Go Everywhere*

Ha Long Bay

2010-12-04T22:04:00.000-08:00

After our evening in Hanoi, we again got up early (in what was becoming an unwanted bad habit) and shlepped our stuff down to the Real Kangaroo Cafe where we'd booked a Halong Bay Tour on the recommendation of a guy I met in my French class back in HCMC. Kangaroo Cafe, by the way, is run by an Aussie/Vietnamese couple who seem to have run into quite a few problems with copyright infringement (for those who don't know, there is no copyright law in Vietnam so anything goes). Their cafe and website are plastered with signs telling you that yes, it is indeed the REAL Kangaroo Cafe and that no, you shouldn't trust anyone else because yes, they are all crooks. We could understand the sentiment and we went with them because of a) the recommendation, b) the prices, and c) the highly advertised fact that they don't have a bunch of unannounced add ons.

Anyway, we met up with Alun and his parents and got on the bus for the three hour drive out to the boat. The drive was pretty uneventful, but there was, of course, the obligatory stop off at a trinket shop. We held firm and decided against buying the 12 foot tall marble statues of intertwining dolphins playing with a soccer ball. Eventually, we arrived at the port, ferried out to our boat, and picked rooms. Kate and I got one of the double beds, but Alun got partnered with the other single traveler who was, much to Alun's chagrin, male. Anyway, we lunched, meeting the other passengers, then spent a couple hours cruising through the dramatic landscape, which was, despite the cloudy sky, still pretty amazing.

After a bit, we stopped off at a cave, which gave us sweeping views as we climbed to the entrance alongside about 1500 other tourists. Despite the crowds, however, the cave was definitely worthwhile. It is, firstly, huge, spanning about 5 chambers with the largest dwarfing most stadia. The stalactites and stalagmites dripped and folded, toothlike, as we wound our way through the caverns, which were once only accessed by one winding staircase. Given the current tourist influx, it would be hard to imagine going in an out of a single entry point but again, even the hordes couldn't take away from the spectacularity (which my computer tells me, despite my instincts, is actually a word) of the place.

We got back to the boat, then promptly left again, this time to do some sea kayaking. Kate and I partnered up whilst Alun - left stranded amongst the couples - found a shipmate in the form of a 13 year old Turkish boy whose father was a diplomat living in Hanoi. For those of you who have never kayaked in the sea, where you don't have the benefit of a river's current, it's hard work. After struggling to get our timing down, Kate and I finally got into a good rhythm and zipped out through the bay. The scenery was, again, amazing, but the real highlight was gliding into a little (semi)secret cove which was surrounded on all four sides by karsts and only accessible by a small tunnel under one of the limestone outcroppings. The cove itself was unbelievably serene with no noise other than that which we made. And we did, it must be admitted make some noise once we discovered the sweet spot for echoes, which had the crispest, most perfect echoes I've heard in a while.

After jumping off the boat a couple times and doing some swimming, we spent the night aboard the ship but we docked on Cat Ba island shortly after breakfast the next morning and went on a short hike through a mangrove forest to reach another cave. Not as impressive as the first, but full of creepy spiders and with a doorkeeper who taught us how to make leaves into flying missiles. We went to the main town on the island for lunch at a place called the Green Mango. Good food, but more on this place later. At the time, we left it satisfied, dropped our bags off at the hotel and relaxed for a bit, then got back on a bus, then another boat, and went out to nearby Monkey Island which did indeed have monkeys. We'd all planned on swimming but no one really wanted to get in the water what with the cold and the wind. So we watched the monkeys, climbed some rocks, and returned to our hotel for a nap.

That night, we went out in search of food. We wandered for a short while before running into Paul and Indra, an Irish-Belgic couple from our boat, who had wandered much further and found no good food options other than the Green Mango, where we had lunched. So we decided to return as the food had been quite good. The place was busy but there were empty tables. Regardless, we were told we had to wait an hour for food. We were shown to a drinks table in back and ordered drinks. We tried to get some appetizers, but they wouldn't listen to us. After about 40 minutes, we tried to order our food so it would be ready when they did move us to one of the still-open tables which we weren't allowed to sit at for some reason. They still wouldn't take our orders. Finally, they moved us to one of the tables which had been free the whole time. We tried to order immediately but were told to wait. After about 15 minutes, I got up and asked to order. They just laughed at me. At this point, we stormed out, to the applause of a couple other tables who told us that it was the worst service they'd ever had and they wished they had left as we did. So if you do go to Cat Ba, don't go to the Green Mango and tell your tour group not to either.

We eventually found a cheap little place down the road that actually wanted us to eat there so we did. Then, they apologized for closing after we'd been there for a couple hours and we all went home and went to bed. The next day was our last - we woke up to the sound of jackhammers at about 7AM as the hotel (called Princef Hotel, FYI) was renovating the floor directly above us and, despite assuring us that they wouldn't start until 10AM, they were already going. We then had breakfast on the rooftop which would have been simply substandard had it not been for the ridiculously loud jackhammering going on in the room next door. To add insult to injury, the hotel ran out of pretty much everything worth eating by about 8AM. Then, when we complained at check out, the hotel told us that we were imagining things and the work didn't start until 8:30. They also tried to keep my passport because I, at this point, refused to pay for a single water bottle I had taken from the minibar the night before. I would have paid, of course, under normal circumstances but I - and everyone else on the tour - was pretty shocked that the hotel didn't try to apologize in any way for waking us up early with construction despite assurances they wouldn't only to accuse us of lying about the hour at which it started. So that's the story of how I lost my passport, but sometimes you just gotta stick to your principles, you know?

Our moods improved on the boat trip back to the mainland as the weather had finally brightened up and we had some excellent views of the sprawling bay. Ha Long means "Rising Dragon" as the limestone islands are thought to resemble a dragon's spine protruding from the water and, while I'd have to disagree with that particular interpretation, there certainly is something magical about the place. We took turns taking pictures of ourselves and our friends (and marveled at Steve's - who is Alun's stepfather - new camera which can do pretty much everything except fly) then bid goodbye to our boat and hello to our bus. We had lunch in Hai Phong City (where the port is) at a hotel restaurant which, due to a wedding, shoved us into a little room in the back of the hotel with no windows and wires sticking out of the walls. They then gave us not enough of their less-than-delectable food which, combined with the hotel mishaps of the morning, left everyone in a pretty bad mood for the rest of the drive back. It was an unfortunate end to what was otherwise a good trip and the only advice I can give to future travelers is to not bother with Cat Ba island as it's not worth it. On a personal level, Kate and I also reaffirmed our general distaste for group tours, as it just felt like we were always rushing somewhere, had no say in what we were doing, and (with the exception of the boat itself which was quite nice) got second-rate food and service while staying in an insulated foreigner bubble.

Despite these whinings, however, we did enjoy the trip as a whole and would probably even go so far as to recommend Kangaroo Cafe as their service was good - they just don't necessarily contract with the best places in town. But it was fun and it was worth it to get out and see Ha Long Bay, one of the natural wonders of the world.

Sapa

2010-11-08T04:13:00.000-08:00

We booked our train to Sapa pretty late - the day of, to be exact - and, as it was a Thursday night in preparation of the weekend markets in the region, the soft sleeper was unavailable. Luckily, the hard sleeper was still open and we were fine with that. Indeed, we had taken a hard sleeper from Saigon to Nha Trang some months before and it was way more comfortable than most trains we've been on. But in Vietnam, we have found, consistency is never something you can take for granted. The same meal at the same restaurant can look and taste wildly different depending on the day. The same shampoo at the same supermarket might clean well the first time but not the second. Thus it was with the trains. This hard sleeper was HARD. And filthy. But we slept some and arrived in Lao Cai at the advanced hour of 4AM, only to get on a cramped minibus which wound through the mountainous roads for another 2 hours, finally arriving at our hotel - the Luong Thuy Family Guesthouse - around 6. We had breakfast but, as it was about 8 hours too early for check in, we couldn't rest. So we went on a walk.

We wound through the waking town and found the Ham Rong mountain, which has been turned into a sort of tourist park. It was a bit odd, but a good way to kill a few hours for sure. The entrance to the park is at the top of a long flight of stairs which made us realize just how out of shape we really were after a year of Saigonese life. The park continued to wind us mostly uphill, but we battled through to wander it's various sculpted gardens - Japanese, European, the orchid gardens, check out the views...

we finally made it to the very top lookout, termed the Cloud Forest. Good views, but honestly, they had nothing on our guesthouse. The view off our balcony was spectacular (which you saw above). At least the first day and a half before it got progressively foggier and foggier until the last day when you couldn't even see the balcony's edge.

We did finally check in and napped for a few hours before wandering the town a bit more that evening, getting some food at the night market as well as some info on treks and trains back to Hanoi. We settled first on a group trek through the countryside and through some local villages as the area is renowned for - and swarming with - local hill tribes, most of whom constantly harass you with cries of "Buy from me! Buy from me!"

It can be a little much, actually, and quickly goes from charming and interesting to annoying and maddening. Thus we were quite skeptical when we left the Mountain View Hotel (where we'd booked our trek) to be greeted by about 7 Black Hmong women (the men work in the fields while the women sell to tourists). They swarmed our small group - just the two of us and two French women - and seemed like they might follow us for the whole of the 16 kilometer trek. That was, in fact, exactly what they were doing.

As it turns out, the women often come into Sapa one day, hawk their goods, then stay the night and return to their villages with the morning treks. This gives them an opportunity to talk to tourists in a more captive setting, develop bonds, help out, and eventually, yes, sell trinkets. As shady as it seems, it was far better than the

"Buy from me! Why you no buy from me?" cries echoing throughout town and, yes, we did buy from them in the end. They did, after all, help Kate down slippery slopes and make us horses and hearts from grasses they picked by the side of the road. And it's pretty amazing that they do that hike every day.

It was quite a scenic walk, winding down mountains and through valleys. We crossed a couple cable bridges with cracked slats like missing teeth - bridges straight out of Indiana Jones movies. We also finally saw the Hmong men working in the omnipresent rice paddies that covered the hills.

One of the men carried an enormous rifle that looked like it might once have belonged to Cortes or something. And then there were all the kids playing the rivers. Definitely pretty idyllic and a good way to spend a day.

The next day was reserved for the Bac Ha market. All the hill tribes in the region make the trek to Bac Ha every Saturday to sell their goods so we thought we should likewise make the trek. What we didn't realize was that it was 3 hours each way in a minibus and then 2 hours at a market which really wasn't anything special. They did have a couple interesting things, including a huge water buffalo corral/hilltop, but the majority of the market was either household goods - not, by the way, made by the locals or anything but I guess just bought by them and resold or something -

or handicrafts which were undoubtably made by local tribespeople, but bought and sold by Vietnamese entrepreneurs. The whole experience was a bit of a letdown, though we did come away with one kaleidoscopic blanket as a souvenir, in a style similar to the dress of the locals which, as you can see, is quite elaborate. And they really do wear these things - it's not just for market day or just for the tourists. Crazy. One last thing that was quite cool and an added bonus to the tour was a stop off at the Vietnam/China border crossing at Lao Cai. We got to stretch our legs and take some pictures of China, even if we didn't get to actually visit it.

We also met an Irish brother/sister traveling duo and arranged to meet up with them to watch some footie that night at a bar in Sapa. Alas, the Gunners were not televised as there have been some rights issues in Vietnam with this season's EPL, but we did still meet up for a drink. Our conversation was, however, dominated by a 17 year old Black Hmong girl named Peng.

She was in full traditional dress, but otherwise just like any normal 17 year old and quite eager to talk to us. Definitely learned a lot that night about the Black Hmong culture - how different and how similar it is. Peng, for example, has friends who were married at 13, though she said she doesn't have time for boys and wants to live outside of Vietnam. Another interesting thing was that she didn't speak much more Vietnamese than Kate or I, and her English was way better than most of our students. The Hmong language is tonally much closer to English than Vietnamese and therefore her accent was quite good. She also told us about her music tastes and talked a bit about life in her village versus life in Sapa. But we were getting tired and we had another early morning - the 4th in a row with a wakeup time before 8AM - so we bid her adieu and retired.

Then it was back on the 2 hour minibus to Lao Cai followed by a 10 hour day train back to Hanoi as all the sleepers were booked and we had to be back the next morning for yet another early morning start. The train ride was pretty rough, actually, at least the first 7 hours or so. We were for some reason booked into seats in the middle of the train - in the four seater section where you face two other people and have no leg room. This was compounded by the fact that the people opposite our seats were bringing back huge bales of something which took up any and all leg room. We didn't even bother with those seats but sat behind. Only problem was, everyone kept making us move even though there were always other open seats on the train. So frustrating!

We ended up moving about 6 times with the last time finally being in a good spot. Everyone in Saigon had warned us that the folk up north weren't as friendly but the guys sitting behind us were ridiculously so. They kept offering us things to eat and drink and wouldn't take no for an answer. There was beer, peanut brittle, cookies, and steamed corn. One guy in particular was feeling pretty chatty and, though he spoke no English, we were able to communicate our ages, family status, jobs, and he told us about his children. Speaking of children, there was also a little girl sitting in front of us here who was extremely interested in us. She was really cute and just wanted to play, so we obliged and she kept us busy for the last couple hours of the trip. Then, finally, we got to Hanoi, which you already read about in Hanoi Part Deux.

Hanoi

2010-11-04T03:37:00.000-07:00

Travel blogging time. Though our trip to Hanoi was broken up into three and a half chunks, we'll talk about it all together for the ease and pleasure of you, dear readers.

Hanoi Part One began on the evening of October 20th, about 6 hours later than intended thanks to flight delays. We were lucky enough to get a call from Jetstar telling us our flight had been delayed 3 hours while we were still at Miss Loi's in Saigon. A three hour delay sucks, but hey - fair warning. We got to have a leisurely lunch with our friend, Mr. Dan Almon(d), who, if he is reading this, has just lost. Anyway, we then went to the airport where we informed of another 2 hour delay. And then the flight was just late in leaving as well. But we made it, then we checked into the Rendezvous Hotel where we had booked two dorm beds only to be told that they had already given away all the dorm beds. Typical. They did, however, offer us a private room at no extra cost. Untypical. So we checked in, had a bowl of street pho (which isn't as good as the stuff in the south, by the way) and went to bed.

The next morning started off well with a huge free breakfast beneath handpainted replica movie posters of any and every film about the Vietnam/American War. Odd decorating tastes, but whatever. We then set off to buy us a train ticket to Sapa, which was accomplished with relative ease. They were, unfortunately, out of soft sleepers but we did manage to snag a hard sleeper, which we had found more than adequate before when we took an overnight train from Saigon to Nha Trang. After booking, we had lunch at the tasty La Place by the permanently closed cathedral, then walked around the city, checking out a temple, a pavilion, and taking a nice stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake, or the Lake of the Returned Sword.

Legend has it that emperor Ly Thai To was given a magical sword to defeat the oppressive Chinese overlords (a phrase, incidentally, which I've been wanting to use for quite some time) and, when he was finished with it, emperor 'To gave the sword back to the gods via a giant tortoise which took it to the depths of the lake. We did the full circuit of the lake, ending at the Ngoc Son Temple where we crossed a very picturesque red bridge to get into the complex. The temple itself was nothing special, but the views were quite nice and the enormous preserved tortoise illustrating the size of the creatures which some people apparently believe are actually myths despite the photographic and physical evidence.

After putting a deposit on our trip to Halong Bay - which is a story for another blog - we boarded our train at a run as we thought it left 10 minutes later than it did, and settled in for the night journey to Sapa - also another story.

Hanoi Part Deux was a quick one, only worth mentioning for two things: the discovery of a delicious (though still not as good as that in Saigon) pho place on Luong Van Cam across from the Lego store and our hostel, which was Hanoi Central Backpackers hostel. It's a nice enough place for a good price ($5/night for a dorm bed) but it was made that much sweeter by the fact that through a mistake in the system, we booked the beds for a mind-bogglingly low 1 cent/person/night. They honored the price in the end and we checked out, then met up with our friend Alun from Saigon and his parents who were in town for the trip to Halong Bay.

Hanoi Part Tres began after arriving back from our Halong Bay trip. We checked back into the Central Backpacker's Hostel (where we had booked another 3 nights at 1 cent), got some more pho, then saw a water puppets show which was good value and fun, though definitely would have benefitted from opera-style super-titles in English as we had absolutely no idea what was going on during the show. We spent the next morning trying to book a bus to Laos. We probably went to about 10 different travel agencies - all claiming to be the real Sinh Cafe - and all of them showed us the same pictures of the same nice bus with full beds and bathrooms, which were key on a 23 hour journey. We booked with the cheapest one then went back to La Place for lunch and old propaganda poster shopping with Alun and his parents after which we bid them goodbye and discussed our plans for the next couple days.

The next morning, we got going relatively early to rent a motorbike, which was more difficult than it should have been. An hour or so later, we were finally in possession of a vehicle and took off, zipping through the calm, peaceful traffic, probably making people angry for driving like those unruly southerners. First stop was the Ho Chi Minh Museum, which was beautifully done and incredibly uninformative. We spent an hour and a half there and the only thing we learned was that he died in 1969 of something that we think may have been stomach cancer. The problem was that the museum was largely just collections of documents and artistic displays with almost no background information. So unless you had years to spare in study of the collective reams of paperwork - or were a Vietnamese citizen or war buff who already had a good idea of who the man was - the museum was pretty much just something to wander aimlessly through, occasionally stopping to gape at the odd photos the Vietnamese tourists were taking, such as the girl who kept posing with various kissy faces in front of the absurdly large fruit bowl.

After checking out the decidedly disappointing and slightly nausea-inducing-pond of the One Pillar Pagoda, we got told off for getting within about 500 meters of Uncle Ho's Mausoleum as you must respect the lines on the ground even though his body (embalmed and displayed against his explicit wishes, I might add) was absent and the mausoleum was closed for maintenance. Having had enough of Vietnam's national hero, Kate finally - after a year and a half of wearing broken glasses with me pestering her for months to get some new ones - decided to get some new glasses. She picked some out at an optometrist who had them ready within an hour and charged about $30 for the frames including the prescription lenses. Having perfect vision (not to mention physique, hair, teeth, mental agility, and, of course, hands) myself, I have no reference on the matter but am told this is an extremely good bargain.

Next stop was lunch at the delicious Koto's, where they take street kids and train them up to speak English, be waiters, and make delicious food like pumpkin soup with yogurt, coriander chicken wraps, grilled vegetable paninis, falafel pitas, and carrot cakes. Mmm. We went back the next day too. We chose Koto's for lunch, however, due to its serendipitous location across the street from the Temple of Literature, one of the oldest sites in Hanoi and the first university of Vietnam, dating back almost until the city's founding 1000 years ago. It was quite a pleasant place to wander through, stopping to stroke the massive stone heads of the tortoises which supported giant stelae inscribed with graduating scholars' names from the past 700 years. We didn't go back the next day, though maybe we should have because when we were at Koto's we saw that the Russian president was in town with his bodyguard, touring the temple whilst we dined.

We did zip over on the motorbike for one last bit of sightseeing at the National Museum, though we only had 25 minutes to race through the grand villa before it closed. Still enough time to marvel at the wonders and work up an appetite, which was quenched - at quite a pretty penny, I might add - at a little seafood restaurant past the French quarter which looked like it would be cheap with plastic servings and the such. The giveaway was that there were no prices on the menu but, having already sat down, we ordered and prayed for the best. The food was delicious and it had this awesome little communist napkin holder, but the bill was about 4 times what we'd hoped it would be. Over dinner, we discussed our next step, then decided to race home to book some flights from Laos down to Kuala Lumpur but AirAsia wouldn't take our booking no matter how many times we tried. We later found out this was actually our bank's fault as they'd for some reason only just realized that we were in Asia and blocked the card for the first time in 14 months of living out here. So strange. It was an extremely frustrating couple hours spent madly clicking and swearing and the night was only salvaged by Arsenal's defeat of West Ham in the 87th minute which we watched at the Hanoi incarnation of Le Pub, a Saigonese stalwart.

The next day was to be our last in Vietnam so what more fitting than to visit the Museum of the Revolution and the Hanoi Hilton prison, right? The Museum of the Revolution followed the same mold as that of Uncle Ho's, though the documents and descriptions were slightly better. It also had the added bonus of having captured military vehicles out front as well as a massive sculpture made from downed US aircraft which was really cool as an art piece but quite disturbing at the same time (especially due to the bloated body of a dead rat at its base!), what with all the propagandistic talk of praising heros for killing American devils and the such. The Vietnamese (government, at least) has absolutely no regrets about the war, which is quite odd coming from an American point of view. Because of this, however, there is no shame about killing or torturing Americans (though they would never admit to torturing, of course) and there is this weird attitude that the atrocities of the war should be celebrated. This was further evidenced at the Hanoi Hilton where you first walk through a long exhibit talking about how awful the prison was when the French ran it against the Vietnamese revolutionaries who heroically bombed hotels and poisoned massive groups of people... and how nice and clean and perfect it was when the Vietnamese took it over to run as a prison camp for American POWs during the war. The problem with all this is that it's obviously slanted to a certain point of view and, while they may even be 100% correct in their information, coming from a Western upbringing which is cynical of government propaganda, it only served to make us doubt everything that was said. Does that kind of blatant propaganda work on anyone, I wonder? Perhaps the Vietnamese government should hire outside PR firms or something to make its propaganda more subtle and insidious, like the US does.

After that, it was time to head home, shower, and prepare for our grueling 23 hour bus ride to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. We got to our travel agent at the appointed time only to be told we were late and rushed onto a minibus to the bus station where we found that we - and everyone else on the minibus who had all booked with different Sinh Cafe wannabes - had been horribly lied to and not only did our bus not have real beds like in the pictures but it also didn't have bathrooms. At this point, we had just been in Vietnam too long to put up with this kind of crap anymore, and we had the advantage of time and a cell phone so we called the travel agent up and yelled at them until they agreed to give us a full refund on the bus. I kind of felt like a wuss of a traveler, but I really don't think I would have minded the bus much at all if it had been accurately sold. As it was, that travel agency will definitely think twice about lying to future tourists as they had to eat about $56 worth of tickets that night.

Thus began Hanoi Part 3.5. We checked back into our trusty Central Backpacker's Hostel and downed some of the nightly free beer, swapping stories with a Brazilian and a couple Germans. Then we debated sucking up the bus ride but, by that point, we were kind of over the hassle of travel - especially because of all the time spent in transit during the gaps between Hanoi Parts One, Deux, and Tres so we just booked a flight to Bangkok and decided to get to the beach...

Returning to the Road

2010-11-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while.

That's our fault, though more a consequence of our situation; more specifically, we were living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, which means that we were, for all intensive purposes, living a normal life, albeit in a land far, far away. But despite the ridiculous traffic and strange ways, we quickly fell into what most would consider a rather uneventful, workaday existence that would only have interested the most devout followers of our lives and/or lovers of the mundane.

But now, writing this as we are sitting in the Tan Nhat aiport, our time in Saigon is over and we've gone nearly a year without a blog post. During the course of those 350 or so days, we have, like anyone living anywhere, compiled enough experiences to interest people other than our parents and, thusly, this blog post - after months of nurturing gestation - is ready to plop squealing out of the metaphorical womb, covered in viscous fluids, to announce to the world that yes, we are alive and yes, these things happened.

This will be done in stages, because a) we're far too lazy to write it all at once and b) you're probably not interested in reading a 20 page short story detailing our experiences. Actually, a short story could be kinda cool. Let's see how far we get, shall we?

...

We actually got quite far and have the short story but it spiraled a bit out of control and requires more pictures once we get back to Saigon so we'll leave you hanging on that one for now. In the meantime, let's get back into the travel blogging with a bit about our post-HCMC sojourn thus far.

Kate and I left Saigon on October 20th after nearly 14 months in the city, during which time we'd seen a bit of the south and the middle of Vietnam but never the north. Accordingly, we flew straight up to Hanoi, the capital, which happened to be in the midst of it's 1000th anniversary of existence.

We came into Hanoi with mixed feelings, mostly because we've been a bit bummed out about our choice to live in Saigon as it is, despite it's charms, a big dirty city. Hanoi, we had heard, was much more beautiful. We had also heard - and these are the things that kept us from living in Hanoi - that it had crazier traffic, worse weather, and everything closed early. So let's report on those first.

The traffic in Hanoi is much, much, much LESS hectic than it's southern counterpart. Almost infinitely so. True, the bikes still look a bit threatening, but it's more of a gentle stream than a raging river of mounted traffic. Even in the city center at rush hour, it never gets worse than, say, late morning in a quiet part of Saigon.

Anyone who thinks that Hanoian traffic is worse than Saigonese has either never been to Saigon or... I actually can't finish that sentence. It's just much more chilled out up north. I will say, however, that the drivers feel slightly more dangerous just because they drive more like Western drivers; that is, they don't swerve casually around everything the way that drivers in Saigon do. Similarly, they actually stop at lights, don't cut you off, and generally stay on their side of the road.

The weather here has been pretty ideal. Warm, even a bit chilly at night, but not at all sweltering or freezing as we'd been led to believe. It turns out that we arrived in the midst of a nice spell during the best season to visit, so it isn't really a fair portrayal and I can definitely say that the mosquitos are much more aggressive in Hanoi than Saigon.

And this is supposed to be the shoulder season for mosquitos too so it might well be fairly miserable at other times of the year. At the moment, however, it's extremely nice not to soak our clothes through with sweat every time we leave the house.

As far as things closing early... well, that's true. Most places in Saigon close fairly early but there are definitely all night joints and many places that will stay open until 1 or 2 in the morning. In Hanoi, everything closes by midnight.

And many places close earlier. I'm guessing that if you lived here, you'd find the places that stay open later, but for the visitor, it's definitely an early city.

So are we bitter about choosing the wrong big city? Slightly, but I don't think that Hanoi is a cure-all for the Saigon blues. Many of the same problems we had with Saigon are still problems up here and many of the things we enjoyed about Saigon are harder to find in Hanoi.

A quick comparison shows us the same:

Traffic - advantage Hanoi

Weather - advantage probably Saigon

Nightlife - advantage Saigon

Food - advantage Saigon

Culture - advantage Hanoi

Travel opportunities - advantage Saigon

Air quality - advantage Hanoi

Cost of living - advantage Saigon

Friendliness of people - split

More on the friendliness later. But I think that's enough for now.

2009-11-28T05:42:00.001-08:00

We are back to blogging. And with a vengeance.

Now let's back up a couple months to our arrival in Vietnam. If memory (and indisputable fact) serves me, our last post was on the rigors of our grueling CELTA course. Well, our time on the CELTA wasn't all work and no play. Au contraire (that means, "to the contrary"), the students planned a day trip for all of the trainees on the second Saturday of the course. They prepared a lengthy itinerary with a start time at the fiendishly early hour of 8AM, which is roughly equivalent to a Western noon here in Vietnam as everyone seems to get up around 5AM (this is not at all hyperbole, by the way).

Suffice to say, none of us sane folk were too keen to rise and shine at that most unholy hour on our day off so we hemmed, hawed, and hacked our way to a mutual understanding: we would skip the Reunification Palace segment and meet after. And thus it came to pass that we found ourselves at the wholly reasonable and respectable hour of 11:30AM outside of said Palace where we met the students and melded into a single unit - a bike gang of the most innocent variety. But the Heaven's Angels almost could not ride for, you see, helmets here are the law and we were two helmets short. Kate and myself, being the chivalrous duo that we are, offered to buy the missing helmets after an unsuccessful soiree to pick some up. And while we figured out the logistics of who would borrow who's helmet to buy more, Tien, our fearless leader, snapped up two used helmets from a motortaxi (xe om) driver for 90,000 dong, or about $5.70.

Now… now we were ready. We paired up and began the perilous trek out of the city center. And about 5 minutes later we were lost. Later, we discovered that of the 8 students driving us, only 2 knew the way. Difficult at the best of times and damn near impossible when one is trying to navigate through swarming seas of motorbikes. Several phone calls and missed turns later, we did eventually arrive at our destination - an enormous restaurant (all of them seem to be here) with a gigantic terrace about 45 minutes outside of the city. The students ordered all the food off the strictly Vietnamese menu and we dined on a veritable cornucopia of comestibles, including the delectably delicious Sour Soup, made with a whole river fish, chunks of pineapple, and a healthy selection of local vegetables.

Post-chow, we motto'd on over to the nearby One-Pillar Pagoda, modeled after the pagoda of the same name in Hanoi. As you might expect, the pagoda does, indeed, rest suspended on a single pillar which juts out of a lake filled with tiny turtles. But there is more to the complex than just the pagoda and we spent an hour or so wandering through the various Buddhist temples and shrines, leaving smoking incense to carry on our prayers. Amongst the worldly delights of the cloister was an ancient looking tree with beautiful flowers right outside a chapel warning against a less-than-holy life through graphic and actually quite disturbing images of torture in a hell much bloodier than anything Dante imagined.

But our quiet sanctuary would not last for long - nay, we were soon back on the bikes and once again got lost on our way to a cafe where we hydrated, chatted, and relaxed before the dusty trip back into the city, which fortunately was much faster now that we knew the way.

Our next bit of extra-scholastic fun arrived on the last day of the four-week CELTA, which is a day reserved for make-ups though, as no one in our course missed any lessons, it became a day reserved for partying. We'd been forewarned by the trainers that we would most likely be kidnapped by the students and smuggled away to a place where we would be forced to drink coffee and sing songs - the infamous and ubiquitous karaoke bars - but, thankfully, the students left the kidnapping kit at home and instead put on a variety show.

After an hour or so of taking pictures in as many configurations as possible, we settled into our seats as the students passed around grapes, sour mango, lychee, and moon cake (which does not, as I was sorely disappointed to learn, contain any mooncheese whatsoever). Once we were all fed and the braver of us were watered, the show began. The first play was a touching story of unrequited love, and the second, a masterpiece entitled Dangerous Milk, about a doctor who tells a drunk that he must give up wine and instead drink milk. At first, the drunk hesitates, convinced - quite rightfully so, I might add - of the dangerous side-effects of milk and is only turned when his buxom wife presents a creative solution.

After the plays, the students and several CELTA trainees sang songs including a rather impressive and impassioned rendition of Frank Sinatra's seminal 1969 tune, "I Did it My Way," and then we headed to lunch. The plays were mostly performed by the intermediate students with more English, so it was the elementary students who took us out to eat. We were a tad uncertain that we could find a restaurant nearby to seat 30, but as we should have known, that is no problem in this city. We ended up in a huge Bahn Xeo place, or Vietnamese rice pancake, place. Think crepes meet lettuce wraps. Again, the students ordered everything, taught us how to eat it, and one woman took the responsibility of the hostess and served us as well. Towards the end when we were all stuffed but with plates of food still left on the table, several of the ladies began wrapping them (they were much more skilled than us) and sweetly forcing them on anyone who would take them. At the end of lunch we were presented with a giant jello cake which, as I can personally attest to, does not bounce, no matter how hard you throw it.

That officially ended the course (well, that and the overpriced but fun dinner and drinks that followed) but that wasn't to be the last time we saw our students. Nay, the Sunday after the course, the students arranged another outing for us - to the Cu Chi tunnels. We couldn't get out of the 8AM start this time around so we sucked it up and bordered the chartered bus for the two hour ride out to Cu Chi. Though some of us may have been more interested in sleeping, the students would have none such shenanigans and quizzed us with riddles and games complete with candy prizes.

We arrived after ten to the the Cu Chi complex, a tropical forest crisscrossed with paths leading to various points of interest, including a short video about the tunnels made in 1967, at the height of the American War, as they rightfully call it here. The propaganda was a bit heavy handed but the video was incredibly interesting to watch as both a historical artifact. It was at times a little uncomfortable, as Americans sitting next to Vietnamese students, to watch a video of our forebears slaughtering each other but the day only seemed to reinforce what we had heard previously - that the Vietnamese look forward and don't dwell on the past.

The students helped translate the general details about the tunnels before we entered the underground world itself. First up was a short (10 meter long) tunnel, which was good to start with as a few people couldn't take the claustrophobia and backed out immediately. The hardier amongst us really didn't think the tunnels were too bad, especially as they've been expanded several times to accommodate visitors. The next tunnel we went into was significantly longer with a stop near the beginning at a meeting hall filled with creepy mannequins. After that stop, however, a long, twisting, turning crawl deposited us near the hospital ward, also with creepy mannequins. As part of the tour we were treated to a typical meal of cassava dipped in ground peanuts and tea (much needed nourishment as we hadn't had time to grab breakfast) and then shown through the homemade weapons museum, which was filled with hidden death traps, spiky bombs, and all other sorts of creatively evil (my favorite type of evil, by the way) weapons.

The tough stuff behind us, we then retired to the nearby restaurant on a barge with a thankful, lazy breeze that gave us the opportunity to watch heaps of water plants floating by while we gorged on more (much needed) delicious Vietnamese food. This was, of course, right before we went to the firing range where, for a dollar a bullet with a five bullet minimum, you can shoot pretty much any gun you could find in the Vietnam War. But it felt a little wrong so we both abstained and after finding out that battle weapons are really, really, really loud, we got back on the bus and dozed our way back to the City (of Ho Chi Minh)...

CELTA

2009-10-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

First off, apologies for the inexcusable lack of postage over the past couple weeks. But we are back. And with a vengeance.

Now, as many of you, our dear readers, know, we came to Vietnam to get our CELTA certifications and learn how to teach English as a second language. Briefly: CELTA, or Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, is an internationally recognized certification bestowed by Cambridge University. It is the most widely accepted qualification for teaching English, followed closely by the TESOL (run by Trinity College, London), with the various TEFL certifications having less weight as they have no standardizing organization.

We decided to do the CELTA at ILA in Vietnam for a couple reasons; 1) we'd been told that Vietnam is one of the best places to teach English and 2) ILA had the cheapest CELTA course that we could find anywhere in the world so 3) it seemed like a good fit. And it was.

That's not to say, however, that the CELTA is anything other than extremely demanding. It's not so much difficult as all-consuming; indeed, we were in class from 9AM-5PM every day and usually had to get there an hour early and stay a couple hours late to do some lesson planning… and then, once home, there was always more lesson planning to be done. Not to mention the written assignments we had to turn in every week. So very, very intense. And we were thrown right into it, having to teach a lesson on our second day of class, then more lessons every other day for the duration of the course. With each lesson, we were also expected to do better than the one before… so that meant that the grading was much more difficult with each and every lesson.

There were lots of other expectations as well, including a strict dress code. Teachers in Vietnam are highly respected and, as such, we have to look professional - guys had to wear ties every day and girls... well, they were supposed to dress up, but they got away with a lot more. Us guys were also allowed to have facial hair, but it had to be trimmed neatly, which led to some pretty ridiculous mustachioed looks for me, such as the one you see here at our favorite little lunch spot around the corner from the school.

We taught three levels - elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate - rotating through the classes every week or so until we had all taught three classes at every level. I think I had the toughest schedule as I began with the elementary learners and worked up to the intermediates. What was difficult about this one was that the elementary students have less English so the early classes have to be better and by the time we got to the intermediate level, they were doing more complex grammar which is also hard to teach. Kate, on the other hand, began with the intermediates and finished with the pre-intermediates.

Every level was filled with students who pay a deposit and have to attend a certain percentage of the classes to get their fees back. And not that I have anything else to compare them against, but from my limited experience, I think the Vietnamese students must be amongst the best in the world. They were all so eager to learn and participate and so curious as to our backgrounds but not at all disruptive. And they organized several outings for us, but that's a story for another blog.

San Diego

2009-09-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

We came back to the States knowing it would be but a temporary jaunt into the Fatherland, just long enough to see some family, chide our friends for not reading our blogs, and renew our passports. We'd actually planned on just spending about a month in San Diego but, once that sweet, So Cal summer air hit our dangerously-exposed-to-H1N1 skins, we knew that a month just wouldn't be enough.

So we got some jobs. Well, sort of. For part of the time. Within our first week back, we both interviewed for temp jobs with AppleOne, America's least effective temp agency. After an hour and a half of pre-interview tasks, I breezed through my interview in about 3 minutes, only to find that another 2 hours of post-interview aptitude tests awaited me. Kate had a very similar reception, though I believe she got about 10 minutes on her interview. Not to mention a few days of paid work at the San Diego Comic Con. Indeed, Kate even managed to sneak me in for a few hours and I got to wander around amongst the most awkward people in the entire world. It was awesome. The costumes were amazing and there were some crazy toys in there, like the Mindflex game where you control a little ball using only the power of your MIND. We also got some cool free schwag, like a Live Long and Prosper giant foam hand. So not a bad job, though AppleOne didn't really come through for either Kate nor I again.

Despite my apparent lack of personableness, however, I did manage to secure a more interesting, rewarding, and steady job than Kate - through my mom. For those of you who don't know, my mom - who you may remember from Egypt or Peru - is a speech and language pathologist who works with special needs kids at Patrick Henry High School in addition to running the local branch of Circle of Friends, a social skills program for teens and young adults with disabilities. Through this (admittedly biased) connection, I was introduced to one of her former students, Will Hammer, and his mother, Liz, who hired me as Will's aide for a summer school course. I took notes, helped Will study, and drove him to and from a music appreciation class at Grossmont College. Solid professor, interesting class, and good to meet and befriend Will.

But if you think work was all we did over the summer, you obviously weren't in San Diego. I don't even know how to sum up the intense chilling that was going down through those few short months. Lots of Risk: The Game of World Domination™ was played, beaches were conquered, bands of friends from both San Diego and Los Angeles were seen, kickball was oft-repeated, FIFA 09 was learned, IRONMAN was amazing, and burritos were devoured. Suffice to say, it was largely all our old friends who made it such an awesome summer, so I'll just take a moment to recognize (in alphabetical order) Allison, Asher, Avi, Brian, Denise, Derek, Elliot, Gabe, Gabriel, Ilan, Keith, Lannice, Lauren, Mike P, Mike K, Morty, Nate, Nissa, Richard, Rosanna, Sam C, Sam K, Sean, Tony, and the others I've forgotten. I even reconnected with an old friend of mine from high school, Derek Pickern, who now has a two year old daughter. So weird for me.

And that's just San Diego. We also made it up north for a weekend in the Bay Area to go to the wedding of a friend of mine from film school by the name of Elaine. The wedding invite called for semi-formal attire, Art Deco encouraged. So Kate and I spent some time trying to figure out what to wear, settling on a three piece suit for myself and a cocktail dress with shoe clips and a feathered hat for her. Another film school friend, Elliot, and his girlfriend, Catherine, also went for the retro look… but we were pretty much the only four. Indeed, most of the attendants were in what could be described as business casual, with an emphasis on the casual. Probably smart, given that it was about 104 degrees outside, but definitely not particularly snazzy. Consequently, the four of us were in about 80% of the wedding photos, with Kate's hat even being borrowed to provide a backdrop for the rings photo. Definitely good to meet up with the old filmies, including Regina and Taneisha, again...

Now the wedding was in San Jose but we stayed with my sister Laurel in Berkeley and hung out with her and her boyfriend, Marcelo, for a night and a day, grabbing some tasty Mediterranean food and hitting up a farmer's market before the wedding. The day after, we met up with my old friend Brian and went to Thai brunch at a Thai Buddhist temple. So delicious - you just eat wherever you want in the neighborhood and wash it down with some Thai iced tea and some mango and sticky rice for dessert. Then you wash all that down with some beer while watching the US valiantly try to defeat Brazil but eventually losing pretty horribly in the Confederations Cup final.

It was good to see the sis and we also got to see some family a bit more locally with a few visits to see the grandparents, including a few milestones. My grandfather Sidney, aka Pop-Pop, turned 94, my grandmother Charlotte turned 91, and Pop-Pop and Granny (Sylvia) celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary. We also got some tips on Vietnam from my traveling aunt Marsha and discussed Entourage and The Hills with my uncle Al. My mom's other sister, Neetie, came out for a weekend so we got to catch up with her, as well as see my mom's cousin Margie right before we left. Oh, and we spent a lot of time with my parents, though I'm sure they'd tell you otherwise.

One thing they can't deny is that we ransacked their garage to help them sort through the mountains of stuff that have to disappear if they're going to get a couple cars in the garage. Some of that stuff is ours that we're storing… but most of it is their's that's just, well, there. But not nearly as much of it is there now as before we hit town, thanks to effective persuasive methods learned from Rosanna. We were able to get it rid of it partly by introducing the 'rents to the wonders of craigslist… but mostly by the fact that they already knew about the wonders of the Salvation Army.

So much more. Sushi nights, 5 foot snakes in the backyard, two Padres games, concerts, a trip to the World Famous San Diego Zoo, IMAX adventures, movies watched, and bars sampled (especially the Triple Crown Pub, which I can whole-heartedly recommend to anyone who likes bar games and good times). Somehow, despite our 12 weeks in San Diego - by far the longest we've spent in any one place in the past 2 years - the summer came to a conclusion before we'd even realized what had happened. We still managed to forget to do so many things and scrambled together in the last few days to put everything together for our bid to become certified English teachers. But get it together we did and we bid San Diego, the US, and all therein adieu as we boarded the plane that fateful Wednesday morning in September and set out for the next adventure: Vietnam.

Hotlanta

2009-09-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

While we were out in Pittsburgh, we also took a little jaunt down to the Dirty South, to Kate's old haunt of Hotlanta. Her sister, Stephanie, and her brother and his wife (Chirs and Collins) all live there, along with the latest addition to the family, Kate's new baby niece, Emerson Ann Foster.

We stayed with Chris and Collins (and Stephanie and Emerson… and Mark and Elaine, as they'd come down to visit too) after completing the 12 hour drive through pockets of downpours so thick you could barely see three feet ahead. But once we got to Atlanta, the weather was beautiful, sunny, and not usually too terribly hot. We took advantage of it by getting outside and going to a beer festival. The East Atlanta Beer Festival, to be exact, where we got to sample over 170 craft beers. Chris and Collins were meant to join us but neglected to buy their tickets in advance and the event sold out. But Kate, Stephanie, and I soldiered on ahead and got our 6 oz tasting glasses filled time and time again, making sure to get our money's worth (which I know we did because at $30/ticket we'd have to drink roughly the equivalent of 6 12oz beers at $5/pop, or sample at least 12 beers/person, which, to say we did, would be an understatement, to say the least).

We did, however, meet up with Chris and Collins for some drinks later in the evening after a scrumptious dinner back home. Speaking of scrumptious dinners, we also went out to eat at Panahar, a Bengladeshi restaurant recommended highly by Chris who suggested we just ask them to order the food for us. We did and it was excellent. As they say, after all, every item there is "prepared to ensure freshness and flavor to achieve optimum taste." Quite tasty, as was the trip to Maggiano's, which would have been much less awkward had Stephanie not moved out of the way when I shot a projectile out of my straw at her, instead hitting the lady at the table behind us. I am, for those of you who don't know, twelve.

One unexpected Atlanta visitor was our friend Pargol. Blog readers may remember her from those 10 days of extreme awesomeness in Vienna for the Euro Cup, but she was also Kate's freshman year roommate at UCLA. Pargol was actually only in Atlanta for about 8 hours as she had a layover en route to South Africa where she was headed to go to Kate's other freshman year roommate's wedding. So we picked her up from the airport, got some brunch at the famous Flying Biscuit (our second time eating there during the trip, by the way), then wandered around the Highlands trying to shop for a wedding gift for two orthodox Jews, which is much more difficult than you might think. After all that, it was back to the airport and onto South Africa. For Pargol, at least.

For us, it was almost time to go, but not before going to a Braves game, courtesy of Mitsubishi Electric, Kate's Dad's company who put in the big screen at the stadium. We sat in the company seats right behind the Braves' dugout and watched them defeat the Cubs in dramatic fashion after a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Emerson didn't make it past the 9th (though she did excellently till then), but she did make it onto the big screen as Collins has a hookup with one of the camera men at Turner Field.

It was soon time to go, however, and we set off again for the 12 hour drive back, this time just Kate and I as her mother had flown back (though she drove down with us). On our way out of town, we swung through Lilburn, Kate's hometown, to see the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Hindu Temple, the largest Hindu temple in North America. It's built from Italian marble, Turkish limestone, and Indian sandstone and every piece of it was carved by sculptors in India, then shipped to the States for assembly. It is, I can assure you, extremely impressive and worth a visit. We would have liked to stay for a service, but our timing unfortunately did not allow for such as we needed to get back on the long road up to Pittsburgh...

Pittsburgh, 09

2009-09-04T19:40:00.001-07:00

Well, we are officially back on the road but before we beguile you with the fantastically strange of Saigon, how about a little recap of our Summer in the States?

We flew from A'dam to D.C. both because the flight was a great price and we were planning on making a weekend out of it with Kate's parents, until all involved decided not to bother with that place and instead we continued straight back to Pittsburgh. Most of our time in PA was spent recouping, planning and just hanging out with Kate's parents eating delicious food and drinking mojitos, Manhattans, and margaritas on the back porch. We did earn our keep, however, by helping with some renovations, like switching the living room and dining room, stripping off old wallpaper and plaster (the past owners had a penchant for large floral print wallpaper, pepto pink trim and green ceilings), as well as selling the old van for a wad of 5s and 1s.

Eating (along with breathing and drinking water) was also high on our agenda and we made sure to visit several topnotch farmers markets chock full of tasty tidbits and scrumptious scrunchies, including but not limited to orange and yellow beets, Amish pies and fresh picked corn, all for surprisingly affordable prices. We also made the obligatory trip to the Strip District which is tons of fun and a foody's heaven. If you visit Pittsburgh, make sure to check out Macaroni Co. where the guys behind the counter will help you make your way through the mountains of specialty cheeses (we highly recommend the 5 year aged white cheddar). You can also fill up a bottle of olive oil from the house casks and buy some of the best ciabatta this side of the Apennines. We also recommend Penzeys for your every spice need, Wholeys for mountains of fish and meat and be sure to seek out a peperoni roll.

On the home food front, we gobbled up many delicious home-cooked meals that had quite a bit more variety than our 4 recipe repertoire. A particular favorite was the deliciously delightful champagne cake whipped up for a belated Mother's Day celebration. Mmm... We also had a few wicked backyard BBQs, including some hickory smoked ribs that even Kate had to concede were extraordinarily delectable. And while we had some great conversations over the meals, we also watched some great TV over the meals, like our little Burn Notice marathon leading up the start of the new season.

But when the weather was good - which was most of the time - we set out to get a little exercise by hitting the links. I shot about 20 over par, which I don't think is too bad for my first time out in 8 years or so. And Kate managed to actually make contact with the ball a few times, which is a big step for her. She'll be learning to walk and eat solid food by this time next year.

We also happened to be in Beaver Falls for the annual Memorial Day parade, a slice of Americana that you just don't get outside of the States. Firetrucks, fancy cars, ninjas in training, and high school marching bands complemented war veterans and Shriners in the slow roll down Main Street. And a few days earlier (or later, I can't remember now), we went to the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which, as you might be able to guess, is where folks gather to show off their artwork. A favorite of ours was the (way overpriced) Greg Stone with his accurately titled works, like "Pug, Snowman, Zombie."

But what trip home would be complete without a little consumerism? Kate decided she was done with sharing a laptop with me (she thinks I make the keyboard smell bad) so we started scouring the trusty craigslist ads and within a couple days, we'd located an awesome MacBook for about a third of it's retail price. And that is what I'm using now to write that we'll continue the blog next time with a little excursion down south for some good ol' fashioned confederate action.

Utrecht... 2009

2009-06-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

After saying our goodbyes to the Spanish sun, we hopped on a flight up to Amsterdam and headed straight to Utrecht to meet up with the lovely Nicole and Dries, friends of ours via Avi (who studied for a year in Utrecht). They'd welcomed us into their home once before - a year ago exactly, to be, well, exact. Astute readers may recall our post about Queen's Day 2008; well, we had so much fun we decided to come back for more. Day one was spent unwinding and regrouping before the party began on April 29, Queen's Night, with a fairly low key celebration that took us to Eamon's house - another friend, but one we hadn't met before - where we also met up with Erwin - a friend we have met before. Some Guitar Hero and Buzz quiz video games took us through the night before retiring early in preparation for the morrow.

We started the day off right with a flongers before scraping together whatever orange we could find (though I had specifically bought an orange Oktoberfest shirt back in September in preparation for this eventuality) and hustling out to the train station around 1PM. Huge lines, but we got tickets and, luckily, seats on the train. Key, as that allowed us to drink our first beers of the day in relaxed style. Definitely a good start to the day.

Once we arrived in Amsterdam, we promptly commenced with a hardcore wander. See, there seems to be a theme with Queen's Day where the entire day is spent moving from one meeting place to another. We, like the Dude, abided. The only thing is, you gotta surrender to it and just go with the flow, not worrying about anything other than having a good time. So we wandered past the locals hawking anything and everything (Queen's Day is a freemarket day where anyone can sell anything anywhere) to a square with music and food... though it took us quite a while to get to the food (loempia, bapoa, and fries), what with all the beer and dancing. We eventually made it over the Westerpark, which is a pretty cool park that we'd never been to before.

Oh, and before the square and before the park we went to the anti-squat home of a few friends of friends - an anti-squat is set up because in the Netherlands, squatters have lots of rights and it's hard to kick them out of places so owners will rent places extremely cheap if they aren't up to code rather than let squatters move in. This anti-squat was ridiculous. Basically a three storey mansion in the heart of Amsterdam shared by only three people who paid a grand total of €100 a month. Ridiculous.

Anyway, there was much more to Queen's Day than just that but no room for it here. Suffice to say it was awesome and acquainted or reunited us with many of Avi's friends we'd met the year before; in addition to Nicole, Dries, Eamon, and Erwin, there was also Analiese, Karlien, Adam, Barynia, and Matt the Russian, among others. Awesome day.

We spent a few more days just chilling out with Nicole and Dries, not doing much of anything except for relaxing... though we did make it out of the house for a couple physical activities. Like playing basketball at the neighborhood park... against eight year olds. We dominated them with our teamwork and sportsmanship, showing explosiveness and sticktoitiveness like you've never seen before. We also had about three feet on the tallest kid. And after we mopped the floor with their mutilated remains, Dries broke Kate's glasses with a completely benign but completely errant shot that sailed over the hoop and smacked her right in the side of the face. We really can't blame Dries though, it wasn't his fault. But it was just the start of Kate's week of hell... but most of that took place in Arnhem where we went for a few days to get out of Nicole and Dries' hair... but more on that later.

What else did we do with our 10 days in Utrecht? We played a few rounds of Monopoly and Uno, plus a couple other card games, including teaching Dries and Nicole how to play Yanif. We also got a little more exercise in a soccer game where we met up with Nicole's brother (who is living in Utrecht for the year, studying international law) and his friends from school. This was a bit more of a challenge than slaughtering 8 year olds on the B-ball courts, proving to me exactly how out of shape I truly am.

Also on the agenda was a joint birthday party for Nicole and Dries. They'd invited a bunch of friends to a BBQ in the park and invited us to come back from Arnhem for the festivities. Apparently it's actually not legal to have a barbecue ANYWHERE in Utrecht - something we only know because Dries actually asked specifically for this - but we flaunted the law and did it anyway, grilling up such tasty morsels as burgers, Egyptian kebabs (courtesy of Eamon's mother), and chicken wings. Throw in some beers and some monkey-in-the-middle with the soccer ball and you got yourself an awesome day. Especially when it's topped off with Karlien's homemade strawberry cheesecake... so good... and another round of UNO. Of course there were some birthday gifts and Kate and I contributed a birthday/thanks-for-letting-us-bum-around-at-your-place-for-a-couple-weeks present of the board game Carcassone, winner of the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award in 2001. This was a game none of us had ever played before but which turned out to be really, really fun (we got the idea for a board game, incidentally, as there are like 10 shops in Utrecht dedicated solely to board games - just packed floor to ceiling with every game you can imagine). I recommend Carcassonne whole-heartedly... and apparently it gets even better once you get the hang of it a bit more.

Throw in a few wanders into town for some markets and food - including the Italian sandwich stand and the Greek gyro place right next to the Dom - and you've got a pretty good idea of our time in Utrecht. We also finally made inside the Dom church dominating the skyline and marveled at the stark white walls and intricate gravestones within. But really our time in Utrecht was dominated by awesomeness with Nicole and Dries. Thanks again, guys...

Sevilla

2009-05-27T20:12:00.001-07:00

After a month of gorging ourselves on Jeannie's cooking, we finally pried ourselves away from the kitchen table, packed up our bags, and hauled ourselves out of bed at 6AM to catch the bus to Sevilla. We ended up leaving the same day as Alan and Mark so Grania, Sam and Jeannie's daughter, drove us all to the bus stop and we hopped on and napped for the hour and a half drive into town. We dropped our bags off at Hostal Nuevo Suizo and headed out again for a full day of sightseeing of the beautiful city of Sevilla as the Scots were only staying one night.

First up was the Alcazar palace, a royal palace - and still the official residence of the Spanish kings and queens in Sevilla - that was begun way back in the 1100s. It was largely built by the Moors and added to by Christian kings over the centuries. The Moors, by the way, were the ones who built all the cool stuff. There are just halls and courtyards and treasuries and gardens... one of the most historically interesting pieces was a painting that has the first graphic depiction of the New World, complete with Columbus and his ships.

One other wee fun fact about the palace was that it was in an earthquake that shook off some beautifully painted tiles; the tiles originally formed a picture but when they fell off, someone just stuck them back on randomly and now it looks like one of those mixed up puzzles with one missing piece where you have to put it back together... We know this because we sprung for the audioguide (3.50) - just one though, which I listened to and then dutifully repeated the info to the others (I would, by the way, recommend getting at least one audioguide if you go as there is a lot of info in them). And another puzzle was outside in the form of a labyrinth, which we all wandered through while trying not to fall asleep in the midday heat, especially since the guards patrol all the benches to make sure no one lies down.

We ate an overpriced picnic lunch picked up from the Opencor supermarket (don't go there - way too expensive but the only thing nearby) in the sprawling Parque de Maria Luisa, then we decided to fight on through the fatigue and head on over to the other main attraction in town - the massive Cathedral. This place is enormous - and is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Very dark though. And a little Spanish-Catholic creepy with a bunch of bloody statues and some reliquaries. There also seemed to be a whole warren of hidden little side rooms that led us through the treasuries containing the smaller jewels, as opposed to the giant gilded altar in the middle of the cavernous main hall.

Also part of the cathedral is the Giralda bell tower which does exactly that, towering above the city. It's a bit of a walk to the top... however, it's pretty easy as it's all one ramp. Why, you ask? Because it used to be the mosque's minaret and the muezzin (guy who calls the faithful to prayer) would RIDE HIS HORSE up the ramp to the top every day. I don't know why all towers don't just do away with steps and go with the ramp-thing. So much easier. Anyway, we goofed around up top a bit and snapped some shots of the city below before descending in time to catch a game of footie at a nearby overpriced, but recommended Flaherty's Irish pub. And then it was time to party.

And by party, we mean drink in the hostel room until the wee hours of the morn. We introduced the Scots to Kings - aka Ring of Fire - a game they took to like goats to horns. Or something. We got a little loud and out of control and I must admit I got a little uppity as I was worried our roommates weren't too happy... but the memories - not to mention the photos - were priceless. Unfortunately, we don't have the pictures, but you can see some of them on Mark and Alan's photo blog and I'll leave you with this shot of the four of us taken at the bus station as we bid them goodbye the following morning and settled in for a couple days of just the two of us again.

Honestly, we weren't sure exactly what else to do. We felt a little strange, a little aimless, especially as the big Sevilla sights were already ticked off the list. But we pulled ourselves together and soldiered on, wandering aimlessly around town for a while like we do. We discovered a pretty cool plaza with a bunch of bars and cafes(Plaza del Salvador), got in a fight, and marveled at how this building was unfinished; if you look closely, you can see that they ran out of money or something half-way through and had to leave the second half of the building unadorned and sculpture free. We then went home, had some ramen and beer, and stayed home for a quiet night in.

The next day was our last and that meant back to beating the sightseeing path with a stroll down to the Plaza de Espana, a pavilion erected for the World's Fair in a Sevilla some years ago. Pretty cool, especially all the tiled paintings of Spain's various provinces that ringed the place. We then got some doner at a restaurant called Petra - quite tasty and a welcome change from the steady diet of ham and tapas. We also debated if we should buy the tickets and eventually decided that yes, we're in Spain, we should go to a bullfight.

Which is a bit of a misnomer as there is nothing even remotely resembling a fight here. A closer description would be bull-taunt-and-torture-to-death, but I imagine they rejected that for PR reasons. It's like going to watch a sports game where you already know who's going to win - and where's the fun in that? It's about 15 highly-trained athletes with weapons, horses, and thousands of years of knowledge (not to mention walls to hide behind) against a single scared bull who they have to goad into charging at them because he'd rather just chill out in the sun. Not really that cool. We watched six bulls be killed and the highlight was definitely in the first "fight" when the bull upended a horse and threw one of the matadors. I mean, you really are rooting for the bull to win.

Plus, it's not that comfortable. Granted, we got the cheap seats, but it was packed and there are no aisles. There are also no seats, but rather concrete step-benches where you have to squeeze between someone's knees behind you and have another person squeeze between yours in front. I had to go to the bathroom at one point in between bulls and I had to fight my way over to the stairwell... at which point I realized there were still no aisles and people had stopped moving for me as the next bull was coming out. So I had to jump over the railing and drop about 10 feet down. Insane.

But as uncomfortable as I was, it was nothing to the bulls. I cannot stress enough how little they want to participate. It's not like these are blood-thirsty beasts - these are male cows who just so happen to not like the color red very much. Nor do they like a bunch of guys in funny costumes prancing around and jabbing them with sticks, tiring them out in waves until the lead matador finally makes and appearance and taunts the bull a bit more before driving a sword into the base of his neck. And if he doesn't kill him with that thrust, a helper runs in with a dagger to deliver the death blow. Then they hook chains to the bull's horns and a team of horses drag his body across the arena, smearing his blood in the dirt. Not that cool at all and, while it was definitely an experience, I would encourage people not to support it any longer.

After the bullfight, we returned to the hostel to see if we could round up any troops for our last night in Sevilla - a night which also happened to be the opening night of the Feria de Abril, a huge Oktoberfest-esque festival that goes on for a couple weeks. We ended up setting off alone rather than go out for an expensive dinner with a few guys from the hostel and instead had some carnie food at the Feria, which was, unfortunately, a little disappointing. Definitely no Oktoberfest, though it was a similar set up with a carnival in one part and tents for partying in another part. The main difference was that these tents here were exclusive, invite only affairs, leaving us out in the cold. There were a couple public ones, but they didn't look that cool to be honest so we mostly just walked up and down the rows then went on a roller coaster and made it back to the entrance of the park for the official opening ceremony where they turn on the lights. That was cool... but then we had to literally do battle with the crowds streaming into the place as we were trying to get out. We probably should have stayed as it seemed to just be getting going around midnight with way too many people for just the tents coming in; it was a complete madhouse with everyone pushing and shoving everyone else and Kate was even lifted off her feet by the mob. But we made it out safely and trekked back to the hostel where we got a good night's sleep before bidding hasta luego to Spain, which is, of course, See you later in English, but Boof, done in Scottish patter...

Buen Vino and Aracena

2009-05-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

Once we'd finally reached the airport in Mallorca, it was smooth sailing (or flying, whatever) over to Alicante on the mainland. We flew with RyanAir who are usually terrible but this was by far the easiest experience we've ever had with them. Plus, we got one of their ridiculous 1 cent flight deals... with no taxes and fees! To be fair, we did still have to pay some fees, but those were to check our bags as well as to pay with a credit card. Still, once everything was said and done, 20€/person for a flight still ain't bad.

What was, however, was that I started to feel a bit sick on the plane. Nothing too bad and it was still at a pretty low level throughout our layover in Alicante before catching the night bus. But after a couple hours on the bus, the sickness hit harder. The main thing was that gas kept building up in my stomach, making me extremely uncomfortable from the pressure. Alicante before catching the night bus. But after a couple hours on the bus, the sickness hit harder. The main thing was that gas kept building up in my stomach, making me extremely uncomfortable from the pressure. Eventually, it would reach a tipping point and a gigantic belch would issue forth, releasing the pressure. Momentarily. By the time we arrived in Sevilla around 9:30AM, I was pretty well beat and very exhausted, kind of useless for our day wandering around the city as the next bus to Aracena was at 4:30PM.

We finally arrived in Aracena where we were met by Jeannie who took us back to Finca Buen Vino to meet her husband, Sam, their daughter, Grania, and the other helpers: Trent (Australian), Mark, and Alan (both Scottish). I was still a little ill and we were both tired from the overnight bus so we excused ourselves after dinner and went to bed early while the others partied deep into the night.

But we'd get our partying in - oh yes, we would get our partying in.

First off, however, let's talk about the work we did there. Finca Buen Vino is a guesthouse and, as such, we were helping them get ready for the upcoming tourist season. We helped paint a cottage, waxed some tables, cleaned out the pool house, painted hallways, built a fence, cleared an old pool area, stocked firewood, etc... Kate did a lot more painting and weeding than I did - I was occupied with the Scots for a week + building this fence as we had to first dig the holes for the posts, then collect the posts, then hammer them in and fill in the holes with packed earth, then cut down trees for cross bars, then nail those in and secure them with wire. Quite a process, but a beautiful, rustic fence was the reward.

And what did we get out of this arrangement? Well, we got luxurious rooms in the guesthouse. We spent most of our stay in a room in the main house with our own bathroom and views over the property. But after a couple weeks, they had some guests who needed the room so we were moved out to the poolhouse. Not quite as luxurious as it was still under construction and it was a little inconvenient to "commute" to and from... but the views over the pool were unbeatable.

We also got delicious, gourmet food from Jeannie. She cooks a lot for the guesthouse but also prepared two huge meals a day (breakfast was self-service) for us... though when there were hotel guests dining, we got to eat the same food. Some of our favorite meals included the huge crab dinner, the incredible roast pork, the amazing curries, and the various pates. Not to mention the pig's leg they kept in the kitchen. This was jamon iberico, one of the finest types of ham in the world taking 4 years to smoke and cure the leg. Plus, there's a 3 year waiting list for a ham. And they cost €400 each. And they taste delicious.

We kept fairly busy in our off time, thanks mostly to the Scots who kept us quite entertained through their innovative patter. When, that is, we could understand them. We picked up such gems as jobby; big players play in the big games; take a bow, son, take a bow; wee dippy dip; helicopter-daft; and much, much more. Also, these guys were truly sports-daft. They loved every sport out there. Literally. Except for cricket. But outside of that... I mean, these crazy dudes ordered the American sports packages on for their TVs at home. They liked to watch golf. And snooker. And CURLING. I think you get the point.

We also got to play a few sports with them. There were a couple days of soccer down in the fields, but many more days of ridiculous poolside watersports. Like diving headers into the pool. Diving catches into the pool. Diving bicycle kicks into the pool. And other classic Olympic sports. Indeed, you pretty much needed to be an Olympic caliber athlete to compete as the amount of pain suffered by simply getting into that ice-bath we so casually refer to as a "pool" would send lesser mortals wailing for their mums like wee weans (pronounced "waynes"). But how sweet was it to sit out in the baking sun, beer by your side, then get up to juggle the ball a bit, eventually leaping into the pool to get a touch and try to keep the juggling alive... pretty much perfect, if you ask me.

Though, as alluded to previously (see paragraph 4), we did a bit more partying than just the odd poolside beer. And most of the time, Mark ended up naked. The first and most memorable time was after we innocently walked into Aracena for the day, taking a lovely stroll through on a really hot afternoon. We got into town and had planned on going to the caves, but it was Easter weekend and the caves were mobbed by crowds so we decided to go into the center of town and watch the Premiership game at a local bar which was to become our local bar. A few drinks later and we decided to skip the bus home and just walk. Of course, we also decided we needed a few drinks for the two hour walk back, which turned it into a three hour walk back during which time we (read: Alan) lost the cap to our water bottle, Mark ran naked by a field, Kate took a nap in the middle of the road, and I watched as the Scots belted out drinking/football songs at the top of their lungs as we swept through a sleepy town.

Kate also tried to convince Mark and Alan not to jump in a reservoir we passed on the walk... and for some insane reason offered up a deal where we would all jump in the pool back at Finca Buen Vino when we arrived. So we all jumped in the icy water and then returned to the house itself. Jeannie welcomed back the first two through the door (Kate and Alan), saying she was so worried about us and asking if we got caught in the rain because we were so wet. I, meanwhile, was in the kitchen with Mark, trying to convince him to put some clothes on. He, of course, refused, saying that he didn't want to get his clothes wet. So he then walked in, giggling like a schoolgirl, and ran up the stairs as Jeannie deduced behind him, "Oh, you're all pissed and jumped in the pool."

We spent a few other afternoons in Aracena as well, finally making it to the Cave of Wonders (La Gruta de las Maravillas), but most of our time in Aracena was to watch the Semana Santa processions. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is the week leading up to Easter, celebrated by parading massive floats through the streets. How do you move the floats? With up to 70 men carrying it on their shoulders. A sergeant of sorts calls out the marching beat, alerting the men below - whose vision is completely hidden by drapery - when there is a step up or step down, when to duck and when to lift to get the giant float out of the church. The scenes pictured on the floats are quite gruesome - Jesus on the cross, Mary mourning, soldiers with whips and flails... all the bloody, gory spectacle that Catholics love to remember.

And if the floats didn't grab your attention, the hoods would. The hoods were originally worn by penitents in the middle ages so they could keep their identities secret, but it was co-opted by the KKK as their iconic conehead thing. So with that secondary association in the common mind, it's a bit creepy to see hordes of sinisterly hooded - if well-meaning - townsfolk walking the streets like it ain't no thang. Especially when the super-dramatic, Imperial Deathmarch music is blaring out from the 50-strong town band. It's supposed to be an even bigger deal in Sevilla but we didn't feel like battling the hordes, neither to get a glimpse nor to find a place to stay.

What else? Well, there were the friends and family of Sam and Jeannie who lived in the neighborhood, including wealthy friends whose cousins own the Biltmore, as well as Jeannie's sister and brother-in-law - Henrietta and Sebastian - who built a vacation home next door. They were all lushes, Sebastian in particular - and all definitely characters as well... though I don't think I can repeat any of his hilarious quotes as they aren't appropriate for most readers. I can, however, say that Sebastian told us he once gave the name of his favorite antique shop in Edinburgh as a wedding gift. Just the name, nothing else. And he, of course, wouldn't deign to tell us what it was. Anyway, he and Henrietta invited us over to use their heated pool one afternoon, forcing beers on us whether we wanted them or not. They also came with us one afternoon when Sam and Jeannie took us all to another friend's farm for a picnic. We were thinking we'd sit out on the grass with a few people, some baguettes, maybe a bottle of wine... We ended up going on a huge trek with five other cars onto yet another farm, then hike out to the spot, literally carrying a grandmother in a wheelchair across a river and along some bumpy terrain before we reached the ruins. Pretty fun and very random... though what was even more random was that one of that other farm's helpers was a friend of a friend of mine from high school.

Lastly, I must give an honorable mention to Sam and Jeannie's dog, Bucky. They had two dogs - Maggie being the other one - but Bucky was their favorite despite the fact that she had an incredibly annoying habit of constantly wanting to play fetch with a stone. She never got tired of this game, ever. If you didn't kick or throw the rock, she'd put it on top of your shoe. If you were sitting down, she'd hop up and throw it on your lap. All day, every day. Oh, and she only had one eye after she lost the other in a fight with a CAT. But she was pretty cute at least.

In short, we had a great time at Finca Buen Vino, made some great friends, and even picked up a wee bit of patter in between learning how snooker's played and watching some ridiculous movies, like Crank. In the end, we decided to go to the Netherlands a bit earlier than originally planned so we could be there for Queen's Day... but not before a couple days in Sevilla with Alan and Mark...

Oh, and one more thing... if you want any more pictures, feel free to check out Mark and Alan's photo blog here.

Son Rullan

2009-05-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Back to farming, back to Spain.

An early morning flight out of London landed us on the island of Mallorca, Spain, out in the Balearics. We flew into Palma, killed a couple hours waiting for our bus, finally got it only to find the bus driver didn't know our stop... only to find that he really did and just overcharged us for fun or something (?), then arrived at the gates of Son Rullan where we were greeted by some of the most horrific and vicious dogs alive. They look like some sort of wild hyena thing that kills just to watch things die. But we braved the beasts and passed through the gates to find we still had about a 15 minute uphill walk to Son Rullan itself.

Son Rullan is a monastery dating back to somewhere between the 12th and 15th centuries, depending on who you ask. It's perched atop a hill on the lush north coast of Mallorca and is now broken up into a few separate properties all under the banner of "Son Rullan" (which, by the way, is pronounced "Ru-lan" and not "Ruyan" as it has a hyphen between those double Ls). The property to which we were a-trekking has now been converted into some sort of weird guesthouse/arts center/day care/farm that isn't supposed to make any money and is, in fact, just losing hundreds of thousands of euros a year for the owner... who doesn't even live on the island.

Now, this absent owner was actually more of a problem than one might imagine. This was the first farm that we've done where the owner hasn't lived (and worked) with us and, indeed, the manager, Henar, neither lived nor worked with us either. I'm sure in other places we wouldn't have noticed... but Henar pretty much single-handedly made this the first negative volunteer experience we've had. And as much as it pains me to give her so much attention on the blog, I think she deserves a quick couple paragraphs. Though no photos.

First off, she's a liar. We were told we would be doing different work every day: weeding, planting, fixing stone walls, cleaning, construction, clearing paths... In actuality, I did heavy lifting (construction, but not really even construction as I literally was just a packhorse) almost every single day. The days I wasn't moving stuff back and forth, I was... no, wait - I was still moving stuff back and forth, just different stuff. Like this mountain of sandbags which weighed 20 kilos each. The closest I came to working in the garden was the one day that I sprayed down the garden with a hose for 5 minutes. Kate, on the other hand, got to work in the garden a little bit... when she wasn't cleaning, that is. As the only female volunteer, Kate was somehow co-opted as the default maid. Which was funny as there was a paid maid and plenty of other helpers. But Henar would not be dissuaded by our pleas; we spoke to her a few times about varying the work and she always said something to the effect of, "Yes, yes, of course you can do that. But not today."

Secondly, she has serious power issues. We were told we'd have a private room with a double bed. In actuality, we had a room that was screened off from a very public hallway by a wall of barely-opaque sheets (that allowed the cat, Fisty, to jump up on the bed at any hour, waking us up and giving me allergies) in two single beds... despite the dual facts that a) we were the only couple there and yet all the single men had private rooms with queen beds, and b) there were two perfectly good rooms with actual walls available that were just left empty. We were eventually moved into one of them after one of the other volunteers interceded on our behalf, but once that happened, we discovered that Henar likes to go into everyone's rooms and snoop around. Not sure how much actual snooping she did in our room, but she came in pretty much every day while we were at work, moved things around, opened windows, etc...

Third and finally, she's a bitch. Sorry, but there's no other word for it. The day before we left she offered to give us a ride into town so we didn't have to walk the 40 minutes to the bus stop in the rain with our bags. It was especially convenient as the bus only comes once every few hours so we would have had to wait for a few hours at the airport or the next bus would be too late. So we get ready, go to confirm what time we're leaving with Henar, and find out that she's already left to town but is coming back soon. Everyone else thought it was weird that she just left but they all knew she was taking us too so they said not to worry about it. We even turned down a ride into town as we could go later with her. Then, around 10:40, she calls the house and asks for Jorge, one of the volunteers who had just offered us a ride into town but just left and I couldn't catch him. Then when I come back to tell Henar that he's gone, she says, "Oh, by the way, I probably should have told you guys this earlier but I'm not going to give you a ride today. I'm already in town so I'm just going to stay." Uh, what? Our bus was leaving in 20 minutes. We were all packed but still needed like 5 minutes to get ready and then we were going to have to run to the bus stop and hope the bus was late. Her excuse was that "she thought we saw her leave" and figured that meant we would assume that she could no longer take us and we'd figure out our own transportation. What? Well, now we've missed the only bus that can get us to the airport because you promised us a ride. Her suggestion was to take a bus to another town as she figured they'd have more buses to Palma from there, but she didn't know the timetables or how often they ran. Obviously, we're freaking out a bit by this point but we were lucky enough to get in touch with the Jorges and get a ride to the airport after all.

The Jorges, now that I'm done ranting, were two middle-aged Argentineans also volunteering at Son Rullan, but for very long stays. Getting to know the Jorge's was easily one of the best parts of our month there. Jorge 1, as we called him, left Argentina 30 years ago and moved to France where he's been working as an artist ever since. He was actually the only paid "volunteer" who lived with us and was there to do some renovations/sculptures/redesigns of the place with his biggest project being to completely redo the tafona, or the old olive press room, making it into a big open space for parties, as a studio/workshop, or whatever. Jorge 2, also Argentinian, used to own a construction company so he oversaw our building projects. He'd been at Son Rullan for 2 years and had built himself a little (and I mean little) one room cottage on the property so that he didn't have to move in the summers when the place was rented out, though we were building a ridiculously overbuilt chicken coop complete with human bathroom and olive press room. Jorge also was an avowed carnivore in addition to being completely unintelligible.

In Spanish, of course, as that's all that was spoken on the farm. Henar spoke good English, but we tried not to talk to her unless it was absolutely necessary but the others there really didn't speak much English at all - and all spoke fluent Spanish. Those others, in alphabetical order, were: Anita (Ecuadorian, our cook and maid), Ariel (Argentinean, has dreadlocks, makes herbal draughts, and is trying to get Spanish citizenship), Carlos (Spanish, paid gardener, extremely...spanish), Everisto (Nigerian, jolly head handyman, had his first child while we were there, real name is Emeka but Spaniards call him Everest as he's a giant),Hugo (from near Madrid, loves the island of Formentera, vegetarian), Kati (Pep's wife, sometimes had to go into town to work after our own work, made some Mallorquin specialties), Manu (Italian, Henar's boyfriend who was actually decently cool though he had an annoying habit of taking the good jobs and disappearing when we had to do something difficult), Pep (from Mallorca, middle aged, getting his massage therapy certification), and Tony (British, only there for our last week, very experienced WWOOFer who also couldn't stand Henar and thought the place was run terribly, the only other one who didn't speak Spanish).

So yeah, we got a lot of Spanish practice which was pretty intense. It's just really tiring to only hear another language all day every day but I think we improved quite a bit, especially with construction vocabulary - though my lack of specialized vocab was probably part of why I was usually just told to move something rather than actually do anything interesting. Listening, however, was more difficult as there was such a mix of accents and when native speakers speak to each other, they use a lot more slang and speak a lot quicker than when they talk to us. Still, we could always follow the basic conversation and were able to participate quite a bit and Jorge1 went out of his way to speak clearly and explain things for us. But those talks were one of the best things about Son Rullan. Indeed, all the people we lived with were great and once Henar left for the day (after lunch) we had a great time.

What did we do in our down time? Well, we went on a few hikes, for starters. Son Rullan is situated in one of the most spectacular settings we've ever experienced and there are trails everywhere. One leads to the town of Deía on one side and Valdemosa on the other, but then there are literally thousands of proper trails/goat tracks that take you all over the place. And by place, I mean gorgeous island with craggy cliffs to one side and sparkling sea to the other. Plus there are all sorts of little surprises along the trails, like ancient cisterns for the animals, old Moorish stone walls, ruins of cottages, and wild goats.

In fact, we caught a wild goat. It was scared by Rita, Henar's dog, and then trapped by Ariel and Everisto. Everisto wanted to eat it, but the goat was too small (only a baby) and it was terrified so after a day or two, Ariel let it go again. And that wasn't why he earned the nickname of Houdini - no, that was because in the 4 months that Jorge 1 had been there, he claimed he'd never seen Ariel cook or clean in the house and that he always disappeared at the right times. That mostly held true, but he did make some delicious pizza and several loaves of scrumptious homemade bread while we were there, though we ourselves did not do much cooking. That was because breakfast was just a buffet, lunch was cooked by Anita, and dinner was usually whipped up by Jorge who loved to cook (meat). We did make a couple things, however, and our recipe for carrot cake was a particular favorite that we probably made about 6 times as it usually didn't last for more than an hour or two.

Pep and Kati did a bit of cooking during their week at Son Rullan and, through them, we got a taste of real Mallorquin cuisine. I can't say that we're huge fans, however. The Arroz Brut (or "Dirty Rice") was tasty (though an experience to eat as you had to gnaw on rabbit bones and periodically pause to work a snail out of it's shell) but the Frito Mallorquin... I feel bad saying this, but it was a struggle. I feel especially bad as they were so excited about it and everyone was talking about it for days, both before and after. But we Americans just don't have stomachs accustomed to eating that kind of thing. That kind of thing is, by the way, a hearty stir fry of peas, potatoes, artichoke hearts, red peppers... all good so far... plus lamb lungs, heart, liver, and coagulated blood. Lots of very spongy sweetmeats, especially the lung. And the blood was just disgusting. Kati brought it out while cooking - it looks like a weirdly textured meat loaf - then sliced and diced it into cubes for the frito. We weren't thrilled but assumed it would cook down into part of the sauce... but no, it just warms up but stays in little springy chunks, kind of like tofu. Only made of blood.

But we did choke it down and put on a fairly convincing show of liking it, especially as Jorge 1 filmed an impromptu short film titled "Frito Mallorquin," turning the whole kitchen into a soundstage in the process. And let me assure you that this kitchen deserved to be on film. As I said, the house dates back to the... well, several hundred years and, as such, it includes one feature of old Mallorcan homes that's gone out of fashion but sorely needs to be reintroduced: giant fireplaces. The one in the kitchen was enormous - the size of a bedroom. It could seat about 10 people inside it's walls and turned that part of the kitchen into an eternal campfire.

Which was necessary as the house, being old and drafty and made out of stone, was really cold, especially at night. And that's despite the fact that we had mostly good weather. The days that it wasn't so great were spent inside writing and napping while the good days were spent out walking and in nearby towns, including a day trip to the port town of Soller, though we actually ended up missing the port as we took too long to start heading that direction. But we did see the rest of the town, including a little exhibition on former resident Joan Miro. We also got some tasty tapas and saw one of the more interesting churches we've seen in a while.

Another day trip was in to Palma itself. We got a lift from Pep and Kati as they had business in town and were dropping off Hugo anyway. So Hugo gave us a mini tour then we wandered around for a few hours, checking out the port, the huge castle/cathedral on the hill, and the winding streets of the old town. We unfortunately arrived at a rather awkward time so most everything was closed but we got a good basic overview of the city's touristic center. For the non-touristy tour, we went with the Jorges to run a few errands on the way to the airport. They took us to the industrial part of the city, stopping in a hardware store, a pipes store, a thrift store, a massive used wooden beams shop, and an antiques store as they shopped for new things for the to-be-built bathrooms as well as the tafona project.

In the end, we were very conflicted about leaving. On the one hand, we'd met some really great people and worked a lot on our Spanish.. but on the other hand, the work was really hard on our bodies (I'm pretty sure I broke the tip of my finger in addition to straining some muscles and burning myself pretty badly twice while burning dead olive branches), fairly thankless, and we had to put up with Henar. Still, we made it through a month and looking back, I'm definitely glad we did.

Day trips in England

2009-05-12T02:41:00.001-07:00

We had two day trips while in Britain. The first was from Cardiff back into London for a day as we had tickets to the Arsenal game. We got this amazing hook up from Kate's dad who works for Mitsubishi Electric, a company that installs the giant screens in stadiums, and they put in the screens at the new Emirates stadium.

We took the morning bus into London and headed straight to the game as we were to meet Sandra - the company's representative - and her friend Sian for lunch in the stadium's club level. We met them outside of the merchandise store then showed our little VIP passes to get up and into the restaurant where we shown to our table for the match. We picked out our three-course meals and selected our half-time complimentary drink preferences as we would be coming back to this same table for a little half-time cheese and wine soiree. While introducing ourselves and dining away on the gourmet cuisine, I noticed that our VIP cards listed the price for the meal we were having: £72.50 a person, or a very expensive lunch. Our waitress then worried us further when she asked if we'd like to pay our bill before the game or at half-time. We said half-time and were left wondering if we'd mistakenly assumed the lunch was free, but the bill was just for the extra wine we'd ordered with the meal.

When we finished, we headed down to our seats which, I think you can agree, are quite spectacular. First row in the section, right on the halfway line, just elevated enough to see everything better... which reminds me, we'd worn our Sunday best as we were in the club level and didn't know what to expect; we were fine where we were sitting but right across the way, you could easily tell which box was the owner's - everyone was wearing suits.

The game ended up being little disappointing - 0-0 draw against Sunderland - but it was notable as being the Arsenal debut of Andrei Arshavin, the Russian who helped spearhead their run in last year's Euro 2008 Cup. He had a couple good shots but nothing went in and play got a bit sloppy at the end. I think we can all agree that the the real stars of the game were the DiamondVision™ screens with their incredible high-definition LED display solutions.

Day trip number two was actually from London when we went back for our last couple nights with Theo before flying off to Spain. We decided to splurge for the £50 package tour to Stonehenge and Bath. I'd been to both before on an 8th grade trip but it'd been about 13 years and Kate had never been so we hopped on our tour bus at 8AM and cruised on out the plains of Salisbury where we encountered the megalithic marvel of Stonehenge.

The site provides free audio guides that explain the whole thing according to numbers beside the walkway... but while informative, it led to us being forced to jam these wands to our ears, alternating hands every 10 seconds or so due to the icy wind whipping through the place. But we braved it and have now seen the giant stones and the nearby burial mounds scattered throughout the plains. It's impressive, but Stonehenge for us isn't one of those must-see things that's better in life than in the pictures. You can't really imagine the space being used. And it probably doesn't help that the circle of stones is now in a rather random field with sheep grazing nearby. Just seemed a bit anti-climactic.

Basically as soon as the audio tour was finished, we were whisked back onto the bus for another hour or two long drive out to Bath. Bath got it's name, appropriately enough, from the Roman baths founded on top of the local hot springs way back in the early ADs. But while Bath was important in ancient times, it wasn't until Georgian Britain that it had it's resurgence thanks to about 100 years of ongoing facelifts to make the town into a beautiful little homogenous tourist city based on the latest architectural principles. Encouraged, of course, by the owner of the nearby quarry of eponymous Bath Stone who was able to pass an edict stating that every building in town needed a Bath Stone facade. Unfortunately, Bath Stone is porous and dirties and is expensive to upkeep... but the town is beautiful, as is their abbey which you can see in the background.

As are the Roman baths. They're extremely impressive - probably the best preserved structure from antiquity that we've seen on our trip, though it is, admittedly, a little hard to tell as there has been some restoration throughout the millennia as the bath's have been in use for over 1500 years. The whole complex is, to some degree, still preserved; you have the main baths, of course, plus parts of the nearby temples, the changing rooms, the saunas, the plumbing... really an interesting site where you can see exactly how things once were. Again, you get a free audio guide but this one is supplemented with commentary from author Bill Bryson who adds a bit of flavor through his imagination of what life would have been like for those at the baths.

For 50 pence, you can also have a glass of the sulfurous miracle water that cures most ailments at the fancy restaurant upstairs. It doesn't taste great but not that bad either... though it doesn't fill you up. For that crucial sustenance, we headed to Sally Lunns Buns, the oldest restaurant in an old town dating back to the 16th century. They're known for what are apparently very famous and certainly very giant buns. We split three orders: salmon and cream cheese, brie and cranberry, and for the dessert course, buns with clotted cream and jam. So delicious, though the clotted cream is intensely rich and while I really liked it, you probably want to stay away from it if you place a high priority on arterial functionality.

Then it was back on the bus. We slept most of the way back to London as I'd been up all night dealing with cleaning off and preparing our old, cracked screen computer for sale - which was much more difficult than normal as I couldn't see the buttons I needed to click. But I sold it at 7AM before the trip. Which is completely unrelated to this post and an awkward point to end on.

Cardiff

2009-05-11T02:10:00.001-07:00

One of the first things we did when we realized we were heading to the UK was to get in touch with our friend Pippa who we met right at the beginning of our trip in Buenos Aires. Pippa was also at the beginning of her own round-the-world trip and had told us then about the house she'd just bought in Cardiff that was being rented for the year or so that she was on the road. This time around, she invited us to come check out the house into which she'd just moved.

Timing was perfect, actually, and we even got a ride with Pippa from London as she lives half-time in a company apartment there. So we met up, hopped in the car, and began the road trip to Wales, stopping only for some fast food and bathrooms, before getting into Cardiff just in time for a quick dinner and drinks shopping trip to the supermarket where we helped Pippa stock up and get her liquor cabinet into a respectable state. Then we went home and got to see Pippa's cute "new" townhouse that's only 100 years old, which is nothing in Britain - and especially nothing in Pippa's family - as we were to find out soon. But it's a cool place, right on the corner with it's own garden and three bedrooms upstairs, one of which we were lucky enough to snag. Pippa's parents, Brian and Allison, then came over and we arranged to go to their house the next day as a base to do some hill walking through the castles along the Welsh border as Pippa had to go to work.

She dropped us off at her parents' house in the country and we got the tour... of the 14th century farmhouse. Indeed, the core of the property dates back to the 14th century with the most recent additions coming as late as the 18th century. The house is, therefore, pretty incredible, rambling, and beautiful. There are all sorts of little accents - like crests from the town church as the preacher used to live here - as well old Victorian iron hitching posts in the adjacent stables. Plus, huge gardens outside - though we didn't see a ton of those as it was raining pretty steadily throughout the day. So rather than go on our walk, we went into the town of Monmouth with Allison; she went to run errands, we went to wander through the cobblestoned streets, over the bridge, and into going out of business sales at bookshops. And, once back at their own "castle," we continued the chats over tea and while helping to build some bookshelfs for their sprawling library.

But we did get to see our Welsh castles eventually, though we were driven there as the weather was still too bad. But Brian and Allison took us around both Skenfrith Castle as well as Grosmont Castle. We missed out on the White Castle - the third in this triad of Norman fortifications - but what we saw was still pretty cool. These castles date back to the 11th century, built along the border of England and Wales as Norman fortresses protecting the borders of their realm. At Skenfrith, we also got to peek around an old church with a really interesting bell tower where we picked up some delicious cakes in between getting the tour from Brian and Allison, both history buffs. Soon, however, it was time to go home as Pippa was done with work...

But our Welsh-castle-viewing days were not over yet. We also went to one in Cardiff, appropriately if unimaginatively titled, "Cardiff Castle." Excellent tour of an interesting historical site with free audio guides (with the £9 entry fee) that take you through the history of the grounds, including much harping upon the most recent major landscape gardener on the site who made some rather drastic changes in the 18th century - Lancelot "Capability" Brown. The castle itself is extremely well preserved and you really can see the different time periods in the buildings. I particularly enjoyed the Norman keep on the raised mound with the classic moat around it. Definitely the ideal image of a stereotypical medieval castle.

More recent, however, was the living quarters in the Victorian Mansion added by the eccentric architect William Burges under the patronage of the Bute family, a family name which seems to be synonymous with Cardiff. The mansion is "a 19th century fantasy of a medieval palace," complete with crazy spires outside and dramatic staircases and banquet halls within. There's also a library with all sorts of little creatures carved into every surface, most of them poking fun at Darwin, whom Lord Bute evidently thought was ludicrously wrong. Still, the most impressive room was probably the gorgeous Arab Room you see pictured here. I forget the history of this room, but if you go, the friendly stewards scattered throughout will be more than happy to discuss the significance of the coats of arms on the walls or the wooden newts climbing the table legs....

Castles were not all we did in Cardiff, though, upon reflection, they were sort of the focus. But we also did a lot of our standard hangout/wander/devour routine, whipping up a few tasty meals with Pippa including pancakes on Pancake Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which is, of course, 46 days before Easter Sunday, itself a solid two days after Good Friday, all of which is only tangentially related to the main topic at hand: pancake feasts. The idea is that you want to use up all your rich foodstuffs like eggs, milk, and sugar before the fasting of Lent. So you gorge yourself silly (or at least that's how we interpreted it) on thousands (well, at least tens) of pancakes/crepes. Mmm mmm good. And you can continue that pre-self-denial excess by going to the Indian restaurant on City Road where you can get a lunch buffet for £2.50. That is ridiculously cheap for anything, much less a huge all-you-can-eat buffet, especially when the food was actually pretty delicious. This was probably the budget find of the trip... seriously, £2.50? That's like a single samosa at most Indian restaurants. And you know I'm not lying cause you can see the flyer up on the wall behind me... though it doesn't give the name of the restaurant and I can't remember it. Damn!

As you might also be able to tell from the above picture, Kate finally got around to cutting my hair, a more difficult proposition than you might imagine as we usually do this sort of thing outside with my shirt off... but as it was near-freezing outside... well, we ended up cutting it in the kitchen one day so that I could get spiffed up for a night out on the town checking out the local bars with Pippa, also a newbie herself on the Splott bar scene. The first place we went was a local place where everyone seemed to know each other and everyone really was doing kareoke. Next stop was the Vulcan, a bit more central and a Cardiff institution in danger of being shut down and demolished to make way for a parking lot. First bar was just OK, but the Vulcan was pretty cool and we got to finish catching up with Pippa after her year of four continents and get the lowdown on what it's like to return to the Real World.

Outside of all that... well, we also took a day trip back into London during the middle of our week in Cardiff... but that's for the next blog...

London

2009-04-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

We flew to London with EasyJet - a welcome change from RyanAir, which is terrible. The flight was relatively unexcpetional... except Kate was struck by the Pharaoh's Revenge about halfway through, something which carried over into the night and the following day, keeping her basically bedbound after meeting our host, Theo, an Aussie living in Elephant and Castle in London who was between roommates and, as such, threw the spare bedroom over to us. We got in a bit late and really only had time to say goodnight before bed and work for Theo the next day, which worked out alright as Kate couldn't really leave anyway and I had some research to do on Gumtree, an online classifieds website that we were using to locate a new used computer, which we did eventually find and buy for a bargain price of only £350, or about $520 for a Macbook. Nice... We also used Gumtree to then sell our beloved if broken iBook for a cool £90, making back the price difference between what we would have spent on another iBook and what we did spend.

Now, as we did so much stuff in London, this blog is going to follow a different outline than they usually do and we'll start with a paragraph on our most munificent HOST who ended up letting us stay for about two weeks, then again for three days at the end of our time in the UK. Definitely the host with the most as far as we're concerned, Theo worked long hours during the week so we didn't see him too much during the day, but we'd meet up with him at night for some drinks with his work pals (or Pippa, a friend from Argentina, but we'll get to that later) or just stay in and make some dinner and watch a movie or an episode of Generation Kill, a really intense and well-made show about the Iraq war. Theo also invited us to a good ol' house party one night, which was a lot of fun and gave us all the opportunity to wear some goofy hats and discuss Danish guys.

We also went to quite a few MARKETS, including the famous Saturday Portobello Road market for a stroll past antiques, cheap clothes, boutique eateries, and more. Kate picked up a few gifts and we munched some street food, but the antique maps we were looking at were a bit out of our price range unfortunately and the cold kept us from lingering too long as we just so happened to be in town following the coldest week in London with the most snow they've had in 18 years.

Nevertheless, we braved a few other markets, like Spitalfields, Brick Lane, nearby Walworth Road, and, most interestingly, the Borough Market. I had visited it way back in 2001, but it was closed when I came with Kate on our 05 trip as we showed up on a Sunday. Unfortunately, we made the same mistake again. But we did finally make it the following Friday and it was well worth it. The place overflows with stalls of everything and anything delicious. You've got your standard organic veg, of course, but also unpasteurized blue cheese, fresh game hanging at the butchers, kangaroo burgers (which I indulged in), and more. We picked up some wild boar sausages to go with our pasta dinner that night (delectable) and had such a good time that we decided to go back on Saturday, which just so happened to be Valentine's Day. It was miserable. You literally couldn't move and every food line was 30 people deep. Not fun.

London MUSEUMS are world-renowned for both their collections as well as the fact that they are largely free. And free warmth equals good so we checked out quite a few of those, beginning with the Science Museum, an epic, multi storied building the size of a city block dedicated to all things science. We only hit the first floor that day, checking out early forms of power generation, the history of space exploration and the debate over genetically engineered foods. The museum closed at 6PM and we didn't get to see too much of it, but we did eventually return a few weeks later for some more awesome knowledge. My favorite exhibit in the end was one of plastics - they have a ton of applications and will soon have a ton more. Some pretty interesting stuff, including biodegradable, compostable plastic.

Also on the list was the Natural History Museum, another free, geeky and oh so fun treat that we ended up visiting three times. Our first visit took us through the side entrance and up through a sculpture of the earth, through three floors of volcanos, simulated earthquakes and an impressive collection of rocks and gems. But by the time we figured out how to get to the life science section it was time to go so we went back the next day - a Monday - only to find the place overrun. Turns out it was the first day of a week long school holiday and thousands of parents who didn't know what to do with their sticky, snotty, screaming children mobbed the museum in desperation. We walked through what we could but were unwilling to wait an hour to shuffle through the dinosaurs and decided to come back a couple weeks later to see the rest of the place, which is really just an excuse to check out the beautiful building. And the scary dinosaurs.

The British Museum is probably the king of all museums ever. It's massive and informative and well done and one of the first. We'd been before but they'd made some changes this time around, like closing the famous Reading Room for renovations, which was particularly annoying as it was the main reason we went in the first place. We did go to a smaller library in the museum as well, but it really wasn't that great so we left and explored the collections, finding that they'd introduced a touching history thing where certain actual historical objects were displayed by docents who explained them and allowed them to be handled by anyone who wanted. There was also a really interesting little exhibit on Roman Britain as well as a room on the Enlightenment. Excellent stuff, of course.

Also counted in the museum section is the British Library which we decided to check out to see if we could get some work done. Turned out you needed to request a viewing of a specific item in their extensive collection and, as we'd done tons of research already, we chose to just wander the museum section, which has three parts: a temporary standing exhibit dedicated to Darwin's life and research, a rotating exhibit about rights and laws with a great history of UK and world politics as well as offered an interactive section which allowed you to vote on a variety of different issues which concern us today, and the permanent exhibition such treasures as the Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible and other beautiful books, scrolls and documents. They also have recordings of poetry readings, music, a collection of Beatles paraphernalia and a computer program which allows you to examine books and documents on display in detail with explanations. But as we didn't have any pictures of it, we snuck in a random.

We also checked out a couple of CHURCHES, like St. Paul's Cathedral, which is massive and has some admission fees. But we, being sneaky, avoided these charges by going on a Sunday when you can enter the cathedral for free but cannot go to the crypts or tour the full thing. Still, we've seen enough churches that we really didn't care and we still got to check out the dome from within and the altar and all that stuff. It's a church.

We also went to the awesomely named All-Hallows-Barking-by-the-Tower church (yes, that is it's real name). This one is free all the time and is awesome. It's an old church, some parts of which date back to the Romans, but has been gutted by fire and rebuilt and added onto many times. There's a brass rubbings center located within, a crypt with a museum below, and some interesting woodwork in the main nave as well. Definitely worth a peek in our humble opinions, even if it is just another church.

Another pleasant interlude of culture was a night spent with an old friend from home I hadn't seen in several years, Kiera O'Brien. Kiera's had quite an intense few years since leaving high school, including university in Australia, getting married and divorced, learning Norwegian, and moving to London where she now works at a magazine. She took us on the famous THAMES WALK where we braved the cold to get some fabulous views over to the Tower Bridge (as well as getting caught up and eating some pizza along the walk). It's a pretty stroll through some revitalized neighborhoods, past the Tate Modern and the mayor's office and the only thing that would have made it better would be if it had been warmer.

But lest you think we only did cultural things in London, think again. We also checked out HARROD'S, the department store to end all department stores. Endless rooms, thousands of sections... If they don't have it, they can get it for you - at an fair markup, of course. But most of the stuff they've got there is too high end for us anyway, like the computer's designed by Bentley that look like chic handbags and cost about £10,000. A little out of our budget, but we could still look for free so we wandered through the vast space, checking out each differently designed room, like the Egypt room or the tiled/glass ceiling deli room...

And we also got some haircuts. Or at least Kate did. It had been about a year since her last chop (not counting my admirable if uneven attempt on Kea) so she sought out London's Vidal Sasoon Academy where, for £5 and 4 hours, Kate got a super-stylish haircut from a gifted student on her exam day. The haircut earned high marks from the teacher and another model even complained that her haircut wasn't as nice. So if you've got a few hours to spare in London (and/or LA or NY), check out the Academies and just tell them to make you beautiful as they know what they're doing.

There was more, of course, but this post is already enormous and we're not gonna get to everything anyway. But we will get to some daytrips, both to and from London. So stay tuned for those and enjoy this obligatory Big Ben photo...

Alexandria

2009-04-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

Alexandria. The Jewel of the Nile. The Gateway to Egypt. The site of a world wonder and history's most famous library. Kate and I have a special soft spot for the city as we've been working (albeit extremely slowly, painstakingly, laboriously, etc etc on our Alexandria screenplay, an oeuvre, quite like the great cathedrals of the middle ages, that has taken us far longer than we had ever imagined to complete. Our hope was that Alexandria the city would help inspire us.

And so it was that we set out on an overnight bus trek (£95) from Dahab to Sharm to Alexandria, braving a terrible Egyptian film for our triumphant return to Lower Egypt, arriving at the tip of the Delta around 6am, negotiating a cab, and getting dropped within a block of our pre-booked and ultra cheap hotel, the Normandy. At 40£ a night (about 8 dollars), we weren't expecting much, but this place didn't even live up to that. True, the room was beautiful - a once-grand Art Deco inspired corner unit with a big bed, desk, sitting area, and balcony directly overlooking the Mediterranean... but the bed was a paper thin mattress on top of saggy, shrieking springs, the walls were smeared with something brown whose origins I'd rather not speculate upon, and the floor hadn't been swept since the linen was changed, which I would place a conservative wager on being around twenty five years ago. Still, when you're tired, a bed is a bed is a bed and we slept quite soundly for a few hours before going to look for a new place.

...settling upon the Hotel Acropole, which was literally across the street. £60/night, but it included breakfast and wasn't disgustingly filthy. We were upgraded to a seaview room, but Kate didn't like it as much so we stayed with our original choice, which was probably better in the end. Plus, we still got to walk by this sign on the way up the stairs every day.

Now Alexandria is described as having little to show of it's storied ancient heritage, but we didn't find that to be the case at all. It's maybe no Rome, but there are a ton of ancient sites and sights scattered through the city that help give you a little idea of what Ptolemaic Egypt might have been like. As we were there researching our script, we made sure to make it to as many of them as possible, especially as there is surprisingly little information available in books about Ptolemaic Egypt. We started off our ancient Alexandria treasure hunt very appropriately with a visit to Kom El-Dikka, which houses the Roman amphitheater, houses, baths, and, interestingly, library lecture rooms - the only real remnants of the famous antique library.

The amphitheater itself boasts assigned seating, early Christian graffiti, and perfect acoustics if you stand on a certain stone. You can really feel the amplification. The rest of the site was also quite good - the lecture rooms were invaluable research for us and wandering through the houses was a little like stepping back in time, plus the Villa of the Birds has some exquisite mosaics. The only problem is that you aren't allowed to view the baths as the area is supposedly unsafe, though you are allowed to be pestered and followed around by annoying guards seeking baksheesh. Still, it's definitely worth a wander.

We also hoofed it out to the Antoniadis Gardens, realizing along the way that the tourist information office in Alexandria knows absolutely nothing about the city. They told us that a temple we wanted to see used to be in one area but was then moved (?) to another one that you absolutely needed a taxi to get to. On our walk, we found the temple in a third, unmentioned site about a ten minute walk away. The gardens, however, were not so close, but they did take us by the absolute best £1 falafel in the world. Man, this place was delicious. And it actually brings up another point I should talk about - pricing. Basically, we were thinking that Alexandria might be a bit pricier than Dahab as it's a big city and not a backpacker destination. But we should have taken into account the fact that it's also not overrun with tourists. As such, prices were much better than elsewhere in Egypt. £1 falafel was standard throughout the city and because that's just so ludicrously cheap (about 20 cents), it was almost all we ate, especially as the ubiquitous fast-food chain Gad had a stand on pretty much every corner. When we'd had a little too many falafels in a row, however, we'd go to Mohammed Ahmed's, a little fuul joint with a ton of variation in their prices (different prices every time we went for some reason), but never did we spend more than £20 on a meal for 2. We did do one big splurge fish meal as the seafood in the city is legendary... but the atmosphere left something to be desired when a big party moved into basically all the tables surrounding our own and shouted over us in conversation like we weren't there.

Anyway, the gardens were pretty and well worth the £2 entry fee to get into the fancy part where the lawns are better kept up and its not absolutely swarmed by Alexandrian families. We spent a couple relaxing hours there until we were kicked out and went to the nearby mall to catch a flick - Eagle Eye, one that we found surprisingly entertaining. Actually, we would end up watching quite a few movies while in Alexandria, which fit in well with the whole writing a movie thing. We also saw: The Day the Earth Stood Still (not so good), The Bank Job (pretty good), and Australia (ambitious, but ultimately a failure). One interesting note about watching Western films in Egyptian cinemas - they cut out any nudity and/or passionate kissing...

The place we spent the most time, however, was at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, or the new Library of Alexandria. The place is massive and claims to have the largest collection of books outside the Library of Congress. Perhaps, but the English sections, while excellent for a foreign library, can't compare with the system at UCLA. Still, we went several times, both to see the Graeco-Roman antiquities hosted there as well as to use the library for research and a quite place to write. There are a couple pretty weird things about it, however, weird because it's supposed to be first and foremost a research institution. Number one: you can't take in any bags whatsoever. You're allowed to take in all the notebooks, pens, books, etc that you need, but you absolutely can't carry them in a bag even though you still have to put all that stuff through an x-ray machine and you have to walk through a metal detector. Unless the guard decides he doesn't care as many people inside did have bags all the same, though we were repeatedly denied access. Number two: the computers are about 15 years old, really slow, and crippled by the library's custom operating system that restricts access to certain internet sites and also doesn't allow you to open up more than one window. Not just in your browser, but period. So you can't, for example, be looking up ancient Alexandria online and also searching the library's collection at the same time. Not very research friendly.

Other wanderings including a trip to the Qaitbay Citadel, established by Sultan Qaitbay in 1477 on the site of the famous Pharos - the Lighthouse which was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. The citadel was built using some stones from the Lighthouse (which fell in an earthquake) but I can't say it was all the impressive of a tourist site, especially as it was just swarmed with (mostly really rude) people yelling, pushing, and generally making things unpleasant for the rest of us. Though a group of giggling girls did come up and ask to shake my hand and then asked for an autograph. But when you're me, you kind of expect that sort of thing. We did get some street fuul and some of the famous Alexandrian ice cream at Azaa, which is like stretchy soft-serve and really wasn't to our liking.

We tried to plan our sightseeing to a certain extent around what we were working on scriptwise, so it wasn't until we'd been there for a while that we finally started going to the city's catacombs. The El-Anfushi tombs date back to about 250BC and are quite interesting to walk around, filled with sort of shelves for family member's bodies and interesting painted scenes. The El-Shatby tombs are considered the city's oldest but were really not worth the entry fee - you could only peek in from the outside and everything was horribly flooded and poorly maintained. The Kom-el-Shuqqafa Roman catacombs are the most famous - and rightly so. Unfortunately, no pictures of these treasures. You enter the main tomb complex by walking down a spiral staircase surrounding a central shaft used to lower the bodies down. A few stories into the earth and you come out in the main hall, which splits in a few directions, one of which leads to the dining room where friends and family of the deceased would come to have funeral or remembrance banquets. The tombs were absolutely stunning and a real interesting mix of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian motifs, quite large and rambling as well. Again, the bottom levels were flooded, but here that still left us a couple of the top levels to explore.

Last on the list of ancient sites is perhaps the most well-known one in Alexandria - Pompey's Pillar, which is a horrible misnomer. Pompey never even set foot in Alexandria - he got close but was then beheaded. The actual history behind this pillar, for anyone who is interested, is that it was erected by the Roman emperor Diocletian (of Split palace fame) in the 3rd century as part of a new facade of the Serapeum, a temple to the Graeco-Egyptian god Serapis created by Ptolemy, Alexander's general and successor in Alexandria, to appeal to both the native Egyptians and the Greek colonists in his empire. The pillar is, by the way, massive, truly enormous. You don't really get the whole sense of the scale from the picture, but they say a party of 25 could picnic on its top.

As you might have guessed, the remains of the Serapeum - which was once supposedly the second most beautiful building in the world behind the Capitol in Rome - is also on the site, but it's ruins are less then impressive. Mostly just rubble and foundations, but there are also some underground rooms and tunnels that are surprisingly well preserved. These were really interesting to us as they once acted as a bit of a spill-over library for the main Great Library. It was a bit of a surprise, actually, as this stuff isn't advertised in the guidebooks - we'd only heard that there are some unimpressive ruins and a big pillar - but I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in antiquity.

Sadly, it was time to say goodbye to Alexandria as we'd booked a flight to London. But that trip technically began the night before when we hailed a cab to the mosquito filled bus station before throwing some elbows to get our bags on the bus only to find out that we'd scored the worst seats on the bus - the ones behind the bulkhead that have no leg room due to a filthy tray table blocking our way. Things only got worse when the bus attendant spilled old tea and chewed seeds all over Kate about 2 hours into the journey. He then forced us to accept a bottle of water as an apology... only to try to charge us later for it, of course. We did, however, eventually get back to Sharm el-Sheikh (where the flight was from) and managed to haggle our taxi driver down to a not-totally-ripping-us-off price into town only to find that all the internet places charged totally-ripping-us-off prices (20 pounds an hour, when we'd been paying 2 in Alexandria). So we stayed at Cilantro, Egypt's answer to Starbucks, for pretty much the whole day, getting some sandwiches, drinks, and free wifi on our cracked screen laptop that we would finally fix in London...

Dahab Travel Guide

2009-04-12T15:25:00.002-07:00

A COUPLE MORE PICTURES TO COME WHEN INTERNET IS BETTER.

One more Dahab post. This one is basically a Dahab travel guide as we spent almost 3 weeks there in the end, stayed in 3 different hotels, and ate at about 20 different restaurants. We originally wrote this up for a friend we met in London (more on that soon) and we're too lazy to edit it, so it's more informal and written in the second person... Now, here's some info for anyone thinking about making a trip to Dahab:

HOTELS:

First off, all the hotels there have salt-water showers, just so you know...

Pengiun should be fine if you don't mind hostels. It seemed clean enough, but yeah - the private bath would probably be worth the splurge, especially as it's still a good price and right in the center of things.

If you decide to move, however, here are the places we stayed:
1) Christina - near to Penguin and nice - my parents paid for this one. It's about 50 euros/night for a double room with private bath and a huge breakfast spread included. Probably a bit pricey for what you get relative to Egypt, but definitely the nicest place we stayed in Dahab.

2) Bamboo House - near another center (right by the bridge), this place was definitely a step down from Christina, but still decent, clean, and with incredible ocean views. Breakfast also included, but kinda weak, to be honest.

3) Sheikh Salam House - down at the very end of the strip past the Lighthouse Reef. I wouldn't stay here. The bed was really uncomfortable and the kitchen was filthy. But it did have a kitchen. And they also have snorkel gear you can borrow for free, which is nice.

But my recommendation if you don't like the Penguin is just to walk up and down the boardwalk and check out a few likely looking places as there are probably about a hundred hotels within walking distance.

OK, restaurant time. The numbers beside each one are how we ranked them overall in terms of overall awesomeness. But we broke them up into different sections based on type and location of place.

SOUTH OF THE BRIDGE:

1.Shams
Really, really delicious food and Hassan, the server/host, is awesome. His mom cooks all the food in the back, and you should probably listen to his recommendations.
If you want to listen to ours, definitely go for the chicken shwarma here (so tasty with homemade bread with crispy cheese baked onto it) and the tomato and/or chicken soups. Sheesha here is more expensive than elsewhere, but they do it well.

7.Lakbatita -
Italian food that is real Italian food and not some weird Egyptian take on it. At least the stuff we got was good. Milkshakes, however, were a bit watery for my liking.

8.Penguin -
One of the many standard restaurants around town, this one was very welcoming and had above average food. It was also the first place we ate in Dahab, so could have fonder memories than if we'd tried everywhere else first. The special Egyptian fish plate (whose name I can't recall) was particularly good).

9.Funny Mummy -
Probably the best all around lounge spot in town. Free WIFI that actually works, decent food, and cheap sheesha and tea (5 pounds each). Only food we had here was on New Year's Eve, where I had the big mixed grill which had some especially delicious chunks of BBQ'd beef (though my mom claims it made her sick) and Kate had the coconut curry, which, while good, was a little cold. Still, gotta at least check it out for a cup of tea...

11.Bedouin Divers -
Didn't actually eat here, though the food looked quite good. This one we used mostly just as an occasional break from the Funny Mummy sheesha scene.
Bedouin Divers is a slightly posher atmosphere... but also slightly more expensive and the sheesha, while better, is lit with auto-start coals that kept going out.

18.Jasmine -
Not that good and the guy tried to overcharge us. He was hard selling this platter that came with fish, calamari, and shrimp, and even though my dad ordered something else that had much less than that, he still wanted to charge about 3 times the price of that platter. It was a genuine misunderstanding I think, but he was shady about it all the same and, like I said, food was pretty subpar.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH:

2.Sea Bride -
Delicious seafood. It's not on the water, but in town, just off the main pedestrian shopping street. There's a little fishmonger's stand out front where you pick what you want and they charge you about 50 pounds per kilo, then cook it up and serve it to you upstairs with heaping portions of soup, hummus, baba ganoush, salads, pita, etc... Probably the best fish we had in town and certainly the most ridiculously oversized portions.

4.Lazy Camel -
The cafe out at the Sheikh Salam House. If you find yourself snorkeling/diving at Eel Garden, check them out as they know how to cook a mean burger, as well as some other veggies options not always standard fare, like a vegetable curry, cous cous salad, and vegetable wraps. Their tea, however, is a bit pricier than other spots - though good - and the sheesha pipes were always broken.

CHEAP EATS:

6.Al Hussein -
This is right across from King Chicken on the pedestrian street. Scrumptious BBQ meats. Really, really good steak as well as chicken at tiny prices. HOWEVER, the guy who runs it really, really, really tried to rip us off. So just keep a copy of the menu nearby and point out that a) your meal does include the salads and b) the price really is listed as 20 and not 70 pounds.

12.Mega Mix -
You'll probably never find this as it's on the street side of Sheikh Salam house and then outside of the little town area around there... but if you do, it's the best of the basic chicken, rice, soup, salads places. And decent pizza too.

13.King Chicken -
Soup, rice, half a chicken, and salads for about 15 pounds. A pretty good deal and decent food too. Basic, but a good change from the seaside restaurants with their identical menus.

14.New al Hussein -
Another soup, rice, chicken... place. Identical menu to King Chicken with very similar results. Except we preferred the King Chicken soup to the one here.

16.Koshary House -
Cheapest option in town and the only place we saw offering koshary, the Egyptian pasta. Not the best koshary we had in Egypt, but mostly just because the food wasn't hot. Still, for 3 pounds a bowl... tough to beat that price.

17.Panda -
This is down by the lagoon, and the only cheap option we could find. Decent food, but nothing too special. Still, if you're down by the lagoon and don't want to go out for a huge meal, this might be the place.

SEASIDE CLONES NORTH OF THE BRIDGE:

3.Carm Inn -
Tasty gourmet food on the waterfront but without waterfront seating. They serve a lot of stuff on sizzling hotplates which makes for a good presentation, plus the atmosphere is quite romantic as well. They also have weekly entree and desert specials. One that's always on the menu and incredibly delicious is the Fish Carm.

5.Ali Baba -
Probably the best of the standard sea front fare. Partly because they threw in a ridiculous amount of extras: free soup, free humus, free baba ganoush, free desert, free appetizers... and definitely tasty too.

10.Napoleon -
Another seaside clone. Can't remember what I ate there as I don't think it was anything that special. But definitely not that bad that I remember it either.

15.Al Capone -
Right next to the bridge. We eventually went as Osama, their tout, had been hassling us for literally weeks to go there and by this time, we were almost friends. He also threw in a ton of free stuff... but the food, unfortunately, just wasn't that good. Kind of bland and overpriced relative to the other restaurants offering the same stuff just down the way.

DIVE SPOTS:

Now, as for dive spots... we didn't go diving so can't tell you. But we can recommend snorkeling spots. Here are our reviews of the ones we went to:

Eel Garden - close to Sheikh Salam House, it's a bit annoying to get out to the reef itself as you have to swim over the reef table, but there is a ton of life and we always had great visibility here. Definitely one of our favorite spots.

Lighthouse - the most visited spot in the area, I think. The reef does drop away quite spectacularly but its usually crowded and we never had good visibility as the waves were always kicking up silt. Despite this, it's probably the most wind shielded spot in the area.

Islands - in between the main town and the Lagoon resort area. Islands is pretty cool. There wasn't a whole ton of life, but the coral here is pretty amazing. And, as the name suggests, it's basically a bunch of coral islands that you can wind through, swim over, etc...

Lagoon - way too touristy. There actually weren't many other divers/snorkelers when we went but there wasn't a ton to see either. However, we did later do a glass bottom boat trip with my dad and they dropped us off in the reef a ways away from the shore for 30 minutes of snorkeling in some of the clearest water we had. So that part actually turned out to be one of the underwater highlights.

Blue Hole - the most famous spot in the area and worth it to check out. There is an instant drop off from shore to about 70 meters below the surface and it's just coral reef straight down. Make sure to go a little north of the main entrance point and let the current take you back to the "Blue Hole" itself as the whole region is teeming with life. It's a bit touristy and crowded, but definitely worth it.

DAY TRIPS:

We went with King Safari on a trip to the Colored Canyon and White Canyon. The canyons themselves were quite spectacular, but the guides were not. I'd particularly recommend the White Canyon, especially if you're thinking about going to Wadi Rum in Jordan as I hear it's very similar to the Colored Canyon. But the Colored Canyon was quite cool too. We went with King Safari as they offered the best price and said we'd be in a jeep with like 4 other people. We were in the jeep with 4 other people... but there were about 30 jeeps that joined us at every stop and the guide didn't really explain anything - he was mostly just there to make sure that we didn't get lost.

For some reason, we also went with King Safari to climb Mt. Sinai. We did the day trip, but the overnight is supposed to be much better. Again, a let down guide wise as our Bedouin at the mountain itself literally did not say a single word without being heavily prompted first. Still, if you want to see St. Catherine's Monastery and the mountain, King Safari isn't a bad option as it's basically the same price as organizing everything on your own and much easier. Just don't expect much service. As far as the mountain itself... definitely some pretty cool views on the climb - which does get quite hard when you get to the steps near the top - but the monastery, while also cool, was completely overrun. Literally, it was like being in a crowd at a concert - just nowhere to move. And bring something to eat as the restaurant there is reservation only and the cafe doesn't sell any food other than biscuits and candy bars.

If you don't mind spending a little more money on a tour, Embah is supposed to be the best operator in town...

And a quick note about Sharm el Sheik - it's really expensive. Internet in Dahab is like 4 pounds and hour, for example, and in Sharm, it's about 20 pounds at the cheap places. It was 50 pounds an hour for WIFI at the hotel we stayed at. Likewise, restaurants, hotels, etc... all highly overpriced. And taxis... at the airport, you will have to take a taxi to the bus station. It should cost about 35 pounds, but they most likely will insist for several minutes that they won't take less than 100. They'll tell you that they have to pay a premium for taking taxis into the airport. This is true - the premium is 5 pounds. So offer to pay an extra 5 pounds on top to cover this and claim you've been to Sharm before to convince them you know what you're talking about. Also, I wouldn't have them use a meter if you can help it as I'm pretty sure the meters are often rigged. We never took a taxi from the airport to the bus station (just into town, then on to the bus station) so I can't give the price exactly, but I would guess that a fair price is around 50 pounds. I think we paid 40 from town to the airport and 15 from the bus station to town, both after some serious haggling...

PETRA:

First off, make sure that if you organize it on your own, you bring plenty of either US dollars or Euros, preferably dollars. Now, as for the route you'll have to take...

First up, taxi from Dahab to the Dahab bus station - 10 minutes (and this is probably a good time to mention - the standard taxi price from Dahab to the bus station is 5 pounds a person). Next, take a bus from Dahab to Nuweiba - about 1.5 hours. The bus stops right next to the port, but you'll have to walk a couple blocks back the way you came to get to the ticket office where you'll have to leave them your passports for about 15-30 minutes while they work out the tickets. Tickets cost $70/person or €65/person from Nuweiba to Aqaba. Next, you'll have to walk back to the port, go through metal detectors, etc... Then find the departure terminal, which was more difficult than we thought it'd be. Then get your passport stamped. Then wait several hours for the ferry that will invariably be late. Then take the ferry, which takes about 2 hours. While on the ferry, you'll have to give up your passport again to get the (free) Jordanian visa. They won't give you your passport back until you get off the ferry... and get into the Aqaba arrivals hall where all the foreigners will be clustered waiting for the officials to call their name. You actually don't want to be one of the first ones called either as that means they're going to question you about something. It took us another hour or so to get the passports back after deboarding. Then, you'll be ushered past the Arabs waiting in line and emerge outside into a really chaotic and disorienting indoor/outdoor unlit tunnel lined with touts for taxis. The tunnel leads to the parking lot where the taxis and buses are... so you're almost there at this point. I would highly recommend arranging a taxi with your hotel in Petra to come and pick you up. You pay a slight premium over the return journey... but I don't think you'll pay any more than you would getting a taxi at the port and your driver will meet you before tunnel, usher you out, etc... and then it's another 1.5 hours drive to Petra. You should pay about 40 dinars for this service, about 25 for the return.

As far as where to stay in Petra, basically anywhere but the Petra Gate is probably OK. It was probably the worst hostel we've stayed in, at least in the past several months. Just falling apart, bugs everywhere... and the bed literally did fall apart and was never fixed while we were there so I just had a mattress on the floor. That said, it is cheap and the owner is extremely nice and helpful...

I would recommend 2 days in Petra to really get to see it all. Also, it's financially smart as well as 1 day is like 24 dinar (which are about 1:1 with the euro) and 2 days is 27 or so. Not sure that you need a guide as wandering around and exploring is the best part - but a guidebook with some info would be helpful as there are few signs and they didn't have any English language pamphlets when we went. But if they're out of those and only German is displayed (as it was for us) make sure to ask at the counter for Spanish or another language you speak as they for some reason didn't display those.

As for food, there is the Red Cave restaurant that's right next to the Petra park entrance and that was pretty tasty at pretty decent prices (under 10 dinar/person for starter, drink, and main). We also went to a little shwarma place in town that was also quite good, but I can't remember the name. You'll want to bring water and food with you when you go to see the ruins as it's a full day thing and only 1 fancy restaurant inside. There are a few tea shops, however, positioned outside of the big ruins where it can be nice to stop for some tea...

For the return trip back to Dahab... you can pay this ticket in Jordanian dinars, but you'll still have to jump through some hoops to get your exit stamps. Just make sure to get to the port with plenty of time before the boat leaves. When you get back to Egypt, it will be chaos. Their arrivals port is horribly run and really confusing - just look for other foreigners. You'll have to pay for a new visa here too unless you can get a multiple entry one in the UK before you leave. By the time you arrive back, you'll most likely be too late for the last bus to Dahab from Nuweiba as the ferry is always late. There are taxis and mini buses waiting, of course, and they will want to charge about 100 pounds per person. We were able to get seats in a mini bus for about 30 pounds per person (which is still double the regular bus price) after more serious haggling that resulted in several stopped cars, getting into one car, being forced to get out of it, haggling some more, getting in another car, getting the price dropped for everyone else in the car, getting yelled at an cursed by a couple different drivers, etc... pretty insane return to Egypt...

The only other note I can think of is to always take your passport with you on day trips as there are a ton of police check points and you have to show a valid visa each time.

That's the email.

Though, as Laurel pointed out and we maybe should have added, there are lots of stray kittens, like these two. But to sum up our last 10 days in Dahab... we did a lot of lounging. We stayed at the Sheikh Salam house and went snorkeling about every other day, slept in late, took some walks into town, did some shopping... but nothing all that interesting. We needed to recuperate after the whirlwind couple weeks with the family. And then, before we knew it, we were moving on to Alexandria via a night bus. But that'll be covered in the next blog.

Sinai Part 2: Petra and Back with Dad

2009-04-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

Another R. Greyson posting...

Crackers and water most of the day, a real birthday feast, but hey—ain’t it good to not be really sick. The 10:30am bus to the ferry in Nuweiba(15 pounds), about an hour north of Dahab, leaves at 11:45. The 2:30pm “fast ferry”($70) leaves at 5:15 pm. The long wait at the old, dirty, dingy, smoky, noisy terminal is not too terrible. The ferry to Aqaba is smooth; the Jordanian immigration procedures defy sanity. We arrive in the dark. Aaron has arranged a budget hotel and taxi(40 dinar) for the transfer to Petra, and amazingly the driver appears with our name on a sign and leads us out of the 70 foot unlighted, crowded dirt corridor pocked with rocks and old steel floor frames which probably once anchored some kind of metal fixtures. A 90 minute ride on a a first class modern highway and then two lane side road through barren hills, ends at the Petra Gate Hotel, where a 9:15pm dinner awaits us. Hotel owner Nasser is a prince, but the room is below the A&K hostel standard. However we adapt to the dirt, a few bugs, broken and battered fixtures, and see it through. Whatever breaks there that is not absolutely critical, stays broken. Only repair the most essential items, and then just barely. It’s doubtful that Nasser owns a vacuum cleaner. Then my bed collapses, twice. That mattress stays on the floor and Aaron and Kate insist that he sleep there in honor of my birthday.

Well, Nasser serves a decent breakfast at his hostel and, he personally drives his guests to the Petra entrance. The day is bright, clear and quite cool. Camel, donkey or cart will take you through the canyon or you can walk, which suits us. The gorge or ‘Siq’ is ever more beautiful as we push farther into it, then it opens to a clearing and the magnificent Treasury, one of the most impressive building facades of Petra carved and hewn out of the multicolored sandstone mountains. Homes, tombs, obelisks, a High Sacrificial promontory, an amphitheater, plus water transport, diversion, storage and dam systems, are all crafted from the spectacularly colored rock. An entire city and culture of Nabateans thrived here from about 500BC to 300AD when the conquering Romans could no longer hold together their empire or even their homeland. We make a seven hour day of it, and walk out two blocks to the Red Cave Restaurant for some good Jordanian food. Ellie’s email reports that she and Laurel have had bad traveler’s diarrhea in London.

Tour day two finds us sharing some time with another hotel guest, Shelly, an American living in Delhi, India, where she had worked to register American voters abroad on behalf of the Obama campaign. We take the Tunnel route through a narrow canyon with minor ruins at its end, then emerge to a series of large tombs, and finally to the Monastery, so named because in its last phase, this grand Nabatean building born out of the rock, became a church. Neither the canyon walk nor the Monastery are as colorful or detailed as the Siq and the Treasury, but they still convey grandeur and scale. We are tired from the climb up and the long walk back to the site entrance. Shelly stayed behind hours ago on her own. A quick check up the city street reveals no other enticing eatery so we taxi back to eat at Al-Arabi, recommended on-line and by Nasser, and it proves worthy.

The return to Dahab takes another full day of travel and transfers and bizarre immigration hassles, but worth a note is the taxi trauma. After Aaron negotiates a price, we load up luggage and bodies in the minivan, but it’s the wrong taxi—maybe. There’s a taxi pecking order, so after some lively argument, we offload our stuff and re-load into another minivan with other people, and Dahab shows up an hour later. The Bamboo House is a grade or two down from the Christina, but our second story triple room has an arched double window that opens to the Gulf of Aqaba and the restaurants on the boardwalk. The weather has warmed with hardly any wind. We rest up a bit in our standard hostel room, which feels luxurious after the Petra Gate. Thai food for dinner followed by breakfast at the outdoor patio on the promenade, Dahab at its best. Except, if you want it really quiet and laid back, keep walking North, and try lunch at the Lazy Camel, bliss on the beach. We’ve got time for long discussions about religion, health care, and social and consumer ethics throughout the day. After lunch we snorkel, but I’m a nervous explorer and get water in the breathing tube, no fun. I get the sizzling perch for dinner at Carm Inn restaurant, great meal!

Dahab’s winter offers many gorgeous, crisp, cool and windy days with warm sun and good views across the Gulf of Aqaba to the west coast hills of Saudi Arabia. Wind surfing, scuba diving and snorkeling remain popular, even with the cool, gusty conditions, and again today, the water is heavily dotted with wind surfers. At the South end of town, on the Lagoon, are a string of resort hotels where we sign up for a 1pm glass bottom boat tour. Only seven passengers as we motor out to the reefs and the boat maneuvers gently from spot to spot so we can view the corals and fish. A little further out is the snorkel site, and on this very windy day, Aaron and Kate are eager to engage the opportunity, so they gear up, jump in and swim in the appointed direction. They seem to navigate surely through wind and swells, occasionally diving under for closer looks. In barely 30 minutes they are aboard again as we get a few more glass bottom views. Later, we have dinner in town at a broiler on the street, instead of the boardwalk for a change, informal, open air and very good, followed by cookies from the cart vendor on Mashraba Street. Now the bad tummy syndrome returns, and the newly refurbished computer we have carried from San Diego develops the same blank screen, and plans are in turmoil. Aaron and Kate decide that London offers the best used computer option when they finally leave Egypt.

What’s a trip to the Middle East without carpet shopping? Yes, it takes some patience and persistence but now I’m a two carpet buyer for $125. Add a $6.30 duffle bag and I can lug them home. A few days from now and I’ll be dreading the navigation hurdles at the Cairo airport, but for now, it’s a soft day with shopping and checking hostel prices. A & K settle on Sheik Salem, far down the windy north shore, for about 65 LE a night, less than $12 USD. Now, what to do for dinner? Let’s try whole grilled fish with soup, salad, tahini, pita, spicy salsa dip, and glasses of karkedah (hibiscus). Later we share some tea at the King Safari street booth—we’re repeat customers from the infamous jeep trip. Yes, we’ve signed up again for the run to St. Katherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai.

But first, we get to experience another classic. It’s a pretty long taxi ride partly over rough beach road, past fine hotels and a camel gathering, and out to the dive and snorkel shops and restaurants fronting the Blue Hole. With calm water and mild wind, but cold water, we rent equipment (plus wet suit for me), and here is the really special part: as soon as you enter the water it is fantastic. The reef is right there, beautiful and teeming with colorful fish and the hole is really blue, deep and penetrated by sun rays. We break after about 30 minutes, then go in again around the bend where the current carries you back south to the first entry point. The second entry is spectacular, a narrow deep pool of fish and coral pierced by bright sun, then out to open water and myriads of gorgeous fish and corals. It is akin to an aquarium, only it’s the real thing. Perhaps 45-50 minutes later we exit, all are cold. We have a light lunch on the cushions of our equipment center, soak up more sun and taxi back to town. After showers, we finally go to Al Capone's where they have asked us to eat so many times, we know the hawkers. Yes, the food was good, with soup, humus, babaganoush and dessert thrown in. We end with tea, and sheesha for Aaron and Kate, at the Funny Mummy.

Now I ask you, what’s in a name? Or shall I say, beware of what’s in a name. For truth be told, St. Katherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai are in my view, less than their legend. Interesting to a point, but it’s nearly two hours from Dahab, which is more than an hour shorter than from Sharm el Sheikh. The Bedouin guide escorts our party of 12 to the monastery, an underwhelming fortress-like remembrance for the early Christian martyr. It’s significance lies in her personal sacrifice and the ensuing legends surrounding her. The Burning Bush? It’s still growing, or so we’re told and shown. There is no real lunch available (at least at this time of year) so we get snacks and it’s off to Mr. Sinai, the path taking off just outside the monastery, and climbing through a desolate rock desert with bright sun and cold air. I get about 2/3 up and call it a day hike, the other 11 carry on.

The afternoon gets gradually colder and three hours later it’s 50 degrees F. or less. I do what I can to stay warm, visit with the gift shop guy, converse with a Dutch woman who married an Egyptian and now lives in the mountains outside Nuweiba, and a young security guard and maintenance worker who invites me into his tiny room where he and a few friends are taking turns warming their hands on a small square space heater on the floor. He is Bedouin and likes his life there; he is content to serve the church and live his life without the ambition for education or recompense that we are so accustomed to. Finally, Aaron and Kate, having left the group a little early, find me in the courtyard by the snack shop, gift shop, sleeping rooms and the on-site hotel lobby. It’s very dark now and more than chilly. The guide experience again proves to be minimal. “Guide” here means you will be guided into and through the sight you want to see, but with a minuscule of narrative. If want a guide who talks to you a lot, you’ll need a pricier tour.

AARON'S WRAP UP: Well, we did make it to the top of Mt. Sinai with our guide who literally did not speak a single word unless prompted first (as nice as they are, don't go with King Safari if you find yourself in Dahab). The summit was not, I must admit, all that exciting. They really need to spruce it up a bit, make it more of a theme park, maybe hide some speakers behind a rock so you too can talk to god. In my frustration at the silence (and cold), I yelled at the heavens for a good forty-five minutes, one second of which Kate caught on camera here. We headed down pre-sunset cause it really wasn't going to be that spectacular (I'm sure sunrise is better, but what are you gonna do?) and would have been smart to take a flashlight as we could not see anything by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain - though we did receive the assistance of a friendly Bedouin. But we did find my dad and, eventually, the rest of the group.

The next morning, my dad left, thus ending the Greyson Family Trip to Egypt (with Kate) in the Winter of '08/'09 - or GFTtE(wK)itWo08/09 for short. It was actually much more intense traveling than Kate and I are accustomed to; lots moving around, really foreign culture, needing to haggle, etc... It was good to see them for a couple weeks and we must kudo them for they handled the culture shock well, in our semi-professional opinions, especially when you factor in all the diarrhea.

Sinai Part 1: Sharm and Dahab with the Greysons

2009-04-06T02:06:00.000-07:00

Around 6am five weary folks stumbled into the Sharm Dreams Resort in Sharm-el Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Of course, checking in that early means your rooms are not ready, but we finally got in a nap, then crossed the road for a look at the beach and bay, which was really quite beautiful. So we had a nice meal on the blanket covered sand under a palapa, walked around a bit to view the hotels and stores strung along the beachfront, and later had dinner in the same general area. Not intending to spend long in ritzy-glitzy-pricey Sharm anyway, we were now down to just one night after the Cairo airport experience. So next day after a quick midday meal on the beach, we packed up and took two taxis to the Sharm bus station. Of the many encounters with prices, personalities, and predicaments in Egypt, not one was un-cordial except this one. To wit: the Concierge negotiated a price with the taxi drivers, but they promptly turned on their meters and tried to charge us double on arrival at the bus station. After explanation and argument and money thrown on the ground, we took possession of the luggage, walked on, paid 50% more than originally negotiated just to end the mess, and then got the thumbs down plus verbal “America bad” send off. Two bad apples did not spoil the barrel, and you should know that the Egyptian people are very nice and friendly.

About an hour North in the worn, dirty bus, the Red Sea town of Dahab popped up out of the desert and a pick up truck raced us to the Christina Hotel. Now if you need a place to stay, you could do a lot worse. Two rooms overlooking the pool and views of the sea. Welcome to a mildly upscale remnant of the ‘60s and early ‘70s, with firelighted restaurants, eating on the sand, leaning on colorful pillows on low couches with hanging blankets blocking your evening wind. Oh, and for those who care to indulge, there is sheesha, (flavored water pipe smoking) which we had sampled in Cairo, a regular enjoyment for some in our group. Next morning, Christina’s open air breakfast buffet was full service, then we scoured the boardwalk for a tour, walked on to the Lighthouse area of calm water on a very windy, bright, cool day, and went snorkeling to see the corals and fish.

New Year’s Eve in Dahab! How about dinner at the Funny Mummy? The food was very good, the air quite chilly, but the fire pits helped warm us a bit.
Midnight I wouldn’t know about as the cold air and late hour drove me to a warm bed.

New Year’s Day finds Ellie decidedly sick, but willing to hazard the jeep ride into the Sinai desert. A middle aged Italian couple, a French woman, and we five, plus the guide and Bedouin driver round out our group. An hour’s drive on pavement suddenly converts to sand and gravel as the jeep veers into the wilderness. We paying folks sit sideways in the back as a rough, careening, wild ride unfolds. Without real paths the drives in the wadis are fast, jouncing and long as our two convoy drivers compete with each other to be in first position. The desert is scarred with multiple jeep trails going the same places. Ellie is struggling, Laurel vomits at the first rest stop, and before lunch I need a major session behind a distant rock. Except for the neophyte Greysons there are hardy folk aboard.

The Colored Canyon and White Canyon hikes are beautiful treks with some narrow slots and tricky climbs up and down. Lunch at the remote Bedouin camp is standard Egyptian, but the camp is a bit sad for its poverty and sense of struggle. Snot nosed children beg attention, girls and women sell trinkets, but are we helping or hurting them, befriending or intruding? Laurel is concerned about these issues and feels we are exploiting these people. I am conflicted, honored to be there and experience this, but...

At various times each of us collects some stomach illness, greater or lesser. Ellie has the worst time of it in Egypt but she and Laurel taxi to Sharm for their extension in London, while Aaron, Kate and I... decided to make a run to Petra, Jordan on my birthday, January 4.

Luxor

2009-04-04T02:54:00.002-07:00

Next post, from the father, Mr. Richard Greyson:

12/23-24/08 Cairo ended with Aaron and Kate passing on the Citadel tour since he was fighting a fever, the final day’s touring cut short anyway because of a fierce brown dust, dirt, and debris storm that arose and blocked our intended stop at the Ibun Tulum Mosque. AARON'S EDIT: Kate and I stayed home to rest up and grab some Thai food in a much-delayed joint birthday lunch at the delicious Sabai Sabai restaurant in Zamalek. 2.5 hours of late day flying and we are met at Luxor airport by charming Ehab, the Morris Hotel owner.

So it’s Christmas Eve day in Luxor, and the breakfast buffet is really good and complete. We’re all taking it slow and set up some touring for tomorrow, but the walk to Luxor Temple is still a go, past the beautiful Corniche overlook to the Nile and beyond to the Theban Hills, and an ogle at the old Winter Palace Hotel (you have to pay a bunch to walk the grounds). Luxor Temple is magnificent, and like so many sites in Egypt you can walk up and touch history. We are lucky to get this close; such opportunity cannot last forever if there is any hope of protecting such places. And there is so much to see and protect in Egypt that the government can’t marshal the resources to fully safeguard everything. Massive figures, walls and columns covered in writings and art, celebrate religion, war, and agriculture, with occasional traces of the original paint.

Finally, a late quiet and tasty lunch outdoors at the Nefertiti Hotel, then some fair trade shopping. Though much better than Cairo, the air quality and traffic still give Luxor a crowded, chaotic feel, but we’ll take it any day over the capital.

Oh yes, the Morris Hotel – a work in progress that grows on us. Hot water, toilet flushing and room heat issues plague Ehab’s intense efforts to fulfill his mission of producing a first class hotel. The poor guy is sustained by stress and cigarettes. But things gradually smooth out a bit.

A long but pleasant day ensues with our new guide, Shu-Shu, and 8 other hotel guests as we cross the Nile to some key West Bank sights. In old Egypt, the living hung out on the East Bank and the Dead got together on the West side. Habu Temple, Temple of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, Valley of the Kings, to name a few. Spectacular pylons, temple columns, walls covered in incised cartouches, hieroglyphs, etc. If you had the means, the main business in the many Dynasties was getting ready for the afterlife, planning and building the biggest and fanciest tomb you could muster.

Despite some rotating illness among us, a two hour afternoon felucca ride is welcome relaxation next day. Magaada Youseff has been sailing these craft 40 years, like his father and grandfather; he is charming, with good English, classic good looks, and consummate skill on a very weathered boat with weathered and ragged sails, lines and fittings—where they exist! Later we head for the recommended Snobs Restaurant, which turns out to be a little Western for us, though the food is good.

Following a morning antibiotic purchase, we chance to meet Shu-Shu again, who guides us around the Temple of Karnak. It’s a big place with it’s three principle temple precincts and a huge hypostyle hall. After dinner, we have a slide show of Aaron and Kate’s travels in Greece and Croatia.

With a final day in Luxor, Shu-Shu leads us on a second West Bank visit to the Tombs of the Nobles, Valley of the Queens, the Rameseum, and more. We enjoy her quite a lot, and end by taking her to lunch at the second floor Sofra Restaurant with it’s relaxed outdoor seating and traditional Egyptian food. A late flight to Cairo goes fine, but the connection to Sharm-el-Sheikh is in a different terminal, (contrary to what the New York office of Egypt Air said) and to make a long story short, it’s a long night in the Cairo airport waiting for the 4:40am flight. The ticketing supervisor guarantees we’ll fly next, and sure enough he gets the five of us in a single row along with a US Marine. Now I ask you: how do you so perfectly place a group of six in the same row on standby on a full flight? Eureka! You bump the other six people who happened to have had seats in that row! Well, I don’t know this for sure, but....think about it. The ticketing supervisor and his buddies had hours of fun kibitzing and back-slapping and hugging each other. I had visions of Dean Martin and the Rat Pack.

AARON'S WRAP UP: All the facts are here, but how about a few more details to spice things up a bit?

Let's start off with the city itself. I wasn't much bothered by the air here - maybe that was a relative thing, but I thought it was actually fairly clean. But if you were in the tourist areas, you were getting hassled non-stop. Way worse than Cairo. Try walking down the Corniche in Luxor and not getting asked to take about seven feluccas and about seventeen horse carriages. We did eventually cave on both accounts, especially as the horse carriages are ridiculously cheap (about 10 pounds from our hotel all the way up to Karnak Temple). We did get off the beaten path a bit as well, sneaking up some back alleys for fruit juice and shady shwarma, as well as ridiculously cheap falafel and getting cursed at by a guy on a bicycle who was offended when we didn't stop what we were doing and help him translate a letter he wanted to write to someone in England. Weird.

Next, a couple more temple details just cause we have so many excellent pictures of them. Most impressive and not-to-miss temple, in my opinion, is the Habu Temple, which happened to be the first one we went to, after Luxor Temple itself. Habu is the massive work of Ramses III with some excellently preserved hieroglyphics made all the more stunning by the paint which often remained in tact here. But if you really want to see in tact paint, you have to make it to the tombs. The ones in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens were cool and all, but the worker's tombs at the Deir al-Medina site were particularly interesting and well preserved. Not to mention extremely hot as they're buried several meters under the baking desert sands. Unfortunately, no pictures there, so just another one from Habu.

And, just to reiterate, that was not a fun night spent in the Cairo airport, but we did eventually make to to Sharm el Sheikh...

Cairo

2009-04-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

We´re trying a little experiment here and have invited my family, the Greysons, to guest-blog a few entries as they came out to meet us in Egypt in December. First up, Cairo, from the perspective of my sister, Laurel:

Our first steps on Egyptian soil gave the less traveled Greyson clan a taste of the beautiful, and often extremely hectic weeks to follow. After collecting our bags, and withdrawing Egyptian currency from the ATM, we found our driver holding a big sign saying RICHARD GREYSON, Horus Hotel. The taxi quickly whisked us away packed like sardines into Cairo and to our humble abode for the next few days to come. We checked in to our friendly hotel, modest in amenities, but perfect for our needs. It had the feeling that the rest of Cairo gave me--a little wilted--as though its glory days were long over. After a slightly worried Mother and Father Greyson, checked their e-mail concerned about Aaron and Kate's whereabouts (who it turns out missed their flight due to a protest at the Athens, Greece Airport), we all quickly settled into the Horus with a warm bowl of Egyptian lentil soup, tea, and chicken kabob. This soup came to be the king of all lentil soups, which we compared all other lentil soups to come (none of which where ever as tasty). As we finished up our meal, Aaron and Kate walked in. Our Mom of course ordered more food, and we all caught up on life and travels and began to plan the rest of our days together...in Egypt.

The next day we woke up early, met for breakfast for instant Nescafe coffee, yogurt, toast, croissants, and plenty of hard boiled eggs, cucumber, tomatoes and salty cheese to go around. After consumption was completed, and we discovered the lair of hungry lions aka taxi drivers outside our hotel. We found ourselves a very friendly, and good-natured cab driver named Abdullah who took us to the Egyptian Museum. The Egyptian Museum is no walk in the park. It is a very large enclosed mess of expensive artifacts, relics, and art. In fact, it is somewhat of a microcosm of Cairo itself—dusty, unorganized, and stressful. However, we made it out alive, and only slightly cranky. The exhibits that stood out most were the exquisite jewelry exhibition, and the jewels and artifacts of King Tutenkamen. These two displays were truly fascinating, and profoundly beautiful.

After feeling overwhelmed, we then found our way to a Koshari dinner at Koshary el Tahrir(if I can remember correctly), which is also known as the poor man’s food/carbo load meal of a lifetime. It consists of lentils, several types of pasta, spicy tomato sauces, and fried onions. Needless to say, we loved it.

AARON'S EDIT: Our second day actually was a little different than Laurel remembers. We started off with a taxi out to the Al-Azhar mosque, where we got the tour from a guide who forced himself on us, then demanded that we tip him better than we had. Still, the mosque was fairly interesting and we were encouraged to take pictures of the burial chamber of the builder, which is a bit of a departure from normal procedure and, as all but the least astute can tell, made everyone (except for the heathen Kate) a bit uncomfortable...

Next, we wandered around looking for the "real" market nearby, getting led around by "friendly locals" who wanted to show us where to get the bargains. They led us through filthy back alleys lined with closed shops to the couple of places that were open where they, of course, wouldn't receive any commission. They did make one sale, however, as my mom bought a couple beautiful camel and mother of pearl inlaid boxes which, while not dirt cheap, were, admittedly, beautiful. We did eventually make it over to the actual tourist market which, while more touristy, was much more interesting. Let's pick back up with Laurel's narrative now for her account of the Khan al-Kahlili bazaar...

The bazaar is a maze of madness, full of shouting people, harassing you in every direction. Yelling, offering their goods, pleading, begging for visitors to buy, buy, buy. And buy, we did. We bought all sorts of things, and spent way too much money. But the sights, chaos, and smells of the whole experience were well worth the depletion of funds. We relaxed from time to time over cups of Egyptian tea at Fishawi's, hummus, pita and mango juice. We people watched on benches, and rested our weary legs from a long day of shopping at busy cafes.

To treat ourselves at the end of the day, we ate a delicious North African meal including an assortment of dishes to share, and lots of hibiscus tea. After all the food was licked clean from our plates, we headed off to the Whirling Dervishes, for a riveting show at the El Ghory of swirling men in colorful dress-like costumes and lots of beautiful music.

Our [third] day in Cairo began bright and early with a friendly face — our loyal taxi driver — Abullah. Abdullah greeted us with a warm smile after breakfast and once again took us to our destination for the day — the Sphinx and Giza and Saqqarah pyramids. We got dropped off near the entrance of the pyramids and were approached by “Official Ministry of Tourism” guides/trip organizers. We can now all look back on this title, and scoff a bit at this scam. One of many scams to come…

Anyways, we rented our camels, climbed on top of their humped backs, and started our grand journey through the desert to Giza only to stop for occasional photo ops, and to listen to our mis-informed guide, tell us wrong information. Despite the changes in history, we found ourselves snapping shots of Giza and then of the Sphinx, surrounded by other photo-happy tourists. Now, I don’t mean to sound cynical here, but the pyramids were kind of, sort of not all they were cracked up to be. Yes, it was pretty incredible to think about how little old me, could be next to this great big massive ancient structure—yet at the same time I also felt like it just wasn’t worth all the hype.

However, what I did find more intriguing as the day went on was Saqqarah.

AARON'S EDIT: Saqqarah is the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, one of the first pyramids ever built, constructed as a series of ascending mastabas or steps mounted on top of each other to form a triangular shape reaching toward the sky. Abdullah's claim that he would be our tour guide throughout the day was really fully refuted here as he, again, just sat in the car whilst we surveyed the site on our own so I played tour guide, leading our small troupe across the site as best I could, reading the walking tour provided by my dad's Lonely Planet. Cheapskates didn't even tip.

We then went on to the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid, one of which (can't remember which) is the oldest true pyramid. Back to Laurel's tale...

Here, we got to actually climb into the belly of the pyriamid. This was pretty amazing, and also not too bad of a work-out. We hunched over and inched our way down the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel into the pyramid. At the bottom of our descent we were greeted with pungent aromas of sulfur and what smelled like rotting decaying bottles of bleach. Despite the foul smells, the inside was overwhelmingly illustrative of the ancient Egyptians obsession with the underworld, as well as impressive in size, architecture and design.

Afterwards, we huffed and puffed our way out of the tomb, and were hungrily dropped off at a mediocre Egyptian restaurant for pita, humus, meat mezzas, and more lentil soup.

By this point in the trip, we were all starting to feel a bit exhausted. Aaron got a little cold, so we decided to take it easy and... explore some of the Mosques and old city of Cairo where the Coptic Christians and Jews lived. We toured the old city, which was really interesting—the streets were all windy and cobbled stoned. The synagogue was beautiful, decorated with intricate inlaid wood designs. We also got suckered into buying lots of poorly made items that day including but not limited to: scarfs, jewelry, and bags.

So, that was our visit in Cairo — or at least the big, main points to mention. But, I guess my favorite things are none of the above musings. The things I enjoyed most about Cairo were the day we spent just wandering the city, walking through various neighborhoods, visiting the Islamic Ceramics Museum, eating delicious baklavah, and talking to Egyptian people who gave us a brief glimpse into their lives, culture, and world.

Above all, my favorite memory was probably sitting at a hookah bar watching my parents attempt to smoke the little water pipe. They didn’t really enjoy it, but it sure was funny.

AARON'S WRAP UP: Definitely good times in Cairo, though be forewarned that the air there is amongst the worst in the world and you will have black snot for weeks to come. This is in part due to the ridiculous amount of traffic you get when you have 20 million people crammed into a city, traffic which, itself, becomes a tourist attraction/liability. It would have been much easier to navigate the town had we not been forced to quite literally run for our lives at every street crossing.

Other highlights: well, firstly, we did happen to enjoy the Giza Pyramids. Sure, they're a bit crowded and touristy, but I did think they were pretty spectacular. Next, Kate and I actually bought a souvenir! I think it was our second one in about seven months, which is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Accordingly, it is awesome. It's the 17th century lead-lined (on the outside, don't worry) set of cups and kettle with silver inlay in antique Arabic reading, alternately, "Allah," "Drink and be healthy," and something in archaic Arabic which includes the words "Good" and "Drink." In the rather silly photo above, you see me staring at it like I want to eat it, but the biggest photo coup came when we were at the Giza Pyramids and our guide took our camera to snap some shots of us posing at "holding up the pyramids" by the top of the cones. Some (read: one) of them came out alright, but most looked, well, completely and utterly ridiculous.

And that's all for now, but stay tuned for the upcoming Luxor blog, guest written by another Greyson...

Kea and stopover in Athens

2009-03-08T06:13:00.001-07:00

Despite our heinous cross-Aegean trek, we did eventually arrive at our next WWOOFing destination: the Red Tractor Farm, an organic farm/guesthouse, on the island of Kea, Greece. Our boat braved the choppy waters (that would cause ours to be the last ferry for a few days), arriving just in time for the family dinner, a scrumptious feast of lasagna, both veggie and carnivorous, during which time we met the family: Marcie, a Californian expat, her husband, Kosti, and thirteen year old daughter, Izzy, as well as Marcie's parents, who were in town for a few more days - and had been for a couple weeks. Lara, the other worker, also came for dinner but we didn't get much of a chance to talk to her - or anyone else, really - as the whole three hours of sleep thing was starting to catch up to us. So we retreated to our first room and promptly passed out... but not until after I finally shaved for the first time in weeks, leaving me momentarily with this ridiculous facial hair.

The WWOOFers cottage, that is, a cozy little alcove at the top of the property with an outdoor kitchen/terrace and private bathroom was indeed, our first of two rooms. In summer, an ideal retreat; in winter, with a bit of a chill and winds the Greeks quite understandably called gods, the outdoor bathroom and dining table made things a little more difficult. Still, we liked it and were a little unsure about moving at first, but then we saw the room we were offered.

This place was pure luxury. One of the guesthouse units, everything in the studio was brand new (the guesthouse opened in summer 08), all custom designed by Marcie, herself an interior designer. The whitewashed walls and light blue trim gave it a very nostalgic Greek feel, but the super-advanced heat panels and Tempurpedic bed promised all modern comforts. Kate, especially, still talks about that bed every chance she gets. Oh, we also had our own private fireplace and backyard, though it must be admitted that we never used the yard. The fireplace, on the other hand, we used literally every night we were there.

But we did have to work to earn our time of luxury. We thought we'd be helping with the olive harvest, but it turned out there wasn't really going to be one this year so the only harvesting we did was on camera. Our first week there, a Greek morning show focusing on cooking and travel came by to film a featurette on the Red Tractor Farm and we were featured extras, or workers, or whatever. Pretty funny to be back on a set with all the fabricated, airbrushedness that it implies. But the crew was gone soon and it was back to one of our main jobs while there - digging holes. Really big holes.

We probably dug about 30 holes or so, holes about 4 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter. Why, you ask? Well, you see, there is an old story on Kea dating back to the Byzantine era about a deposed emperor who made his home on the island, carrying away the crown jewels and, more importantly, the Holy Grail itself, encased, as the story goes, in a trunk lined with gold and rubies. Kosti, who is a doctor of archeology, directed the digs, promising to share the credit for the... seriously though, the guesthouses were new and the grounds needed to be planted. But we also dug some holes in the vineyard, first to pry up some diseased (and rather stubbornly deep) vines, then replanting them with new, healthy vines.

Aside from holes, we also did a fair bit of weeding, spent a couple days carving out a vegetable garden, and spent another week or so redoing our first room. Marcie wanted to repaint the trim there so it matched the rest of the buildings, advising us that the secret in a good paint job was all in the sanding. Now, I gotta say, I've always sanded when painting, but never quite like this. We sanded every surface down for the first couple days of work, then primed it all. Then sanded the primer down with slightly finer sandpaper. Then painted a first coat. Then sanded that down with an even finer sandpaper. Then painted the second coat. But it did look good, if I do say so myself, and Isai kept us company and kept us from getting bored. Though I can't say we left the cottage looking better than we found it, but only because we left before the sink, which had been hacked out of its concrete moorings with a sledgehammer, could be replaced.

As it was off season, the island was extremely quiet and we had to make our own entertainment. I think we lived up to the challenge. We had a few movie nights with Izzy, including watching through the Pirates of the Caribbean series, which I gotta say, is way longer than it seems, especially the third one. We also had a couple family dinners, including one for Kate's birthday where we all went into town and got some souvlaki. Kosti insisted that I eat three sandwiches, which was no small feat, and Izzy presented Kate with something I've never given her: jewelry.

We also did a bit of hiking, going up to Hora (the island's capital, perched on top of some cliffs) and hiking down, though our hikes always seemed to meet with a little inclement weather. The first time, we actually had to hitchhike back down as it started pouring rain, but we did get to see the island's archeological treasure, a 6th century BC lion carved by a slave.

The second hike, we got lost after missing a turn as we'd had our heads down, trying to battle against the fierce wind. We also took a couple walks with Lara, Izzy, and Isai, the awesome dog. One such trek took us out to this little secluded beach, tucked between shrub covered hills. Too chilly to swim - though we did take one dip after Lara insisted that the water was still warm... but we really should have known better as she'd been used to the Alpine lakes of Switzerland.

Lara also came by our little studio most nights after dinner (or for it) for a nightly nightcap. Or seven. We actually bought out the entire stock of the supermarket's beer brand beer. So we had to get a little more creative and do themed nights, like Caribbean Night where we had pumpkin and coconut milk curry with Cuba Libres. Or French night, which was French onion soup and wine. Lara, by the way, grew up in Denver with a Swiss mother and thus has dual citizenship and had been working in Switzerland for the past summer at a party hostel which left her with quite a few stories to tell and makes us realize that no matter how nice the place looks, you probably want to use your own sleepsheet. Which was just one of the many bits of wisdom (others included the hotly contested "clean your bathroom at least once a week") that we debated around the fire until the wee hours of the morn...

EDIT: I should also mention here that we did quite a bit of reading while on Kea, most notably: The River Cottage Cookbook, which, more than just giving recipes, discusses how to lead a more self-sustained life by, for example, raising your own chickens, growing your own vegetables, catching your own fish, etc... and, book number two, which I must admit has had quite an impact on me personally: Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. This book is amazing. It's a funny science book that a layperson might actually want to read. As Lara and Kate found out, I took to quoting passages from it on a daily basis... because it really is fascinating stuff. Did you know, for example, that empirical tests have proven that time actually does run slower the further from the center of the earth you are? Crazy...

But eventually, it was time to leave. Lara left the day before us, but we stayed until the 17th of December, which gave us one night in Athens before meeting my parents and sister in Egypt. We said goodbye to the family and to Isai (who really was the best dog and probably deserves more mention than she's had in this blog) after a couple last family meals (including one very strange but tasty pita wrap with fried eggs, bacon, and marmalade), then we got on the ferry and began the journey back into Athens. We stayed at the Neos Olympos hostel, right next to the train station, paying a scant 8€/night for a bed in what was really one of the nicest, cleanest hostels we've been to - gotta give them a plug. We also went out for Greek food one last time, going around the corner to a little neighborhood taverna that I can't locate on the map, but have a picture of if anyone is curious where we went all out for some gyros, fried eggplant, tzatziki, pita, Greek salad, and wine. That doesn't seem like that much when written out, but it was a ton of food.

The next morning, we got up with plenty of time to get to the airport, took all the right trains to get there, went to check in 1.5 hours before our flight which left at noon... and found that due to an air-traffic controllers strike, there were no flights leaving between noon and 3pm. So they moved our flight EARLIER. Without telling us! They apparently called us, but never left a message. There were obviously quite a few people in the same situation as us - I mean, seriously - moved the flight UP?!?! What is that all about? We were able, in the end, to buy another flight with a different airline leaving a few hours later and were able to get a refund for most of what we'd already paid, but we were still down an extra 60 or 70€ because of this ridiculous business. As you can see by this picture in the airport, we were not happy. But we did eventually leave and, later that night, set fooT in Africa.

Izmir and Transfer

2009-02-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

We bid adieu to Kalkan, getting a lift to the bus station by a friendly local who felt sorry for us lugging our packs into town. The overnight bus got us into Izmir earlier than planned - around 6AM - but we dozed in the bus station for a couple hours as we'd arranged to meet our couch host at 9. Around 8, we went in search of the transfer bus, which was ridiculously difficult to negotiate. Three buses and lots of misinformation later, we ended up at our stop, then waited another 45 minutes before we realized we'd been calling the wrong number. Finally, we did get in touch with Koray, our host.

Koray and his roommate Alpi - both of whom are business students - treated us to a tasty Turkish breakfast before Koray played tour guide, taking us into town, setting us up with a discount card for the bus, and showing us all the major sights, including a nice tea garden in the middle of the bazar which made its coffee one mini cup on an individual burner at a time. Koray also helped us figure out our ferry tickets to Greece and showed us where we could trade in our used books before leaving us to meet his girlfriend.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around town and finding ourselves beneath an incredible avian spectacle; literally tens of thousands of birds were circling above one intersection in town, bringing pedestrian traffic to a stop as everyone craned up to look. Just waves of birds crashing into each other... really crazy to watch, and it lasted for about 30 minutes. Finally, we tore ourselves away and indulged in one of Izmir's ubiquitous potato bars for dinner. For 4 lira (2 euros) you get a head-sized baked potato with 6 toppings and a soda. Mmm... We also indulged in a flick, catching Quantum of Solace, which was really just OK.

Our last two days were spent largely shopping for any last minute Turkish souvenirs. Some of our purchases: a kilo of pistachios (Kate's newfound snack of choice), dried apricots, ceramic gifts which though beautiful, we later discovered are quite breakable, and our piece de resistance - a Turkish carpet. We'd shopped around for a bit as we'd gone through the country, sat in on a few semi-forced carpet lectures, and felt we had a decent grasp of what to look for by this point, so when we found a carpet we actually really like, we snapped it up. After a fairly intense haggle, of course.

On our last night, we cooked a big pasta dinner for our hosts, where we learned that the Turkish prefer yogurt to cheese on their pasta. Weirdos. Koray invited a friend over and we all bonded over mulled wine and found out that all the business students at their university have to take all their courses in English, which is insane. We also found out that one of his roommates is actually a couple years younger than his birth certificate states due to some rather strange circumstances that might land his father in jail.

Anyway, good times in Izmir, but we had a farm to plow. So the next morning, we began the heinous transfer over to the island of Kea. Here's how that went down: bus from Izmir town to Izmir out of town bus station. Bus from there to Çesme, the port town. Ferry from Çesme to Chios. Kill 4 hours in Chios with all our bags. Overnight ferry from Chios to Piraeus. Metro from Piraeus into Athens center. Bus from Athens to Lavrio. Kill about 8 hours in Lavrio. Ferry from Lavrio to Kea. But we made it. And we farmed. All coming soon...

Kalkan

2009-02-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

A good song to describe our time in Kalkan would be Queen's immortal masterpiece - a song in which they really came into their own, both creatively and artistically - the lovely "Don't Stop Me Now." I say this not only because it sort of summed up the great times we were having, but also because we played it all the time. Along with Celine Dion's epic ballad, "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." In fact, I had the dubious pleasure of being serenaded by the... not unharmonious... duet of Asher and Kate - on bent knee, nonetheless - one fine November morn during flongers.

Flongers, as you have no right to ask, is a noun soon to be included in Webster's dictionary, to be defined as "a meal of above average size, quality, and length; an epic repast. Usage: Boy, those deviled eggs at flongers sure did taste good!" We made sure to indulge in at least one flongers on the balcony every day.

Ah yes, the balcony. I should probably back up and explain our situation to those of you who aren't myself, Kate, or Asher. We stayed at a timeshare generously arranged by my grandparents and my aunt Marsha. The place, Club Kalkan, was pretty nice, but would have been much nicer if everything wasn't shut down. It was fine - just weird. There were about six pools on the property but only one was open... and that one was choked with leaves and half full. Plus, the staff could be a little pissy, especially when I didn't have absolutely EXACT change when we checked out as Sunday - the day EVERYONE with a timeshare checks out - is for some reason supposedly their cashier's day off so he couldn't break a 50 lira note for the 27 lira energy charge and instead could only give me back 21 lira and 10 euro cents and glared at me, huffing, the whole time. But the weirder stuff was how they never turned on the lights anywhere outside or, in fact, in the lobby, which was the only place you could get WiFi. So we had to either track the guy down or sneak behind the desk to flip the switch ourselves.

But at least we had the place to ourselves. Kate and I actually had it all to ourselves the first night, but Asher came by on our second day there, partly because it was my birthday. We didn't do anything too much as the town was completely closed down, but we did go to dinner at Deniz down by the water in the main town and ate flamingo. Seriously. And it was delicious. And happens to be the name of a local fish.

We didn't go into town every day as we had everything we really needed at the place... except for food and beer, of course. So we had to make a few runs into town to stock up, including one which ended with us coming back at night, walking into the face of a truly jaw-dropping lightening storm. It was like watching two opposing armies line up on either side of the Kalkan bay; one side was the old wizard, perched atop Frog Mountain, whilst the other side was the young upstart come to challenge his master. The young upstart threw out tons of lightening, really flashy stuff that streaked the sky, while the old wizard had to build up his energy... but when he released his might, it was in thick, straight bolts of raw power that split the sky in two. Awesomeness.

Most of the time, however, it was beautiful weather so we spent the days at the beach. Or rather, the platform on the water as there was no sand beach there. Here was a perfect example of the good and bad of having an entire resort to yourselves: the upside is we never had to worry about having the choicest spots, but the downside was that we weren't allowed to take our room towels to the beach and we had to wait about 15 minutes every day for someone to appear to give us beach towels. So strange.

Anyway, the beach. We chose the spot by the secluded cove, which also included a little rock outcropping nearby to which we could swim and proceed to mount and either a) drink and sunbathe atop of, or b) use as a stage for reenactments of Battlefield Earth ("While you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME...").

We also did a bunch of jumping off the platform while posing in various creative ways, but once that got boring, we moved to jumping off the cliff into shallow water as we figured it would add a much-needed sense of danger to our childish exploits. Asher was the brave one to take the leap, as it were, and I followed a couple times, but Kate wussed out. What a wuss. Though I will admit that I needed Asher to sing "Don't Stop Me Now" to psych me up for the second jump.

We originally had some grand plans to explore a bit more of the area, but those fell by the wayside once we got into the daily rhythm of flongers and thawanyo (Def. 1: adj. Spicy, like the Congolese nights. Usage: "Mmm, that night in Congo sure was thawanyo!" Def. 2: noun. Fictional university. Usage: First I got my bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and now I am a professor at the University of Thawanyo."). Thus, the sad day came when we were forced to part, each of us going our separate ways... but bonded by a friendship stronger than the steel rebar that runs through the concrete of our lives as we leap together into the great unknown. Or something.

Fethiye

2009-02-14T08:25:00.001-08:00

We said goodbye to a crestfallen Asher (as he'd lost his glasses the day before) over doner before boarding the six hour bus to Fethiye. Bus ride on Kamil Koç was uneventful except for the fact that it was the nicest bus we rode in Turkey - so take them if you can. We arrived in the Fethiye bus station around sunset and got in touch with our Couchsurfing host, Engin, who was still at the office. So we met him there, along with his friend, Söke, who was visiting in town for a couple weeks. We grabbed a drink at the Blue Wave bar where we met up with another friend of their's, Guvenc, then all of us went back to Engin's townhouse.

It was like hanging out with friends from home. These guys had a hilarious dynamic in their group. It was like the Big Lebowski trio - Engin was the Dude, Guvenc was Walter, and Söke was definitely Donny. So funny just to watch them squabble, even if it was in Turkish and we didn't understand it. Our nights covered a whole range of things from doing the can-can to Turkish music to discussing the repurposing of apples. We also disappointed them greatly by not being aware of the cartoon "Lucky Luke" or "Redkit," if you come from Turkey, which was basically akin to them never hearing of the Simpsons to us. As it turns out, Lucky Luke, while it is set in the States, is actually a Belgian cartoon, so we were off the hook... but we crushed more than one Turk's perception of America that night...

Aside from chillin' and illin' with Fethiye's finest, we also managed to get out to the famous Oludeniz beach and its associated Blue Lagoon. Basically, it's all one huge stretch of beautiful sand beach that comes to a dramatic point in a channel of water, cutting off the sea and creating a large lagoon on the other side of the isthmus. So peaceful that we went back a second day.

In fact, that was pretty much all we did in Fethiye outside of hang out with the guys. But there are worse ways to spend one's time than lounging on pristine beaches and swimming through crystal clear, absolutely still seawater. If we'd had more time, we would have assuredly gone to the Butterfly Valley and maybe done some other stuff in Fethiye itself, but we were quite content with what we did.

Our last night in town, we went out for drinks at the fish market in town, after a dinner of köfte at a super-tasty and cheap place. Guvenc ended up getting some fish at the market (he joined us later and hadn't eaten) so we got to see how it works: you sit at one of maybe six restaurants in a huge courtyard with tables from each place scattered in the different corners and pick your fish from the fish stalls in the middle of the courtyard. You pay the fishmonger for your fish then bring it to the
restaurant of your choosing for them to cook however you prefer, then they serve it with sides of rice and salad. The fish price depends on what you get and how much of it you want... but the restaurant charge is a flat 5 lira/peron... or about 2.5 euros! Crazy cheap... if only we'd been hungry... but we got to try a bite of Guvenc's delicious fruit of the sea and all got in on the photographing, including this shot that makes me look much, much tinier than I actually am.

And that was Fethiye. We said our goodbye's, packed our bags, and headed to the bus station the next day, grateful for Engin's hospitality
(the guy gave us his own room!) and the friendship of all those crazy Turks in Fethiye...

Pamukkale and Selcuk

2009-01-18T08:41:00.001-08:00

One thing that gets pretty annoying in Turkey is the whole thing where people tell you a bus is direct when it really isn't. We'd been forewarned about this and repeatedly queried bus companies who would assure us that yes, their bus was direct, only to find out that pretty much every bus route we took had a service bus tacked onto at least one end of it. This held true for our ride to Pamukkale, which was especially brutal as the unexpected transfer happened around 4:30AM. But we made it to our hotel alright (albeit after having to stand in a packed minivan with our bags on for the hour long ride), checked in, and promptly passed out.

We rose a few hours later and struck out for the Pamukkale travertines - what the town is famous for. These travertines are an entire cliffside of pools made out of calcified limestone, if I remember correctly, filled with natural thermal waters (which deposit the calcium). The Romans thought it a pretty nifty spot and built a city on top of the cliffs, which turns the whole place into a dual attraction.

But, like most historical sites in Turkey, the site boasts an annoying double pricing system. Here, we had to pay 20 lira (10 euros) to get into the complex, then another 20 lira to swim in the thermal pool. We argued with the guard about this a while, saying we didn't care about the ruins, just the pools, and he started getting pretty testy with us, telling us that it was our fault for coming this year as last year it was only 5 lira and the next year it will be 5 lira again. He also started saying some stuff about reporting us to the police for insubordination or something, so we turned the tables on him and asked for his name to tell his superiors. He refused to give us any other name than "Braveheart."

We eventually folded, paid the money, and climbed to the top where we discovered that the extra pay pool is really only in one area, albeit a pretty sweet one. It's the "Antique Pool," the source of the thermal waters, which is a pool with felled ancient Roman columns and statuary poking up out of it. Awesome place to swim, but free to take pictures of, so that's all we did and instead wandered through the ancient city's roadways, over the walls, through the theater, and past the temple.

We still got to play in the travertines and Asher even went so far as to test out the therapeutic properties of the water by rubbing the calcified sand at the bottom all over himself. Plus, we got to stay up there for a pretty glorious sunset, so not too terribly overpriced after all.

When we were done with the travertines, however, we found that there is literally nothing else to do in the tiny town (other than listen to Asher belt out awesomely inappropriate verses about George Clooney from the musical he's writing at full volume next to families in the park). We had booked two nights at the hotel, but moved on after one. Again, weird bus stuff - this time because all the companies offered two rates: the real rate and the special rate they'd give you where they handwrote a voucher instead of a real ticket on company paper (so they would personally split that money with the driver). We opted for the second, cheaper route and got a bus for the couple hour drive over to Selcuk where we were checked into the ANZ (Australia New Zealand) Guesthouse but a funny little Turkish dude that my sister somehow knows named Mehmet. He was pretty friendly and the place was definitely nice - nice enough, in fact, to initiate another round of movie watching; this time, we watched through the 4 Indiana Jones movies as Asher HAD NEVER SEEN ANY OF THEM BEFORE. What a weird dude.

We were still kinda kicking ourselves about leaving Cappadocia early, but Selcuk turned out to be a pretty rocking place as well. We started out with a standard wander around town which took us past the old mosque and then up the hill to St. John's Basilica, an old Roman ruin that was once the largest and most holy church in Christendom. Cool ruins too - you can climb over everything and go through old tunnels - definitely worth the 5 lira entry price.

We also checked out the Saturday market in town which turned out to be one of the best markets any of us has ever seen. The thing was huge, sprawling through the streets like some sort of beached giant squid with tentacles of beautiful produce for next to nothing. I mean, where else can you find a kilo of scrumptious mandarin oranges for half a euro? We also discovered some weird Turkish pastry we called Breakfast Bars (no idea what they're actually called) that consist of something like semolina ground with peanuts and soaked in honey. Sounds decent - and tasted alright - but these things were about the size of a cell phone and the weight of a small Buick. Intense in every sense of the word.

One thing that the hostel offered was free use of their bikes but they warned us that they weren't all in the best condition because, even though the bikes were only a few months old, the guests had been pretty hard on them. We were all thinking, how can you mess up a bike? Well, Asher was more than happy to demonstrate. He broke two different bikes on back to back days of ridiculousness. Bike one died after a failed action-movie-skid-to-a-stop-with-the-back-wheel-fishtailing-out-behind-you stunt on our way to Ephesus. Asher managed to mangle the wheel on this one, but we were able to reverse mangle it enough that it was still (sorta) rideable and we got to the site after only a 30-45 minute delay.

Ephesus is the site of an abandoned Roman colony and, as such, is in a remarkable state of preservation. It was the capital of the province of Near Asia and was a flourishing port city until the sea around it dried up and became a marsh, when they moved the city to the location of modern day Selcuk, which is about 4 km away. We spent the whole day at the ruins, highlights of which were the huge amphitheater, the public (and we do mean seriously public) toilets, the main thoroughfare, and, of course, the library facade.

The facade of the Celsus Library is one of the best preserved and most famous examples of Roman architecture in the world. It towers three stories into the sky and uses architectural trickery to appear even more perfect and imposing that it naturally would be otherwise. Unfortunately, there isn't really anything left of the building itself behind the facade but it was still easy to spend a solid hour or so just gazing up at the marble. We would probably be recommending the Houses on the Slope as other places to see in Ephesus... if not for the damnable double pricing thing. Again, just as much to go in here as it was to get into Ephesus. But it probably is pretty cool... oh well, we still had fun.

The next day, we took a dolmus ride over to Kusadasi, the nearby resort beach town. It wasn't as exciting as we'd hoped. Still, we found a place that wasn't too pricey to eat lunch and then a spot of beach with a couple hours of sun left. The beach spot was only spoiled by a really, really annoying dog who kept coming up and dusting us with sand and refused to be shooed away (it just thought our yelling and water-throwing was our way of playing with it). We ended the day with a bit of sheesha on the beach to watch the sunset before hoofing it back to the bus station and heading back home.

The day after, we took the bikes out again, this time for more beaches. The beaches outside of Selcuk itself are only 7km away, so we picked up a lot of beer and made the trek out for our much-looked-forward-to Bender Day. It was incredible. Asher and I came up with a new business plan, Kate actually came into the water, and Asher posed for a photoshoot that got a little out of hand and ended with him shoveling handfuls of sand into his mouth (unfortunately, Asher has all those pictures so you'll have to content yourselves with this rather tame one). Then we tried to ride our bikes home, which was much more difficult than one might imagine. I only fell once, and it was, to be fair, when we were stopped (is that better or worse). Asher fell three or four times, the last of which was only a couple blocks from home and the time when he broke his second bike. It was dark and he hit the gears of the bike against a curb, mashing them together and making it impossible to ride the bike again. He also lost his awesome party glasses on the bike ride and went back the next day to retrieve them - successfully, I might add - where he apparently had some, ahem, interesting adventures with a lonely Turkish man.

But we did not go with him - no, Kate and I had decided to head down to Fethiye for a few days before reteaming with Asher... but those are both stories for another blog.

Cappadocia

2009-01-06T12:19:00.001-08:00

Cappadocia rocks. In both the literal geological sense as well as in the figurative sex and drugs sense. Not that we did any of that there.

We took the overnight bus to Göreme, which cost about 50 lira (or 25 euros) per person. We took Metro, which was a pretty decent bus company - one of the best we were to encounter - and we got in on time, then checked into our hostel, the wonderful Star Cave Pension. We were treated to a delicious Turkish breakfast (hard boiled egg, toast with butter, jam, and honey, tomato and cucumber with cheese, and, of course, tea) then led to our cavernous room. I speak not in hyperbole here, gentle reader, but in verity: we stayed in a cave. You see, that's kinda the thing to do in Cappadocia - go around caves, stay in caves, look at caves from the outside... And we had a whole cave just to ourselves; we actually booked three beds in a six bed dorm, but never had anyone else in the place and even had our own bathroom, plus free breakfast every morning... all for 10 lira/person. That's 5 euros a night! The best deal this side of the Bosporus.

We roused ourselves in time to climb a nearby hill to watch the sunset and then hop over to what became our living room: Fat Boys bar. Why did this become our home away from home? For the simple reasons that it had both sheesha and Risk: The Game of World Domination™. We spent hours upon hours at this place, literally slaughtering each other and taking the fate of the world in our hands, all over cups of tea. We even expanded our consumption a couple times, including a memorable "American Night" where we feasted on nachos, burgers, and beer... again while pitting tiny Irkutsk against the heathen armies of those Yakustkian infidels. A foul wind often blew from the west as my socialist Red Army marched steadily upon Asher's pesky yellow bastards and Kate's peace-loving, annoyingly high-minded green party. I think everyone won at least one game... but I dominated on the overall scoreboard, despite what either of those other cheating cheaters would lead you to believe.

But despite the indecent amount of time we spent in Fat Boys, we also did manage to make it back to our hostel to watch some movies from our hard drive on Asher's (unbroken) laptop. First off, we watched Casino Royale, which definitely got our blood pumping, then we watched Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. THIS MOVIE CHANGED OUR LIVES. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who has not seen this cinematic masterpiece, so I'll just leave you with a few choice, vaguely Turret's-esque quotes (like "ratbrain!" or "I do what I can!" or maybe "Do you want lunch?!?!") plus this clip of Asher performing the movie's signature line in one of Cappadocia's rock formations.

Seriously though, Cappadocia is beautiful. The natural splendor of everything is absolutely, wondrously mindblowing. And it's not just the fairy chimneys, but all sorts of rock formations and underground churches, not to mention stunning canyons of varying shades of cotton-candy pink and daffodil yellow. We first explored the recommended Open Air Museum, which was pretty cool, but overrun by hordes of package tourists who didn't seem too interested in sharing (we were actually scolded by a guide for blocking a little bit of light for about three seconds when we entered a chapel that was constantly occupied by tour groups, his being the present reigning party).

We decided maybe it was best to get away from the Göreme sights a bit and expand our horizons as Cappadocia is a whole region, not just a town. So we booked our own guided tour of the surroundings. Things did not get off to an auspicious start. First off, we thought we were going to miss it as we forgot to set the alarm in the morning and woke up about five minutes before we were due to meet... luckily, this just so happened to have fallen on the daylight savings changeover day, so we still had an hour to eat breakfast and relax in. Then we picked up the rest of the group, most of whom were all going to the same university in Turkey on study abroad programs... and all of whom were ridiculously late. We seriously had to wait about 45 minutes for one girl - I don't know why they didn't leave without her. And they were all constantly lagging as the tour continued. Anyway, we started off with a couple outlooks that were less than stellar and the guide did explain - albeit in heavily accented, nigh unintelligible English - how the chimneys were formed before we continued on to the coolest part of the tour, which were the underground cities that dated to about the fifth century. These are incredibly intricate windings of tunnels and staircases where you really have to know your way around. The stairs from level three, for example, may only lead to level six, but those from level six only go to level one, and those from one go to two and seven, etc... This was done to purposefully confuse attackers and get them lost in the passageways. So definitely a good place to go with a guide, especially when he pointed out things like the air shafts that descended all 15 or so levels in a straight line, or the place they hung criminals by their wrists. We also checked out a couple other vaguely interesting places including where they shot some of the Tatooine stuff for Star Wars, but all in all, the tour was a little subpar and it was only another round of killing each other in board games that put us back on the right track.

But the next day was when we finally discovered Cappadocia by going on a hike. We walked to the Open Air Museum, then continued just a another hundred meters or so further into Pigeon Valley which took us on a rambling wander over hill and under dale, past enticing carvings and yawning crevices. We climbed some cliffs, slide down a mountainside, and eventually stumbled upon a few rows of cliff dwellings that were at least as good as the Open Air Museum - not to mention free and completely empty. It was like playing Indiana Jones. And there are literally hundreds of these places, which range from small, two or three room dwellings, to sprawling five-story ruins, to single room chapels complete with thousand-year-old paint fragments.

Clearly, we had to do this again. So the next day, we set off for unsupervised jaunt number two, this time winding through the Rose Valley. More of the same incredible awesomeness. The history is just everywhere, and it's combined with natural beauty, combined with light hiking, combined with constant references to Battlefield Earth... The highlight of the day was definitely our last stop, which was in an unsuspecting little hole in the rock wall, which opened into an magnificent church built inside of the cliff. This place was beautiful and, as you see here, all to ourselves. The act of getting to "find" and explore places like this on your own cannot be overstated and it really does make me rethink modern ideas of conservation and preservation - do we really need controlled environments for everything? I know I certainly got much more out of our aimless ambling then any of the on-the-beaten-path stuff we did.

Actually, this would be a pretty good time to launch into a little discussion/treatise on preservation vs. conservation, and provide me with another opportunity to slide in another photo or two... but I think I'm going to save that one for another day when we've actually gotten caught up on the blog. But at least I stalled long enough to slip one picture in...

ANYWAY, that was really about all we did in Göreme, which could be summed up by simply saying - we had an all around awesome time, even though I never did get to try one of the local pottery kebabs. But Battlefield Earth more than made up for any such disappointments. And we were, in fact, quite torn on whether or not to leave Cappadocia when we did; we almost threw away our bus tickets to Pammukale (40 lira, about 8 hours) and stayed on for a few more nights. Frankly, we should have, but that's a story for the next blog...

Istanbul

2008-12-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

Istanbul (not Constantinople, though the Greeks still call it Konstantinopolous) is definitely an amazing city. Much, much more beautiful than any city in Greece - and, indeed, much more beautiful than any city of comparable size that I've ever seen, we arrived early in the morning and hoofed it out to our hostel, which was conveniently located in the tourist district of Sultanahmet, right in between the towering minarets of the Blue Mosque and the Aya (or Hagia) Sofia. We had bhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifeen recommended the Istanbul Hostel by three different people, but they had all been during the summer. When we went, it was completely dead - and strangely so; the rooms were full, but there was never anyone else there, besides Kate, myself, and our friend from home, Asher.

Asher, for those of you who don't know him, is completely insane in a completely awesome way. He arrived late our first night (around 4AM, after we'd gone to bed), but that was OK as Kate and I kept a pretty low profile the first day, with the big highlights being the New Mosque, a stroll up into the hopping Taksim area, and a nightcap at the Ali Pasha sheesa cafe, where we met some really friendly Turks, one of whom was named Aslan (which means "lion," in Turkish for you Narnia buffs) and one of whom gave me some cologne that he made himself, which was kind of weird, but pretty nice and a great example of the kind of hospitality we received in the land of the Ottomans.

Anyway, once Asher got in, we played tourists pretty hardcore (at least for us). We took him on the tour of what we'd just done (especially as the inside of the New Mosque is incredible - covered in tiles and draped with hanging lamps as you see here),
but we also stopped in a cafe for some backgammon, checked out the Blue Mosque (bigger, but not as impressive on the inside as the New Mosque), went back to Ali Pasha, and, of course, picked up some requisite doner and some really excellent Turkish baklava.

On the subject of baklava... the Turks really know what they're doing. They have about 20 different varieties of buttery filo layed with something creamy, stuffed with pulverized pistachios, and smothered with honey. Delicious. Though, some were better than others. Söbiyet ("shuh-bee-yet") was our favorite - the fine sprinkling of pistachios really did it. But even again, some
places had better söbiyet than others - our favorite in all of Turkey was the first place we went - a little stand in Sultanahmet, on the walk back from Ali Pasha's to our hostel. But as long as there was söbiyet, we'd eat anywhere. And I'm throwing in a picture of the sprawling indoor Grand Bazaar that's larger than most towns and filled with shoppers and hawkers galore...

The next day, we finally made it to the hulking Aya Sofia, which was once a basilica, then a mosque, and is now a museum. And it is huge. And 1500 years old. And filled with mosaics. And where the mosaics have been scraped off, there are more mosaics and paintings underneath (from the basilica days - it was the religious focal point of the Eastern Orthodox religion for about 100 years). We wandered through the vast interior - which has an open space which rivals St. Peter's in Rome - snapping pictures and treading the ancient marble floors for a couple hours before it was time to try to watch the Turkey football match that night. We scoured the town for a good pub that was showing it and finally found the North Shields Pub in between Sultanhamet and the train station. But it was RIDICUOUSLY overpriced. Don't go there unless you want to spend like 8 euros on a beer in a country where you should be spending about 2. Anyway, the game wasn't that interesting when you have to ration sips so we headed back to our (dead) hostel and got some rest instead.

The next day, it was time to check out the famed Topkapi Palace, residence of the most exalted Ottoman rulers for about 400 years. This place is stunning and sprawling. As we'd learned earlier - and as we would learn over and over again - the Turks always have a double tier pricing for their attractions where the
main thing is about 20 lira (10 euros) but the best thing there is another 20 lira - in this case, the harem. So we skipped that, but still saw the courtyards, a couple mosques, a display on the Qa'aba in Saudi Arabia, huge gates, the old kitchens, the Imperial treasuries, and the exquisitely tiled circumcision room and Iftar kiosk. We also happened upon an exhibit on decaying synagogues throughout

We didn't realize how long this move was going to take. She told us where she lived and we figured an hour ought to be about right to get pretty much anywhere from the city center. We were, however, emphatically wrong, with the entire journey taking about 3 hours in a mix of - in order - walking, metro, looking for buses for 30 minutes, taxi, metro, and bus. The final bus took another hour or so, most of which we were crammed next to each other with our packs on, unable to move anything more than our eyebrows. Then we got off on the wrong stop and walked back a bit, finally meeting our host, Ayshe, in front of a McDonald's in the neighborhood of Yenikoy, which is only apparently 14 km from where we started.
Ridiculous. And Ayshe, while very nice, was not someone who should have been hosting couchsurfers, at least not us. She was 42, working in the Turkish television industry, constantly busy, not speaking much English, and kept an immaculately clean - and rarely lived in - apartment. Still, the view was nice and were very materially comfortable... but we couldn't stay more than two nights due to general awkwardness (ie. she was very surprised that we stayed with her and I made a pretty big faux pas when she offered us macaroni and cheese [all she had to eat in the house] and I, meaning to get across something to the extent of "We don't want to inconvenience you," said "We don't want your food," which is the epitome of class, I know).

Anyway, we did spend a pretty pleasant day out in the boonies, walking down to the nearby fishing village of Istinye where Asher and I got long-overdue shaves/facial massages from a Turkish barber in between eating some borek, checking email, and going to a pretty chill sheesha spot. But we did go back into Sultanhamet to a different hostel which was marginally more interesting than the first. There, we met up with Sarah (Dutch) and Jetan (British) to go out partying in Taksim. Sarah had lived in Istanbul for her year abroad so she was able to lead us to the Joker Bar, where Asher busted out his party shades and really got the party going. First, he challenged the resident Street Fighter II champ at the arcade (and lost), then he formed circles of clamoring Turkish men around him who all wanted to wear the glasses, which ended up with a night of the entire club busting out with the most ridiculous dance moves known to mankind once the glasses took control.

We arranged a new couchsurfer in Istanbul but, as this one was also outside of the tourist center, we made sure to see the last few things we wanted in and around Sultanahmet as we didn't know if this was going to be another three hour trek. This was an excellent idea, as it was another three hour trek. But before we left, we went to the awesomely spooky underground cisterns dating back to Roman days. This is basically a huge underground well that used to provide water for the entire city. Now, you can walk along the pathways, check out the Medusa-footed columns, and play around with the crazy acoustics.

But we eventually had to bid goodbye to Sultanahmet again and make another three hour trek, this time in the opposite direction - and across the Bosporus, into Asia... in style. You can take the ferry across the straight for the same price as a metro ticket, but you get a 30 minute ferry ride views to two continents. So we were pretty happy with that part... but then we got to the Kadikoy terminal and had to find the correct dolmus (minibus) to take us to our host. This took about 45 minutes. Then we had to wait in line for the dolmus for another 30 minutes or so. Then we get on and tell the driver where we need to get off - he says OK - then takes us all the way to the end of the line, saying that we needed to tell him when to stop when we saw our stop. That took another hour or so. Then we negotiated a return ride with a different dolmus driver who took us back to our spot, which took another 30 minutes or so, so when we finally arrived to meet our host.

Our host turned out to be much better this time. He was an expat from San Diego going by the name of Harvey Wallbanger who moved to Istanbul a few years ago to start a microbrewery. So he had a keg of delicious beer - beer he had brewed himself - on tap at all times in his apartment... which meant all the free beer we could drink. We took this opportunity to give it "the old college try," which meant drinking beer and playing video games in our pajamas all day, every day. Though we also made some enormous and enormously delicious sandwiches, and, at night, we hung out with Harvey and some of his friends, which was pretty cool as we finally got to meet some locals who were a) peers and b) not trying to sell us something. One of these guys was Mehmet, who was actually an opera singer with the Turkish National Opera, though he never sang for us, unfortunately. Anyway, after whipping Asher repeatedly at Winning 11, it was finally time to say goodbye to our most gracious host and head down to the bus station to get out of Istanbul and get on down to Cappadocia...

Meteora and Thessaloniki

2008-12-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

The morning we left the villa took us to the train station where we caught a four hour train ride through some beautiful craggy mountains and wide plains of crops, finally depositing us in the town of Kalambaka, where we based ourselves to see the monasteries of Meteora. "Meteora" is a Greek word meaning "suspended in the air," fitting as it is the site of picturesque monasteries teetering atop rocky precipices that jut straight up to the sky. We arrived after dark and went straight to our hotel, the Tsikeli Pension, which we were able to bargain down to 40 euros a night. Our room was comfy, clean, and with a small balcony with views to the cliffs. George at the front desk was extremely helpful, if extremely in need of a shower.

We called it an early night and awoke early(ish) to catch the bus up to the monasteries, which runs from the center of Kalambaka at 9am and costs about 2 euros to get all the way up to the Grand Meteoron Monastery, the largest, oldest, and highest up of them all. Despite the offseasonality, the monastery was packed with tour groups in paper skirts (as the dress codes require long pants and skirts for women - as well as no exposed shoulders).

We wandered from room to room, eavesdropping on the tour guides and getting whatever info was offered by the informational (read: evangelical) plaques concerning such disparate topics as being faithful to God and how reason is the enemy of God. Some highlights of the building itself were this creepy old ossuary, a museum with incredible displays of period craftsmanship, the rope they used to haul building materials and food up (rather than climb the stairs every time) and, of course, the stunning views from the top.

But two of these museums - even though they were only 2 euros a pop - were enough for us (we're seriously fatigued on museums at this point). Instead, we felt the best use of our time was to wander the roads past all the monasteries and over the valley. And despite the awesomeness of the buildings, the nature was really what was on show here.
Eventually, our path took us down a shaded trail through the hills and back into town where we dined at the recommended Gardenia restaurant and packed our bags for the morning...

...which was not to go as smooth as silk - nor, indeed, as smooth as some sort of polyester/rayon blend. We checked out over an hour before our train and decided to cab it rather than walk the 20 minutes in the heat so we asked the lady at the front desk to call one for us. She said it would be about 5 or 10 minutes before the taxi arrived. We said no problem and waited on the porch. For 30 minutes. At which point, we asked for her to call again. She did... and, after another 10 minutes, she revealed that she actually never got through to the cab company. We failed to flag down any on the road and, by this point, we'd pretty much missed our train anyway, so we decided to just walk and save the money as the next train wasn't for another 6 hours. We started to leave but the lady told us that she finally got through and the cab would be there in 5 minutes. We told her we no longer needed it, thanks, but that apparently wasn't an acceptable answer. She started yelling at us, saying we couldn't just call a cab and then not take, and also threatened to call the tourist police on us. We just kept walking.

We managed to kill 6 without too much hassle and finally boarded the "direct" train to Thessaloniki. Difficultly, however, seemed to be the theme of the day as we a) kept having to move as we didn't have seat assignments and b) almost missed our transfer since this was supposedly direct!
Then, we had to wait another hour in the cold for the transfer train, which, when it arrived, was packed full so we had to stand, smushed in a corridor next to some men who smelled not unlike hobos dipped in vinegar and smothered with liver and onions. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifBut at least our stomachs were growling when we did finally arrive in Greece's second city.

We met our host, Nasta, beneath the old Roman arch Kamara, waiting with another couchsurfer named Steven. She handed us the keys, gave us directions, and sent on our way as she was spending the night out that evening. We, however, stayed in and got to know Steven who turned out to be a rather eccentric Irish cyclist without a bike. But we slept well and were rested for our self-guided walking tour in the morning that took us past Roman ruins sunk into city squares, waterfront boardwalks, and shady parks. We also noticed that Thessaloniki is an extremely young city with a supposed 100,000+ university students and enough shopping opportunities to keep every single one of them constantly carrying a plastic bag from some designer store.

We kinda laid low for the most part, however. We caught a baptism in the central cathedral... and caught a movie in the shopping mall (Burn After Reading). We also partied with Nasta and another Steven (also couchsurfing) when we headed to reggae night at the university. But basically, we were just killing time before catching the overnight train to Istanbul, which was an event in and of itself. The only option for the train was double rooms, so we got one of those and made it our home for the next 12 hours or so. Really pretty fun, actually, as I've only ever ridden dorm-esque compartments on sleeper trains before. Anyway, despite the ridiculous waits at the border checkpoint (wake us up at 2am to exit Greece customs, back to sleep at 230, wake up at 3 to go through Turkish customs, back to sleep right away, wake up again to go get the Turkish visa, back to sleep, wake up again to have passports returned...) we did manage to arrive relatively well rested...

Greece with the Parents

2008-12-14T06:17:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Athens the evening of September 23, just in time to miss a wonderful dinner Kate's grandparents, Jim and Elizabeth, arranged for all of us. You see, they generously rented a massive villa on the coast (near Marathon, outside of Athens) for the entire 27-member family. So while we missed the feast we still got to join in on the fun of the villa
and fortunately, when you prepare a feast for 25, there's usually enough left over for the two temporally challenged stragglers. We eventually arrived at the beautiful Villa Agnanti which would be homebase for the next two weeks, and dined on a smorgasbord of Greek cuisines, which had escaped the clutches of the ravenous and playful four kittens and their doting father which came with the place.

The villa was a bit more remote than anticipated, but this didn't stop anyone from making day trips into Athens. Our first was the day after we arrived where we spent the night with Kate's siblings; her brother, Chris, and his wife, Collins, who had a hotel room for their final night in Greece (Chris had to get home for a class) and invited the two of us as well as Kate's sister, Stephanie, over for a slumber party.
We had actually gone into town earlier that day to check out the National Museum, the Plaka, and supposedly the best tyropitas in the city (which were tasty and quite different, but not quite the best any of us had ever had). After a failed attempt to check out the changing of the guards at the Parliament, we went out for a huge dinner overlooking the town, then the young whippersnappers amongst us (the aforementioned siblings and myself) headed out for a night on the town. Taking in the lively bar district overlooking the Agora.

We went to the airport with them as Stephanie's boyfriend, Kyle, and Tara's (one of the cousins) husband, Brian, were both arriving that day. Both got in relatively on time, but only Brian's bag made it. This was something of an especial consternation as the following day was picture time. Jim and Elizabeth had arranged for a photographer to come by to snap some family portraits at the villa (which makes sense when you have this kind of view) and we were all supposed to be in white shirts and jeans... but Kyle only had the khaki shorts and colored shirt he rode in on. Luckily he was able to borrow some clothes and the pictures went ahead as coordinated as planned.

We soon ventured back into Athens for a day of sightseeing that just so happened to be "Every Historical Sight in Athens is Free Day." Weird, but true. Free admission, therefore, to the Temple of Jupiter, the ancient agora, and, of course, the Acropolis. So we climbed up to check out the Parthenon and all its neighborly temples and ruins... or at least the ones that weren't completely disassembled so that they could systematically catalogue each and every marble block, replace those in poor condition, and reassemble at some later date in a "restored" state. The temple we missed out on was that to Athena Nike, the goddess of victory, but is this really a "victory" (ha!) of preservation science?

Also in Athens, we went by the sprawling meat and fish market, the neighboring - and considerably less unpleasantly odiferous - fruit and veggie market, we strolled back through the tourist market of the Plaka, made it to the Olympic Stadium, and actually caught the ridiculous changing of the guard.

We had a day or two back in the vicinity of the villa where we explored the local culinary delights of Marathon's best lamb restaurant, the nearby beaches of Nea Makri, and just the peace and quiet of the villa itself. Some memorable highlights from this included teaching the card game Yaniv to everyone, cooking lots of food, diving into the icy - but color-changing - pool, and watching baby Gregory stuff his face with bananas.

After a couple days of laying low, it was time to venture back into the city again - this time straight to the port of Piraeus to catch a ferry out to Santorini. We were all sort of dreading this 10 hour ferry ride, but it turned out to be quite pleasant actually; we had tons of space, we were covered but still outside, and the day was beautiful. We finally arrived in late afternoon, which gave us enough light to marvel at the sheer, volcanic cliffs surrounding the port, as well as be terrified by the transfer driver's handling of said cliff edges. We did, however, arrive alive and well to the Villa Manos hotel, which was beautiful and cheap, at about 15 euros/person/night for double rooms, and has one of the best owners we have ever encountered, Poppy. Anyway, we checked in, regrouped, and headed out for a dinner (of Greek food, obviously)at 000, which ended with a free round of ouzo for the whole table. As most of the diners were Mormon, however, most of that ouzo would have gone to waste if it weren't for the valiant efforts of Kate, Stephanie, Kyle, and myself.

While the ouzo soaked in, we soaked up a beautiful Fira sunset over the caldera that likely was once Atlantis.
We then headed out with Stephanie and Kyle for beer and views over the lights of Fira with the added bonus of wonderfully cheesy renditions of The Girl from Ipanema and other elevator classics from the house band.

Our little tetrarchy slept in the following morning and got a late start to the day, which, paradoxically, led to a life-changing (or at least trip-changing) decision; namely, we rented ATVs.
For some reason, ATVs are extremely affordable on the island (30 euros for a 2 person ATV for 2 days - with a full tank of gas costing an additional 7 euros but lasting the whole time) and they really do change everything. Suddenly, transportation became an activity in itself.

We spent most the day riding around, taking empty back roads along the beach side of the island (as opposed to the volcanic cliff side) which allowed us to get off Santorini's well-beaten touristy track and stop whenever we saw anything that looked fun. We also went to Oia, a particularly touristy artist's town that has the classic Santorini white and blue thing going on. But really, the main event was the ATVs and, by that evening, everyone in our group was so jealous the we all had ATV's - even Kate's parents - by the next morning.

Our fleet of ATV's headed to the beach at Kamara, which, while lacking the stunning views of Fira and Oia, is a more laid back town with actual access to the water - something Kate's mom, Elaine, took advantage of to fulfill her dream of swimming in the Mediterranean (we know its the Aegean but close enough). After lunch on the boardwalk, we zigzagged up the mountain in an ATV caravan of arachnid proportions before heading back to the hostel and out to Fira for an evening of gyros and a new bar - this one with better prices... and the lovely aroma drifting up from the donkey path below.

But sadly, the next morning was go time. The ferry was around 2PM, so Kate and I took our ATV out for one last spin, out to a completely empty black sand beach, probably a
good alternative to fleeing disgruntled donkeys down the slippery and narrow donkey path, as Elaine and her sister did (if only we had pictures).

Back on the mainland, things were breaking up. First, Kyle flew home the day we got back, then Kate's parents and sister went the following day. We stayed on for a few more days but didn't venture much further than a couple walks to the nearby beach, preferring to spend our time by the pool, playing with Kate's youngest cousins, having her cut my hair, or consuming the silly amounts of delicious food that is ever present at the best family gatherings. But all good things must come to an end and, after two weeks of family and luxury, it was time to get back on the road...

Munich

2008-12-13T05:48:00.000-08:00

Munich, or Munchen, capital of Bavaria, is best known for bratwursts, bretzels, and beer... which makes it kind of ironic that the first meal Sean, Kate, and I munched (no pun intended) upon was Italian in origin, though the lasagna special couldn't be beat for taste or price at the little restaurant we found in the University area.
Besides, we were in no hurry to gorge ourselves upon the three Bs of Bavaria, nor were we in any hurry to get to the city center as we had a couple hours til the scheduled meeting of our friend, Alex, who you might remember from our Argentinian (or, as some might say, Spanish) language school. We wanted to combine this reunion with attending a local festival that happened to be going on a the time, but things did not look good when Alex was a) conscripted into organizing a weekend of camping while we'd be there and b) forced by his new job to spend his weekdays training in Cologne.

We were, however, undaunted, especially when Alex invited us to come along on the camping trip. So we met up with our favorite Munchkin (and his friend Nicole), headed to his parents house for a brief smorgasbord, then loaded ourselves with all the blankets, beer, and delicious homemade crumbly plum breakfast cake we could carry, and began the two hour drive out to Ettal, arriving in the parking lot, which meant that we had about a 20 minute walk to the cabin. Not a big deal, right? Emphatically wrong, in fact. Indeed, this hike was physically one of the most difficult things I think any of us Americans (that spying bastard Sean included) had done, certainly in recent memory.
Let me try to set the stage for you armchair travelers; you're carrying about 30 kilos on your back, hiking up a 60 degree incline of loose rock that's constantly slipping out from under your feet, in near pitch black, carrying a heap of bulky blankets in one arm and another 15 kilos or so of beer or water in the other. It was the sort of thing where you're only able to finish because you know there is no other option. But we did make it to the cabin, which meant that we a) were handed a delicious Bavarian brew, and b) were introduced to a bunch of drunk German tire engineers and one especially drunk Irish tire engineer who had worked in Germany with them.

Fast forward through the inebriated introductions (and the Irish guy falling asleep in the living room because he "didn't realize there was another room"), and we found ourselves waking up to a beautiful day in the German Alps... and an enormous breakfast (crumbly plum breakfast cake included, of course). This hearty repast turned out to be quite necessary as, once it was finished, we ventured out on what the Germans called a stroll,
what I would call an epic hike, and what Kate would refer to as proof that we are not in as good of shape as we hoped. But the forest was beautiful so we "strolled" our way up the mountain for a few hours until coming to a fork in the path where Alex told us that one way led to a lodge and the other led to the very top of the mountain - and both were only about 30 minutes from that point. Kate and some others chose the lodge but Sean and I pushed on with Alex and the few, we happy few, who climbed to the top of Ettaler Mandl.

Alex had, to be fair, warned us that it got a little hairy at the top, but we weren't quite prepared, I think, for what Sean later referred to - quite accurately, I might add - as "Death Mountain." Indeed, this last half hour to the top was only accomplished by climbing a vertical rock wall with the use of chains, often dangling yourself over a drop of perhaps 50 feet with absolutely no supervision or safety measures in place.
I honestly can't believe it was legal. But like most things that shouldn't be legal, it was ridiculously fun... once you made peace with yourself and prepared for the great unknown, of course. We considered ourselves lucky to reach the summit with but a single casualty (and we didn't really like that guy anyway), but it was a great feeling to get to the top where we paused for a much-deserved snacking and soaked up the stunning views.

The climb down was, if anything, even more difficult and pants-wettingly terrifying, but we did reunite with those of our group who apparently take freedom for granted to find they had been casually enjoying a hearty lunch of various brats and beer. We put our differences aside and trekked back
to base camp where we napped, read, and whipped up a mountain of pasta that could feed 20. Which was fortunate as there were about 20 of us. We then passed around never ending bowls filled with every sort of gummy imaginable and drank Romanian firewater (which, incidentally, pairs quite well with the cola flavored gummies).

But alas, our little haven of alpine bliss had come to an end and we took off the next morning after a traditional breakfast of sickly looking, but delicious, white sausage and pretzels and then got a ride to the train station from Alex where we said our goodbyes,
failed in an attempt to pay him for the food, lodging and beer, and were finally forced to board the train and be on our way.

Now, as some of you may know (and as others must have guessed), this regional festival to which we were a-headin' was none other than the (in)famed Oktoberfest. But what you may not know about Oktoberfest is that it's all about drinking beer. And what you also may not have realized is that everyone dresses up in funny traditional Bavarian garb. So we sat next to a foursome of Alpine milk maids on our train ride into the city and then on our tram ride out to our hostel. We found spots last minute at The Tent hostel for only 19 euros during Oktoberfest which is, quite literally, amazing given that the average dorm bed price in other hostels is about 70 euros... and you have to book months in advance. Anyway, The Tent was, also quite literally, exactly that: a giant tent with about 150 bunks and lockers set up inside. This may sound nightmarish, but it was actually awesome; comfy bunks with three thick blankets, huge and clean bathrooms, a cafe with free wifi, and perhaps most surprising of all, it was perfectly quiet during sleeping hours.

Our original plan was just to lay low that first evening and get up at 8AM the next day so we could get a spot in a tent when they opened at 10AM (the Oktoberfest beer tents are notoriously difficult to get into), and put in a good, solid 12 hours of drinking. But we figured it was still early enough that we might as well check out the scene, which I'll try to describe in the following haiku:

Real big carnival
Delicious beer flows freely
Too awesome for words

But I'll try anyway.

Picture this: you are inside of a tent the size of two football fields. A band in lederhosen plays songs everyone is singing along with - maybe "La Bamba" or perhaps "We Are the Champions" - while barmaids carry maybe 10 liters of beer in a single fistful of golden liquid. Most people are standing on the tables, and most people have their arms around each other. Another barmaid comes by offering to sell you a pretzel the size of a hubcap. You buy it and it is delicious. And then, suddenly, you are waking up on the ground somewhere, wondering where your shirt went.

I think that actually describes our experience pretty accurately (combined with the pictures and videos). I'll throw in a couple more things for some added flavor, however - things like the be-ledered bands playing the "Ein Prosit" song, which roughly translates to "A little cheers," which, itself, roughly translates to everyone sings a goofy oompa song while slamming mugs together and then drinks.
We also (allegedly) bought and subsequently devoured half-meter bratwursts from the carnival outside. And I ran off the tram back to the hostel a few stops early at the very last minute as the doors were closing and Kate had to wander back to find me and lead me home. All in all, an excellent night.

And, actually, the second night was just about as good. We didn't end up going for the full workday of professional beer drinking, but we did pretty much do a repeat of the
first night. So I'll leave that one alone description-wise and leave you with this picture of what we probably would have looked like if we had started at 10AM.

What we did do on our second day in Munich, however, was to venture out to the Deutsches Museum, which is an enormous and all-encompassing museum on, well, everything (I think that is the definition of all-encompassing, by the way). We marveled at ancient clocks, peered into fighter jet cockpits, tried to figure out why farmers would need such vicious looking tractor attachments, and studied models of breweries. We also watched a super-intense display of electricity where they shot several thousand volts at all sorts of things, including a metal cage with a living human baby inside (OK, it wasn't a baby, but imagine how hilariously inappropriate it would be if it was).

That about covers our time in Munchen, sweet Munchen - however, speaking of "time," there is one last thing we sadly must relate before we leave this fair city. You may recall that Germany, as we said in our last blog (I told you to pay attention and that it would be important later - well, the time has come, oh yes, the time has come at long last!), is an hour later than Ireland, where we had come from. We'd been in Germany about 10 days by this point so we obviously weren't thinking about this time difference anymore... HOWEVER, we had never changed the time on our clock as we'd relied solely on Sean's cell phone for time. Because of this oversight, when we arrived at the airport for our flight to Athens - which, by the way, we got there in what we thought was plenty of time after saying goodbye to Sean's prostrate (sleeping) body - we found out that we made it just in time to see our plane leave. So we shelled out a small fortune to buy another flight later that day, tried desperately (and unsuccessfully) to get in touch with Kate's family, and waited in the Munich airport (which is, incidentally, rated as Europe's best) for a few hours before finally boarding what would turn out to be the most luxurious flight (Aegean Air, operated by Lufthansa) that we'd been on in years...

Berlin

2008-12-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

Berlin was, in a word, awesome. We had heard a veritable slew of a stew of hype about this international city and, in fact, I had visited once before - in December, 2004 - but then, the city resembled a Soviet Era freezer
(and by that, I mean not that it didn't work, but that it was very cold and very empty). But, as we came in summer this time, for a change, there was, in fact, a change and, to quote the Arby's ad gurus, "Change is good." At least this time.

Anyway, we arrived after the luxurious comfort of a night spent on an airport floor, with a flight that took an extra hour - not because of any delays but because Germany is on a different time zone than the Isles British (remember this - it comes up later). We headed straight for the ridiculously efficient and omnipresent public transportation to meet up with a German who had been living amongst us in secret for many years. I refer, of course, to our friend Sean. After we located this would-be sleeper agent, we located our host - none other than the aforementioned Richard - friend of Avi's Brown and Schwarz - who is living in Berlin at the moment with his roommate, Arne, who is, coincidentally, the only real German of the lot.

Richard then proceeded to entice us, quite convincingly I might add, to move to Berlin. Indeed, Richard played tour guide, even perfecting the much-underappreciated art of walking backwards whilst illuminating your charges on that which they see behind you, always throwing in appropriately arcane and often perverse facts to keep attention from wandering any further than one's very footsteps.

Highlights of our extended five-day walking tour included: the below-pictured East-Side Gallery, a pilgrimage to the two doner shops at which the delicious doner was allegedly created, his old neighborhood, his new neighborhood, a row of art galleries, his favorite doner shop in Berlin, several excellent cafes, a clothing store with jeans for 5 euros and Coke for free, and a derelict boat surrounded by a mighty gang of swans. Which are, for the record, much bigger and more intense than you probably imagine. Unless, of course, you usually picture swans as being titanic birdmonsters (coincidentally, Birdmonster is the name of Richard's brother's band) in league with Somali pirates, and armed to the teeth with the best weapons that money can buy because that is, FYI, how I usually picture them, though I get the feeling I might be alone on this one.

Wander, however, is not all we did with gentle Richard; nay, we also wandered... dammit, I guess we did do a lot of wandering. But anyway, we also wandered around the hulkingly colossal Jewish Museum for upwards of three hours, tracing the tumultuous history of Germany's Jewry from times immemorial to present day. Quite interesting... but be prepared to spend literally all day there - though, it is quite a bargain at 2.50 euros for students (and those of us who still carry around their old student IDs). Pictured here is the unattached Holocaust Memorial...

One other wander was one of the nightly variety and was, in fact, not so much of a wander as an organized stumble with Berlin's best pub crawl. Also led by Richard. Yes, we just so happened to be staying with the newest member of New Berlin's team and, as such, got a VIP pass into the tour. Quite hilariously, Sean, a connoisseur of excessive drinking in his "native" California, had already been on this exact same pub crawl TWO OTHER TIMES in his brief three days in Berlin before we arrived. But he still enjoyed it immensely, as did we all - right to the very end of the night which concluded with the photo booth snapshot you see re-photographed here.

And lest you think our wandering days were done - or that wandering, for that matter, is a pursuit onworthy of such gentlemanly and/or ladylike gentry such as our dashing selves - we also did some independent wanderings of Berlin's more touristy parts. Again, matching Sean's premature venturings almost step for step (not to mention running a circuit not unlike the one I had taken a few years before). We started off at the iconic TV Tower, passed by the world clock in Alexanderplatz, waxed Commie before the statures of Marx and Lenin, peered at the rubble that was once a hulking Soviet government building, stumbled upon the amazingly awesome sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon you see pictured out of context a few paragraphs above, explored the quad of Humboldt University (the site of the infamous Kristalnacht book burnings), strolled up Unter den Linden, peered at the Brandenburg Gate, admired the dome of the Reichstag, enjoyed the respite of the massive Tiergarten, and reflected at the Holocaust memorial. All in a day's work, my friends.

Speaking of culture, we also went to the Sony Center (itself a work of weird and modern art) to see Batman: The Dark Knight. Now that's some serious culture. Actually, I wasn't a huge fan - I mean, it was good and all, but nothing that amazing, not as I'd heard. Anyway, back to culture in a more traditional sense of the word... we also spent a solid hour or so at an outdoor museum surrounding Checkpoint Charlie, soaking up the history of a divided Berlin (made stomachable by munching on some delicious chocolate we'd picked up down the street). We also spent a solid few hours examining the incomparable hordes of the Pergamom Museum, thus named after the ENTIRE GREEK TEMPLE German archeologists removed from Turkey's coast, reassembling block by marble block inside of the building which now bears its name. And not only does the Pergamom house the... well, the Pergamom, but it also houses other astounding architectural (and plain old artifactal) treasures ranging from some of the most beautiful examples of Islamic woodcarvings to the jaw-dropping blue-glazed Ishtar Gate of of Babylon.

One other side of Berlin that I haven't mentioned yet is the city's culinary - and pecuniary - pleasures. You see, Berlin is an extremely cheap city in Western terms, which affords one the inestimable delights of not needing to worry too much about whether or not you can afford a drink with your meal - something which, on our budget, comes up all too often. Nay, Berlin was a veritable cornucopia of deliciousness, which included forays into the near east (Persian lunch menus for 4 euros at Saffron), the Appenine peninsula (whole pizzas for about 2 euros), the former Ottoman Empire (the ubiquitous doner, also around 2 euros - the doner stand pictured here, by the way, is one of the two that may be the originator of said delectable dish), and our particular favorite, the far East (an enormous and exquisite meal for two of Tom Kha Gai, Pad Thai, Red Curry, and Lassis at Asian Deli for a grand total of about 15 euros). But we didn't just "splurge" on these dining out experiences - nay, we also cooked up quite a storm, sampling Arne's German cooking as well as whipping up a batch of real California fish tacos...

But alas, our time in Berlin had to come to an end as we had to head south. While that is a story for another blog, one last note that fits into this particular saga is our mode of transportation, which was to get a ride via Mitfahrgelegenheit, a German ride sharing service. We arranged a ride with Stefan, a Berliner heading south to visit his girlfriend, and enjoyed a) the comfort of his practically brand new car, b) the speed of a direct shot, c) the experience, insights, and company of a real, live German (not like that poser Sean), d) the knowledge that we were being environmentally friendly, and e) the reduced price of 30 euros/person as opposed to 43 on bus or over 100 by train. All in all, a great way to get down to Munich, which is, as I've said before, a story for another day...