We kicked off our two week Portugal roadtrip in Lisbon, and stayed at an AirBnB in the Alfama. The Alfama is the oldest district of the city, which, I now see on Wikipedia, was built around the 12th century. Obviously I did tons of investigating before and while I visited the city :) The area was a sort of labryinth, with tiny streets that suddenly seem to dead end or veer off, and steep hills.…
After our time in Miami, we continued our girls trip, renting a car and heading south to Key West. I highly recommend renting a car just so you can drive yourself over the Macarthur Causeway, bumping out the jams and getting an epic view of downtown Miami - and of course to drive yourself to Key West.
Our mission - reach the southern most point of the continental US. When we hopped in the car Sarah was sure that given the 305′s obsession with Pitbull, there must be a Pitbull radio station. I foolishly didn’t believe her, until I turned on our XM radio in the car, and discovered we could jam the entire drive down to Key West to Pitbull’s Globalization Radio.
Before heading off on my next trip home to the US next week, its about time I post on my trip to Miami, Key West, and the Everglades from August.
One of my best friends and I thought decided to meet “halfway” between Amsterdam and San Francisco. With neither of us in the mood for a city trip to NYC, Boston, etc, we figured Miami would be the next best bet. Neither of us really had much of an idea of what to expect about Miami, except that it would be awesome. And that much of our time would look like this:
and it did
We decided to go to Portugal for a few reasons - basically, we liked that it had the possibility of combining a city trip, the outdoors, and of course, the beach.
We started our trip in Lisbon, and stayed at an AirBnB in the Alfama. The Alfama is the oldest district of the city, which, I now see on Wikipedia, was built around the 12th century. Obviously I did tons of investigating before and while I visited the city :)
The area was a sort of labryinth, with tiny streets that suddenly seem to dead end or veer off, and steep hills. After arriving at our apartment, I figured we’d never find our way back - thankfully Google has mapped this area, so don’t worry.
Below: Outside of our apartment in the Alfama.
When we were in California last March people kept asking how it was possible for Dutchie to take so much time off of work when he had worked there for less than a year. Well friends, here’s some news, people here in the Netherlands are required by law to get 20 paid vacation days per year, and that is just the minimum. It came as quite a shock to most people I told that to that people in the Netherlands (and in many other countries, by the way) get so many more vacation days per year. And now, after looking up what it is for the United States, I’m completely shocked. I truly thought that there was a law that required people to have at least 10 days per year, but that isn’t so. US federal law does not mandate any minimum paid vacation days, and we’re the only advanced economy in the world not to do so. The average private sector worker in the US enjoys only 9 days of paid leave and six public holidays per year So here’s what I’ve got to do if I’m going to work in the US: either work for a company that provides at least 15 vacation days, or take the entrepreneurial route, and become wealthy enough that I can take vacation as I please.
Here’s another comparison: people in the Netherlands work 1378 hours per year on average. People in the US work an average of 1768 hours per year. That’s 9.75 more full time work weeks per year.
It has been since my last year of college when I took a class on global inequality that I started recognizing how different life is for an American compared to a European. Since moving here last September I’ve seen many of the differences I learned about first hand, and the differences continue blowing my mind. There are several things I’ve written about on here in the past that are small, fun, cultural differences between the Netherlands and the US (ie food, drinking, etc), but this is one of the biggest ones, and one that surprises my friends and family the most.
On subjects like this (and healthcare), the facts speak for themselves.