"Travel According to Tones" mydreamquest's Profile

Chapter One: UPDATES & Why I am here at VT?

Hey World,

**UPDATE: September 1, 2011**

What's been happening lately?

It's been nearly 18 months since my last update. Since January 2010, I've stayed domestic in my travels and I now live in Oakland, California. Maybe I'll concentrate on Oakland since my home page on Oakland is rather small. It's a wonderful city that has a lot of interesting things to do and is not as crime ridden as the press makes it out to be. Yes, there's crime, but it's not much worse than San Francisco.

Since my last update, I've spent time in Los Angeles/Palm Springs, New York City (always spend time there), Central California, and St. Louis including Southeastern Illinois/Southwestern Indiana.

Outside of the USA, I did go to Singapore September 2010 and fell in love; what an amazingly clean, modern city put together on a tiny tropical island. Also spent a little time in Toronto during August 2010.

Picture

This picture of me running the Napa Valley Marathon is my inspiration for my current training which is for the 2011 New York City Marathon. I finished that marathon with a time of 4 hours, 6 minutes and 48 seconds. Hopefully I can give that personal record a challenge, but I need to lose more weight (at least 15 lbs. in the next two months for me to have a chance at accomplishing that).

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Next on the Agenda

I've recently developed an interest in my personal genealogy and have discovered Welsh, Scottish, and English Ancestry. I would love to head back to the UK to explore those regions.

I would also love to visit East Frisia, an area of Germany near Leer (a city translated in English that means "empty").

But I may go back to Singapore again. I loved the food and atmosphere of Singapore. So crowded yet so civil, unlike other big cities in Asia like Hong Kong or Shanghai where it's unbearably congested certain times during the day.

How I Found VT

Why am I at VT? Initially I joined because I was researching apartment rental information for a trip to Buenos Aires and via a Yahoo search engine, I found myself here.

Realizing, how important traveling is to me, I've since developed my page and gradually try to add a new picture each day.

Tell Me About You

To all my friends here, where are you gong next?
Where have you been lately?
How much vacation time do you have each year?

Favorite Place #1-Tallinn, Estonia

Old Town Tallinn

Those places where the modern blend with the past always fascinate me. Tallinn, with it's old town next to their developing downtown leaves the mind with many possibilities both looking back in past and envisioning the future. Keep an eye on this growing city of charm.

I love how intoxicating this place was when I visited it just this September 2004.

Favorite Place #2: Vienna, Austria

Waltz Room inside of the Schonbrunn Palace

Vienna is about the beauty of classical music and the secret delight of walking about District 1 at 6 am before the rest of the city awoke on below freezing slush-ice streets of a December winter morning.

When the snow falls at 6:30am, and you're just a short walk to the Stephansdom Cathedral, the morning wind gets muted by the parachuting of soft, lazily clumpy snow. Within minutes, the slushy grey dark streets of Vienna turn into a blanket of night bright white!

You feel the ghosts of past composers, Beethovens, Mozarts, and Schuberts walking beside you composing. Not just in thought, but in the gradual crescendo of snow flakes tingling the imagination as it falls down, thick, dry, slowly, making a freezing temperature warm with a morning white in the darkness of an unawake morning.

The food, the people the history, the inspiration will always live there.

Vienna is also a great city to study architecture and how history effects architecture. Baroque styles with "prisoners" holding up structures relates to the Turks; and of course the Onion shaped domes also from influences from the Turks. The modern/surreal architecture made famous by Hundertwasser. Anywhere in Vienna's District 1 is an architects dream walk.

The intense quiet of Vienna's "busy Districts" downtown is like an optical illusion. You really feel as if you are in a ghost town and then you enter a cafe and say to yourself: "so that's where all of Vienna's life fled to."

Favorite Place #3: Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

By the St Lawrence River

The cobblestone streets in old town; crepes in a breakfast house by the St. Lawrenece; the streets throughout this city.

I see myself living my final days in Quebec. The fortress overlooking the St. Lawrenece and the street musicians and makeshift art galleries stay safely nestled in my memory untainted.

I love cities in September where in the presence of warm weather feel the premonitions of the cold winter awaiting in arrears. Quebec (and Tallinn) above exemplify this feeling the greatest.

Favorite Place #4: Buenos Aires

Falling Sun over Buenos Aires (April 2004)

To me, my recent trip to Buenos Aires was an exploration into my soul and heart. There is so much love in this city and the word that always comes to mind when I look back on my experiences here is the word: "Passion." That is what Buenos Aires is About. The people are very beautiful, tough, friendly, charming, and wonderful conversationalists. I left that city with many new friends, all who have in one way or another given me a greater longing and love of life itself.

The many walks in Recoleta will always be clear as glass in my memory and I find myself visiting Buenos Aires many more times. I love the food, the style of the people, and the emotions that radiate in this city's humid air.

Favorite Place #5: London, England

Me in London at the Tate Modern Museum (the flash)

The London Underground and accessibility of this modern city is birthmarked by history. Oxford Street and the rush of London isn't as taxing as one would imagine.

The Tate Modern Museum's Entrance, a huge yellow eye staring at you in a voyeurism of calm in a dark cellar like reclining entrance with the feel of London fog; the diversity.

Possibly the world's most beautiful people live in London.

There is a loud intimacy of London that makes visiting this city a very personal experience.

Favorite Place #6: Salzburg

View of Salzburg

The birth place of Mozart, this city is very intimate if you're located near the Salzach River. No place in the world is a better place to be, if you enjoy Classical Music and are in Salzburg during July-August when they have their annual 2 month long music festival featuring the greatest operas, symphonies, and performers in the entire world.

There are countless restaurants and stores with delicatessans where the meats (hungarian, austrian, polish, italian, and german) are whetting to the palette.

I suggest 5 days at least while in Salzburg to truly feel the splendor of this intimate city in the heart of Austria by a river.

About me

Here I am in August 2005 in Mondsee, Austria

Obviously, I love to travel. You'll find my pages more interesting if you have certain things in common with me. Some things I like to observe when I travel:

1. Places that have scenes from movies;
2. Places where important people of history were born, died, are buried, or had a significant event involving them (i.e. The High School Jerry Garcia studied at before he dropped out: Balboa High School on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco's Excelsior District)
3. Types of Trees and Plant Life
4. The Different types of animals, birds, and insects
5. Watching People's dress styles and mannerisms
6. What is sold in supermarkets
7. The People
8. Areas where I can find a landscape view of the city I'm visiting
9. The signs, billboards, and advertisements
10. Any idiosyncracies of cities (like how, in San Francisco, there are myriad questions asked prior to ordering lunch so that the waiter/waitress are assured you are getting exactly what you want).

Miscellaneous things about me:

Music:

Mahler, Beethoven, The Chameleons, Ride, The Smiths, Smokey Robinson, Fishbone, Godspeed! You Black Emperor!, The Shins, Elliot Smith, The Swans, Idlewild.

My music: Here

Movies:

The Third Man, Amelie, The Godfather, Maria Full of Grace, Young Frankenstein, Blue Velvet, Day of the Jackal, 16 Candles, 39 Steps, and Hairspray.

Writers:

Brautigan, Bukowski, Borges, Vallejo, T.S. Eliot, Robert Anton Wilson, Henry Miller, and Oscar Wilde

Intro Updated Sep 1, 2011
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Personal Pages (1)

Written Oct 18, 2005

8 photos

My Endless Journey Around the Globe

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Comments (57)

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DaHongHua Oct 15, 2012 at 12:38 AM

Nice to meet you in today's birthday list. A warm happy birthday greeting from Malaysia. Best wishes to you, keep healthy and wealthy to keep on travelling interest. Cheers.
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giampiero6 Dec 19, 2011 at 4:58 PM

Really enjoyed reading your homepage, Tones.
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onlinerep Oct 15, 2011 at 6:08 AM

Happy Birthday Tones! Greetings from England :)
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Mahjabinejune Oct 14, 2011 at 9:28 PM

hi happy birthday to uuuuuu from june ....
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alza Oct 8, 2011 at 10:30 AM

Hi! got notice that your birthday is coming up, Happy Birthday in advance! how's the NY Marathon training going? They have a Dash To The Finish Line that looks cool too (shorter! :)) Have fun!
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Donna_in_India Oct 14, 2009 at 7:56 PM

Hi Tones - wishing you a very happy birthday! Hope you have a great day!
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King_Golo Oct 15, 2008 at 12:25 AM

Hi Tones, happy birthday from Germany!
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BeatChick Oct 14, 2008 at 9:27 PM

Yo, Tones, Happy Burfday to ya!! Hope this year's will FAB-A-LUS!! :D
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sue_stone Apr 3, 2007 at 10:37 AM

Thanks for letting me know! All fixed now ; )
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goingsolo Mar 25, 2007 at 7:13 AM

Death Valley is amazing. Thanks for stopping by my page. Hope you have a great trip. :)