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US Road Trip: Yellowstone and A Drive through the Great American West

I was living in Astoria, Oregon for the summer. Before returning to California, my friend and I planned a mini road trip and a visit to Yellowstone, America’s and the world’s first national park. Ever year millions of tourists flock to the park to see the hot springs, wildlife, mud pots, and geysers.

At first, I was worried that my car didn’t have snow tires or chain, and we had to drive through some snow areas. Fortunately, there were only a few snowy areas, and we managed to drive through without an incident. We drove on freeway I90, and there was nothing impressive along the route. Thank god I had Duat as a travel companion. Duat is one heck of a smart kid. When he was studying in Vietnam, he racked up a lot of medals in Computer Science and Math.

US Road Trip: Canadian Immigration Officers Turned Me Away at the Border

I was living in Astoria, Oregon for the summer working with a Japanese-American import-export distributor. Before returning to California, I decided to drive up north to Canada to visit Matt and returned the book “The Bridge over the Drina” that he lent me in Sarajevo last year during the time I was living and teaching IT in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Crazy indeed to make a 300+ mile, 5-hour trip by car from Oregon to Vancouver and then took another 2-hour ferry ride to Nanaimo Island to visit a stranger whom I barely knew as we met only for a couple of hours in a far away country.

Chicken sandwich

Life in Bosnia: The Best Chicken Sandwich in Sarajevo

Chicken sandwich

The first meal I had in the city was the chicken sandwich or sandwich “sa piletinom” at Piceriza Pomodorino on Branilaca Sarajeva Street, behind the main street walk. The sandwich is pita pocket bread stuffed with chicken and some white cream I had trouble distinguished. I came from an extensive sauce-flavored dish culture, thus if being asked, I can pick out one or two sauces.