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.

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

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

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