excavation that I was a part of, the main cluster of the Copan ruins, livestock in Honduras, and the Honduran countryside. To view more travel photographs go to Vagabond Journey Travel Photos - Check out the places you want to travel to before you go!Pictures from Honduras: Cockfight in Honduras Archaeology at Copan, Honduras Copan Ruins, Honduras Ancient Maya Copan Countryside of Honduras Wade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 20, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Travel Photos from Panajachel Guatemala
2008-04-19 19:03:00
Travel Photos from Panajachel Guatemala The following pictures are of Panajachel, Guatemala and Lake Atitlan. They are of volcanoes, Mayan women, indigenous Mayan clothing, tourist scams, markets, sunsets, and cheap food. For more travel photos go to Vagabond Journey Travel Photos. Look at where you want to travel to before you go there! Panajachel- Volcanoes, Mayan Women, Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Guatemala Cheap Food and Restaurants in Panajachel, Guatemala Volcanoes of Lake Atitlan and Panajachel Guatemala Mayan Clothes Market of Panajachel Guatemala Indigenous Mayan Clothing Market Ropa Americana, Dental Gold, Mayan Textiles in Panajachel, Guatemala Tourist Scams and Volcanoes in Panajachel, Guatemala Sunset Over Lake Atitlan, GuatemalaWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 19, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Guatemalan Market Video
2008-04-18 00:29:00
Guatemalan Market Video This is a video of the Saturday market in San Pedro, Guatemala. It is one of my walk-through-and-film type of videos that are just meant to give an impression of what it is like to travel where the film takes place. I am not a professional videographer, and my camera is a small, hand held Sanyo. Perhaps I care more about raw impressions than making things look good haha.Market in Guatemala video is below: Wade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 18, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com

Song of the Open Road on Vagabond Journey.com
2008-04-17 23:43:00
Song of the Open Road on Vagabond Journey .comFor many reasons varying from SEO to personal tastes to the advice of the Hobo Traveler, I have considered moving this blog over to Vagabond Journey.com, my main site.This is just an experiment at this point, and I am wondering what you think. I do not really like conventional blog templates and I would like to have all of my work on my own host. Please let me know what you think.Perhaps I am prejudiced a little, but I like the simplistic nature of the new blog layout (there is hardly even a layout), and I think that the navigational directory keeps older posts from getting completely buried.I intend to keep posting photos, videos, and excerpts on Blogger and linking to the posts on Vagabond Journey.com. So this blog can be used as a navigational tool to move around to the new posts on Vagabond Journey.Read New Vagabond Journey Travel Blog for more about this idea.This is only an experiment, so let me know what you think. If it does not w...
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San Pedro Guatemala Photos
2008-04-17 00:57:00
San Pedro Guatemala Travel Photos As part of Andy the Hobo Traveler's experimental lifestyles project, I present yet another batch of travel photographs from Guatemala. I am using Andy's system of putting up 50 photos a day, everyday. The below pictures are from San Pedro, which is a hippy town across Lake Atitlan from Panajachel. Check out what San Pedro, Guatemala looks like before you go! Click on the links to go to the photos. San Pedro- San Pedro Guatemala Coffee Beans, Hippy Bars, and Mayan Women in Guatemala Hotel in San Pedro, Guatemala San Pedro Lake Atitlan Guatemala San Pedro Guatemala Market Hippies and Mayan Women in San Pedro Guatemala Mayan Clothes and Textiles in Guatemala Kayaking on Lake Atitlan Guatemala San Pedro Guatemala and Lake Atitlan Passenger Boats of Lake Atitlan, GuatemalaPhotographs from GuatemalaWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 16, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond trav...
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Photos from Santiago Atitlan Guatemala
2008-04-17 00:51:00
Photos from Santiago Atitlan Guatemala The following pictures were taken in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. They are of Mayan women, art, Lake Atitlan, passenger boats, the Hotel San Pablo, Mayan jewelry, and Guatemalan food. All photos were taken in April of 2008.Click on the links below to go to the pictures: Santiago Atitlan- Boats on Lake Atitlan Guatemala Santiago Atitlan Guatemala Mayan Jewelry Clothing Guatemala Mayan textiles, women, and villages in Guatemala Santiago Atitlan Mayan Guatemala Lake Atitlan GuatemalaPhotographs from GuatemalaWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 16, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Mongolia photos
2008-04-11 17:55:00
Mongolia Photos The following are links to photographs from Mongolia. They are of ranches, Ulaanbaatar, livestock, Mongolian people, and the Golden Gobi Guesthouse. I traveled in Mongolia during the spring of 2007. Click on the below links to view the photos:Mongolia Travel PhotosUlaanbaatar Mongolia Temple PhotosRanches, Cows, and the Countryside of MongoliaGolden Gobi Guesthouse and Train from Mongolia Vagabond Journey Travel PhotographsWade from Vagabond Journey.comSantiago Atitlan, GuatemalaApril 10, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Bus from Antigua to Panajachel
2008-04-11 17:43:00
Bus from Antigua to PanajachelBought a ticket on a tourist shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel, Guatemala. 30 quetzales (around $4) is the cost for this two hour voyage from the Universal Travel Agency in Antigua. This is a little more money than I would like to pay, but it is not bad. If it was 5 quetzales more than I probbably would have walked down the street and caught the public bus.I like to pay $1 per seat hour of bus time. If a journey is 8 hours, I want to pay $8. But, as I well know, a begger cannot be a chooser. I take what I can get. Short bus trips, bus routes, expensive countries, gas prices, and a whole variety of factors often times shake this ratio a little, so it is not something that I can stick to ardently. But when I get on a bus and pay $1 per hour, I am a happy vagabond.So the tourist shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel costs around $4 and is a two hour ride. This is double what I want to pay, so I made inquiries into how much the public bus, referred to as the ...

Travel Work Skills
2008-04-09 17:53:00
Travel Work Skills I received the yearly travel work offer emails from the archaeology firms in the USA. Each year around this time I receive emails from three different companies inviting me to come and work on their projects. I usually take these offers, as this is the time of year when I usually start to go broke. But, this year, for the most part, I have decided to push through and to find other avenues of making up my bean money. I think this is a matter of self-imposed personal development. Traveling around the USA , working on archaeology projects for a couple of months a year is a good way to go to find nether-regions of my homeland, as well as to make up the money to take off and travel the rest of the year like a vagabond king. But this has gotten a little too easy. Save for some stints of doing farm labor in Europe and teaching English in Asia, I have been making up my traveling money like this since the year 2000; I am looking for other avenues. I do not mind working, and...
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Fishermen of Halong Bay Vietnam
2008-04-08 23:52:00
Fishermen of Halong Bay Vietnam The following links lead to photos of the fishermen of Halong Bay Vietnam. There are also photographs of Hanoi, Vietnamese beaches, and the boats of Halong Bay. Click on the below links to go to the photos.Hanoi and Halong Bay VietnamHalong Bay VietnamFishermen of Halong Bay VietnamVagabond Journey Travel PhotographsWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 8, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com

Tibetan Refugees in India Photos
2008-04-08 23:42:00
Tibetan Refugees in India Photos The following links lead to photographs of Tibetan refugees in the Bylakuppe camp in southern India. I took these pictures in the autumn of 2006 when I was doing research for an article on exile Tibetans called Seekers of Refuge in a Land of No Return that was published in Abroad View Magazine. Click on the links below to go to the photos of Tibetan refugees in India.Tibetan Refugees in IndiaTibetan Buddhist Monks and NunsVagabond Journey Travel PhotosWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 8, 2008 Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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I meet the Hobo Traveler
2008-04-08 19:02:00
I meet the Hobo TravelerOn the last day of March in the year 2008, Wade from Vagabond Journey.com finally met the the masked man behind Hobo Traveler.com. His name is Andy, people call him foreigner, and for a long while I only knew him through his blog posts and emails. I can now call him a friend. He is an interesting character, and he quickly became one of those rare birds that I mention frequently on Song of the Open Road. Now, in Guatemala, I have finally met the Hobo - I suppose all apples eventually fall to the earth. This meeting was, perhaps, inevitable. I was very curious to find out what Andy looked like, as he does not show photos of himself on his websites, and, on the day of our meeting, my only direction as to his appearance was "blond hair, red shirt." Then he appeared at the door of my hotel. He surprisingly looked much like I thought he would. Though his youthful disposition and energy struck me as being of that of a man much younger than 52 years of age. If I did ...
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Antigua Guatemala Market Photos
2008-04-08 17:15:00
Antigua Guatemala Market Photos The following links lead to pages of photographs from the various markets around Antigua Guatemala. They show the artisan market, the fruit and vegetable market, as well as some photos from the general commodities market. There are also many pictures of food in Guatemala. Click on the links below to go to these photos. Mayan Textiles MarketMarkets in AntiguaFruits and Vegetables in GuatemalaFruit and Vegetable MarketGuatemala Fruit MarketVagabond Journey Travel PhotographsPhotographs from GuatemalaThank you,Wade in Antigua, GuatemalaApril 8, 2008 Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Lady The Tramp.com Female Travel Guide
2008-04-08 00:05:00
Lady the Tramp.com Female Travel Guide Mira, from the former Wanderjahr Jill Travel Blog, has now consolidated her efforts in a new project oriented towards sharing travel knowledge from a female perspective. This new site is called Lady the Tramp and is a travel blog full of ideas, tips, warnings, and suggestions written by female travelers for female travelers. It is Mira's mission to create a forum on this site for discussing the particulars of being a female traveler "in a man's world" as well as providing a space for women to encourage each other to get out there and travel the world.Lady the Tramp's mission:"While traversing the globe females have to overcome certain difficulties unbeknownst to their male counterparts. Sexual advances, machismo, how to find sanitary products, where to pee, and how to keep an eye on one’s purse are just examples of gender centric problems a female may encounter on the road.""I hope to give a few good tips, advice, and guides for women trave...
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Cheap Food in Antigua Guatemala
2008-04-07 19:46:00
The Price of Cheap Food in Antigua Guatemala Went to a restaurant tonight near the market in Antigua, ordered the cheapest item on the menu, and received a hot pot full the flabby, fatty skin of a pig. This was not a specimen of Guatemalan food at its best. A mistranslated menu is one of the perilous pit-falls of traveling. It happens to everyone at some point on the Road: you think that you order pork chops and rice, but come to find a steaming bowl of pig skin soup set down in front of you. Cheap Guatemalan Food: pig skin soup. I made an attempt to try it, but I think my stomach of steel has finally met its match.Now my tastebuds have been trampled, beaten down, and worn-in by the rigors of budget-travel: I do not heave at the sight of unseemly food, I can eat a plate of gross looking entrails with a smile, and I hardly even balk before tossing some unidentifiable foreign object referred to the locals as food into my mouth. But this Guatemalan soup bubbling over with the plump, ...

Guatemala Photos
2008-04-07 19:01:00
Guatemala Photos In my effort to put up five pages of photographs from my travels daily, here are link to more images of Antigua, Guatemala. These pictures are of a Garifuna band, the views around town in Antigua, colonial architecture, and the people of Guatemala.Photograph of people in Antigua, Guatemala.Click on the links to go to the photos:Garifuna band in AntiguaGuatemalan Houses and Indigenous CraftsMayan Women and Colonial ArchitectureAntigua Guatemala Colonial ArchitectureMayan Band and Antigua Clock TowerVagabond Journey Travel PhotographsWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 7, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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On the Benefit of Animal Noises
2008-04-07 18:43:00
On the Benefit of Animal NoisesStrange animal noises coming from deep inside an unspecified hotel room can clear out a noisy hallway in a matter of moments. It is true, if you are prevented from sleeping at night by the unquiet tidings of some spry couple engaging in the initial tidings courtship in the hallway outside your room, just bellow out the bleat of a goat and they will disperse within moments. Then you will be able to sleep out the night in peace.I am not joking. This works.Last night Mira and I were laying in out bed in a hotel in Antigua when an English couple decided that the hallway that lead to our door was the perfect place for their conversational courtship. They spoke in that drawn out, exaggerated accent of the English upper-classes that I assume is surely faked. I could be wrong, but I think they were wankers.“There is nowhere left in the world that is not commercialized,” spoke the male wanker right into the window of my room. I think he was trying to impre...

Photographs from Antigua Guatemala
2008-04-06 15:54:00
Photographs from Antigua Guatemala Here are some more photos from my walks around Antigua. Antigua was once a major colonial center, and it can still boast a high population of tourist - the neo-colonialist. hehe.These pictures are of the La Merced Cathedral, Schoolgirls, Elderly tourists, Colonial Churches, Guatemalan Cowboys, and Cheap Food.Antigua Guatemala Photos of La Merced Cathedral and SchoolgirlsColonial Cathedral and Volkswagen Bug Pictures from Antigua GuatemalaPhotos of Guatemalan Houses, Pepsi, and Bus Times in AntiguaElderly Tourists and Guatemalan Cowboy PicturesCheap food in Antigua Guatemala and Horse PhotographsVagabond Journey Travel PhotosWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 6, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Afro-Caribbean Music in Antigua Guatemala
2008-04-06 15:45:00
Afro-Caribbean Music in Antigua Guatemala VideoThis is a video of Afro-Caribbean music in Guatemala. I found this band playing in a restaurant and went in to shoot this one minute video amid waiters trying to stick menus in my face. This restaurant was expensive so I held my ground and shot away watching the band play. I do not know anything about the music that was being played. I just thought it was interesting. Vagabond Journey Travel PhotographsWade from VagabondJourney.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 6, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Photographs from Antigua Guatemala
2008-04-05 19:58:00
Photographs from Antigua Guatemala With a rather large helping hand, I present some photos from Antigua Guatemala. I arrived in Antigua almost a week ago. These are some pictures from my walks. Antigua Guatemala Photos of Land Rovers, Bicycle Travelers, and ChurchesAntigua Guatemala Photos of Jeeps, Women, Hotels, and HousesAntigua Guatemala Photos of a Woman Cleaning, Realty Office, Food, and NewspapersAntigua Guatemala Photos of Motorcycles, Puppies, and White TouristsAntigua Guatemala Photos of Food, People, and Colonial RuinsAntigua Guatemala Photos of Spas, Cargo Bicycles, Restaurant, and MiraAntigua Guatemala Photos of Tomatoes, Colonial Churches, and PostcardsWade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 5, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Under the Wing of the Hobo Traveler
2008-04-05 17:54:00
Under the Wing of the Hobo TravelerI sat in awe as the un-conjoined links of what was once my disaster-zone knowledge of web-site construction began to solidify together in a solid chain. One piece smoothly lead into another and I am now starting to see the big picture of websites, SEO, and the internet for the first time. I am learning. Andy the Hobotraveler.com is at the helm of my instruction, and I am taking it all in - amazed and in awe. My mouth has dropped open, as it all is beginning to make sense. The first light of dawn has fallen upon my brow, and I am staring at it wide-eyed. Prior to the day before yesterday I knew how to make webpages in an editing program, but I had little clue how they really worked. These two halves have now taken their initial steps at coming together: Andy sat me down in front of his computer and showed me how it is done. I nodded my head, tried out what I was shown, messed it up, fixed it, broke it, and put it back together again. In only a few d...

Travel Tip 11- No More Shampoo
2008-04-03 02:09:00
Travel Tip #11 - No More Shampoo This is one of the best travel tips that I have yet to share. It is basic, it will come out quick, it is not ingenious, original, nor complicated. It may even sound silly.Here goes: toss aside your shampoo and wash your hair with normal, ordinary bar soap. It works just as well, for is not shampoo but an over-elaborated bar of soap? I have found that using bar soap rather than shampoo leaves my hair just as clean, lowers the amount of times a week that I have to wash my hair, and, most importantly, it removes the need to carry around and purchase shampoo. As any traveler knows, liquids are heavy to carry around, and, likewise, should be avoided at all costs. Shampoo is almost always sold in liquid form. Using hand soap to wash your hair reduces the weight of your pack, and this, above all else, is of paramount value to those who carry their homes opon their backs. Shampoo can also sometimes be a little expensive. Two dollars here, three dollars there ...
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Dancing Pharmacist in Antigua Guatemala
2008-04-02 20:40:00
Dancing Pharmacist in Antigua Guatemala VideoI cannot make anything more of this than what it is: a video of a be-costumed pharmacist dancing out in front of a pharmacy in Antigua Guatemala. Man, if their medicine could only make me dance like this guy Mira would have nothing to ever complain about again. Yikes, better run, or else Song of the Open Road may turn into a video blog of ME doing my hyper-charged cowboy two-step in every clime of planet earth. Wade from Vagabond Journey.comAntigua, GuatemalaApril 2, 2008Eight years of round the world vagabond travel. Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
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Travel to Guatemala from Honduras
2008-04-02 01:02:00
Travel to Guatemala from Honduras I cross the border from Honduras to Guatemala yesterday. The tourist shuttle from Copan to Antigua was the way I rolled. It was nearly as cheap as the local buses and far more direct. Smarts takes precedence over pride in travel, and I have no qualms about going somewhere the best way possible. So I packed into a van with a couple other tourists and rode out a comfortable ride to Antigua.I have a habit of falling directly to sleep as soon as I begin riding on a bus - or a plane, train, or car for that matter - so I cannot really write much about what the Guatemalan countryside looked like. But from what I managed to take in from brief breaks in my dreams, I must conclude, without a doubt, that Guatemala is a beautiful country.Wondrous volcanos, rolling hills, farms, rivers, and lakes stretched out before me unimpeded for as far as I could see . . . and then I feel back to sleep. I do not know how I do it. I don’t know how I am able to fall asleep a...
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Travel Tip 10- Turn a T-Shirt into Shorts
2008-03-30 01:13:00
Turn a T-Shirt into Shorts - Travel Tip #10This travel tip comes from the highly resourceful nomad Wanderjahr Jill. Read on, and you will be sure to learn how to turn a t-shirt into a pair of shorts. I cannot predict when you will need to use this tip, but, I must say, there will come a day when you look into your rucksack and realize that your articles of clothing are not appropriately diverse to fully clothe a human body. For sometimes on the Road you just have a few too many t-shirts and not enough shorts, sometimes the clothes in your bag just do not match the climate, and sometimes you just need a change.This travel tip is about making use of what have. This tip is about getting your self out of a jam.This tip is about how to turn a t-shirt into a pair of shorts:First, place the t-shirt on a flat surface and cut the sleeves off along the seams.Take the sleeves and cut them along their seam so that they are flat pieces of fabric rather than “rings.” Place them on top of each ...
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Copan Expat Barroom Wisdom
2008-03-30 01:01:00
Copan Expat Barroom Wisdom “My friends say, ‘Quinn how do you travel the world? How do you do it?’”“I do it because I want to do it.” - Quinn the Copan expatIn Copan, they think that I do not have any huevos. I like orange juice. I go out to the local expat bar on Friday night, and I only drink orange juice. My drinks receive the hairy eyeball from the entire assemblage expat lifestyle drunks, as they sit innocently on the table in front of me like some bastard pariah child, but I like them. I also like going out at night, having fun, and then being able to wake up at 7AM with a clear head and a disposition to enjoy the beautiful Saturday day. But, sometimes, in any barroom, from the mouth of any washed out drunk, there is a chance that pure wisdom could seep into your ears amid all of the slag. The man’s name is Quinn. He has a predisposed red complexion that only gets redder as he gets drunker. His face gets really red a lot. I think he gets drunk every single night. ...