The best part of traveling is discovering all the special places that are off the beaten path. The church of San Juan is one of those amazing sites that frequently goes unnoticed.

La ermita de San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (Gaz-tay-loo-got-chay) is a small church which sits on a small island, connected by a small passage that can be found between two small towns on the Northern coast of Spain. For obvious reasons, it is very difficult to reach the church unless you are seeking it out. Even then it is difficult to reach...

I first headed to the town of Bermeo, a fishing town just East of Bilbao. I spend the day walking around and enjoying the town (post to come later) but in the afternoon I decided it was time to head out toward the island, I just didn't know how to get there. I asked someone in the tourism office who told me there was a taxi (???) that only drove between Bermeo and the town over, and that he would drop me off at a spot in between.

So I waited out for the taxi who luckily spoke some pretty good English. At this point I was starting to get worried because the sun was just starting to go down, so I knew I wouldn't have too much time at the church. The island was probably just a couple miles down the coast, but because of the mountains and curves it took nearly 30 minutes to reach the drop-off spot, which I assumed was in front of the church. Wrong. This "drop-off spot" was barely more than a shoulder for the road, on the side of a mountain, above a cliff that looked over the island far below.

Once out of the car, the taxi-man barked to me that he was going to the next town and would be back in 45 minutes and to just wait for him there. He also warned me that it would be dark soon and that there were no lights on the island or mountain. At this point I was realizing that at the rate the sun was dropping and the time it would take to reach the bottom of the mountain, cross over to the island, see the church and return, would easily take 45 minutes and would leave me very little light.

So I started on a run down the path which zig-zagged along the slope of the mountain, stopping periodically to gaze through open seems in the brush at the beautiful island below. There were many clouds that day so the light was disappearing faster than normal, but it left a pink and orange hue across the church and the rocks it was perched on.

The picture here was taken from one of those views, probably while I was heaving and gasping for air, trying to keep my camera straight. When I finally reached the bottom of the mountain I realized that I shouldn't have wasted all my energy getting there, because now a steep staircase lay in front of me. As I painfully ascended I could hear waves crashing around me on the edges of the island.

I must have arrived late, because the doors of the church had already been shut and I wasn't able to pass. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently you are suppose to ring the bell at the front of the church three times and make a wish as a reward for your troubles.

After a brief moment of looking around the site, which is dated all the way back to the 9th and 10th centuries and supposedly came from the Knights Templar, I began my return down the island, up the mountain, and into the dark. By the time I reached the drop-off, it was pitch black, minus the occasional headlights flashing from around the mountain slope.

Unfortunately, it was so dark I couldn't see the cars to even know if the taxi was there, and I certainly didn't want to be missed by the taxi and left there on my own. So every time I saw a car coming by I would sort of step in front of the oncoming traffic, just to make sure I was noticed. After about 30 long, dark minutes, and a few close encounters with speeding vehicles, the taxi finally stopped and picked me up.

If you ever happen to be driving around the Northern Spanish coast, I highly recommend you stopping for a short visit. There aren't many places quite like La Ermita de San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, just make sure to be there before nightfall, even if it makes for a good picture.

During my family's winter visit to Europe, we took a day to visit the charming, picturesque town of San Sebastián, also known as Donostia. The Spanish town lies close to the French border and just over an hour from Bilbao.

The views of the town are simply breath-taking. The city is enveloped by luscious, green mountains which push right up to the golden sands and turquoise waters. This particular shot was taken on top of a mountain overlooking the Island of Santa Cruz which sits directly in the middle of the Bay of La Concha.

Just behind where we were standing is an amusement park with a small roller coaster ride, haunted house and plenty of games. In size, it's pretty similar to Pacific Park Pier in Santa Monica, minus the ferris wheel.

The one thing in Donostia that might be better than its views, are its food. Across the bay in Parte Vieja, the old quarters of San Sebastián, you can find some of the best food in all of Spain. One of my favorites dishes is a skewer of squid, onions, shrimp and red peppers!

If not for the annual film festival, which brings many celebrities and tourists from across the globe, San Sebastián would be one of the best kept secrets in Spain.

So that I wouldn't have to spend New Year's and Christmas alone in Spain, my Mom and Sister flew out to see me and Sara. To make a trip of it, we spent four days, including New Year's Eve, in Paris.

This picture was taken at dusk from the view of the restaurant on the second floor inside the Louvre. For those of you who are planning on one day visiting this remarkable place: Don't eat here!

It's not that the food was bad or anything but it was such a colossal waste of time. All we wanted was to order a couple drinks because we had been wandering around Paris all day and needed some coffees and water.

However, inside the Louvre you must be in one of the dining areas, you can't be walking around with drinks. So we had to wait in line for a table to open up (almost an hour), wait for our waiter to come by, to give us menus, ask for our order, give us the bill, etc (another hour).

We spent nearly five hours at the Louvre, two of those just trying to get a drink. Heed my warning, stop before you get to the museum. It's not worth the money or the time that you could be spending seeing all of the amazing work.

Having said that, we did happen to get a great view over the courtyard and this beautiful picture.

In the final days of 2010, I moved out to Los Angeles with my girlfriend, Sara. She was going to be studying at UCLA, but I, however, had nothing waiting for me; no job, no friends, no family. All I could count on was her... and the weather.

On one of those typically beautiful LA days we decided to walk by the coast in Santa Monica. This picture was taken just off Ocean Drive, in a spot where so many people spend their time staring out over the cliff and the beach toward the horizon. Instead, I decided to look up, and found something just as beautiful and interesting. I  felt such a rush of optimism from seeing such large living things reaching toward infinity.

The sky is not their limit.

Coincidentally, after two months of searching, I landed a job in Santa Monica, not too far away from these very trees.

 

When I first moved into my apartment in Bilbao I lived with the owner, a Spaniard and his Spanish girlfriend, two Polish guys, and a girl who was studying abroad from the Czech Republic.

It wouldn’t have been such a bad living situation if not for the six of us sharing three bedrooms and one bathroom -Side Note-

That may have been the worst shower in the world. Yes the world. I know there are people out there that don’t have a shower or don’t have hot water, or a private place to shower and all kinds of horrible things, but then I wouldn’t constitute those as ”real” showers. This was a “real” shower in a “real” (expensive) apartment that had little pressure and little heat.

One handle controlled both the heat and pressure but the catch was you couldn’t have both. So you could take a hot shower, but it would just be a trickle, or have the water blasting down on you, but at frigid temperatures.

It was like trying to configure a Rubik's Cube just to put the nozzle in the right position to get the most of both without compromising too much of either.

On top of that, the shower head was in the middle of the tub, so you couldn’t stretch your body across the tub and still enjoy the water. No, you had to stand there scrunched under the water in fear of moving because if you did your body would escape the little warmth it could find from that small splash of water.

And if things weren’t bad enough, there wasn’t a full shower curtain, but two pieces of two different ones that hung around the sides of the shower, but unfortunately never met. So unless you used a clothes pin to close the gap, water would flood all over the floor. Needless to say, most of of the walls and ceilings were covered in mold. -End of rant-

 Later the Eastern European’s moved out and a mellow hippy from San Francisco moved in, followed by a dashing Frenchman. When it comes to roommates, you win some and you lose some - people probably thought of me as the loser since I nearly burnt down the whole apartment when I left some oil burning on the stove, and usually left unwashed dishes in the sink - but none of that mattered, because after a 10 minute walk from my front door I would have this magnificent view of the Guggenheim.

We’ll start my story here, in Bilbao.

Not many people in the US are aware of the big shipping capital located on the Northern coast of Spain. I wasn’t either until my first year of college when I was introduced to Frank Gehry in an architecture class I was taking.

I was mesmerized by one of his works, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, in which he had transformed what appeared to be crumpled up metal into the shape of a ship.

Upon further discovery, I realized that the museum sat on the bank of a river, nestled within the mountains, just a few miles away from the beach and ocean. Right then I was drawn in and decided I would find a way to visit that place some day.

Little did I know that in just a few year’s time I would be living in an apartment around the corner from that amazing structure.