This European Life: an Open Travelogue

[Delibes]

Hello everyone,
My name is Miguel and I was originally born and raised in Castile, Spain. For a time, now, I have been blogging about my ownership experience with my dear Newport, a Mercedes 300TD station wagon. The link is http://300td.blogspot.com/ (http://300td.blogspot.com/)

Most of what I have written relates to my epic moving adventure across the United States to the San Francisco Bay area, but it further continues with occasional drives and meditations on the way to self-empowerment.

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I really hope you all enjoy it as much as I do traveling all over! I will soon do it for a living through an online TV show... I will keep you updated on this!

[haven]

Welcome to ExPo, Miguel! Your blog is a welcome departure from the "mounted the new tires today" sort of uninspiring drivel that is found online. Please keep us posted about your travels, and your new venture into online tv.

[cdm]

This is just too cool for me to not watch. Bookmarked

[Delibes]

New update! 11/13/11

The Adventures of Newport - Time to Dance (http://300td.blogspot.com/2011/11/time-to-dance.html), a turning point story in which I meet with a Kansas member of the Mercedes-Benz community to set up an online TV show.

IT IS HAPPENING!

[Delibes]

New update today, 12/10/11.

The Adventures of Newport the 300TD: Up in the Clouds. (http://300td.blogspot.com/2011/12/up-in-clouds.html)

Yes, it is happening! Yesterday I had my last day of work in Burlingame Motors... it was an emotional moment saying goodbye, but I am pumped for all the things to come!

[Delibes]

New update: 12/17/11

I am currently writing from Barcelona, Spain... I am here to visit the family. In this new post, I talk about my project in Manhattan and return home.
Being here, would anybody be interested on a meetup in Barcelona or close? I will also be going to Madrid (Spain), Leon (Spain) and the Netherlands to visit one of the most famous overlanders: Jurgen (www.300td.org), who chose a Mercedes 300TD wagon for his adventures in Africa and Asia. His car is parked in Kazakhstan now, but still, he lives in the Netherlands.

78666

The Adventures of Newport: Now Here - Now There (http://300td.blogspot.com/)

Enjoy this chapter! There's a bunch of photos in this one - for a change.

[Delibes]

New update! 12/23/11
Happy holidays, everyone!

I visit Madrid to renew my visa... and do a bunch of non-conventional things in the way, such as:

-Prentending to be a Secret Police agent.
-Searching Goya curators.
-See a famous clairvoyant.

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/Delibes/IMG_2840.jpg

The Adventures of Newport: Madrid, Coats and Clairvoyance (http://300td.blogspot.com/)

Enjoy! This one has a record number of photos.

[Delibes]

New update on 12/30/11!

In this post I introduce you to my hometown in León, Spain, where I was born.

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The Adventures of Newport, the 300TD: Where Home Lies (Part 1) (http://300td.blogspot.com/)

I shall write about my actual interactions very soon, maybe tomorrow.

[Delibes]

Since it will be very likely that I will be driving several vehicles throughout my adventures, I decided to rename my online travelogue / journal as "This European Life", a spinoff on the well-known radio programme.

In this entry, things get more personal. Allow me to introduce you to the most important reason behind my travels in the Americas, as well as some great food and unexpected celebrity status.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yUt1BTixIfM/TwFsx0zHjcI/AAAAAAAAAV4/PplV4q7yCUI/s1600/IMG_0034.jpg

This European Life: Where Home Lies (Part II) (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com/)

Happy New Year to everyone! Let's hope this one is not as apocalyptic as the Mayans say... I am sure great things will happen!

[Delibes]

Finally, the last part of my hometown trilogy, dedicated to some very personal places from my childhood and the amazing food there. This is also the first post where I include video footage from my travels! My loyal Canon G9 is iffy, so I got a new point-and-shoot that fits neatly in my pocket.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e5jJScr4UL0/TwXEHFnGhxI/AAAAAAAAAY0/0WCkw9dnvgc/s1600/IMG_0071.jpg
This European Life: Where Home Lies (Part III) (www.thiseuropeanlife.com)

Leaving for Holland tomorrow! Ready to meet some more motorheads from the Mercedes-Benz forums!
I am also open to any overlanders who would like to join in the last minute.

[Delibes]

Writing from beautiful Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. I could not load the pictures on this hostel computer, but I will on Monday. Until then, enjoy this little piece of writing from a city so vicious, it leaves Las Vegas to shame.

This European Life: Five Snippets from Amsterdam (www.thiseuropeanlife.com)

Meetup tomorrow! :)

[Delibes]

New post this week, narrating all three days I spent in Holland.
I also added photographs for the previous post!


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_9x_HU7k87U/TwzEJ_tZ_kI/AAAAAAAAAbc/7N1g0iKFfzQ/s1600/IMG_0101.jpg
This European Life: The Long Netherlanden Post (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com)

Enjoy! Hopefully I can write again before I leave for the USA.
Remember to subscribe to my new Facebook page! (http://www.facebook.com/thiseuropeanlife)

[Ray Hyland]

Fantastic, thanks for sharing.

[Delibes]

Fantastic, thanks for sharing.

Thanks to you for viewing!

A little bit off topic (due to the lack of travel on this one), I thought I would write a little bit on one of the rarest cars I ever worked on. This one is pretty much one of a kind, and I bet many of you never knew it even existed!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rU7buamxSn4/Tw9m04PiFWI/AAAAAAAAAfs/NM7KGgfJXeI/s1600/Mercedes_SLR_Transporter_Kid.JPG
This European Life: Mercedes SLR Transporter (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com/)

In other news, I am departing for the US on Monday!
Wish me luck with my new life!

[Delibes]

Finally, after almost a month in silence, an update! Yes, I have a girlfriend now, so she has taken her very well-deserved share of time. I have, however, been writing these little vignettes for days, so bear with me! I have not forgotten about you!

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This European Life: Five Snippets from the East Coast. (www.thiseuropeanlife.com)

Life is going to get very, very interesting now...

[bobDog]

subscribed! You might just be a lot of fun! Welcome to the looney farm, the inmates can be kinda fun.

[BeachBum]

Dig your site. It's funny but I'm almost your opposite. Met my Spanish wife at Cal Poly SLO back in '98 and four years ago moved to Madrid. Just 6 months ago we moved up to Galicia, outside of La Coruña. León is a pretty cool city too, passed through my first time while driving back from a snowboarding weekend at San Isidro and again while mountain biking the Camino back in July '09. The stoned glass of the cathedral is some of most impressive I've seen.

[lostworldexpedition]

Subscribed!

[Delibes]

Dig your site. It's funny but I'm almost your opposite. Met my Spanish wife at Cal Poly SLO back in '98 and four years ago moved to Madrid. Just 6 months ago we moved up to Galicia, outside of La Coruña. León is a pretty cool city too, passed through my first time while driving back from a snowboarding weekend at San Isidro and again while mountain biking the Camino back in July '09. The stoned glass of the cathedral is some of most impressive I've seen.

Amazing! Thanks for the compliments! I am a big fan of Gothic architecture and I have the feeling that Castile does not get visited enough compared to Barcelona, per say. Oh, if all of amazing culinary treasures were also revealed to more visitors, alas!

Anyway, straight to the point: I am currently in Wichita, and here is what has happened since Brooklyn!


http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/Delibes/HillPointSF.jpg?t=1330497327
(http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com)
This European Life: OueeCheeTah, Kansas (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com)

[DR1665]

Irony.

I've only recently discovered this community and begun to explore it. Today, I decide I want to spend my lunch hour living vicariously through those who embody the spirits of adventure and freedom embodied by the automobile. And here I find someone posting an update from "The Air Capital City." I worked two jobs for three years to escape Wichita just over a decade ago.

The grass is always greener, right? Subscribed to your blog, mate. Press on regardless.

[bobDog]

Irony.

I've only recently discovered this community and begun to explore it. Today, I decide I want to spend my lunch hour living vicariously through those who embody the spirits of adventure and freedom embodied by the automobile. And here I find someone posting an update from "The Air Capital City." I worked two jobs for three years to escape Wichita just over a decade ago.

The grass is always greener, right? Subscribed to your blog, mate. Press on regardless.hahahah.....I have known folks who considered murder and theft to escape Kansas! :coffeedrink: I've been there..its just as flat as you think. Not a place for a guy who likes hills and mountains.

[DR1665]

hahahah.....I have known folks who considered murder and theft to escape Kansas! :coffeedrink: I've been there..its just as flat as you think. Not a place for a guy who likes hills and mountains.
Exactly. Mountains remind us of just how small we are relative this planet. Only a recent convert to this type of automotive shenanigans, I've always preferred to have mountains within eyesight, if only as such a reminder. Now, however, I'm looking forward to getting out and exploring the ones surrounding Phoenix. I can't get the Montero home fast enough!

PS: Funny story about Kansas flatness. Back in 2006, my wife and I drove my 97 Eagle Talon (a lowered sport-compact hatchback) from Phoenix to Kansas City for Christmas. (pics (http://dr1665.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=937)) We made it to Oklahoma City the first day and had to crash for the night. Despite getting nearly 12 hours of sleep that night, we hadn't made it out of Wichita on the turnpike before my wife - who had never been to Kansas before - asked me, "Is this really all there is?" My reply was, "Pretty much until we hit Kansas City." She was snoring ten minutes later.

:smiley_drive:

I don't want to hijack Miguel's thread, though, so I would offer a couple thoughts on Kansas Escape, er, Adventure Routes which might be of interest to overlanders. Departing Wichita...

+ to the SW, US54 (aka: Kellogg Drive as it crosses town if I remember right) will take you through the small towns that make Kansas great. Greensburg is along that route and has the world's deepest hand-dug well, which is pretty neat. I think the bulk of the town was wiped off the map a few years back in a major tornado and they've bene rebuilding with modern, green technologies. Could be an interesting place to explore today. This route takes you through cattle country in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles en route to the NE corner of New Mexico - Tucumcari. It's a nice, non-interstate drive with more local culture.

+ to the E, US54 passes through longtime speed trap, Eureka. Straight out of high school, I got popped for 97 in a 55 on one side of Eureka, then 80 on the other side, on my way to Missouri to visit a girlfriend. 54 passes through Fort Scott, which if I remember right, is an old frontier fort from back in Civil War times and a great place to discover what it really means to be a Jayhawk. Additional novelty, 54 passes through the small town of Gas, so the whole family can pass gas, get gas in Gas, etc.. From there, it's just a hop-skip-&-jump to Springfield, Missouri, through some very pretty (hilly) country. Plenty of lakes and camping along the way down to Branson. Maybe drop down into NW Arkansas and return to Wichita via Tulsa for a 3-state run.

+ FINALLY, if you're remotely interested in space and aviation, barely an hour NW out of Wichita is the town where I graduated high school - Hutchinson. They have the Cosmosphere, which has been said to be the best space museum in the country short of the Smithsonian in Washington DC. They have an SR71 Blackbird in the lobby (re-assembled at the local muni airport and towed across town back in 1997). They actually built the new addition to the museum around the airplane, it's so big. Just up the road from the Cosmosphere (literally) is/was a small, family-owned burger joint called "Bogeys," where they make incredible chili cheese fries and have over 100 milkshake offerings.

Sorry to go overboard on the comments, here, but this just seemed one of the few places I've seen thus far where I could actually hope to offer some help on this forum. Still quite the rookie!

[Delibes]

@DR1665. It is true that the grass is greener, but I still like the sloped grass of San Francisco. Too darn expensive, unfortunately. Wichita is the hometown of my business partner, Tyler, who is providing the ground for this opportunity to happen. And, being on the road most of the time, I cannot really complain! What I will say is that people are VERY nice here compared to NYC.

Thank you very much for all these places to see... I have heard great things about Greensburg, and thought we might feature the town in one of our episodes. I shall also visit the Cosmophere on my way to my mechanic! He is in Halstead, not far from Hutchinson.

Finally, after almost month an a half, I get to write something!

This European Life - The Life that I have chosen

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/Delibes/Open%20Roads/2AmeliaGasStation.jpg (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com)

[Delibes]

Another update, narrating how I drove a $59 for two months, and how I got Orwell, the Mercedes 300TD I plan –one day– to drive from Alaska to Argentina. Oh, what future posts will hold!

This European Life: A Tale of Two Cars

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(http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com/)

[Delibes]

This post may be one of the most important ones I have written, if not the most important. My time in the US is almost up, so I have about six weeks to make a decision whether to stay and study some more, or exit this country though the Big Door down to Argentina.

Crossroads: PanAmerican or School?

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/Delibes/Panamerica.jpg (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com/2012/05/crossroads-panamerican-or-school.html)

[Delibes]

Ladies and gentlemen, I am going PanAmerican. There, I said it.

This European Life: The Big Decision
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-40Jg3sciqdk/T7WlcsMKcCI/AAAAAAAAAmI/m9YvbZWcf_8/s1600/IMG_0379.JPG (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com/2012/05/big-decision.html)

[bobDog]

Find a South American university that allows camping and do both.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

[Delibes]

I am not even at the beginning of the journey and I have an "Aww, crap! moment" already. It compensated for a beautiful prospect, though!

This European Life: Eyes Open to Opportunity.
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/Delibes/IMG_0377.jpg (http://www.thiseuropeanlife.com/2012/05/eyes-open-to-opportunity.html)