User:Rastapopulous

I'm Rastapopulous. I'm from New York, specifically Brooklyn but nowadays live in Seattle. In college I spent substantial time on Long Island I've also done brief stints in Havana, Middlebury, and a very brief stint in Pittsburgh. The kid of a rather international family (Italian-South African), I started traveling at an early age, but have also been venturing out into the world on my own.

Me at Darvaza, in May 2011

Docent

I am the docent for Brooklyn. If you have questions, please leave them on my talk page.

Projects

Diversions

• There's a whole bunch of restaurants I've been to all over the map, and I need to add them to their respective articles

(Personal reminders: Biang!, Cafe at Your Mother-in-Law, Varesichnaya, Pho Grand, Ted's (Steamed Cheeseburgers)) Main Projects

• Getting various articles about Cuba up to shape, starting with Baracoa
• Getting my own hometown of Brooklyn up to shape, particularly the areas around Prospect Park, which I know well, and the Downtown area, which I also know well but not as well as the area around Prospect Park.
• Doing some work on the East End of Long Island

Future Projects

• Improving the New York article, or at least what I can work on: the aforementioned Brooklyn work, plus some stuff in Lower Manhattan.

Travel Stuff

Next Up

I'll be heading to Europe for the first time in a while, heading to Amsterdam and Edinburgh and doing a redo in Brussels

Where I've Been

I usually define having been to a place as my feet having touched solid ground there (i.e. not in some vehicle or other), however briefly that may be

I have visited the following countries:

• My native USA
  • I currently live in Seattle
  • I've spent a lot of time Vermont
  • I have ventured into New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey for collegy-type stuff
  • Washington DC
  • Virginia: Area around DC
  • Maryland: Area around DC
  • Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
  • Illinois: Chicago
  • California: From San Francisco to LA, with stops in Yosemite, Sequoia National Park, and Fresno, and on to Joshua Tree National Park
  • North and South Carolina for the barbecue!
  • While traveling on Amtrak from New York to California, I have "visited" West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. My feet touched the ground in all of these but Kentucky.
  • On my recent Amtrak trip from New York to Seattle, I went through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and very briefly Idaho
  • Ohio deserves special note as the only state I have visited entirely while asleep. I don't suppose that counts as visiting under traditional definitions?
• My "motherland" Italy
• My other "motherland" South Africa
• Switzerland
• France
• Spain
• Monaco
• San Marino
• The Vatican
• The UK
• Belgium
• Germany
• Latvia
• Estonia
• Finland
• Japan
• Ecuador
• Turkmenistan
• Turkey
• Canada (Yes, I am an American living in the Northeast, and I got to Turkmenistan before I ever set foot in Canada)
• Cuba: I got the amazing opportunity to do a semester of study in Havana as an American. I spent 4 months there, longer than anywhere else outside of New York. I also got to go across the Island to Trinidad, Santiago de Cuba, and my personal favorite Baracoa
• North Korea
• China
• Tajikistan
• Colombia
• Peru
• Kazahkstan
• Iran
• UAE
• Argentina
• Brazil: For less than 24 hours!
• Uruguay
• Technically, I was on Paraguayan soil for less than a minute

My favorite places (In no particular order):

• Hiroshima
• San Francisco
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Granada (even though I was 8 at the time, I still loved it)
• Riga
• Tallinn
• The Kohtla-Jarve Mining Museum
• Brussels
• Sicily
• Cape Town
• Kruger National Park
• Darvaza--Modern wonder of the world, anyone?
• Baracoa

Travel Goals

So far, they are:

a. Leave the United States and live somewhere else, quite possibly permanently. b. Go on a round the world trip. c. Visit every country in the former USSR.

Wish List

Regions I am interested in:

• Eastern and Central Europe, especially Russia and the former USSR (one of my goals is to visit every former Soviet state; so far 3/15 completed)
• Central, Southeast, and East Asia
• West and North Africa and the Sahel
• Andean South America

Babel user information
en-N This user has a native understanding of English. af-1 Hierdie gebruiker het basiese kennis van Afrikaans. es-3 Este usuario tiene un conocimiento avanzado del español.
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