This is actually, a very hard list to order – mainly because the particular time and experience I had in each place weighs just as heavily as the place itself. I didn’t realize that ranking these would be so difficult. Not only is it hard to rank the best from the places I’ve lived –…
Places I’ve Lived #25 – Honolulu, Hawaii
I’ve already written so much about Honolulu and Oahu that I don’t really feel like there is much to say beyond our personal journey since we arrived here three years ago. Hawaii has always been an expensive place to live, but until we arrived and had boots on the ground – I had no idea…
Places I’ve Lived #23 – Sacramento, California – Squatting in Arden Arcade
Once we had my wife’s green card, I made a plan. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a plan. I bought our plane tickets – me, wife, and baby. We were flying from Morocco to Dubai then to San Francisco. Using some travel contacts, I managed to get us a three night stay…
Places I’ve Lived #22 – Istanbul, Turkey
Estimates say that there are approximately 20-million people living in Istanbul. No one really knows for sure. I was one of them for about six-months in early 2011. I loved living in Istanbul. As mentioned previously, my wife had left Manisa and returned to Morocco and the comfort of being around her mother and sisters…
Places I’ve Lived #19 – Sefrou, Morocco and Fez, Morocco
It’s bizarre how I ended up living in Sefrou and Fez. I studied Arabic at the University of Hawaii. I’m not sure why (my best supposition is that the universe needed me to be my daughter’s daddy and set me on this path – nothing else really makes sense). My major was cultural anthropology and…
Places I’ve Lived #18 – Hawaii including Waikiki, Manoa, Windward Oahu and Kapa’a, Kauai
When I moved to Hawaii – I had $100. I booked a dorm bed into the Polynesian Beach Club Hostel in Waikiki for seven nights and bought some rice and cheap veggies in Chinatown. During the next week, I ate rice and beat the streets looking for a job. I found a job painting houses…
Places I’ve Lived #16 – Florence, Oregon
I first went to Florence, Oregon in 1999 just before the excitement of the World Trade Organization Protests in Seattle. My hippie aunt and uncle had a cabin on a remote lake there. It was summer, the weather was perfect, and I stayed in the little boat house at the end of their dock. It…
Places I’ve Lived #15 – Parapat, Sumatra, Indonesia
In the year 2001, after wandering around China, traipsing through Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia and then wandering over to the massive island of Sumatra in Indonesia – I somehow found myself in the tiny little town of Parapat on the shores of Glorious Lake Toba drinking coconut wine with a guitar wielding Batak freedom fighter….
Places I’ve Lived #14 – Seattle, Washington
I loved living in Seattle. I had been there for the protests that shut down the WTO in 1999. Seattle has great art, music, food, museums, and is surrounded by some of the most epic nature of any city in the world. I probably would have stayed there if the start up I was working…
Places I’ve Lived #13 – London, England
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in London – but the only time I lived there was a brief stint at the end of 1998. I showed up at the invitation of my friend Danny, who had been my assistant and rowdy drinking companion while working on John Sayles film LIMBO in Juneau, Alaska….