Alexander Nelson

BIOGRAPHY

Alexander Nelson is an American world traveler and intellectual. 

Fourteenth-generation American, Alexander's ancestors first came to what would become the United States more than 400 years ago. Fully European, roughly half of Alexander's ancestors were English who arrived in North America in the 1600s and 1700s, with the remaining half of Alexander's ancestors being a mix of other Europeans like Scandinavians, Germans, French, Italians, and Poles who largely arrived in the 1800s and intermixed into the pre-existing American community in a pattern highly archetypal of ethnic Americans.

Born in the U.S. state of Oregon in the mid-1990s, Alexander is part of the so-called "Zillennial" generational cohort and was able to experience the dying embers of the analog era and the transition to the digital era. Although he had a smartphone, laptop, and high-speed internet by the time he was in middle school, Alexander still remembers going to the video rental store when he was in elementary school.

Living in progressive, cosmopolitan metropolises for as long as he can remember, Alexander has resided in a successive series of major global cities including Portland, Oregon; Medellín, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; Lima, Peru; Seattle, Washington; Moscow, Russia; Lisbon, Portugal; Salt Lake City, Utah; Washington, D.C.; and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Alexander did his undergraduate studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and his postgraduate studies at the Nova School of Business and Economics in Lisbon, Portugal. His university courses were primarily in the subjects of business, economics, political science, and international relations.

A prolific globetrotter, Alexander has spent many years traveling across eighty countries on every inhabited continent, including almost every major country in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, where he has experienced the homelands of more than three-quarters of the human population. His time in each country has varied from a few months in places like China, India, or Venezuela to a few days in places like Montenegro, Estonia, or Slovenia. The countries Alexander has traveled across in chronological order are United States, Canada, Belgium, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Czechia, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Russia, Portugal, Morocco, United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, China, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia.

Frequently in dangerous situations over the years, Alexander has been mugged, assaulted, robbed, stalked, and harassed dozens of times and will doubtlessly be a victim of nearly every type of crime imaginable before his life is brought to a close. An avid Couchsurfer, Alexander has been hosted in the homes of families in twenty-three countries and has hosted travelers from fourteen countries in his home.

Alexander has visited all fifty US states and spent at least a couple of nights in every major American city. Though Alexander has never and will never vote, join any political party, donate to any politician, or be a member of any partisan organization, he has spoken with thousands of voters across the political spectrum, worked in the political industry for both sides of the aisle, and attended dozens of diverse political conferences across the country over the years in order to better understand his fellow Americans.

Throughout his travels across the world Alexander has dated women of every major racial and religious background including those of a European, Asian, African, and Amerindian background, as well as those of a Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Mormon background. 

Like most Americans Alexander grew up in the Protestant tradition of Christianity, with his childhood defined by the nominally Non-Denominational but theologically Baptist churches that have become the most popular expression of Protestantism in the United States in recent decades. Possessing an average amount of religiosity as compared to other young Europeans around the world in his mid-twenties Alexander decided to find a specific Christian denomination to be associated with and attended countless services from traditions including Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Adventist. Ultimately, Alexander decided to associate himself with the Catholic tradition as a member of the Catholic Church and after completing the yearlong process of Catechism was baptized, confirmed, and given first communion by an Archbishop in a Cathedral and remains a Catholic to this day.