Emily's On The Road Again

Nicaragua: The Most Satisfying Mediocre Country

 

I know, I know...how mean does that sound?  But honestly, I had an amazing time in Nicaragua.  At the end of every day, I looked at Jess and we said, "God what a great day!" or "God, what an awesome meal".  And then we would think about the day, or the meal, and realize that really, it wasn't anything spectacular.  But it was really wonderful and satisfying!

So everyone wanted to know, "Why Nicaragua?".  Or, conversely, I heard a lot of, "Hope you come back alive" or "You can borrow my Kevlar vest".  As is usually the case, the more warnings I get from Americans, the country is that much nicer/safer/friendlier etc.  And true to form, Nicaraguans welcomed us with open arms and were lovely and honest people.

Nicaragua is in Central America, with both a Pacific and Caribbean coast.  Unfortunately it's the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (after Haiti), partly due to the political strife that plagued it from the 70s until the late 80s.  I guess you could say it all began in the early 1500s when Spain swept in and conquered the country.  In 1821, Nicaragua won independence.  Not surprisingly, after Nicaragua rejected the building of a canal through their country, and the US started to build the Panama Canal, we interjected ourselves into their politics.  I won't go into their full history, but when a huge earthquake hit the capitol city of Managua in 1972, all of the incoming funds went to the friends and family of government officials.  This of course ensured that all Nicaraguans backed the militant group of students called "Sandanistas".  They of course inherited a cluster - a country where homelessness and poverty and illiteracy were prevalent.  Not a recipe for success...and when Reagan again inserted the US into Nicaraguan politics by arming the Contras to overthrow the Sandanistas, another 10 years of blocked aid and lost crops and rampant death continued.  

Enough of the politics of Nicaragua...just a little background for my legions of faithful readers (hi Mom!  Hi Grammy! Hi Chuck and Bonnie!).  So the net result of this turmoil is that Americans are fearful of traveling to Nicaragua, and Nicaragua doesn't have enough tourism to justify building the type of infrastructure that Americans would demand/enjoy.  And while Costa Rica is a go-to destination for people wanting to zip line, see volcanos, experience hot springs, surf, visit a cloud forest, etc, I found it to be a country relatively void of culture.  Whereas Nicaragua offers all of this, along with gorgeous architecture and friendly people.

Jess and I left early on Christmas morning.  We had a relatively uneventful flight through Atlanta and got to Managua around 1 pm.  You can always tell how developed a country is by it's immigration, I find.  Well, let's just say that the immigration was such a cluster and there were so many people that there was a backup on the escalator and people who rode it down couldn't step off and therefore had to run backwards up the escalator.  Phew.  Once we got through, the last ones to do so (I pick the shittiest lines), Jess and I went to Budget Rent-A-Car.  The line there was long and not moving quickly.  So Jess scoped out Easy Budget Rant-A-Car (yes, the sign was misspelled) and 10 minutes later we had a Hyundai Accent at the curb :)

We asked the guy who turned over the keys which way to Granada (our first destination).  His directions were vaguely to go to a bridge and curve left and continue straight and go to two rotundas...as in, not very specific.  Well, Jess and I basically did a driving tour of Managua.  
We wound our way through neighborhoods, stopping to ask men on bikes with ice cream carts, the mass quantity of people just loafing alongside the streets.  Unemployment in Nicaragua is around 50% from what I've read, and from what I've seen, I believe it.  We passed what can only be described as shantys, with corrugated tin roofs.  There was the occasional cart being pulled by a horse.  Families of four on a single motorcycle.  Women walking alongside the road balancing baskets on their head.  And most notably, retired school buses from the US apparently live out their golden years in Nicaragua.  Naturally they hold about ten times the quantity of people that would be legally allowed in the US, but somehow all the chaos works.

Granada is a colonial style town in southwest Nicaragua.  Our hotel was quite beautiful in fact, and close to the center and the main church.  We had dinner (despite our fears that everything would be closed for Christmas, the town was super lively) and went to bed relatively early, so we could have an early start the next day.  

The next day we headed to the indigenous market in the nearby town of Masaya.  It was a cultural center even before the Spaniards invaded.  Our guide book claimed that their mercado viejo (old market) has the best products in all of Central America.  
Our favorite part of it was that people didn't harass you.  You could casually stroll in the market and look at what interested you.  We ended up buying a bunch of things....ummm, sorry friends, I somehow managed to shop just for myself!  I got a gorgeous painting and some pottery and carvings.  

From there, we headed to Volcan Masaya, an active volcano nearby.  

When I say active, I mean active. There is smoke and ash rising out of the volcano, and when you drive to the lip of it, you are instructed to back your car into a spot (in case it erupts and you need to flee).  It was a  pretty amazing sight although Jess likened our 20 minutes there to smoking six packs of sulfur flavored cigarettes.  Yum.

From the volcano, we headed to Catalina, a very small town with a gorgeous view of the lagoon and the volcano.  

Jess went about 20 feet away to take a picture and when she turned around she didn't see me.  
That would be because I was immediately adopted by a Nicaraguan family!  I met aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, sons and daughters...I was offered some sort of beverage that was undoubtedly made with the Nicaraguan water I was trying to avoid, but when in Rome...

We spent a really lovely afternoon talking with our new friends, exchanged Facebook information, and then Jess and I returned to Granada for dinner.  We met the cutest 11 year old boy who works on the streets selling gum and cigarettes.  His name was Gustavo.   I bought a pack of gum and gave him an extra dollar, and he was ecstatic at the thought of being able to buy himself a soda.  

The following day we did a little tour of the city and then hit the road to head to Leon.  Remember when we asked for directions 17 times on our way to Granada?  Well the return trip took all of 40 minutes since by then we had figured out the right road ha ha.  

Leon was my favorite city that we visited in Nicaragua.  It's a very progressive city, filled with students, art galleries, churches, and great bars and restaurants (well, mediocre but very satisfying bars and restaurants).  The oldest church in Central American is in Leon, the Basilica de la Asuncion.

Also, there is a gorgeous yellow Mexican style baroque church from 1786 called Iglesia de la Recoleccion.

Jess and I managed to find the local people's market (that's what I always call those street side markets that sell kid's underwear, buckets, bootleg CDs, etc.).  It was SO hot in Leon (95 degrees at least) that we hung out in the shade of the central park.   They had a carnival set up, and all of the rides were run by hand.  So picture Nicaraguan carnies actually hand spinning the ferris wheel (which incidentally the kids had to duck so as to not have their head smack the cart above them).  

That night Jess and I went out for a nice dinner and then went to see some live music.  The band was awesome, and we followed the Nicaraguan tradition of drinking their rum, Flor de Cana.  They bring you a bottle, a mixer, a box of ice, and two glasses.  Rum is cheaper than bottled water btw.  Well after a few drinks Jess decided that one of the waiters looked like the Nicaraguan version of Vince Vaughn.  You be the judge of that...

The following day was our "beach day".  We headed out of town and picked up two hitchhikers (backpackers) who needed to go to the beach too.  We dropped them off at a hostel with hammocks and all I could think was that I am definitely too old to stay in places that are $4 a night!  Our hotel had recommended we go to Playa Roca in Las Penitas.  We imagined renting a chair and umbrella, swimming in the gentle water, eating fresh fish tacos.  Instead, we laid on hard brown sand, hurt our feet walking over rocks into strong waves, and ate some sort of greasy chicken and potatoes for lunch.  However, typical for this trip, at the end of the day we were blissfully happy!  There is something about the vibe of Nicaragua, and having spent a day getting tan and salty that does a body good.  The beach was not crowded at all, and the Nicaraguans were all swimming in their clothes, so pale Emily and Jess really stuck out!

On our way back to Leon for dinner we stopped for gas.  $50 later (for a Hyundai Accent!) I realized why so few people have cars, and why there are 27 people in every pickup truck, and why a horse and cart is still a viable transportation option.  How can someone who earns $3 a day afford gas?

After our day at the beach, we thought we would treat ourselves to a really nice deal.  Our guidebook recommended a restaurant called La Mediterranea.  Strangely, the review read, "Date night?...".  I am not sure who is going on dates in Nicaragua with Lonely Planet as their guide, but regardless we went.  It was so funny.  The waiters could not have been more disorganized.  We joked that they were all impostors off the street who came in to randomly wait on tables.  The food wasn't good.  And we got a piece of chocolate cake to share that was probably six years old.  When the waiter came over we told him it wasn't good at all.  He took it away and brought it back in a bag and told us the chef said it is good, and we should take it and have it for breakfast tomorrow!  I guess the concept of "taking it off the bill" is uniquely American :)  We laughed so hard at the idea that the cake would be better after six years and one day ;)

Our last full day was spent in Matagalpa, an urban yet remote town in the coffee-growing region of Nicaragua.  Everyone told us it was "muy frio" (cold) there.  We were so excited to actually not be sweaty for a day and maybe even have good hair.  Um, it was 85.  It did cool down at night.  Our day in Matagalpa was pretty relaxing and we just walked around the city and went to the Castillo de Cacao (Chocolate Castle).  Sadly production was shut down for the holidays but we did bring some bars back for gifts.  I apologize in advance, because it is likely mediocre ;)

Overall, it was an awesome trip.  Everyday was strangely satisfying, and it was a good mix of adventure and relaxation.  I came back ready for 2012!  Happy New Year everyone!

 

Syrian Sojourn...

Ahhh...where to begin...

There is so much to go into this posting...so many adventures, mishaps, history...I hope my words and pictures can do it justice!

It all begin with an easy, on-time flight to JFK to meet Wendi to start our adventure to Syria.  When I told people I was going on vacation to Syria, everyone wanted to know one thing: Why?  For some reason, I've been fascinated with Syria for years.  Syria is home to some of the oldest, continuously inhabited towns in the world.  It's history spans thousands of years, countless civilizations, rulers, wars...all the stuff a great epic novel is made of.  We're talking Crusader castles, Roman ruins, Christian churches, Muslim mosques...Whether or not it's true, there is a story that the Prophet Mohammed saw Damascus from a nearby mountainside and refused to enter because he wanted to enter paradise only once, when he died.  Unfortunately Wendi and I almost didn't make it when our flight to Istanbul was delayed four hours!

Waiting at the gate, it became clear that our plane was mostly filled with Orthodox Jewish families heading to Israel.  One family was literally 35 people.  I was mesmerized by the men in their suits and tophats, and the young wives with their wigs and children.  Boarding the plane, Wendi and I were sat in the midst of them all.  It was like a social event...the aisles were packed with people chatting and gossiping all night long.  A video would drown them out, you say?  Well yes, if the in-flight entertainment was working, which it was NOT.  Wendi sat next to a man who alternately looked out the window while covering his head with a blanket and played the drums on his iPod touch with his thumbs.  Strangely, although the menu promised dinner to be vegetarian canneloni, it was covered in meat sauce.  And breakfast included pork sausage!  Serving pork to a plane full of Jews on their way to the Middle East is a bit odd, to say the least.  It was off to a rocky start. 

Shockingly, the flight passed quickly and before we knew it, we were booking through the Istanbul airport trying desperately to make our connecting flight.  When we got to our departure hall, the entire hall was a throng of people - no line, no order whatsoever...we just had to push our way through and funnel down to four security lines.  We made our flight with not a minute to spare!  I don't remember the last time I was so grateful.

Arriving into Damascus, we got our backpacks from baggage claim (they made it!) and headed outside to get a taxi.  He spoke no English (a common theme here).  We told him repeatedly the name of our hotel (Afamia) and after half an hour, we pulled up to a medieval building called something along the lines of Atlandia Hotel.  An argument ensued where he wanted more money to take us where we needed to go, and we finally gave in and paid him and got dropped off.  Afamia Hotel was a midrange hotel...not nice enough to write home about, but nor did we have to shower with our shoes on (that comes later!).  Although we were tired, we dragged ourselves into the streets of Damascus.

Having heard about the Damascus souq (bazaar), we headed there.  You have to pass through the Old City walls to enter the souq.  Although the Old City dates back to the 15th century BC, the current walls and gates are "new" (13th century).  There we found people out in full force...wandering the lanes, selling towels, linens, sugar holders, lingerie, mosaics, etc.  The souq is covered with a metal roof but you can see bullet holes leftover from when the French bombed Damascus with artillery in 1925.  People looked curiously at us as we walked along Straight St., but as we've found all over the country, theirs is a reserved friendliness.

We had an excellent dinner that night at a restaurant in the souq called Al-Khawali.  Spicy hummous and fresh bread to start, fresh strawberry juice, followed by shish taouk (chicken kebob) for me and some baby leg of lamb in broth for Wendi.  For dessert, they brought plates of fresh figs (delicious!), grapes, and a plate of probably 40 miniature pistachio cookies.  We were so satiated that we walked off the food and fell into bed.  By this time I had been traveling for 32 hours.  Impressive.

Friday was our first full day in Damascus and we slept late, which was ok since that is the day of rest here.  The souqs were mostly empty but we went to the Umayyad Mosque which is one of Islam's most important buildings.  It is third in sanctity only to Mecca and Medina.  Originally built in the 9th century BC for Hadad, it was later devoted to Jupiter by the Romans, then became a Christian church when Constantine embraced Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire, then had Christian and Muslims worship side by side when the Muslims entered Damascus in 636 AD...Finally it was turned into today's mosque - built over a 10 year period by 10,000 workers and costing seven years of taxes from all of Syria.  It's a beautiful mosque with a spacious, open courtyard, showcasing the mosaics that adorn the the walls. 

After the mosque, we let ourselves get lost among the wandering lanes...where flowers and vines grow over top off of balconies, and if you peer through gates or the occasional open door, you get a glimpse of gorgeous courtyards and intricate architecture.  We ate in a restaurant called Takaya, sitting in their open air courtyard by a fountain...having our standard hummous and fresh fruit juice.  We were totally unhassled and could take our time browsing the various artisan's stands.  It was an awesome first day.

 

Saturday we were up early and we put on our backpacks and hoofed it to the local Europcar office.  As I've found in most of the Middle East, street names mean nothing and are not really known by the locals.  Although I rented a car online and chose the least expensive car, they ecstatically told us multiple times that we were getting a Volvo S40.  It's really nice...manual, with leather seats and even a CD player!  Miraculously, we navigated our way out of Damascus on the correct road...imagine a three lane road that is turned into a four lane game of dodge-car...with taxis and tall, narrow trucks darting in and out of the lanes, and of course stopping wherever they feel like it.  I love the chaos!

Our plan was to head east to Palmyra, Syria's most popular tourist destination.  Palmyra (called Tadmor by locals) is a sprawling archaeological site from the 2nd century AD.  Imagine you're driving along dusty, desert terrain...and suddenly you come upon a lush oasis and tall columns and temples rising out of the desert sand.  It's pretty unbelievable.  It sort of reminded me of Ephesus in Turkey.  Palmyra has a rich and long history (which I won't go into here) but in 634 it was basically lost.  It wasn't until 1678 that it was rediscovered and since then, archaeologists have been painstakingly excavating the site.  I hope my pictures do it justice.  After checking out the ruins, we ate sandwiches on a terrace overlooking the ruins and then got back on the road. 

 

 
  

Our drive took us along lost villages and camel herds (I've never seen so many camels in one place) and Bedouin camps and rocky terrain until suddenly everything was green, and we knew we were in the Orontes Valley. 

We miraculously drove directly into Homs, the 3rd largest city in Syria and known to have the friendliest locals.  Our hotel (touted in the guidebook as "modern and spotlessly clean") was anything but!  The first room they showed us was unique - if you sat on the toilet, your legs were in the bathtub!  Their marketing materials claim (re-typed exactly as it reads in the brochure):

"In the center down town of Homs, city which moderate the Syrian city, Lord suite Hotel located in the centre of the city by its lovely overlook at at the bazaars with oriental and western style to give a satisfaction and good mood.  The Lord hotel has a beautiful design and gentle furniture for all its sweets, single and double.  In additional the eastern and wonderfull atmosphere the customers can feel".

Um.....we checked in and it was pretty much a dump.  The porter kept offering me a massage and trying to get me alone...there were red napkins strategically placed around the room like doilies...it smelled suspiciously like some scented spray was masking the dirt...so we immediately headed out.  We actually went to a bar in a hotel and had a few local beers and snacked on cucumber with lime juice and peanuts.  Around 11 we got in a taxi to take us back to our hotel and asked our driver to stop for falafel sandwiches on the way.  Ok, I use the word "ask" loosely...we repeated "falafel" multiple times and mimed stuffing our faces.  He got it, and we found ourselves in a local falafel shop.  I handed over 2 US dollars, which apparently paid for FIVE sandwiches.  Thankfully the driver was hungry too!  The sandwiches were delicious...pita stuffed with falafel and mint leaves and tahini and pickles.  He took us back to our hotel and both rides, including waiting time, cost one dollar.  We gave him a 100% tip and he was so sweet, telling us we were part of his heart (this is me extrapolating his holding of his heart and kind smile).  We can see why the people in Homs are known as the friendliest.

Strangely, Wendi and I woke up the following day at 4:30 am.  We've never had jetlag on a trip so we didn't know what was going on.  Around 7 we finally got up.  I showered (while wearing shoes) and we went downstairs to have breakfast.  Cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, olives and Nescafe.  Yum.  A savory breakfast person's dream! 

The souq in Homs is known to be one of Syria's most attractive but unfortunately most shops were closed when we were there :( But we walked around in that area and ran our errands (buying water and going to an ATM since 99% of the places in Syria do not accept credit cards.  Might I add here that my credit card was turned off for some reason and Wendi's ATM card won't work, so we're pretty much batting a thousand).

We checked out in early afternoon and hit the road again, heading to the town of Hama.  The road north to Hama was lined by these odd-looking leaning trees.  Hama is apparently one of Syria's most beautiful towns, with the Orontes River flowing through the city center.  There are norias, or water wheels, that still function in Spring and Summer, carrying water via aquaducts to irrigate fields.  It feels very old.  Sadly, Hama is also known for the massacre in 1982, when the Muslim Brotherhood declared Hams a liberated city and spoke out against the Ba'ath government and removed goverment officials from their homes.  The government retaliated by shelling the city and killing between 10,000 and 40,000 people, while also destroying countless buildings.

 

Let me give you a political rundown on Syria.  I find it so fascinating.

Syria's 18.5 million people are 90% Muslim and 10% Armenian and Greek Orthodox.  Syria, in theory, is a Republic but one book we read said it's more like a militarily enforced dictatorship.  The country was led by Hafez al-Asad for a long time, who was grooming his oldest son Basil to succeed him as President.  When Basil died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar, the younger son who was living in London and working as an opthalmologist, returned to Syria.  When Hafez died in 2000, Bashar, then aged 34, won the election with 97% of the vote (ironic it wasn't 100% since no one could run against him).  President Bashar promised that the press would be more open, started releasing prisoners, began allowing mobile phone networks, and opened universities.  He even supposedly helped the US after 9/11 by handing over files on extremists.  But in 2002, the neocons put Syria on the axis of evil list and President Bashar started putting the lockdown on the people of Syria once again. 

Syria has few friends - most notably Iran, Russia and Hezbollah (out of Lebanon).  The US helped boot Syria out of Lebanon in 2005 after a car bomb killed Lebanon's premier Hariri.  There are not enough jobs in Syria (unemployment hovers around 20% and you know we are BITCHING right now with 10-15% unemployment in the US) and a quarter of Syrians live below poverty.  In fact, the only people who are poorer in the Middle East are the Yemenis. 

What's wonderful is that Syrian people are open and friendly and have been so warm and hospitable to us.  They welcome us when they hear we are American (although they are usually surprised since most Americans don't travel here.  They give us thumbs up for Obama :)  And all are able to discern the different between US public policy and American people.  We feel completely safe.

What will be interesting to see is how long President Bashar Asad remains President.  The socialist Ba'ath party dominates the goverment and it is quite secular.  Arab nationalism is important while religion isn't as much.  But the Asad family leans towards the Shia sect and most Syrians are Sunni.  Which brings me full circle back to 1982 when the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the goverment in Hama and were crushed and run out of town.

Back to Hama...we found the most amazing hotel in Hama called the Orient Hotel.  It's an Ottoman mansion with so much character.  Imagine tiled mosaic floors, a large courtyard with a fountain, leafy plants all around.  The proprieter told us that a former Syrian President once lived there.  It wasn't clear who that was.  The Orient Hotel was not very central - it was in a side alley outside of the city center so after driving around aimlessly for a good half hour, we finally paid a taxi driver to let us follow him there!  He thought it was hilarious.  When he pulled into the alley and we saw the hotel, I was so relieved and exhilerated that I stopped paying attention and I hit a parked van!!!  The side mirror of the Volvo popped off!  That definitely took my excitement down a notch, but the nice van owner came over and fixed the mirror with a smile.  I have never been so glad to park and leave the car.

We ate in the restaurant of our Ottoman mansion (Wendi ordered vegetables and rice and we thought she got a bowl of carrots, but no, it was carrots and french fries that were dyed orange!) and took a nap before heading to the city center.  We strolled along the Orontes River and saw the water wheels.  There was, sadly, a bad stench of sewage.  There was also quite a bit of garbage in the water.  But it was a full moon so Wendi and I went to a cafe and had a drink outside while overlooking the water.  Naturally it was the two of us, some younger men, and some older men playing backgammon.  Our original plan was to eat at a nice hotel by the river but as we passed this hole-in-the-wall rotisserie chicken restaurant, it smelled so good that we went in.  What a feast we had!  They brought us cucumber and tomato salad, hummous, baba ganoush, saffron rice, pita and a half chicken each.  I swear we didn't speak for 30 minutes while we stuffed outselves with the best chicken I have ever tasted.  It was awesome.  It's always the local places that have the best food! 

The following morning, after showering in our super clean and wonderful Ottoman mansion bathroom (it's the little things that matter while traveling in a developing country!) we had breakfast downstairs and then went out to the car.  I realized my little iHome (portable iPod player that is a savior on these road trips) was still up in our room so I ran up to get it.  When I got to the room, the door was cracked open so I figured the cleaning woman was in there.  Nope, one of the men from the hotel was sitting on the edge of Wendi's bed reading our trashy Life & Style magazine!  Well, reading is probably not accurate, but he was likely looking at the half naked pictures of the "Dancing with the Stars" people who all lost 10 pounds by eating two almonds every three hours, or something like that.  Practically porn in Syria!

Laughing and with our iHome in the car, we put on some tunes and managed to navigate out of the town.  We were headed east, passing rocky terrain, Bedouin tents, small mudhut villages, tractors, sheep herders, lime trees, brightly colored trucks...all to visit some beehive villages (Twalid'Dabaghien and As'srouj).  These beehive houses are these crazy cone shaped structures that are all over the area.  Luckily Wendi and I are not shy in the least, because there were very few road signs and the ones we did come across were only in Arabic!  So we have become adept at pulling over constantly, wishing people hello in Arabic, pointing at something on the map, pretending to understand the directions, saying thank you in Arabic, wishing the people well in Arabic, and going on our way until we find some other unsuspecting soul on the side of the road.  Well, as we neared the first beehive village, we asked a man directions and he hopped in our backseat.  He was probably in his 40s, wearing a long robe and a red and white checked head scarf.  He took us to his friend's beehive house (no joke) where we sat with him and his family and drank tea and looked at pictures.  There were two adorable kids there too - the three year old loved having his picture taken and then seeing the picture on the digital camera.  I love these random experiences!

 

 

As it was only early afternoon when we finally left the beehive house, we decided to continue east and visit Qasr'Ibn Warden, a sandstone palace church. 

It was sort of dilapidated but pretty nonetheless.  Afterward, we noticed on the map that there were some local ruins in Allandarin.  We turned when the sign said "Allandarin 4 km", and drove 4 km until...the road ended.  Literally, the pavement stopped at the 4 km mark and a sand dune began. 

We took it as a sign to turn back and got SO lost in the Syrian countryside!  Which proved once again that being off the beaten track is where you meet the best people.  We were helped by women planting seeds in a field...

men on motorcycles...

and whole families on the side of the road...

We attempted to use the sun to determine what direction we were driving.  People in the back of trucks waved at us, some people attempted to lead us to the right road...just amazing hospitality in general.  We were invited in for coffee and food at various stops (but politely declined since we had no idea when we would get back to Hama and it gets dark here around 6).  Wendi finally had the brilliant idea to look up Hama in Arabic and we decided it looked like "olas" in Arabic and could read it on the occasional street sign and made our way back into town.  It was the best adventure!

Dinner that night was (how could it not be?) the awesome chicken place.  They remembered us and it was just as good the second time!  After dinner we tried the special dessert of Hama, called Hakiwat bi djeben, which is a sweet, stringy cheese that is rolled into dough, stuffed with clotted cream, and lightly drizzled with honey and pistacchios.  Once we got over the consistency, it wasn't bad.

The following day we got up early, ate breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and hit the road again.  This time we were headed to Lattakia, an affluent (in Syria) and liberal town on the Mediterranean.  We took a very roundabout way there, through the mountains.  The view outside the car was beautiful...rich, brown soil and bright, green trees, and mountainous villages. 

 

 

Let me point out that until this day, we had been experiencing hot and sunny days, with not a cloud in the sky.  And naturally we were in Lattakia when it was overcast and had rained earlier in the day.

We found a really nice hotel in Lattakia called the Riviera.  It was also in an old, atmospheric building.  The woman at the front desk could not have been friendlier.  We asked her if there were any restaurants in Lattakia serving makhlooba (a delicious rice and chicken and eggplant dish we had tried in Wadi Musa, Jordan when our hotelkeeper Ibrahim's mom cooked it for us) and she said, "It is much better prepared by a woman in her home.  I see if my sister cook it for you".  Next thing we knew, the chef was making it specially for us, and we were upgraded to a suite.  Awesome.

Sadly because of the weather we could not swim in Lattakia.  But we were able to check out the downtown and get online.  Then we returned to the hotel for our feast of makhlooba.  It was as good as the first time.  A heaping bowl of rice, chicken, eggplant, pine nuts, almonds and spices...just awesome.  After a nap (seems to be a common theme here!  Hey, we're on vacation!) we went back to the downtown area of Lattakia.  You can sense how liberal Lattakia is...women walk around in tank tops and skirts.  We wandered around a bit, had a coffee, had dinner on a terrace overlooking the busy street, and had our best night's sleep that night.  It was like the week had caught up with us.

Although Riviera Hotel was really nice, the bathtub was a little alarming.  Wendi asked me to come in the bathroom when we first arrived because "there's a machine in here that looks like what they have in banks to count bills".  Hilariously, there really was.  This random machine was on the counter with a tube that led into the tub.  We skipped the shower and hit the road yet again to head to Aleppo.  Three hours of hair-raising mountainous turns (passing trucks) later, and reading sreet signs in Arabic (Aleppo looks like a sailboat) we rolled into town.

Aleppo is Syria's second largest town and also claims to be the longest continuously inhabited town in the world.  It was one of the key stops on the Silk Road and still seems like an old Arabian city.  The Old City is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site and will never be modernized.

Wendi and I decided to treat ourselves and went to the Sheraton Hotel.  Which was booked.  As was the hotel they recommended to us.  Well, luckily this second hotel took pity on us and called SIX hotels around Aleppo before finding one with one room left.  It's called Ramsis Hotel and it's directly across the street from the historic Baron Hotel, which used to be THE place to stay in Aleppo.  Agatha Christie wrote "Murder on the Orient Express" from the Baron Hotel.  But it looks very dilapidated while our hotel is nice and modern and clean.  Wendi and I are pretty scared that we are becoming adults, wanting nice hotels and all that.  It's a big fear!

After dumping our bags, we found a local restaurant and sat in the courtyard and had our usual chicken and hummous and salad meal.  It was good but couldn't compare to our place in Hama.  But the waiter was so nice...he didn't speak a word of English but he brought only our table a vase of flowers and was very smiley and attentive :)

After lunch we wandered around Al Jdeida, part of the old city that is the Christian and Armenian quarter.  There are small and winding cobblestone streets, vaulted ceilings, and churches side by side with mosques.  We browsed in some shops and met some nice locals.

The following day was our big day to visit the Aleppo souqs.  The souq is not as extensive as either the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul or the Khan al-Khalili in Cairo, but it feels more authentic.  This is still where Aleppans come to shop for what they need - be it clothes, a broom, nuts, coffee, soap, fabric, etc.  There is not a lot for tourists.  The only items that one could buy are really silver, gold, olive oil soap, and nargileh pipes.  Walking through you feel like it could be a few hundred years ago. 

 

 

There are old houses, madrassas, mosques and hammams tucked back behind the walls of the souq.  The small and winding lanes are so colorful and traditionally dressed men and women pick through the merchandise and make small talk with the sellers.  The women in Aleppo are probably the most covered of anywhere we have been so far.  I'm almost uncomfortable in a t-shirt (showing my arms).  We had lunch on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Great Mosque.  The whole day passed while Wendi and I put the guide book away and wandered wherever we felt like it.  Unlike the souqs in Cairo and Istanbul, we were relatively left alone here.  Some notable exceptions...the guy who walked along us saying "France?  England?  You look like Dutch?  Australia?  England?" and the guy who said, "Come and look at my junk.  It's very bad quality and very expensive".  You can't not laugh!

After we washed the dirt off of ourselves (it's very dusty here) we went to eat dinner at a rooftop restaurant near our hotel.  Once again, it was Emily, Wendi and local men.  And of course we had grilled chicken and salad and hummous.  We also had some Almaza beer that we had first tried in Lebanon.  From there we went to our hotel restaurant to have some tea, and ended up talking to our waiter Firas.  He is so sweet...his English isn't great but he told us "The Syrian people like very much American people but I know the American people no like Syrians".  We weakly protested this, but considering we have seen three Americans here the entire time, he may be right. 

Which brings me to the topic of tourists.  The only tourists here seem to be elderly French, Spanish and Italian.  It's this weird phenomenon that Wendi and I can't get our heads around.  People retire and then head to Syria?  Is it because they are on fixed incomes?  The three Americans we have met have been an awkward old man who approached us in Lettakia to tell us he has never seen another American here, a man sleeping on the couch in the lobby of our nice hotel in Aleppo (the concierge conspiratorally told me he was American by miming a snoring man and saying "American" - I was mortified) and this interesting character named Jeff we met on the street after eating at the rooftop, who is a firefighter in Washington state and traveling alone for three weeks.  He was wanderning around at 9 pm without a map, looking for a hotel, and stopped us.  Within five minutes he told us that he travels with only a carry-on, said he needed to wash his underwear, took our picture, and asked us if we had good jobs to be able to travel.  Naturally Wendi and I almost offered him our extra bed in our hotel room but maybe we are getting a little classier, because we held back, and just had fun talking about him over tea :)

We decided to take another roadtrip the following day.  We hit the road around 10:30 am and headed due east, toward Halabiyya, also known as Zenobia. 

It's a fortress town about 50 miles from the border of Iraq.  It's originally from the year 272.  To get there, we passed through what is likely the poorest part of Syria. 

We passed farmers, sheep herders, trucks piled impossibly high with goods, women and children and goats packed tightly together in the beds of trucks...I couldn't help but wonder if Syria's President, who lived in London, goes to this part of his country and feels that his land is prosperous.  As Wendi said when we reached the villages surrounding the ruins, "This is where Jesus would have lived".  It was very primitive and you could imagine Jesus kicking it there today.  Zenobia has no information, no admission fee...nothing.  You just pass through these villages and come upon the ruins.  Of course the children in the villages were waving at us and we stopped and took pictures and pseudo-chatted with them. 

Zenobia is on the Euphrates River, which was the main purpose of the trip.  "Euphrates" means "gentle current" in Greek, and is mentioned in the Book of Revelation and by the Prophet Mohammed.  It starts north of Syria in Turkey only 80 km away from the Tigris and they actually meet up in souther Iraq.  The word "Mesopotamia" actually means "between rivers". 

 

 

 

Strangely, the Book of Revelation says that when the Euphrates dries up, Armegeddon will happen.  And Mohammed says that the river will dry up and widespread war will follow.  I'm just glad we had a chance to see it, and I seriously hope neither of those instances occur...

On our way back to Aleppo, we swung by Lake Al-Assad.  This is a man made lake that was made in the 1960s by damming the Euphrates, in order to provide power for irrigation and hydroelectric power.  Strangely, you have to pass by a military checkpoint to reach the lake.  The hotel still had our passports so we had to give them our licenses and endure 25 questions about our life.  We figured it was preparing us for going through immigration in the US :)

We rolled back in town as the sun set, passing the usual characters on the road.  Wendi is the best co-pilot and somehow we manage to learn our way around these new towns really quickly!

Saturday was our final day of vacation.  Ok, remember when I said Wendi and I were concerned that we were getting high class and classy?  Well that ended when Jeff (the firefighter from Washington) called our hotel room at 9 am and woke us up.  He wondered if he could hitch a ride to Damascus (we had loosely offered this on the street the night we met him).  We figured at the very least it would give us some good stories for our 26 hour trip home!  So he met us in the hotel lobby at noon, and when Wendi attempted to pay the bill, she realized she did not have her credit card.  So off the three of us went in search of her card.  We got it back from the restaurant where they had forgotten to return it to her, and the three of us went to a classic Aleppan restaurant.  It was delicious!  Wendi and Jeff ate SHEEP (and later when we passed a herd of them Wendi called out, "Hello sheep!  Yum, I ate you for lunch!").  Finally around 2 pm we hit the road.

Our first stop was supposed to be the Dead Cities of Jerada and Ruweiha.  The Dead Cities are ancient ghost towns scattered among the limestone hills between Aleppo and Hama.  There are about 600 sites in the area!  The big question is why they were abandoned.  Unfortunately we happened to pass these two cities.  But Wendi, being the great co-pilot she is, realized that there were some others that were ahead of us.  We pulled off the highway (and I use this term loosely, as there are no exit or entrance ramps, just tractors and motorcycles and slow trucks that pull on and off as they see fit!) and attempted to find these towns.  We asked some young boys on motorcycles and they led us around winding one lane roads to this amazing Dead City named Bauda.

Proving that everything always works out in the end, Bauda was PHENOMENAL!  It's on the north-south trade route between Antioch and Apamea.  In the 4th century AD it was a flourishing town, surrounded by grape and olive trees.  Even when the trade route shifted, this area prospered.  Unfortunately, nearby was the site of a gruesome act by the Crusaders in 1098.  The Crusaders stormed nearby Ma'arat an-Nu'aman and killed thousands of people.  But they didn't stop there.  Afterwards, they boiled adults in cooking pots and impaled and grilled children...then EATING the bodies. 

The rest of the drive with our new friend Jeff was mostly uneventful.  Ok, so he might have commented on my driving a few times.  He may have asked how many speeding tickets I have.  He might have suggested I slow down.  Perhaps he once yelled it from the backseat.  But Wendi agrees with me...I'm good on the road!  There are no street lights on the roads here so once it got dark, I was just thankful for my good night vision.  Funny note here - I think Wendi and I saw two women driving the entire time we were here.  So imagine the look on people's faces when they passed us (or more likely, when I passed them) and there were two chicks in the front seat.  And it was even more priceless when we made our 50 year old male guest sit in the back!  Men are alwaaaays in the front.

As luck would have it (or as we like to think, we are deserving of good karma) we rolled into Damascus and immediately got our bearings.  We dropped Jeff off near the souqs and navigated directly to the Europcar office.  Where naturally, the guy who checked us in with our car was a complete freak.  Within a 30 minute period of time, he told us how lucky he was to meet us ten times, hit on both of us, told us he has psychological problems, and begged us to listen to him play the piano while he bought us a drink.  Ummm, no thanks.  He also told us he is a Palestinian refugee, and said we probably don't know anything about when Israel stole their land.  We told him we actually know a lot about the history of the Middle East.  He responded that in the US our news is biased and we don't get the real news (partly true).  We then responded that we know both sides of the story.  He said "There are not two sides of the story!  They stole our land".  We nodded and booked it out of there...

So we narrowly made our escape (no charges for dents and we drove 2000 HARD kilometers, let me tell you) and headed to the New Town of Damascus.  It could not be more different from the Old City where we spent our first two nights.  There are French clothing stores, boutiques, bars, modern restaurants and high end confectionary shops.  We did the usual Emily/Wendi thing and got absurdly lost and talked to about 20 people before finding a great cafe for a leisurely dinner.  We didn't have to leave for the airport until after midnight to start the long trip home.

The trip home was agonizing, honestly.  A two hour flight to Istanbul, a four hour layover, an eleven hour flight to NY, a three hour layover, and finally a flight to DC.  I was up for 41 hours and only slept two!  Thankfully the trip was more than worth it!

Adventures in Jordan and Lebanon!

There are definitely some common themes on my blog. 1. Long postings. 2. Sketchy hotels. 3. Insane adventures. I have a feeling this posting will live up to all that you would expect, and then some!  

Where do I begin? Well, on Saturday the 20th of December I got in the car and headed for JFK airport in NY, to meet Wendi and Jess there for our direct flight to Amman, Jordan (actually called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan). That was the plan anyway. Unfortunately due to the winter weather from Friday, Jess' flight from St. Louis to JFK was delayed two days! How crappy is that?!

I spent the afternoon with my cousins Jason, Lydia and their son Tyler before heading to JFK to meet Wendi. She got to the airport ten minutes before me, checked in, headed through security, and went to the gate. Naturally they closed all security lines five seconds later and I had a horrific experience. I had just enough time to have a beer with her and then we waited for our flight.

We boarded the full flight which wasn't full. They told us we were waiting for 20 more people. Apparently after about an hour they decided those people were not important and we got in a two hour long de-icing line. We didn't actually take off until 1 am! The flight attendants were all blatantly hitting on people and Wendi was chatted up by a flight attendant with suspiciously moussed hair. We got a first class kit out of the deal! But with the help of a shared Ambien and as much food as Delta can stuff in your face, the flight passed really quickly and we arrived to Amman around 6 pm on Sunday. The whole thing was really uneventful, really, other than being told we could not stand up or go to the bathroom as we passed over "disputed territory". Israel, perhaps?

Wendi had arranged a hotel for the first night and they sent a taxi for us. He drove us the 45 minutes to central Amman, and all around we could see palm trees and gorgeous architecture (white stucco, balconies, gates) that made us really feel like we were in the Middle East. We went to our hotel called "Palace Hotel". In the guidebook it's touted as being clean, comfortable, with A/C and satellite tv. In reality? One of the scariest places I've ever stayed - and you know that means it's SCARY! No toilet paper, no towels, no shower curtain. We never took our shoes off. But we didn't know where else to go because Wendi had accidentally left the Jordan guidebook (checked out from the NYC Public Library no less) on the plane! But we figured Jess would be arriving in two days and we would have her book.

Our hotel was so gross that even with our jetlag we dropped our bags and hit the streets. We figured we'd find some dinner. As we were walking down an alley, a man at a falafel stand stuck pieces of falafel in our hands. They were delicious so we agreed to have a falafel sandwich and a Fanta with him and his two friends. They refused to let us pay! They took us to a "bar" to have a drink - the bar was basically a hidden room off the street that was filled with men drinking scotch and chain-smoking. Of course two American girls were a bit hit there. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, but it did feel slightly odd so we didn't stay long.

We wandered around the city and saw the Roman Coliseum that is in the middle of downtown. Everywhere we walked, everyone said "hello" and "welcome!". After sort of sleeping in the nasty hotel, we had quite a good breakfast. They eat pita, butter, jam, hard-boiled eggs, nescafe, tomatoes, olives and cucumbers. It's a great way to start the day. The hotel reception told us they could find us a rental car so they called "Ali". Ali rolled up in a 2005 Chevy Aveo with 130,000 km on the odometer. Apparently it is built in China and it was sort of a beater! Have you ever driven a car that seems like it has possibly never had service? That's how this felt! But we navigated out of Amman...it was complete chaos with people randomly walking into the street, cars/trucks/buses stopping without warning, no one using turn signals, and two lane roads are more like four lane motorcross courses. I love it, naturally!

Our first stop was a town about 50 km from Amman called Madaba. It's a mosaic city that is famous for it's colorful rugs. Madaba has been inhabited for 4,500 years! We saw the sights there and then went for a late lunch. It was one of the most delicious meals! We had labenah (thick yogurt with spices), fatteh (fried bread, garlicky yogurt, chicken and hummous) and a salad of chickpeas and mushrooms. We also had a glass of local wine. We figured we could spend some time in Jordan with meals like that!

After lunch, we rolled out to the car and drove to Mt. Nebo, on the way to the Dead Sea, with wonderful views of the Promised Land. It's hilly and rocky and you can see Bedouins camped out along the way. People in cars and trucks waved to us constantly. There were various police checkpoints along the way and the police would say "hello and welcome!" and then wave us along.

After passing "The Baptism Site" (and I mean Jesus, not just any old baptism!), we arrived to the Dead Sea.  When we got there (sans guidebook) we had no idea where to stay. It was surprisingly undeveloped, with miles and miles of coastline. You know in the US that would be filled with Mariotts and McDonalds! But we ended up spending one night at the extremely nice Movenpick Hotel. The saddest thing is that we couldn't swim in the Dead Sea - it was too cold. Due to the sea being four times as salty as a normal ocean, there are only three types of bacteria that can survive. I wanted to check out the floatability (is that a word? or do I mean bouyancy?) but we could only sit beside it and have the local beer, Amstel, brewed in Jordan! Interestingly, The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth.

We slept really well in our comfy rooms, had an awesome breakfast, weathered a fire alarm/evacuation, checked out and headed back to Amman to pick up Jess from the airport. As we pulled out from the Movenpick, Wendi said, "We should really check our email and make sure that Jess' flight wasn't delayed again due to bad weather". I didn't think that was possible, but I agreed. After looking for an internet cafe and even checking if the police station would let us use their computers (they didn't have computers but they were very friendly and invited us in to sit down and have a chat!) we ended up back at the Movenpick. Horrible news awaited us - Jess was not coming. Weather had canceled her flight again and when she was rerouted through another city, the pilot didn't show up. Can you imagine? It was so horrible to even contemplate...for us and for her. The entire trip has consisted of us periodically sighing and saying "oh, poor Jess".

Instead of heading north to Amman, we headed south along the scenic King's Highway to Petra. We drove along the Dead Sea, through the mountains, past Karak Castle...through various villages and towns and the ever present police checkpoints...and then we reached a detour. 30 minutes past the detour, we are on an unmarked road (I called it a cowpath but Wendi said I was being dramatic) in the darkening late afternoon and I am starting to feel nervous! 30 minutes later, we are at the exact same detour sign! This time we made sure to ask a lot of people and we were pointed in the right direction.

So after a five hour tour of Jordan, we pulled up to the Valley Stars Inn in Wadi Musa, 255 km south of Amman, where Moses supposedly drew water out of rocks. We felt that staying at this hotel was meant to be, since (without a guidebook) we had both been searching online for hotels in Petra and at the exact same time, suggested this one. It's run by a guy named Ibrahim who speaks perfect English and is a great businessman. He is one of 20 children. Yes, 20 children. All by one dad and two moms. I said, "Your moms must be great women!" and his reply was, "My dad is very powerful!". I guess it all depends on the perspective!

The following morning we woke up and headed to Petra, one of the new ancient Wonders of the World. It was cold and windy. But Petra was more amazing than I could have imagined. Yes, for those of you who have seen the Indiana Jones movies, Petra was featured in one of them. Wendi said it rivals Machu Picchu. You literally walk along some mountainous cliffs and then pass through a gorge entrance (es-Siq, 1,200 meters long with 80 meter tall cliffs on either side). Bedouins on donkeys and horses pass by offering rides (there is a ton of walking at Petra). The best slogan was, "No woman, no cry. No donkey, you die!".

We politely declined all forms of transportation, lowered our heads against the wind and blowing sand, and toured the site. The buildings carved into the walls are beyond incredible. Al Khazneh (The Treasury) is beyond imagination.

 

The tombs, the theaters...everything there defied logic. Petra was built by ancient Arab tribes, the Nabataeans, who came from the Arabian Peninsula 2,200 years ago. After the 14th century it was somehow lost until it was rediscovered in 1812. How this could be lost is beyond me.

I hope the pictures do it justice.

 

As you can imagine, we have run into very few American tourists on this trip. I think our favorites would have to be the American family on a guided tour of Petra. The guide was talking about the Bedouin lifestyle, of living in tents and moving when resources ran out, and the mom said, "Oh yes, that's like something we do in the US, called camping". Can you imagine comparing camping to a nomadic lifestyle? Wendi and I ran the other way before anyone would think we were from the same country...

After a day at Petra, we were windblown and exfoliated! We had heard a lot about a place called Wadi Rum (but having no book, had no idea what it was). It seemed to be about an hour away so we hopped in the Aveo and headed there. Wadi Rum is a nature preserve where they offer tours via camel and 4X4. We didn't have time to do that, having booked flights to Beirut for the following day, so we headed back to Wadi Musa, catching a phenomenal sunset along the way.

Now, granted, we are not the most inconspicuous of drivers in Amman. Two American chicks behind the wheel of an Aveo that is missing two hubcaps, has a cracked windshield, and is scratched and dented everywhere. But imagine our shock when we were pulled over on the road back to Wadi Musa by the police. They were smiling and friendly and miming that they had seen us going by in the opposite direction. Not surprising, since as I said, we don't look Jordanian. But imagine how shocked I was to find out that I had been speeding in the opposite direction and an hour later I was being pulled over for it! In typical Middle Eastern fashion, they could not have been nicer and even after we paid the $20 ticket we were all friends, waving and smiling.

We were so grateful to shower off the dust from Petra and eat a home-cooked meal made by Ibrahim's mother. She made magluba, a delicious chicken and rice and vegetable dish. Wendi and I swear we are going to find the recipe and attempt to make it. There was also mlazlh, a lamb and eggplant and cheese dish. All of this was accompanied by various salads. It was amazing.

That night, Ibrahim took us to the one bar in town, an Irish Pub nearby. We were drinking Petra beer, which our waiter "Joseph" (likely Yusef since he was Egyption) kept telling us "8%!" (alcohol content) every time he handed one over. We spent the first part of the evening talking to Ibrahim about life in Jordan. I didn't realize that Jordanians need visas for the Gulf states (due to the income disparity) but they can travel freely to Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Then I struck up a conversation with two guys next to me at the bar. They were Chad and Justin, two Americans who live in Kuwait doing security. Poor Justin had been nicknamed "Brokeback Petra" because when he accepted a horse ride at the site, his horse keeper jumped on the back of his horse.

We laughed with them for hours. They were so interesting and so fun to hang out with, and when the bar closed at midnight, even though we should have been exhausted, we still wanted to hang out. Luckily, the taxi driver they kept on retainer for the evening also wanted to continue the fun, and this is how we found ourselves spending Christmas Eve at a nargileh cafe. Emily, Wendi, Justin, Chad, Ibrahim and 14 other Jordanian men. Looking back, I can't tell you what specifically made it the best Christmas Eve on the road ever, but we had such a great time with them! I don't remember the last time I laughed like that night!

Christmas we were up kind of early (which was kind of painful after the drinking and nargileh smoking of the night before). We didn't know how long it would take to get to Amman so we wanted to have extra time. Thank god - it was such a gray and foggy and rainy day that the visibility while driving in the mountains was about 20 feet. As always, we had to stop ten times along the way to ask directions. Luckily we were guided to the more direct Desert Highway (instead of the scenic mountainous route) and we made it back to Amman with plenty of time to spare. We basically navigated ourselves directly to the disgusting Palace Hotel in downtown Beirut, and pretty much felt like rockstars for having done so!

We found a place to park the car and found a random restaurant for lunch (remember, no guide book!). When we walked in, we were ushered to a table. The menu was only in Arabic and no one spoke a word of English. Luckily we knew about magluba, the dish Ibrahim's mom had prepared for us. It was almost as delicious at this restaurant! They even packed us up some baklava to take with us.

I have to interject here that miming really works wonders for us. We have been forced to mime "hot", "cold", "airport" (arms waving), "We need toilet paper" (I let Wendi tackle that one and she really did squat and mime wiping), "winery" (we were directed to a supermarket so I suppose we got the drinking across but not correctly), "onion" (a cut and then wiping tears from your face)...it's quite impressive, really.

Anyway, we took a taxi to the airport and checked in for our flight to Beirut on Middle East Airlines. They ask you at check-in if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport because you're not allowed into Lebanon if you have a stamp. I was originally in row 3 (first class) but they switched me to row 22 with Wendi. It was so bizarre - the plane was mostly empty but all the passengers were clustered together in a few rows and no one moved seats! In the 50 minute flight they served a three course meal and dessert! What service - you definitely don't find that in the US anymore!

Let me give you some background on Lebanon. First of all, it's only half the size of Wales - my best guess is that it's about 80 miles north to south and 40 miles east to west! Lebanon was under French rule until 60 years ago. After gaining independance in 1943, it was unfortunately the site of a massive civil war from 1975-1990 which pitted Christians against Muslims. The country used to be 50% Muslim and 50% Christian and now it's more 60%/40%. Some Lebanese friends we met were telling Wendi about the war years, when bombs would drop and everyone would have to head into the mountains. One leftover relic from this time is the Holiday Inn in downtown Beirut which is structurally intact but still littered with bomb and sniper holes.

As Lebanon tried to recover from the Civil War, it was the site of the 2006 Israel vs. Hezbollah War. What makes the country so amazing is that even with this history, the people are overwhelmingly positive and so friendly, it's unreal. That being said, many Lebanese people want to leave Lebanon to work in the US, UK, Gulf States etc. in order to have the opportunity to earn better salaries. Supposedly the ratio of men to women is something like 1:5. Although the costs here seem to be pretty American (dinner for 2 is $30), salaries are not equal. You can have a live-in maid (Philippino, Indian or Ethiopian) for $200 a month. 

On a totally random note, did you know that the shoes that were thrown at Bush were by a Lebanese shoemaker. His business has increased exponentially! 

Ok, after that brief history lesson, back to our arrival in Beirut. Only Wendi and I would arrive to a new city and somehow find ourselves in a gypsy cab heading to the city center. It was pouring rain and late so we decided to take the night off and recover at our hotel in the Hamra area of Beirut. The Mayflower Hotel had nice rooms, nice bathroom, satellite tv...and flying spiders. Of course - we can't ever find a really nice place!!! 

Our first day we spent walking around the city. Beirutis make up 1.5 million of Lebanon's 4 million people, but the city is really walkable. We went to the American University of Beirut and wandered around the campus. The buildings are gorgeous and it overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.  There are really old, beautiful trees on the campus too.

From there we went to the Corniche, or seafront. We walked to the lighthouse and sat outside to have some hummous and a beer. Almost everyone speaks English and Arabic and French - switching back and forth in one conversation. People everywhere were smoking nargileh - it's quite a popular pasttime here. Our guidebook says that it is very culturally acceptable, but due to how long people sit and smoke it, some people can smoke the equivalent of 100 cigarettes in one session! We continued to walk along the Mediterranean and finally came upon Pigeon Rocks, these natural offshore rock arches.

The weather was sunny and warm (60s) which is phenomenal for December (in our opinion). We finished our walking tour on Rue Hamra, passing boutiques selling very nice clothes, jewelry, shoes and purses. People in Beirut are dressed to the nines! It's not uncommon to see a mom in a fur coat pushing a stroller with her child wearing a fur coat! It is such a cosmopolitan city.

That night, we followed the Lebanese mantra of "Clothes - less is more" and "Make-up - more is not enough" and got ready to go out on the town and meet Rania for drinks. Rania is a girl I met on couchsurfing.com which is a website my Spanish friend Susana turned me onto. You can meet up with local people from almost any city in the world. Rania suggested a bar on Gemmayzeh St, which is a street FILLED with bars and restaurants. After a few drinks at the place she suggested, we tried to go to another bar, but it was booked. We opted to go back to a place we had passed called "Biscuit" - which is probably 10 feet wide and 15 feet deep. It's run by Mounir (a Lebanese guy) and his Aussie wife Lynda. I have no idea how we were out until 4 am with them, but we tried every drink they had to offer and met their friends. In typical Lebanese hospitality, they arranged for us to get rides home and wouldn't even hear of us taking a taxi (which was so nice!).

The following morning Wendi was somehow up at 9:30 and hellbent on getting breakfast downstairs. I asked her to bring me back a piece of pita or a banana and went back to sleep. When I got up at 11, she wasn't back. I showered and got ready and took delivery of our rental car we had arranged the day before. At noon, it was time to check out and still no Wendi! I realized she had probably died and was sort of at a loss of what to do. Luckily she came back to the room at 12:15 and told me she had been downstairs the whole time, talking to the male version of her! She had no time to get ready, so we checked out and hopped in the car.

Let me preface this by saying that when we discussed renting a car in Lebanon everyone said, "WOW, really? Driving in Lebanon is kind of crazy. Are you sure?". I of course took this as a challenge. So we took our Skoda Fabia (a definite upgrade from the Aveo) and headed south. There are no traffic lights or stop signs in Beirut (remember, this is a city of 1.5 million!). Imagine a four way interesection of people going straight, turning left, and turning right from each direction. Well, you better be agressive and nose your way in, or you will never get through. It's not uncommon to see a car driving towards you in your lane! Wendi said that if she was supposed to drive in Lebanon, she would have never pulled away from the curb. I thrive on it!

Our first destination was Sidon (Saida is the Arabic name) which is Lebanon's third largest city. We passed a ton of police checkpoints, but rather than feel afraid of men in camo with guns, it's quite a safe feeling. They all smile and wave and welcome us and wave us through. No one even ever asks us for our passport. Sadly, we weren't that impressed with Sidon (it just seemed like a big city) so we continued south to Tyre (Sour). Tyre is only about 10 miles north of Israel, but I swear on the map it looked like a huge distance (this was before we realized just how small Lebanon really is). And this was on the first day of the Israeli offensive so it hadn't escalated to the point it is now. We had lunch in the old port area overlooking the fishermen and their boats.

Our restaurant owner/chef was a nice, chatty man. He also runs the Lighthouse. Well, Wendi was smart and ordered fish but I ordered shish tawook (chicken). When it was served up, I knew it was sort of sketchy, but the man was so nice, I couldn't offend him by not eating it.

After touring the town a bit and seeing some ruins, we checked into a pretty nice hotel.  The desk clerk asked if we were with the UN. I mean, do random people from the UN show up without a reservation? But being in the UN gets you $10 off per night, so too bad we didn't lie :) There are currently 13,000 temporary military people from the UN in Southern Lebanon. We left our stuff at the hotel and went to dinner in the downtown area. Our restaurant of choice seriously could have sat 500 people but there were only about 20 people there. After dinner, we were stuffed but we walked to a nearby bar for a beer. They were of course insanely friendly and made us a special plate of tomatoes filled with some sort of mayo and herb concoction. I made Wendi take one for the team and eat it/push it around on the plate. When we got back to the restaurant, a Mercedes had double-parked and we were trapped. Of course NOW there were about 350 people in the restaurant! Some guys on the street were nice enough to take a camera phone picture of the Mercedes' license plate and find the offending diner.

Remember that slightly sketchy chicken I ate in order to not offend the nice lighthouse keeper? Well, I was cursing him to hell at 3 am while I was violently vomiting with food poisoning...not my finest moment.

Obviously I couldn't fathom a roadtrop a few hours later so Wendi had a day to herself. I think it was her favorite day! She, unlike me, likes "alone time" and so she walked around the city and read the guidebook along the Mediterranean. I slept and luckily quickly recovered from the food poisoning. The following day we took off again in our trusty Skoda Fabia. We planned to go spend the day in Lebanon's prettiest village, Deir al-Qamar, in the Chouf Mountains. Ok, remember how small I said Lebanon is? It took us about an hour to get there, and it truly is a village. We saw the mosque and the gorgeous stone churches in the center of the village. But that took about half an hour. Meaning it was 11 am and we were at a loss what to do.

So we got back in the car, asked the usual police checkpoint people and gas station attendants for directions along the way, and headed east towards the Syrian border. We passed the incredible Beiteddine Palace and stopped in a town near Zahle for lunch. We ate at a pizzeria, where the nicest waiter chatted with us and offered his number in case we had any problems in Lebanon. Imagine how mortified we were when we ordered two pizzas - you know how in Europe each pizza is like a personal size, with thin crust? Well, at this particular restaurant they were like extra large doughy pizzas and so we left with quite a hefty box of pizza! The worst part is that Wendi had passed through the kitchen to use the restroom and SAW them preparing it, and still asked for another one. They must have thought we were crazy. And we had a greasy pizza box to tote around in the backseat!

Late afternoon found us at the Ksara Winery, Lebanon's oldest winery. As luck would have it, we timed it exactly right and met up with a tour just in time for the extensive wine-tasting. Neither of us particularly wanted to spend 45 minutes seeing oak barrels and vines, so we were happy to just do the tasting. There was a Lebanese girl on our tour who had gone to University of Michigan. What a small world.

From Ksara, it was a short hop (as is all travel in Lebanon) to Baalbeck, in the Bekaa Valley, the "Sun City" of the ancient world. This is where Lebanon's most impressive Roman ruins are. Our guide book said that it has long been considered one of the wonders of the world. Well, Wendi and I can't exactly attest to that. See, we rolled into town in heavy rain and there were an obscene amount of police checkpoints. I guess we should have read the sidebar in the book that Baalbeck is a stronghold of Hezbollah? Judging by the tanks rolling out of the city, I think the pandemonium had to do with the war in Gaza.

Unbeknownst to us, we tried to check into the "recommended" Palmyra Hotel. Here is what the book says about Palmyra Hotel: "The Palmyra is one of the most wonderful colonial-era relics dotting the Middle East. During WWI, the Palmyra was used by the German army and in WWII it was the Birtish-army headquarters in the area. The guest list includes General de Gaulle and Jean Cocteau". Our experience was a little different. We trudged in with our backpacks on and were greeted by two elderly men in the dark foyer. The furniture was likely the same as when Charles de Gaulle visited. After quoting us a price of $84/night, one of the men led us up a pitch black staircase, down a long and gloomy hallway, and into a freezing cold, damp, musty room. We waited for him to turn on the light. Nothing. We asked him to turn on the light. "6:00! 6:00!" he said. It was 4:30, starting to get dark, and there wouldn't be electricity for another hour and a half? Wendi and I started laughing hysterically at the thought of even staying in this haunted mansion and ran out of there.

With no other options, and having seen how small the country is, we decided to return to Beirut, make the city our home base, and do daytrips from there. We snapped a few pics of the ruins (which were, admittedly, quite impressive). After a harrowing drive through the mountains in the dark and the rain (anyone who has traveled in Lebanon knows this experience is enhanced by drivers without headlights, people passing at mad speeds as you go around precarious, curvy roads, and very few road signs), we rolled back into Beirut.

Our hotel (that of the flying spiders) was full. We were sent to a different hotel in Hamra called El Sheikh, which is actually sort of nice. The following day (is anyone still reading this? Seriously?) we spent the day in Beirut. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we walked from Hamra to Downtown Beirut. The original downtown was the site of much sniper fire (see Holiday Inn picture above) and was basically destroyed in the 15-year civil war. But the government has done an amazing job rebuilding the downtown and now it's pedestrian-friendly, filled with cafes and boutiques.  There is also the gorgeous Mohammed al-Amin mosque, which is kind of like a small version of Istanbul's Blue Mosque.

We wandered the streets and had coffee at a cafe with coasters showing all the popular Syrian/Egyptian/Lebanese pop singers. Imagine going to a cafe and having Britney Spears and Rihanna coasters? It was too funny!

We had African food for dinner (peri-peri, which I tried for the first time in Charlotte over Thanksgiving, ironically). Our third to last day we did a daytrip to Byblos (Jbail in Arabic), an adorable fishing town on the Mediterranean Sea just north of Beirut. We got a little lost leaving the city and we were able to see a different Beirut - nothing like the glitzy Downtown or the fashionable Hamra district.  Unfortunately the sun from the previous day was hidden behind rain clouds, and we couldn't do as much in the city as we would have liked since the rain was pouring down. Byblos is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited towns and the birthplace of the alphabet. It's been in existence since the 5th millenium BC!

New Year's Eve, in keeping with our travel tradition, was a lowkey event. I think there is so much expectation around it that it can never live up to the hype!

Our last full day in Lebanon was amazing. Since the whole country was apparently sleeping off a hangover, the roads were clear and we drove to Tripoli, on the Mediterranean Sea north of Beirut, in about an hour.

The north of Lebanon seems to be less populous and is very mountainous and green. We could see the snow high up in the mountains. Sadly, Tripoli has weathered a lot, being the site of the 2007 Israel/Hezbollah War. The tourist industry hasn't yet recovered so needless to say, we were quite a curiosity there. Wendi and I parked the car and wandered the souks. 

  

We met Ali, whose family has a homemade soap business. We smelled every soap they have (cinnamon, strawberry, lilac...there must have been about 20), were invited for coffee, and were given gifts by him. He was the most upbeat, positive person and it being New Years Day, he was full of great predictions for 2009.

We found our first souvenirs of the trip and now I have some things from Lebanon...a gorgeous wall hanging and a vase to be exact. We ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall cafe that served only hummous and fatteh (the fried bread/yogurt mixture). They rushed to bring us fresh, hot bread out of the fire.

Tripoli is known for it's sweets so we stopped at another small shop to try their goods. The sweetest little man served us up delicious, gooey honey cakes and baklava.

As always, Wendi and I have no shame in asking for directions and as we tried to find our car, a man decided it was easier just to lead us to it.  I accidentally turned the wrong way on the street and he said, "Not there!  That is the hotel for horse".  I said, "Oh?  A hotel for horse?  Like a barn?".  He looked at me seriously and said, "It is a hotel for whores".  That's a totally different hotel, right?!  Wendi was hysterically laughing and I continued to question the man, trying to determine if it was a hotel for horse or whores.  We never did find out!

When we safely returned to Beirut on that final day, I breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it for a week with no accidents! Ironically, when the car rental place sent someone to come and pick up our car, HE had an accident and couldn't pick it up. We took it as a sign to leave it in the garage...

We had dinner on Gemmayzeh Street and met Rania (our couch-surfing friend) for drinks afterwards. She brought along two British guys she had met on the site. I seriously recommend everyone join this site and meet up with people along the way as you travel. They were fantastic and our last night made us even more sad to leave.

Our final day was unfortunately dedicated to travel. We had to fly from Beirut to Amman, where we had a seven hour layover. While we were waiting in the line for transit visas, I kept staring at a guy who looked familiar. He finally said to me, "We met at the Ksara Winery". Remember how I met a Lebanese girl who went to UofM? Well, he was part of her group! He had a few hours to wait too, so we ended up hanging out with Vincent (that's him) at the airport. He was fantastically funny and surprisingly Wendi and I didn't scare him, even when we made fun of his passport photo. He has lived in Syria and is living in Israel now, working for the Swiss government. We had really interesting conversation.

 

Our flight home was long (12 hours) followed by a special trip through the agriculture line at customs at JFK. The drive back to DC was only four hours and now it's time to settle into real life!

 

I guess the best takeway from this trip is that despite numerous warnings about traveling to the Middle East, I found the people to be some of the friendliest, gracious, most hospitable people I have ever met while traveling (34 countries so far!). We were treated like family by everyone we came into contact with. Although the Middle East is often portrayed in the US media as a region to be feared, we all know (no matter where we are from) that our politicians' actions and words don't necessarily mirror our beliefs. Everyone we met was welcoming...so don't always believe what you hear. Happy New Year!

Cabo Wabo!

While I was in Turkey I checked email and saw a string of emails from some college friends saying they had all bought tickets to go visit our friend who lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Although I was on vacation at the time, I figured why not?!

So after a week at home, I was off to Mexico.  Michelle has been living there for three years, selling real estate for her brother's company "Dream Homes of Cabo".  She has a fabulous condo on the beach east of Cabo San Lucas, in a town called San Jose del Cabo.  Her condo overlooks pools, palm trees and the beach.  What more could I ask for after my three week adventurous trip in Turkey?!  Add to that the fact that it's apparently 90 degrees and sunny every single day in Baja California Sur, and it was the perfect place to have some down time and recover from the sleep deficit :)

Lauren and I arrived first, after meeting in the Phoenix airport (she came from Denver) and upon arriving in Mexico, Michelle took us for shrimp tacos and margaritas.  Needless to say, we didn't complain!

Amy and Nicole flew in from L.A., just in time to spend time by the pool and host a barbecue at Michelle's for her friends.  It was Halloween, although the only costumes were her 2 year old nephew (Spiderman) and three guys who wore skirts.   The following day we all went to a cove called Santa Maria for some swimming and snorkeling.  Although the beach was pebbles, instead of sand, we enjoyed the perfect weather.   Michelle suggested we head into Cabo for the evening.  

I didn't know what to expect in Cabo.  It's definitely a tourist town, with luxury hotels lining both sides of the main road.  The prices are more American than Mexican.  But Michelle took us to a phenomenal Mexican restaurant called "Mi Casa" for dinner.  I think we liked it more for the fact that the margaritas were the size of a human head than for the food!

 

Regardless of the fact that each margarita probably had the alcohol content of five drinks in the U.S., we decided to order one final margarita to "share".  This prompted our waiters to bring us free shots of chilled Don Julio tequila.  How could we turn that down?

After this, Michelle thought we should head over to Cabo Wabo, Sammy  Hagar's bar.  I recall a lot of dancing, a lot of singing along with the band, and just general debauchery!  The pictures say it all...did we think those beer bottles were microphones?

The following day we returned to Cabo and spent the day on a beach close to the downtown area.  It was sandier than Santa Maria and had a lot more people (mostly locals).  We had the most delicious shrimp tacos!  Amy and Nicole rode a banana boat.  Or at least when the boat pulled away, they were on the banana.  When it returned, they were on the boat.  Apparently it's painful to fall off the banana in the middle of the Sea of Cortes, as they will vouch...

That night was November 2nd, the final day of "Dia de los Muertos".  Dia de los Muertos is a three day Mexican celebration where people remember those who have passed away.  Indigenous people in Mexico believe that when someone dies, their souls do not die.  The Day of the Dead is an opportunity for the souls to visit their families.  Flowers and candles and food are laid out at altars, as an offering to the souls.  The zocalo, or town square, of San Jose del Cabo was filled with people and altars, welcoming the souls.  It was really great to be a part of the celebration.  

After spending some time wandering around the square, we had dinner at a great local restuarant called La Tropicana.  There was a traditional band singing and playing drums.  We really enjoyed it! 

I have to admit, the following two days were lazy "lay by the pool" days.  I never take that kind of vacation, and now I wonder why!  It was so nice to swim, read magazines, nap...and not be wondering what overnight bus I would be on that night...

Michelle was nice enough to take a day off of work and we took a day trip to a town on the Pacific coast called Todos Santos.  It's one of 20 magical towns (pueblos magicos) in Mexico.  The towns were chosen based on their historical, architectural and cultural significance.  I can see why it was chosen...a rutted road leads into the town, which is filled with small inns, restaurants, art galleries, ceramic shops, and one hotel named "Hotel California".  Michelle and I stopped in to the bar to have a drink...just in case...

...no one seems to know if Don Henley wrote the Eagles' hit song based on the hotel...but there are rumors...

On our way back to San Jose del Cabo, Michelle took me to a beach called "Cerritos", also on the Pacific side of Baja California Sur.  It's known for it's great surf waves, although the water is significantly cooler than that of the Sea of Cortes.  We plopped down on towels in front of a surf bar and soaked up the last rays of the day.  As someone who spends most of her time on the East Coast, I can tell you that the sunset was amazing...

Strangely, I watched the election results in Mexico.  I voted absentee ballot (of course!) and I was really nervous about the results.  I worried we had become a country that would question every election and not believe in the validity of the vote counts.  But luckily I didn't need to worry and the outcome exceeded all expectations!

Anyway, I'm home now and trying to adjust to the 50 degree weather, not to mention the rain and gray skies.  Maybe Michelle has the right idea?

Southeastern Anatolia Adventures - Turkey Part II

Hi everyone!

When I last left you, I believe I still had the Bubonic Plague and was chilling out on the Aegean Sea in Bodrum, Turkey.  Indira and I had dinner along the water with oh, millions of dollars of yachts docked alongside.  Like the whole trip, it was in the high 70s and we saw a beautiful sunset and just really felt lucky to be there!  We went out that evening and wandered along the row of clubs and bars and were harassed to go inside…but there were not many people out and about.  I guess what do you expect in the middle of the week in off-season?

The following day we took a bus (once again, a nice bus with a waiter – why did our overnight bus have to be so insane?!) to a town called Selcuk, which is the base for visiting Ephesus.  We figured we would leave our bags in the luggage hold part of the bus station.  Except there wasn’t a baggage hold office.  Luckily a nice guy in one of the bus offices said we could leave our bags, so we headed to the ruins of Ephesus.

 

Ephesus is “the best preserved classical city in the Eastern Mediterranean”, according to my guidebook.  It is where you go to see how life was in the Roman times.  Imagine – Ephesus was a prosperous city in 600 BC!!!  And just as crazy is how much of it is still left standing.   There are columns, gates, statues, pillars, carvings, a library and a huge theater.  

I feel like I use this phrase a lot, but it’s so often applicable – you can really feel the history when you walk through the ruins.

 

Once we left the ruins, we took a taxi back to Selcuk.  We decided to grab a doner kebab for a late lunch before heading to Izmir for the night.  We went to this little kebab stand that was run by the cutest family!  They offered us tea and coffee and wonderful little yellow grapes as dessert.  We had to get a picture with them!

 

We took a minibus to Izmir since we were flying back to Istanbul the following morning.  From the bus station we took a free servis bus to the city center.  By “we” I mean me and Indira and a few other people and various sacks of potatoes, baskets of fruit, bags of indeterminable items, etc.  It was the usual mayhem.  When we arrived to Izmir the hotel we planned on staying in was very expensive and not very nice, so we decided to look around.  I asked a man selling mussels on a street corner and while I waited with the bags, Indira went with him to check out some possibilities.  A boy on a bike appeared and Indira swears he was the mayor of Izmir!  He was ordering people around at the hotels and Indira was checking out various rooms.  By the time she came back, she was traumatized.  I didn’t realize that you could actually see cockroaches scurrying around in hotel rooms when you turned on the light, but yes – you can.  Clearly we found a different place to stay.

 

By this time it was probably at least 9 or 10 but we decided to go grab a quick bite to eat in the area of the city with all the bars and restaurants.  We figured we would be in bed early since we had to get up around 9 to go to the airport.  But, it was Friday and there were tons of young people out.  There is a big university in Izmir.  My guidebook said Izmir is a big, modern city, so you won’t fall in love with Izmir at first sight, but you may find yourself in love with it once you experience it.  How true that is!  Here is how our calm evening out to grab dinner went down…

 

We were looking for a restaurant and I asked three guys on the street where it was.  They walked us there but it was already closed, so they recommended another place.  They asked if we wanted to have a drink but we wanted to eat something first but I think our communication was crossed and they left.  About 20 minutes later they came back with a piece of cake they had bought for us!  How nice, right?  We invited them to sit down with us.  Once we finished eating they took us to a club where their friends were and a band they know was playing.  The place was absolutely packed.  The band dedicated their second set to “Emily and Indira” and then proceeded to play all American songs.   We were having so much fun when all of a sudden I looked over at our new group of friends.  They had (no joke) gotten into the cake and dipped their fingers in the frosting and put bindis on their forehead!!!  They were so excited, waving at Indira and saying, “Look!  Look!  We are all the same!”.  The two of us almost died laughing.  How sweet that they wanted to have an Indian bindi.

 

Our “early” evening ended at 3 am (as usual) and we were exhausted the following morning.  We somehow managed to hail the smallest taxi in the world to go to the airport and the man put our suitcases in the trunk, left them sticking out, and then drove like Mario Andretti to the airport!   Our flight to Istanbul was pretty uneventful.  It was a little bit cooler and windy when we got back.  Since it was Indira’s final day, we headed to the Grand Bazaar so Indira could get gifts.

 

I think I mentioned last time that I had met some really great friends six years ago but couldn’t find them this time.  Well, just by chance, I ran into one of them as we headed into the bazaar.  We went back to their leather shop and it was such an awesome reunion.  I was so surprised and flattered that they all remembered me – it’s been six years and they must meet thousands of tourists a year.  But they remembered me and Stephanie and Wendi (who I was with six years ago) and said that we were different…we were special and good friends.  It was so nice.

 

Indira decided to visit a hamam (Turkish bath) and get scrubbed and massaged before her long trip home.  I went to meet my friend Zeko for a drink, where we chatted about the current economic situation.  Zeko said, “We think this is the beginning of the end for America.  Remember, the Ottomans ruled the world for 600 years, and now, we are just Turkey”.  I fear that he could be right…

 

Patrick arrived that night, slightly earlier than expected since he was routed through London instead of Paris at the last second.  Indira and I tried to catch him up on our trip and poor Indira only got two hours of sleep before leaving.  For the following two days, Patrick and I wandered around and visited the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia and all the places in Sultanahmet.  We went to an area of the city called Karakoy and had dinner outside of a restaurant where there was a wedding party inside celebrating.  We did a lot of people watching.   We walked down to the spice bazaar in Eminonu and wandered around the stalls selling teas, spices, aphrodisiacs, scarves, etc.  There are whole stores dedicated to cheeses and desserts.  It smells amazing!  We also visited what I like to call “the real people’s market” where they sell cleaning supplies, paper goods, vegetables, electronics, etc.  It’s like a whole other city.  I ran into an Israeli couple that Indira and I had met in Goreme (and who were are our overnight bus from hell).  In a city as big as Istanbul, what are the chances?  They invited me various times to visit them in Tel Aviv and I was like, “Ok, I hope you mean that, because I WILL come!”.  I don’t know if they realize that I will be showing up on their doorstep within the next few years!

 

Overall, Patrick and I drank a ton of tea, saw a lot of sights, spent as much time as possible outside enjoying the great weather, and discussed our itinerary for the week.  Having spent a total of nine weeks in Turkey, there was one area I had never been and wanted to visit.  Patrick was game so we bought plane tickets to Diyarbakir.

 

Diyarbakir is part of Southeastern Anatolia, or the area of Turkey along the border of Iraq and Syria.  My book describes, “No carpet shops, no tacky resorts.  Southeastern Anatolia is another world.  Opportunities for off-the-beaten-track exploration abound.  You’ll instantly feel a last frontier ambience and an overpowering sense of exoticism and adventure.  This huge territory is also considered “other” partially as it’s the bastion of Kurdish identity and culture.  Apart from some Arabic pockets, most towns and villages are predominantly Kurdish”.  Can you see why I was drawn to it?

 

In keeping with the original theme of the trip, we slept two hours the night before our early morning flight to the southeast.  When we arrived to Diyarbikir, amidst many stares, we rented a car from Avis.   It was a Fiat Linea, quite a step up from my Fiat Palio earlier in the trip, but still very interesting!  The badges were missing and the car was covered in scratches and dents.  But we hopped in and headed for the town of Mardin.

 

Mardin is a town of golden colored buildings perched on a hill overlooking Mesopotamia (the land between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers) and the Syrian border.  Christians settled the town in the 5^th century and then it was taken over by Arabs, then Selcuks, then Turks, then Kurds, then the Ottomans…the town still has 11 churches and countless mosques.  The area was particularly hard-hit by the Kurdish vs. Turkish army squabbles of the 80s and 90s and is finally safe to visit.  Patrick and I visited the main square and the bazaar, where donkeys are still the main form of transport.  Men wearing fez sit in the shade and play backgammon.  We saw a meat delivery and men wandering with whole dead carcasses in their arms.   We walked around the town a little.  Unfortunately I think our exhaustion kept us from truly falling in love with the town since it was really, really hot and we were really tired.  So we were only there for a few hours.

 

From Mardin we drove to Savur, another small, honey colored town in the hills about 50 km from Mardin.  We found rooms at the Haci Abdullah house, which is a 250 year old stone house on the top of a hill.  A man named Aydin lives there with his mother and they have seven unique (and spotless) stone rooms.   Aydin is in his 40s but his six brothers and sisters have all married and moved out so he lives with his elderly mother and they run the bed and breakfast.  What an amazing time we spent there.  

We took a leisurely nap and then we relaxed on the terrace overlooking the town.  There was one other person staying there – an American girl named Christina who was traveling by herself after teaching English in Istanbul for a year and a half.  Aydin’s mother prepared a feast for us for dinner.  We were served tomato and cucumber salad, carrots, lentil soup, bread, chicken, eggplant, fried potatoes, and fruit.   Aydin hung out with us and tried to force us to smoke Marlboro Red cigarettes – he was breaking off the filters and telling us that his doctor told him it’s healthier to smoke them without filters.  Patrick suggested that maybe the doctor is a beneficiary of Aydin’s will…

 

Aydin told us about the area and we mapped out the next few days.  Having a car was so convenient because it meant we could do things on our own time.  So after a great night’s sleep (probably my best in three weeks) we had a leisurely breakfast on the terrace and hit the road.  We went to visit a town called Hasankeyf.  It’s a good thing too, because although it’s hundreds of years old, it will not exist in another two years.

 

See, Hasankeyf is a beautiful, golden town (population 5500) on the Tigris river.  Like Capadoccia, there are many caves built into the rocks where people live.  You can see the remnants of an old bridge across the Tigris river, which has mostly run dry.  Hasankeyf will be destroyed as part of the GAP project, which is a project to bring irrigation water and hydroelectricity to dry towns in the area.  With 22 planned dams and two rivers, you can imagine the scope.  On a good note, parched towns now have lakes and fish and towns are building factories.  Unfortunately, other towns (like Hasankeyf) are slated to be destroyed when they are flooded.  The people need to move somewhere.  There has been an outbreak of diseases that are specific to wet areas like malaria.  And Syria and Iraq (to the south) aren’t too happy about the amount of water Turkey is keeping, so it’s causing political problems.  I’m glad I was able to see the town before it is gone.

 

We set off in the afternoon for a three hour drive to Sanliurfa.  Along the way I saw a little boy (circa 10 years old) hitchhiking.  Patrick and I stopped to pick him up.  When he climbed in the back, so did two of his friends!  And some really bad B.O.!  They sat in the back and stared at us and whispered.   Two of them fell asleep and the third clung to my seat.  We left them in Mardin, waving at us from the side of the road.  For another hour we drove along rocky hillsides, passing tractors and donkeys and slow-moving trucks and vans carrying 20 people.   We finally had an empty stretch of road…and got pulled over!  Yes, we were stopped by the police, and we forgot to bribe them so we were ticketed.  The best part is that when they asked for the registration, Patrick handed them the documents in the visor and there was a Turkish license in the documents!  The cops were like, “Who this?” and we could only shrug!  We got a hefty fine (they actually wrote “yubongi” on the ticket which means “foreigner”) and then got back to driving.  We saw every landscape imaginable…flat plains, mountains, rivers, rocks.  We stopped in a village for drinks and everything was a tenth of the price we were used to.  We finally got to Sanliurfa after dark.

 

Sanliurfa is one of my favorite places!  It is one of the greatest religious and historical sites in Turkey, dating back from 1370 B.C..  People go on pilgrimages to Urfa.  Wherever you go, you can see men wearing traditional baggy, Arabic pants and woman are dressed in brightly colored headscarves and long coats.  Due to Urfa’s proximity to Syria, it feels more Middle Eastern than most places in Turkey.   The bazaar has many distinct areas…one whole street sells silk and other cloths, one sells shoes, one sells leather goods, one sells metals.  You can peek in the various stalls and see men pounding leather or hammering metal.   Patrick even got a haircut in the bazaar and of course we ended up hanging out and drinking tea.  We were definitely something of a curiosity in Sanliurfa. 

 

But the reason that Sanliurfa was so fantastic is because we met amazing people there.  We asked someone on the street our first night if there was a bar or café they could recommend.   Per usual, we had a small entourage escort us to a place that looked like a café from the outside.  But when you went inside and up the stairs, it was actually a bar with live music.  The singer, Ali, has the most amazing voice I have ever heard.  He befriended us and soon we were sitting with everyone there.  They were so friendly and curious and fun.  They made us swear to come back the following night.  They taught us Kurdish songs and dances.   They extended such hospitality to us.  Luckily they (like everyone we met on the trip) use facebook so we can all keep in touch.  How cute is this – the “c” is pronounced like a “j” in Turkish so they call call it “faja-book”!

 

As usual, this is getting insanely long, so I will try to shorten it from here on out. 

 

Our last day in the southeast was spent in Diyarbakir.  This is THE center of the Kurdish resistant movement.  It’s a town of narrow alleyways, ancient, crumbling, basalt city walls (the city walls are second in length only to the Great Wall of China) and proud Kurdish people.   Apparently there was a terrorism incident about a week earlier, so we did see a lot of police but we never once felt unsafe.  We were again treated with such friendliness by everyone.  We had a wonderful dinner and were served tea and this special honey and almond dessert, just out of kindness.  When we went to the gas station to fill the Linea, we were offered tea and (as usual) everyone wanted to know where we were from and talk to us.

 

Returning the car was interesting since no one was at Avis when we got back to the airport.  Again, we had a typical Turkish experience…a small crowd formed and everyone wanted to be involved and help and people were loaning us their phones…it’s so nice to feel like you will always be taken care of when traveling. 

 

I’ve been thinking about why I love Turkey so much, and I think I figured it out.  I am very trusting (too trusting if you ask some people) and I am obsessed with nice people.  In Turkey, everyone is really so authentically nice and you can trust them.  Would you leave your bag at a random office at a bus station in a town in the U.S.?  Would you allow some random from the street to lead you somewhere in the U.S.?  Ok so I probably would, but most people wouldn’t.  But in Turkey, it is always ok.

 

So, my last story…Patrick and I were back in Istanbul for one final day.   We hung out with my friends who work by the Grand Bazaar and did some shopping.  I planned to be in bed early since I had to be at the airport at 3:30 in the morning yesterday.  Well, I think you can probably figure out that my vacation never goes as planned…so Patrick and I went to dinner with Engin and Zeko.  Our friend Yusef came by around 10 pm and invited us to go for a drink.  We ended up in Kumkapi, an area in Istanbul with many fish restaurants and live music.

 

Around 1 am, after countless beers and raki, it seemed like a good idea to go to my hotel, grab my stuff, and take a taxi to another bar before going to the airport.  So this is what we did.  And once we got to the next bar, my friends just told the taxi to come back at 3:30 to take me to the airport.  So the taxi left (with my bag in the trunk) and as promised, came back (I told you that Turks are trustworthy).  I was sort of rushed going to the airport (not to mention sort of drunk and very tired) and got on my flight to Amsterdam.  I sat next to a great girl who is Turkish but lives in Boston, and we both had long layovers in Amsterdam so we had coffee and hung out for a few hours.  When I got to my gate in Amsterdam, I waited a few minutes and then it was finally time to go talk to the passport control man at the podium.  “Hello, where are you coming from, how long were you there”…and questions like that.  UNTIL I got the question, “Did you pack your bags and were they in your possession at all times?”.  I realized, oh shit, I could lie but what if, by some random chance, the taxi driver who had my bag for two hours put something in it?  So I opted for the truth.  Our conversation went like this:

 

Me: Well I packed them but then they were in a taxi for a few hours.

Him: When?

Me: Around 2 am this morning.

Him: And you were also in the taxi?

Me: Well no, but I knew the taxi was coming back.

Him: The taxi driver was a friend of yours?

Me: No, but you can really trust people in Turkey.

Him: (looking at me like I have five heads)…

My bags were heavily searched (obviously) and I sat next to a cool guy from Cleveland on the plane and even slept for an hour.  I got home and took a scorching hot shower (sans flip-flops…what a treat!) and now I am going to settle back in.

 

Now I have to take a quick final minute to preach politics.  Spending three weeks in Turkey made me realize just how much we need Obama to win.  Everyone we met (and I am not exaggerating), whether they spoke English or not, all said (upon finding out we were American), “Bush very bad!  Very bad!  Obama!  Obama!”.  America has the chance to gain some respect in the rest of the world with this election.  Ok, that’s all I’ll say :)

 

I’ll be surprised if you make it through this!  XOXO Em

 

The 'we'll sleep when we're dead' tour of Turkey!

Let me preface thıs by sayıng that you are goıng to be seeıng some crazy symbols and grammar sınce I am workıng on a Turkısh keyboard and ıt's very dıfferent than ours!

 

I have lıterally only been gone for about 11 days and I feel lıke I may have lost a year off of my lıfe on thıs trıp - no jokıng!

 

Let me gıve some backstory here...I traveled around Turkey for sıx weeks sıx years ago and fell ın love wıth the country.  The people, the customs, the tradıtıons, the culture...I found everyone to be so hospıtable and the country ıs gorgeous wıth so much to see and do.  So when my frıend Indıra (the fırst frıend I made at Cornell!) wound up wıth two weeks off ın between jobs we decıded to head back here.  I fınd the same hospıtalıty and beauty that I remember, although perhaps I forgot about the toll travelıng ın a developıng country takes on your body!  But more on that later...

 

The trıp started off great...the woman ın duty free at the Detroıt aırport saw Istanbul on my boardıng pass and told me I would be arrıvıng for Eıd, the three day celebratıon at the end of Ramadan.  Ironıcally thıs same thıng happened last October - wıthout realızıng ıt, we arrıved ın Caıro for Eıd.  So I was already pretty excıted.  Then, both of my flıghts were practıcally empty!  I had a whole row of seats to Amsterdam and another row to Istanbul.  I got to the hotel where I had stayed sıx years prevıously.  I remember that sıx years ago my frıend Wendı and I moved from a hostal to thıs hotel and thought ıt was amazıng.  Let's just say that the hotel has eıther really gone downhıll or we were dısgustıng back then...and I fear the latter...

 

Indıra arrıved a few hours after me and we decıded to fıght the jetlag by goıng out that nıght.  We went to Beyoglu, near Taksım Square, where all of the good restaurants and bars are.  We ended up on Nekıdaze Street whıch ıs one of the most happenıng places ın Istanbul.  It's a cobblestone street lıned wıth bars and taverns and tables and stools and packed wıth people.  We had some shısh kabob and beer and just people watched.

 

That nıght we were ın bed by mıdnıght.  We should have been exhausted, rıght?  But for some reason we were up at 5:30 when the fırst call to prayer occurred.  Everyday when ıt's stıll dark you can hear the fırst straıns of a hauntıng sıngıng call to the mosque.  I read somewhere once that ıt's tımed throughout the world so that somewhere ın the world 24 hours a day there ıs a call to prayer.  It's such a beautıful sound but when ıt sounds lıke the ımam ıs ın your bedroom ıt can be dıffıcult to sleep through! 

 

when we fınally got up for our fırst day ın Istanbul, we headed to the Grand Bazaar.  And ıt was CLOSED!  We went to the Blue Mosque.  It, too, was CLOSED!  Due to the holıdays all the hours and openıng and closıng tımes were dıfferent.  So we opted to take the tram to Emınonu and take a boat across the Bosphorus to Uskudar, on the Asıan sıde of Istanbul.  What a lot of people don't know ıs that Istanbul ıs a cıty on two contınents.  Half of Istanbul and a small part of the country are on the European contınent.  The Bosphorus cuts through the cıty and the rest of the country ıs ın Asıa.  The hıstory of Turkey ıs so fascınatıng!  I thınk the customs and fashıon and dress and food are as ınterestıng as they are because of the ınfluence of the Hıttıtes ın 7500 BC on through the rule of the Greeks, the Persıans, the Romans, the Byzantınes, the Seljuks, the Ottomans...I mean for thousands of years people have been crossıng between Europe and Asıa and fıghtıng for control and leavıng behınd parts of theır cultures.  

 

Anyway, that evenıng we walked around and had dınner on a rooftop terrace overlookıng the Aya Sophıa.  After dınner we headed to Taksım Square to sample the Istanbul nıghtlıfe.  The fırst bar we went ınto had a man playıng guıtar and sıngıng what sounded lıke Turkısh folk songs.  Indıra and I sat at the bar and had a beer and somehow ended up holdıng hands wıth the bartenders and dancıng.  Then we got a table and watched the other people dance and sıng for a whıle.  When we left there we went to a nıghtclub.  Clubs ın Istanbul are SO expensıve.  I guess the world has changed a lot ın just sıx years - everythıng has gotten so much more expensıve here.  A beer ıs 14 dollars at a club and 5 dollars even at a local bar.  And I am talkıng the local Efes beer too - ıts not lıke we are drınkıng ımported stuff!

 

When we left the club we met a few guys who wanted to have a drınk and we fıgured why not.  Untıl we realızed they had no money and no place to stay - so we were out of there!  Indıra got a late nıght doner kebab and we hopped ın a taxı back to our hotel.  Our taxı drıver looked lıke the Turkısh versıon of Rıcky Martın!  Serıously.  We made hım take pıctures wıth us.

 

The next day we looked ınto rentıng a car, whıch ıs what I dıd sıx years ago.  But gas prıces have ıncreased exponentıally here too, and ıt looked lıke ıt would be pretty expensıve.  Gas ıs about 2.80 lıra per lıter or USD 2.30 per lıter.  That's about USD 8 dollars per gallon.  We should complaın a lot less!  So we ended up buyıng a few flıghts and then decıded to take buses the rest of the tıme.   The Blue Mosque was open so we went ınsıde, coverıng our heads wıth scarves, of course.  The Blue Mosque ıs absolutely gorgeous and ıs stıll open as a place of worshıp.  There are thousands of blue tıles and staıned glass wındows, whıch ıs how ıt got ıt's name. 

 

That nıght we were goıng to be responsıble and recover from our clubbıng the nıght before but somehow we ended up drınkıng beer wıth new frıends on our hotel rooftop.  Thıs ıs when we decıded we can sleep when we're dead - and thıs became our unoffıcıal motto of the trıp!

 

The followıng day was our day to vısıt the Aya Sofıa, a church turned mosque turned museum.  It ıs the most famous monument ın Istanbul and dates back from 537!  It's huge, domed ceılıng ıs pretty ınsane to see.  Afterwards we took the tram up to the Grand Bazaar, whıch has been around sınce the 1400s.  The Grand Bazaar ıs a bıt lıke controlled chaos.  There are over 4,000 shops and cafes and banks and even a polıce statıon ın the Grand Bazaar.  There are mazes of alleys and pathways and stores and people yellıng 'Just to look, not to buy!' or 'Somethıng for your dowry?' or 'Hey lady!  Lady!'.  We fıgured ıt wouldn't make sense to buy stuff so early on ın the trıp so we just browsed mostly.

 

Late that afternoon we headed back to Ataturk aırport for our flıght to Kayserı, ın the Capadoccıa regıon of Turkey.  Thıs regıon ıs known for ıt's landcape that looks lıke the moon and for havıng houses and churches buılt ınto stone clıffs and caves.  The flıght was good and we caught a shuttle from the aırport to the vıllage of Goreme.  Our pensıon ın Goreme was ınterestıng...ıt was the kınd of place where you close the toılet lıd and turn on the shower head on the wall and everythıng gets wet.  And thıs was 50 dollars a nıght - I told you Turkey got expensıve!  It was called Ufuk Pensıon - ha ha, pronounced you-fook!  We went to an excellent Ottoman restaurant for dınner that nıght - the food was home-cooked and we sat on cushıons on the floor around a low table.  It was nıce to take a break from our usual shısh kabobs!  We went out that nıght to the Flınstones Cave Bar whıch was next door to our pensıon.  It was a very chılled out nıght.

 

So for our fırst full day there we woke up at 8 am!  Not easy to do on vacatıon when you are exhausted but we dıd ıt.  We bought some bread and cheese and juıce and water at a market and went to rent a car for two days.  We ended up gettıng a Fıat Palıo.  The man who rented ıt to us showed us some tank ın the trunk wıth some ındıcator on ıt and told us 'lpg, lpg'.  I had no ıdea what he was talkıng about.  I have never seen a tank ın the trunk of a car wıth an external full/empty ındıcator so I saıd 'where do we fıll ıt?'.  He looked at me really strangely and saıd 'At the fıllıng statıon'.  Duh.

 

In our lıttle Palıo we hıt the road.  Drıvıng alongsıde tractors, cars, the occasıonal donkey, tour buses, people drıvıng on the wrong sıde of the road...we went through many small towns and vıllages.  Our fırst stop was the rock castle ın Uchısar where we hıked up to the top for panoramıc vıews.  It's basıcally a tall volcanıc rock castle wıth tunnels and wındows.  It's really cool. 

 

We had lunch ın Belısırma along the rıver ın the Ilhara Valley and then walked through the valley where there are apparently churches ın the hıllsıdes but I'm embarassed to say we couldn't fınd them!  We went to Kaymaklı, an underground cıty that made me SO claustrophobıc!  We were lıterally goıng through passages where you had to crouch down and round your shoulders and scootch through.  It's a maze of tunnels and rooms that are eıght layers deep ınto the ground.  There ıs even a sophıstıcated system of ventılatıon.  There are some 36 undergound cıtıes ın Capadoccıa and archaeologısts date them back to the 7th century BC!!!

 

Late that afternoon we sort of offroaded ın the lovely (abused) Palıo and saw the sunset from a rocky outcrop near Urgup.  On our way back to Goreme Vıllage we heard some beepıng.  We dıdn't know what ıt was so we stopped for gas and they added what they call 'benzın'.  So we fıgured all was well.

 

After a short nap we went to a local cafe and trıed some Turkısh specıaltıes - burek (a puff pastry fılled wıth a cottage cheese lıke cheese), gozleme (a thın flat bread stuffed wıth a varıety of thıngs lıke meat or spınach or cheese) and sosyete boregı (another puff pastry fılled wıth meat or cheese and covered ın tomato sauce and yogurt).  We strolled around the town and ended up back at the Flıntstones Cave Bar.  Mınd you, Goreme ıs so small that there are only four bars.  You can easıly see someone on the street and they wıll say 'Hello you were at the wıne bar last nıght' and you don't recall ever havıng seen thıs person!  Well on thıs partıcular nıght ıt was a very young crowd at the bar.  The nıght started out calm enough...we chatted wıth a few people and they asked us ıf we were students (a recurrıng thıng on thıs trıp whıch ıs basıcally the hıghlıght of my lıfe that I could stıll pass as a student although Indıra poınted out that we may just be really grubby lookıng!) and then suddenly we were havıng a dance party to Rıhanna and Bob Sınclaır and Madonna and then that morphed ınto a Turkısh dance party!  Those nıghts always seem to sneak up on you!  The nıght ended (very late) wıth a few of us hangıng out on the rooftop terrace of the bar, loungıng on floor cushıons.

 

When we got up the next day there was no electrıcıty ın the Ufuk pensıon.  Or anywhere ın Goreme.  Or anywhere ın Capadoccıa, for that matter.  Well we had no money and the ATMs weren't workıng.  We went to buy a bus tıcket for that nıght to Antalya but they were sold out.  So one of the bus companıes recommended that we go to Pammukale and swıtch buses there and saıd he was runnıng an extra mınıbus that evenıng.  We dıdn't really feel lıke we had any other optıons so we dıd that.  What a mıstake that was!

 

But before our bus rıde from hell we dıd have a nıce last day ın Capadoccıa.  We vısıted Urgup, a nearby town known for ıt's boutıque hotels and restaurants.  We went to see the faıry chımneys ın nearby Zelve vıllage (check out the pıcs!).  Overall ıt was a pretty lıesurely day.  One thıng I have to add here ıs that ın Turkey most houses and buıldıngs have solar panels on the roofs and all lıghtbulbs are energy savıng bulbs.  How are we so behınd ın the US???

 

We topped off the gas tank but when we returned the car, the man checked that lıttle tank ın the trunk and saıd ıt was empty.  We were so confused.  We argued back and forth and eventually we determıned that the Palıo runs on gas (benzın) but also some gas called lpg that ıs cheaper.  So we should have been fıllıng ıt wıth lpg ınstead of benzın.  It was so annoyıng.  Has anyone heard of thıs before?  I mean I work ın automotıve and thıs was news to me.  I had to leave Indıra stanıng at the bus statıon parkıng lot wıth our luggage whıle I zoomed to buy lpg wıth the man.  When we got back, Indıra and I had to do a relay of bathroom trıps and ATM vısıts and to buy water and snacks...before boardıng the bus to hell.

 

Let me explaın thıs bus rıde.  Well we were assıgned to seats 3 and 4 but when we got on the small bus someone was ın those seats and they saıd 'thıs ıs only shuttle - you change bus ın Nevsehır'.  So Indıra and I sat ın the last row (the fıfth row) where there were four seats all together.  About 30 mınutes later, ın Nevsehır, we dıd not swıtch buses but two more people got on and sat ın our row makıng ıt a full bus,  We were so squıshed and our seats of course wouldn't reclıne so we were sıttıng bolt uprıght.  We had no place for our legs because the wheels were below us!  Our relıef drıver clımbed onto the luggage shelf behınd us and spent the next few hours textıng and snorıng.  I don't thınk I have ever been as uncomfortable for so many hours ın my lıfe.  Halfway through the nıght we left our drıver at a rest stop and the man from the luggage shelf clımbed down to drıve.  Indıra was clımbıng up onto the luggage shelf but then the drıver decıded to not let her but he dıd let her get ınto the front seat.  So we were less squıshed but stıll sıttıng uprıght for the rest of the nıght.  The bus was careenıng around turns and rockıng back and forth and ıt was eıther freezıng cold or burnıng hot.  It was really tortuous.

 

Pammukale ıs a town you may have seen ın pıctures - there are whıte calcıum ledges around the cıty where people used to be able to bathe and ın the pıcs ıt looks lıke people are bathıng on glacıers.  Well when we fınally rolled ınto the town, absolutely mıserable, the town was a dump.  It was damp and smelly and rundown.  We were sıttıng outsıde of the bus statıon when a man came up and saıd 'Come on you can rest ın my pensıon'.  We were so tıred and stupıd that we went wıth hım.  Hıs pensıon was fılthy.  It smelled lıke somethıng had dıed ın the receptıon.  There were empty lıquor bottles everywhere.  The stench was just overwhelmıng.  So we got up and took our bags and walked back to the town center - and Indıra spotted a local bus goıng to a town nearby that had more bus servıces.  So we hopped onto the bus wıth all the locals and off we went.

 

By goıng through Pammukale ınstead of Antalya, ıt wasn't possıble for us to go to Kas (a town on the coast) as planned.  So we took another four hour bus (a small bus but pretty nıce) to Fethıye, also on the coast.  We traveled for 17 hours door to door!  Fethıye ıs a very old town that was completely destroyed by an earthquake about 50 years ago.  Our fırst nıght ın town we went out for dınner at a nıce restaurant on the water across from our pensıon.  We hadn't eaten ın 24 hours at that poınt but we weren't even hungry!  We are pretgty sure we were ın survıval mode.  We are actually a lıttle tıred of kebobs and stuff so we ordered pasta but somehow my pesto sauce was brown and sweet?  Not recommended.  Afterwards we walked the 1 km ınto town and found a fun bar called Car Cemetary Bar.  We ordered a nargıleh (hookah) and smoked some apple tobacco and sat outsıde and chatted wıth our waıter.  He was askıng us all about Obama and McCaın and Lehman Brothers...I am always so embarassed when I travel because people know so much about our polıtıcs and I doubt any sıngle one person I know can name the Prıme Mınıster of Turkey!

 

Two days ago Indıra took a local bus (dolmus) to a nearby beach ın Oludenız, but sınce I seem to have contracted a pretty strong stomach bug, I stayed back at our pensıon.  Lıke I saıd, travelıng ın developıng countrıes can be pretty rough on you.  I kept feelıng lıke ıt would get better and when ıt dıdn't I fınally walked the two blocks to the hospıtal.  Sadly healthcare ıs more affordable for me ın Turkey than ın the US!  Well the Brıtısh nurse who saw me wanted to check me ın and put me on an IV drıp.  Let's ask Susan and Kırsten, who have to hold my hand when HAP used to come to VW for the flu shot, how I would feel about that?  Yeah, no thanks!  I polıtely told her that I would prefer to have pılls to stop the symptoms and not actually treat ıt (better lıvıng through modern chemıstry, rıght?).  So I am feelıng much better.

 

Yesterday we braved another fıve hour bus rıde.  We were on another bus company and what a dıfference!!!  I swear, our lıves would have been changed by travelıng 17 hours on thıs bus company!  We had waıters wıth matchıng tıes servıng us tea and coke.  There was a large skylıght.  There was a movıe.  The aır was temperate.  It was amazıng!

 

So now we are ın Bodrum, a tourısty resort town ın southwest Turkey that appears to be ın low season!  Thıs ıs the cıty wıth the loudest and bıggest dıcsos - one has lasers that can be seen ın Greece and holds 5000 people - another loads 1500 people onto a catamaran that departs for the sea at 1:30 am and returns at 5 am.  But there aren't too many people here now.  Luckılty the town ıs stıll pretty charmıng.  Poor Indıra wanted to do a boat tour today...usually your bıggest dılemma ıs whıch of the 600 boats to sıgn up wıth.  But she was the only person who sıgned up so they dıdn't end up settıng saıl!  She was so dısappoınted - I feel really bad.

 

Tomorrow we are off to Ephesus for the day and then we wıll spend the nıght ın Izmır before flyıng back to Istanbul for Indıra's last nıght ın Turkey.  Patrıck arrıves on Saturday and then I have another adventure fılled week before headıng home!  I hope all ıs well and I wıll try to keep you posted on the ınsanıty!  Hugs to all - Em

 

 

Colombia, Panama and Ecuador

Since every trip I´ve ever taken has involved delayed flights, sketchy people and mosquitos/bedbugs, this tale should not surprise you! Also, now that it´s composed, I should warn you that it´s yet another long post and you should probably skip over the parts that bore you if you intend to get anywhere near the end!!! I swear, we´ve only been gone for two weeks yet it feels like it´s been the longest trip in the world! I began this travel on the 21st – I pretty much saw 100 people I knew at the Detroit Metro Airport and since I was delayed for two hours, I had plenty of time to spend in the bar there! Finally, my plane left to LaGuardia and I had one night to spend in NYC. We were up early on Saturday morning and off to LaGuardia again. Little did we know we could have slept another two hours since, you guessed it, we had another delay. By the time we took off we were convinced that we would miss our connection in Miami. Not helping matters was the fact that once we finally landed in Miami, there was no gate for us. We sat on the runway for another half hour. So when we finally schlepped off the plane we pretty much knew we had missed our flight to Bogota, Colombia. Except – that flight was delayed too! What luck! So we had seven minutes to run half a mile through the Miami airport. What´s amazing is that we made it – and so did our bags! 

Once we finally landed in Bogota, we were met at the airport by a cute Colombian couple from our hotel. They brought us to our hotel and we checked into our miniscule room. It was only as wide as the length of one short single bed. We strolled around that night and there were tons of people out. We passed lots of street vendors selling toys, almonds, hot dogs, grilled corn, etc. I have to say, I felt a little weird because of the altitude. Bogota is the third highest capital in S. America (after La Paz and Quito). The air just seems thinner somehow. Our first full day in Bogota we spent doing a walking tour of the center. It is such a beautiful city!  But every afternoon the dark clouds would roll in, it rains, and then clears up again. Luckily it only rained while we were inside eating lunch and so we had the chance to stroll around the streets and check out the beautiful churches as well as the Plaza Bolivar. We had a coffee at a place called Crepes and Waffles, which only hires single moms. How cool is that? We went to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) which is supposed to be the most important gold museum in the world. It has artefacts from the pre-Hispanic era. Naturally it is currently closed for renovations! But they instructed us to go to the Donacion Botero. Fernando Botero is a Colombian artist who paints roly poly people – you might recognize his work if you saw it (see pic below). And attached to his museum were a couple of rooms where they moved some old pieces of gold for a temporary "exhibit" 

Next we took a taxi and our driver either had Tourrets or was having seizures while driving. I guess I don´t know and probably don´t want to! We went up the Teleferico (cable car) to the Cerro de Montserrate. The cable car goes up this insanely steep mountain to the church that is 3,160 meters high on this mountain. We were practically in the clouds. It was insane. 

We had views of the whole city around us. Since it was Sunday there were a ton of people up there, since it´s a mecca for Pilgrims. It was definitely very cool and I really don´t know how they built anything this high up before the cable car was running! That night we went to the Plazoleta del Chorro de Quevado – this super cool little plaza with stores and cafes. We sat outside and had coffee (drinking five coffees a day is a theme of this trip!). We had an excellent dinner at a Salvador Dali themed restaurant and tried some local beer and wine. 

One thing I really don´t understand is why Americans view Colombia as a very unsafe place. People could not have been friendlier! We never felt unsafe walking around the streets (day or night) and every person we met was so nice and welcoming. Literally, if we asked for directions, they would help us and then add, ¨Welcome to Colombia!¨. We absolutely loved every single person we met! 

That night we started to think about our itinerary. Our original plan involved many 12 to 20 hour bus rides and it sounded less and less attractive as we thought about it (clue #1 of many that we are getting old!). We knew we wanted to go to Cartagena in the north on the Caribbean Sea and we read that there were boats to Panama from there. Not part of our original plan but we thought, why not?  Panama could be cool!  Well, the boats weren´t leaving when we needed them to, so we found a travel agency and booked some flights (and right now my colleagues are saying "I told you so!" because this is what they begged me to do from the beginning after they circulated via email a picture of a girl tied up with a bag over her had with the title "Emily on Vacation!). 

With the flights that we booked, I am taking NINE flights in 17 days!!! Anyone who has ever flown with me knows that I HATE flying! I do it out of necessity but I have yet to understand how a plane stays in the air. But anyway, I´m digressing… Luck was still with us and it only rained while we were in the travel agency. We came out and took a taxi to the Zona Rosa, or the "posh" part of Bogota. It´s so completely different from the old town where we were staying. It´s very residential and ritzy. There are lots of boutiques, lots of Mercedes…and we saw police and their dogs checking the trunk of every person going into a mall parking lot. It´s part of life in Colombia so it doesn´t even bother them. We wandered around this area after lunch and honestly had a hard time finding a café! How ironic while in Colombia. And like I said, we need a minimum of three to five a day to get by! 

What I forgot to mention was that there were no flights to Cartagena in the following three days (it was Christmas Eve Day) and the only way to get there was to leave that same exact day on a $70 flight. So after Zona Rosa we had to pack and get to the airport for a night flight. Our taxi driver was ridiculously friendly and showed us every single thing (and then some) in the city. We had some jugo at the airport – let me tell you about the fruit juices of Colombia really quickly. If you can think of a fruit, Colombians can make juice out of it. We have had melon, strawberry, blackberry, pineapple, pear, peach, and orange juice. Plus, they have fruits that we don´t even have, like zapote and guanabanana. It´s become sort of a game to order random juices and they are always really delicious and fresh! 

So, back the airport, we happened to run into an American couple we had seen in the center two days earlier. We started talking and they were really nice. Their names were Euelle (pronounced Yule) and Nella – they are these 22 year old recent college grad hippies from Oregon who have been travelling in S. America for three months. We sort of adopted them because they were poor (and god knows Wendi and I have been there!) and ended up seeing them a few times in Cartagena too. 

So, Cartagena. Well, it was pouring as we got on the plane (thankfully not a prop plane) and Wendi says, "God, I think so many planes crash in S. America because they fly in heavy storms". She was obviously messing with me but it still made me so nervous. Then, we had major turbulence and of course Wendi, Euelle and Nella were laughing at how nervous I was. I can´t tell you how happy I was when we landed safely. We got off the plane and hit a wall of heat. It was so hot and humid walking down the stairs to the runway. Luckily there was a woman just inside the door by baggage claim handing out freezing cold cans of beer. What a welcome! 

Cartagena is called the "Jewel of the Caribbean". It´s this gorgeous town surrounded by the old city wall. All the streets are cobblestone. 

The buildings are all multi-colored and have these fantastic balconies and flowers and plants on them. The doors of the buildings are intricate and have really unique door knockers in the shape of heads or animals. The whole city is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Our book says it´s a "fairy-tale city of romance, legends and sheer beauty". It wasn´t lying. The weird thing was that our hotel was not exceptionally nice and it cost $80 – and that was after we got a 50% discount. It had a/c though, and when it´s 100 degrees outside, that´s really all that matters. It had no windows, and where the windows should have been there were two framed pictures. Ugly pictures. And the same one – framed and hung twice!!! 

What we didn´t know until partway through the night was that it had bugs too. Kind of like mosquitos, but bigger and man-eating. I´m hardly exaggerating here. It was the worst night of one our trips in quite some time. We both had meltdowns but at different times. Like, I woke up around 2 am to find Wendi flailing around with the lights on and trying to kill the bugs flying around. I was thinking, "god, she´s being a little crazy". But I was there just an hour or two later – feeling insane and trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Clearly the next morning we went hotel hunting. Too bad the bites lived on for another week and my arms, feet and face are probably 

scarred for life. Of course we became convinced that we had dengue fever too – for which there is no vaccination and no cure. Oh well, small price to pay to go somewhere as great as Colombia! 

Our days in Cartagena were a blur. We had Christmas dinner with the kids (Euelle and Nella) who complimented (?) us when they said, "We´re really glad to meet you because you have real jobs and are older and are not boring and still travel". That was a compliment, right? We wandered around the city. We went to squares and plazas in the evening within the city walls in order to have a drink or two or three or whatever and people watch. We tried to beat the heat one day by going to the beach in a nearby small fishing town called La Boquilla (where we randomly ran into the kids!). We watched horse drawn carriages go through the city. We drank a lot of iced coffees from our nearby Juan Valdez café. We sampled tinto (the locals all drink this coffee) and also tinto campesino (coffee with unrefined sugar cane juice). We barely slept because our new hotel had windows (bonus!) but these windows were over the busiest street in Cartagena, I swear. All night we could hear carts bumping over the stones, dogs barking, music playing, people talking, cars honking, trucks picking up garbage – you get the point. At some points, lying in my hard hotel bed with the a/c sounding like a lawnmower on the wall and still not drowning out the street sounds, I thought "did we do the right thing switching hotels?".  But then my bites would itch again and I realized I´d rather never sleep again than get eaten alive like that first night! 

We were sad to leave Cartagena but excited to check out Panama too, since it was totally unplanned and we didn´t know what to expect. We had pretty intense security at the Cartagena airport – no less than three checkpoints involving one grope and a wand over our whole body. There was the random cash payment for a form to get into Panama that no one ever wanted to see again. The flight was horrendous – it was probably the bumpiest ride I´ve ever experienced. The woman across the aisle was vomiting into a bag. Wendi was laughing (see a theme here?). Our tiny plane only had two seats on each side of the aisle and about 20 rows total. However, I have to say it was kind of cool to approach Panama from the north (over the Caribbean Sea) and just as quickly be landing in Panama City on the southern coast (The Gulf of Panama which feeds into the Pacific Ocean). The whole country is less than 50 miles from north to south between Colon and Panama City. 

Talk about not knowing what to expect! Here´s a little Panamanian history. The U.S. supported Panama declaring itself independent from Colombia in 1903 because of course we had a vested interest (the canal). Therefore, there has been a HUGE American influence here – the city had a population of 30,000 in 1903 and now there are over 700,000 people living here. We were shocked as our taxi led us into the city. There are skyscrapers, neon lights everywhere, Quizno´s, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Wendy´s, a Trump Tower…it´s like a small Miami. The city is so urban. Their currency is actually the US dollar. 

We found a hotel in our newly purchased-at-the-airport Panama guide book and the woman sceptically gave us a room. I don´t know if we looked especially weird that day but she acted like there were no rooms and then miraculously found one for five nights we could have. Our room is incredible – for $55 we got a/c, comfy beds, a closet, a tv, a bathroom with awesome water pressure…it´s the little things that matter when you´re backpacking around! Despite the fact that Panama is quite expensive and too American for our tastes, we actually really enjoyed it. We spent a morning at the Parque Natural Metropolitano, which is a tropical forest within the city limits. We decided to do the moderately difficult two hour hike called Titi Mono (Titi Monkey) Trail. It led us through this buggy, damp, humid, hot deciduous forest up to the 150m high Mirador (lookout) where we had hazy views of the bay, the canal and the city itself. We saw an anteater or perhaps a marmoset. But no monkeys, unfortunately.  Luckily we are still satiated from our India trip where we saw thousands of them! There are 250 species of birds in the park too. 

Our taxista Ruben came back for us and took us to see the Panama Canal at the Miraflores Locks. I guess without sounding rude, I would recommend anyone coming here to see it (you´ve come this far, after all) but it wasn´t anything spectacular. It´s a canal. Boats move through it. Since Panama regained control of the canal (from us) in 1999, they have improved safety and lowered time to move through. Pretty cool. 

People in Panama have been very nice too, although no one understands my Spanish. I don´t know if my accent is too different – no one else has had any problem anywhere else, but in Panama I felt like I was speaking some obscure language with all the blank stares I was getting! Also, we learned the hard way not to become friends with your taxi driver or they will rip you off. It´s happened twice now. See, all taxi drivers drive an old Toyota. None of them have handles to open the windows in the back. None of them have a rearview mirror. They all have really nice aftermarket cd players, a Panamanian flag, and a blessing from their saint tacked onto their windshield. It seems that as soon as we make plans to have our taxista come back for us, he always does (they´re very honest in this way) but then charges us double. Hmm. 

Anyway, another day we toured el Casco Viejo, or "Old Compound". This is the area that used to be Panama City (when only 30,000 people lived here). It´s got old, winding streets and Wendi says it really reminds her of New Orleans' French Quarter. Again, there are lots of balconies and colonial architecture. There are crumbling old churches and plazas. It´s very ethnically diverse too. Apparently Casco Viejo was pretty dangerous even recently so now there are bike police and walking police on every street. We really enjoyed strolling through it although by mid-afternoon it was baking hot. We randomly had lunch at this ridiculously nice restaurant where all the other patrons were drinking wine, if not wine and champagne! The meal started off with an amuses-bouches of gazpacho. Come on! 

Our second to last day we woke up obscenely early (ok, later than I normally do for work but this is vacation!) and we took a chugboat for an hour to an island called Isla Taboga. It´s an island in the Bay of Panama with a population of 950 people and 150 pelicans. Our guide book said we could pay $7 and use the pool, beach and bathrooms of the hotel on the island. Naturally, when we got off the boat, the gate to the hotel was locked up tight, and pretty decrepit. It was closed-and not just for the day! So there we were again, renting broken chairs and an umbrella on the beach. Wendi made a friend – a stray dog she was convinced had rabies who laid under her chair all day. We even bought it a hot dog. I think the French family at the next umbrella was appalled! I know we were appalled because we had lunch at the nastiest place (and only place) on the island. The fact that we´re still alive is shocking. The damn dog ate better than we did. 

Overall though, the food here has been really awesome. I have shrimp every single day. The Panamanians make a mean sangria. We´ve been out in Bella Vista for dinner a few times and sit on the patio of various restaurants with our $13 pitchers of sangria! The only troubling thing that happened so far is that on our way back from the island, we stopped to get our pre-dinner coffee. When we got back outside with our large to-go cup (I told you this place was American!) we saw a man and a woman getting in a brutal fight. She was screaming and hitting him. He actually kicked her to the ground in the middle of a semi-busy street. Enough people had jumped in to help and so we just sort of hurried on to our hotel. No joke, not three minutes later we heard two gunshots. Which made us hurry a little faster. And everyone thought we would be shot in Colombia! 

Honestly, as usual, New Year´s Eve was not the most fun and crazy evening of our trip! It never is (remember last year I was alone on a train with some Kashmiri guys outside of Delhi due to a bomb being found at the station). We had dinner and drinks and saw a pretty decent fireworks display at midnight. 

The last leg of our trip has probably been our favorite part, actually. We flew from Panama City to Quito, Ecuador three days ago (that is where I am writing from now). We really didn´t know what to expect because no one really extolled the virtues of Ecuador to us before we left. But we LOVE it! Quito is this fantastic city in the Andes mountains…it´s very hilly and green and mountainous. 1.5 million people live here and it´s the 10th highest city in the world. Their specialty is cuy – guinea pig. I refuse to try it but Wendi claims it tastes like bacon. Do you want to know why it´s called cuy? Apparently when you slaughter a guinea pig, it screams "Cuy! Cuy! Cuy!". I´m horrified. 

Anyway, back to Quito – there are tons of multi-colored buildings built in the valley and up the hillsides. Our hostal ($12 each per night and quite nice, believe it or not!) is in the area called La Mariscal (also referred to as "Gringolandia") which is New Quito. There seems to be a huge ex-pat community here but not in a bad way. It´s just really laid back and there are tons of cafes and bars and restaurants and bookshops. It´s so much fun. It´s also much more temperate here. It´s in the 70s during the day and the 50s at night. Which is a welcome change after the oppressive heat of Cartagena and Panama City! I know, I know, I heard it snowed another foot in Michigan so I will regret complaining about the heat! 

Anyway, we´ve gotten to know a bunch of people in our area (New Quito) and we spent a day exploring Old Quito. Old Quito is another Unesco World Heritage Site and absolutely gorgeous. All of the buildings are very colonial looking and there are beautiful churches and parks and squares. We started at the Basilica which you can climb for views of the city. We wandered the streets for hours, until the altitude sort of caught up with us. It´s different breathing here in such thin air! I wasn´t having much luck that day considering that while we were sitting outside at a cute café having our ridiculously cheap lunch, a bird crapped on my shoulder. How gross is that?! 

Today we had an awesome adventure (if you´re still reading! Sorry, this is getting super long!). We decided to take a day trip to a town two hours southeast of here called Papallacta. It´s known for being a beautiful mountain town and having hot springs. Only 600 people live there. So we caught a bus this morning and ended up sitting across the aisle from a guy wearing a Tiguan t-shirt. I started talking to him and he was a very cool German guy who used to work for Audi AG and quit to do freelance VW Experience work, take photographs, and lead white water kayaking trips in Ecuador a few months every year. 

Let me paint a picture for you about what was going on on the bus while we chatted with Norbert. People were jumping on and off every time the bus slowed down. Men roamed the aisles selling fake watches, apple juice, colored pencils, fried banana chips, charms, electric shavers (no joke!) and ice cream cones. One man even told a long, involved sob story about how he had a pregnant wife and needed money. This is when it´s good to look like a gringa who speaks no Spanish because you can ignore them! It was quite an experience. 

But, the views on the way were outstanding! We passed villages and grazing animals and forest as we wound around the mountains. There is actually no bus station in Papallacta so they sort of ushered us off the not quite stopped bus when we got to the town. It´s so high up (10,800 feet above sea level) that you are in the clouds! Norbert told us we needed to take a taxi up to the springs, but there were no taxis. Well, luckily a very entrepreneurial man converted his tiny pick-up truck into a taxi. So for $2 we climbed into the bed of his truck and headed up this steep hill on this rutted, rocky non-road that led to the baths. We were holding on for dear life to not fall out! It was so funny. Check out the pic of Wendi in the truckbed below!

We had lunch in the scariest roadside place you can imagine, but the food was randomly good. We had trucha al ajillo, or trout with garlic sauce. If you could ignore the fact that the cook has probably not washed her hands so far in 2008, it was quite enjoyable. Once we got to the springs we weren´t as impressed as we hoped to be – they were pools of hot water surrounded by pavement and filled with families and children. Plus, there were no more towels to rent. So we hung out for a few minutes and eventually decided to walk the 2 km down the mountain and flag down a bus. 

Yes, that´s right – you can´t buy a return ticket – you just have to hop on a passing bus. After about forty minutes, one finally passed by and we climbed on. There were two seats left – in the back row. I tend to get a little sick on buses weaving on small roads in the mountains with cliffs about a foot from the wheels, but what could I do? So we sandwiched ourselves on the back bench. Wendi was next to a four year old boy who was evidently traveling by himself. I took a picture of him – he was so cute! 

Once we got into Quito and saw a statue we recognized, we hopped off the bus (there´s no need to go all the way to the train station, we could see from everyone else hopping off at various points). We had a great dinner that night (food and drink at a nice place will run you about $8 per person but if you eat at an Ecuadorian restaurant it´s more like $4). They also use the US dollar here, since 2000. I read that the transition from their local, inflated currency to the US dollar was really horrible because the uneducated, indigenous population thought it was a big scam – why should they hand in 25,000 of one currency to get one dollar of another? 

On our last day, we did a day trip to Otavalo, another mountain town northeast of Quito that is known for it´s indigenous market. The traditions of this town date back to the pre-Inca past. We were really excited to check it out. It did not disappoint us - the whole town is filled with market stalls and people selling artesanias (art, jewelry, blankets, bags, dreamcatchers, pottery, etc.). The women in this area of Ecuador wear these cool tophats.  Naturally the bus trip was the biggest adventure! On the way there we continuously stopped along the road while a guy hung out the door incessantly calling "Otavalo" to anyone on the street and people would jump on the bus while it was still moving. But the way back was the craziest - it was standing room only and I ended up with someone's kid half on my lap! 

I´m back on Monday and in the office again on Tuesday. Please, Wendi and I are asking you to pretend to have missed us because we feel like we´ve been gone for months and we miss you! It´s been an incredible trip, and as always after a trip, all the things that seem so important at home are so inconsequential. I highly recommend Colombia and Ecuador to anyone looking for an adventure. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years! Talk to you or see you in a few days!

La, Shukran - A trek through Egypt

La, Shukran means "No, thanks". This is the first thing you need to learn in Arabic when traveling to Egypt. This is applicable when you are approached with: 

Come in, very nice shop! 

Just to look, not to buy! 

You are English? You have English face! 

First time in Egypt? Welcome! Welcome to Alaska! 

Will you fit me in your suitcase? 

And last but not least…Will you marry me? 

This is not to say that you are harassed all of the time in Egypt – I would say it's only about 50% of the time! Most of the people are SO super friendly, and the trip has been an incredible adventure! So the trip started off in Detroit when Claudia and I boarded our plane to Amsterdam. I think everyone moaned when they got on the plane and saw that it was the same plane that would transport you to, say, Miami. Three seats in two rows, no TVs…it was squished for sure! We sat with a really nice Lebanese guy Emad who now lives in Dubai. Funny story – he had been fasting for Ramadan for the first two weeks but broke the fast while in the U.S.because he was so tempted by Cracker Barrel and White Castle. The finest of American cuisine, for sure. 

Once we got to Amsterdam after not sleeping even one minute, we had a ten hour layover. Ouch. We decided to leave the airport, board a train and head into the city. Well, we sort of fell asleep on the train. A ticket taker woke us up to see our tickets and we blearily noted the sheep and pastures out the window. We were nowhere near central Amsterdam! We finally switched trains at the next stop and hit the shopping district. 

It was literally all we could do to keep our eyes open but we made it through the day. And we had a very typical Amsterdam experience…we saw many pot cafes and hookers ☺ Once we got back to the airport, we were beyond tired. We boarded our plane to Cairo and it was a "normal" plane with tvs and everything. Claudia slept but I was too excited so I watched Knocked Up for the second time. It's just as funny the second time! And even funnier considering my VW colleagues watched it with the stuffy management since VW was a sponsor...apparently US humor doesn't always translate!  

Anyway, when we landed in Cairo at 1 am, there was a mad rush for passport control. We got in line but little did we know we had to buy a visa at the bank in the terminal. But $15 later we had a visa, went through passport control, found our bags and then saw our driver we had arranged with my name on a sign. Into the night we went! Let's talk about driving in Egypt for a minute here. No one uses their headlights except to flash them as they pass. People just honk incessantly. It was the first night of three nights of feasts to celebrate the end of Ramadan and there were a million people milling around. The road is shared by taxis, cars, buses, and outside of Cairo, the occasional donkey, camel and cart. As one guy put it, "Walk like an Egyptian. Cross the street and pray to God". He wasn't kidding! 

When we arrived to our hotel (and I'm using this term loosely) we loaded onto the most rickety elevator you can imagine! Look at the pic of poor Claudia in this thing.  I can't believe the two of us and our bags fit. We were shown to our room which was right off of reception. Reception is where the hotel clerks live in a chair for 48 hours at a time. It's like slave labor here – salaries are around $200 a month. Unbelievable. Our hotel was pretty much what you would imagine you would get for $20 a night. Enough said! 

I'm embarrassed to say we didn't wake up until 1:30 our first day in Cairo! That is how tired we were. But once we woke up, we showered and hit the streets. We were staying right in Central Cairo and we walked to the Egyptian Museum, which houses an incredible collection of ancient treasures – including items from Tutankhamun's tomb (like furniture, gold, lamps, statues, etc.). Unfortunately it's set up so haphazardly - some things aren't labeled and believe it or not you can practically touch every piece of history in there. Costco has more things off-limits than this museum did. After the museum, we strolled along the Nile but with 20 million inhabitants in Cairo, you can imagine it was a little smoggy. We decided to go book our sleeper train tickets three days in advance for our twelve hour trip to Luxor. In true Emily fashion, they were sold out. More on that fabulous trip later! That night we walked around, had dinner, and shopped. Shops are open until 11 or 12 at night. There were people everywhere. It is SUCH an exciting city! It's been the crown of the Middle East and Africa for the last millennium. Although the women on the streets are dressed in headscarves, the stores all sell very Western clothing, which is what is worn inside the home. 

We went to bed really happy to be there. Then we woke up. To no hot water. Pretty much what you'd expect on a trip of mine, right? But we showered anyway and were in a hired car by 8 am. It was a circa 1980 Polish Fiat. Quite an adventure. Our driver took us to Giza Pyramids, the only wonder of the ancient world still standing. These pyramids were literally built in the 26th century BC!!! They are breathtaking. I think I took 100 pictures – each layer of stone is like five feet tall.

Archeologists estimate that it took about 10,000 workers eleven years to build the biggest of the three pyramids – and used 2.3 million tons of stone. It's indescribable! The tallest is 137 meters tall. You'll have to see all of the pictures to even be able to imagine! While at the pyramids, a burro wandered up to us and Claudia climbed up on his back for a picture. It's amazing what a dollar can buy you in Egypt! 

Just below the pyramids sits the Sphinx – which was carved almost from one single rock! It's 80 meters long and 22 meters tall. He is called "Abu al-Hul" or the "Father of Terror" in Arabic. It is really disconcerting to see him.
After the Giza Pyramids our driver took us to Saqqara. One of the pyramids there is actually the oldest pyramid in the world. It was basically designed by the architect Imhotep by layering rectangular shapes on top of a larger rectangle. All pyramids after were a copy.


After Saqqara we went to Dashur. One of the pyramids there (Senefru) has a long staircase to about halfway up. We climbed up and were offered to climb 65 meters down a ladder to the inner tomb. I was way too claustrophobic but Claudia did it and finally emerged about half an hour later gasping for air. Apparently the tomb is filled with bat excrement and it's not pretty…and please remember that it was over 90 degrees and sunny at this point too…

That night was our first night out at a bar. Since alcohol is forbidden to Muslims we had to find an ex-pat bar. We were so tired we were pretty much comatose and went to bed decently early. The following day was our last day in Cairo, unfortunately. There is so much to see in that city and we didn't have time for everything. But we at least visited Islamic Cairo, which is a web of alleys and streets and shops. We went to the Citadel which is where the Muhammad Ali Mosque is which was constructed in 1176. Unimaginable to an American, let me tell you. Then we headed over to the souq Kahn al-Khalili, the largest and most notorious bazaar in Egypt that was established in the 1380s. The 1380s!!!! We spent the day bargaining and really had some great finds.

I don't really enjoy bargaining, to be honest, because I never know if I got a good deal or not. I mean, it's typical to be quoted 500 Egyptian pounds and they end up selling it to you for 150. We definitely learned that the key is to seem uninterested and walk away…they will follow. After having shopped in every city so far, we just hope we can fit everything in our bags to bring it home! 

That was the night we boarded our overnight train to Luxor. Here is where I have to explain bakhsheesh. Bakhsheesh is a tip and is expected EVERYWHERE. It is typically given as a tip for a service rendered (like a taxi driver). Some people point at the door to a mosque and expect a tip. That can get a little annoying. On the flip side, it can be given in order for you to be able to take pictures where cameras aren't allowed, for example. A little bribe goes a long way. So anyway, the train pulls into the station and there are so many people who want to "help" us. We are led to a compartment on the train, a man helps us with our bags, we tip him, and he leaves. Then another man comes and takes us to a different train car, so we tip him. Then, someone comes and has tickets for our seats, so a different man takes us to a third car. I

I swear to god, we saw the entire train. Our final seats were with a study abroad program of Americans and Canadians who are studying in Cairo and their program includes a month long trip through Turkey, Israel and Syria. I was so jealous…it made me want to go back to college so I could study abroad again. But then Claudia reminded me that I don't actually want to STUDY, I just want to TRAVEL. I guess she's right… 

We couldn't sleep the whole night on the train. Sometimes it was freezing cold, sometimes hot. It seemed like morning couldn't come soon enough! When we got off the train in Luxor, it was blazing hot. People were crowded all around trying to get us to come to their hotel. We had already called ahead for the Venus Hotel ($18 a night) and one guy said he was from there. We figured he had a taxi, but nope, he just led us there on foot. Picture Claudia and I loaded down with our backpacks after not sleeping all night and it's 100 degrees and we are trudging past horses and shopkeepers and camels and cars on dusty streets… 

The hotel was a dump, and that's the nicest possible thing I can say about it. We slept a bit and then walked around and visited the Mummification Museum. They actually have a mummy there! We took a slightly illegal pic (but without a flash - see the mummy in the picture?  We also toured the Luxor Temple which is this colossal temple built in 1380 BC. See, Luxor is the ancient capital of Upper and Lower Egypt – it was built on the site of Ta Ipet (Thebes). It's filled with sandstone temples and tombs. What I found fascinating is that the East side of the Nile, where we stayed, is home to the temples, and was the side of "life" since the sun rises in the East. The west side is where the tombs are, or the side of “death” since the sun sets in the West. 

You can actually FEEL the history in this town. It's like time stopped thousands of years ago. The hieroglyphics are amazingly intricate. The temples are magnificent. The statues are master works of art. I doubt the pictures can do it justice. That night we took a horse and carriage ride through the city. My favorite area of the market was the spice market.  The colors are so vivid and bright.  Our carriage ride cost $2. Really, you can live well with little money in this country. 

The following day we had a driver and a young Egyptologist as a guide who took us to tour the Valley of the Kings. It was so hot you almost couldn't breathe. The pharaohs were apparently terrified of death so they built these elaborate hidden tombs underground in the mountains on the west side of the Nile in Thebes. Many were robbed but no one could take the complex drawings on the walls. Although there are 64 tombs, we toured only three that were included in our entrance ticket. Imagine going down stairs and ramps and through corridors that have intricate hieroglyphic drawings all over the walls. It's like nothing I've ever seen. Following the Valley of the Kings, we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut. Also referred to as "Hot Chicken Soup" by many Egyptians trying to get a laugh out of us. Depending how you look at it, Queen Hatshepsut was either the most powerful woman ruler or a transvestite. She is literally the only female to ever become a pharaoh. She wore a false beard and the two crowns previously reserved for Kings. Her temple is this mammoth structure also on the west side of the Nile.

Her temple was much nicer than the Valley of the Queens, which we toured next, and is the burial place for pharaohs wives and children. We were allowed in to take pictures of the hieroglyphics on the walls (remember the concept of bahksheesh?). I think you need to see all my pictures to comprehend what these places are like! 

That night we went to Karnak Temple for a sound and light show. They did an amazing job – there is music and the entire history of the temple as you walk through the halls and temples and study the obelisks and complex drawings. Every picture has a meaning and a story. 

The following day was our last day in Luxor, sadly. We spent it lazily sailing down the Nile River on a felucca, which is a small private sailboat. We had three guides and the two of us, and it was so relaxing and peaceful. We made one stop on Banana Island and naturally drank tea with some guys on a nearby docked felucca. The hospitality is out of the world. And the day was perfect - I think we really needed it after all the walking and touring we had done up until this point. 

Being in Egypt, we absolutely had to see the Red Sea. So we debated over going south of Luxor to Aswan to see more temples and tombs, or to go to the beach. The beach won. Which is where I am writing from! We actually ended up taking a taxi for the four hour drive, with the same driver as our tour the day before. We went via police convoy, which consists of approximately 100 buses and 100 police checkpoints. Supposedly it's in case someone breaks down. I doubt that, but it was very safe for sure. We found a phenomenal hotel, the Steigenberger AL Dau Beach Hotel in Hurghada. This is ten times the price of our previous hotels and a hundred times nicer. Claudia feels at home at a five star resort, but I'm a little weirded out! We have been here for two days and our days consist of lying by the pool and sea. We swim. We order fresh juice. We've made a bunch of new friends – Germans and Egyptians. I have been speaking a ton of German, which is great practice for me. There are about a million Russian people here but they aren't too friendly to us. At night we go out into the city of Hurghada, where I feel much more at home. It's a little dirty, there is a lot of hassling, and it just feels like Egypt! The resort could be anywhere in the world. But after subjecting Claudia to the places we stayed before, I can indulge her two days of niceness. Our final night was spent once again in downtown Hurghada. We bought some perfume oils and did some shopping and went out for a nice dinner. When you're on the Red Sea you have to have seafood! 

Sadly, it all ends tomorrow. Because we have a six hour bus ride to Cairo tomorrow – we are going VIP class which sounds nice but is cheaper than 1st class so is sure to be an adventure! We just have one final night there and then it's off to Amsterdam and Detroit again. It will be so strange to go back to real life, as it always is after these insane vacations. Sorry this is so long (as always) and if you made it to the end, well, you have too much free time! Just kidding, but I will be really impressed. Wait until you see my pictures – they will explain all that is Egypt much better than my words will! I miss everyone and hope all is well! Talk to you in a few days once I'm stateside again! XO Em

Namaste From India Part II

If I thought a lifetime had passed before I sent my last email, well, I clearly did not know what would be in store for me over the last week and a half! First of all, Happy New Year to everyone. I hope the hangovers aren't too bad today and everyone is gearing up to get back to real life! To be honest, I think I'm almost ready for real life too. There are so many amazing things about India that I love...the culture, the people, the sights, smells, sounds and tastes...but then there are things that are harder to handle...like the pollution, the poverty, and especially the staring and hassling! I have never felt more like a "foreigner" in my life as I do here. It's a constant barrage of "Hello madam, which country?" or "Rickshaw madam? Tuk tuk?" But just when you think you've had enough, you come across a warm and friendly person who turns things positive again. It's truly incredible. But where did I leave you last time (after that absurdly long email, I will try to be more brief here!). Ah yes, we had just taken the lovely overnight bus from Udaipur to Jodhpur. I have to mention here that many of you responded with surprise that Jess almost peed in a bag. We thought the highlight of the night was the complaint about her smell, but I guess you had to be there! Once we arrived to Jodhpur we basically slept for half the morning. Jodhpur was once the capital of the state Marwar ("Land of Death") and is nicknamed "The Blue City" because of the beautiful blue-washed buildings. After getting waiting list train tickets for two days later, we took a rickshaw up to the Mehrangarh fort, originally built in 1459. Our rickshaw driver waited for us while we snuck past the entrance (not wanting to pay the inflated tourist entry fee which included a headset). We had some amazing views of the city below. We tried to go shopping in the bazaars but we accidently went to the local bazaar where they sell things that are not for tourists. We finally ended up back at our hotel, where we chatted with our amazingly helpful hotel owner, Jagdish. Next, off to dinner and bed. The following day we hired a car and driver to take us to Bishnoi villages nearby. The Bishnoi people are environmentalists who live by 29 conservation principles. They are opposed to even cutting down trees. In the first village, we went to a family's house. We took off our shoes and sat on the dried cow dung floor and they offered us chai. Clearly this was not made with mineral water, but not wanting to seem rude, I drank it. Jess did not. You could argue here about who is the smarter of the two of us... But then something strange happened. The family offered us opium! We weren't interested but their three year old daughter was. They laughed "She is opium addicted" (their only English) and gave her a big chunk to eat. I was appalled, but she was quitehappy and ended up chasing birds around her room. The family consisted of a man and his wife, both of their mothers (one was 105 years old and could still sit down cross-legged on the floor and get up again), and a bunch of other people who may or may not have been related but came to look at us. The trips through the villages continued throughout the day. We met a man who does batik block-printing, a potter, a weaver, and a village doctor who was curing a man's snake bite through a chant. Along the way we saw camels, horses, women carrying loads of grass on their head, a group of men standing on the roof of the village bus (they posed for a picture)... let me mention that I think I took 100 pictures this day. All of the women in the villages were dressed in ornate, bright saris, and the men wore nice button down shirts and pants. The men were dressed quite Western. We had lunch sitting on the floor at someone else's house. To this day, I cant tell you what we were served, but I did say a prayer before eating since the house had no running water and the women sat on the floor in the outside kitchen as they prepared everything with their bare hands. We were asked the same questions overand over, namely "Are you married?" followed by "How old are you?" followed by confused stares. To these people, we must seem like spinsters, and poor ones at that since our family obviously can't come up with a dowry to marry us off! That afternoon we tried to go to the Umaid Bhawan palace to have tea, not being able to afford the exorbitant prices to stay or dine there. Since there was a $30 minimum charge, we took a few pictures and left. That night we took an uneventful overnight train to Jaisalmer (our first and last uneventful trip). We arrived to Jaisalmer in the morning and our hotel's Jeep was not there to pick us up. The rickshaw drivers at the station were especially aggressive and we had to fight our way through them to walk to a phone hut and call the hotel. They finally picked us up and we got a few more hours of sleep. My guide book said the hotel had "marble floors" and this was true. It also had a toilet you wouldn't normally sit on. It's strange what they choose to promote! Jaisalmer was one of my favorite cities on this trip. With a population of just 40,000 people, it is in the Thar desert and only 60 miles from Pakistan. It's the "Golden City" because of the gorgeous sand colored fort and homes there. It's very small and manageable on foot. We walked through the bazaar and went into the only shop that didn't harass us. It was a beautiful wall-hanging/rug store and the owner Jacky was super friendly. We spent hours with him, drinking tea and looking at all of his items. He truly earned our sales. I regret buying heavy items so early in the trip since I've been lugging them around, but they're things I'll have the rest of my life! That first night we had a nice dinner with live Rajhastani music. Have I mentioned that we had not had one alcoholic drink at this point? They are not big drinkers here. Wendi hypothesized that this is probably why for such a poor country, Indians are quite happy and depression here is low (although rising with the outsourcing of jobs to India). Unlike in some other developing countries, people don't waste their time and money on liquor. So this brings us to Monday (Christmas). It was a Christmas like no other. It didn't seem like Christmas at all. Jess and I spent the day wandering the maze of streets in Jaisalmer and tried to coordinate picking up Wendi and Ashley. Our email from them was that the train was full so they would be arriving on a bus or a train at some point in the afternoon. They finally arrived, and talk about troopers...they flew Aeroflot from NYC to Moscow to Delhi and spent the night at the Hare Krishna Guest House. While Ashley was showering she noticed a man'shand reaching through the bathroom window with a mirror!!! They had two meals in Delhi and saw mice in the restaurants. They took a train to Jodhpur and then illegally hopped on a 3rd class connecting train to Jaisalmer. After 18 hours of flight time, one night in a hotel (with a peeping tom), and 18 hours on trains, we had one night in our hotel in Jaisalmer and then left at 7 am the following day on a camel safari! The camel safari was definitely a highlight of the trip. We piled into the hotel Jeep with a British couple and set off. We stopped along the way and saw Bada Bagh, which is a collection of 500-year old sandstone cenotaphs. It was really pretty. We stopped at another temple as well. Finally we veered off the road and into the desert. When we came upon a small group of guys and camels, we knew we had arrived at the right place. We piled onto our camels and set off. Jess was on "Johnny Walker" and "Pepsi" was walking alongside her, but the rest of the camels had Hindi names that I forgot. Dogs followed us into the desert (knowing they would have scraps off food to eat later) and we nicknamed them "Rabies 1" and "Rabies 2". The wild dogs might be cute but you just never know! We stopped for lunch after only about 2 hours on the camel's backs. My friends were laughing at me because I was bouncing around on my camel-the saddle wasn't latched tightly enough. Mind you, there are no stirrups-only a saddle packed with blankets (the same blankets we used to cover up with at night, but never mind that). You have to use your leg muscles to stay on the camel, and I gripped the handle so tightly at one point that I got a blister on my hand! My camel even had two dozen eggs strapped to the back. When we stopped for lunch, a few desert sheep herders joined us. One was a little boy of about 8 years old (or 6, or 11, it's hard for me to tell!). I was trying to imagine his life as a nomadic sheep herder...it's so different from anything we can even comprehend. Shockingly, the guides' mobile phones worked in the desert! I get dead zones at my house in Ferndale, so what the hell?! They called up some gypsies to meet us at the campsite later on that night. At the end of the day when we arrived to our remote, pristine campsite nestled amongthe dunes, there was a man waiting for us. He had traveled from his village with a bag of cold beers. Phenomenal. Once we rolled our sore bodies off of the camels, we were all too happy to buy a 22 oz.Kingfisher beer from him! We watched the sunset from the top of the sand dune, and we could see something sparkling in the distance. It was the four gypsies, traversing the desert on foot for 12 km from their village. That night we ate from the same dishes we had used at lunch-but don't worry, they used sand to clean them! We had some rice and some spicy potatoes and of course chapatti, which is like a wheat pita you use to eat the food (no silverware in the desert). We were all sitting cross-legged on the same blankets we had ridden and would soon be cuddling with. Once it got dark, the guides built a campfire and the two gypsy men played flute and drums while the women danced. We had SO much fun with them...they made us dance (Jess was the preferred dance partner and kept getting pulled off her blanket!) and our guides even danced. I'm sure the beer helped! The guides for some reason loved me and knew name and constantly asked "Emily are you good? Yes? Then we're double good". My specific guide Nehru gave me extra blankets and even a neck massage. I enjoyed the special treatment! At night we lay underneath the starriest sky I have ever seen and tried to stay warm under four blankets each. Easier said than done! Ashley and I never fell asleep all night. It was a little weird when I was burrowed under the camel-smelling blankets and thought I heard my name? I stuck my head into the cold desert air and yes, it was my guide "checking" on me. Ashley was laughing hysterically. I was glad when the sun came up and surprisingly my muscles were not as sore as I feared they might be. The guides packed up our camp and we rode the camels to the waiting Jeep. I have to say that before the trip I wished we could have a longer camel safari, but I don't think our asses would have been able to handle even another hour! We were wait-listed for that night's overnight train, but unlike our trip from Jodhpur, we did not end up with reserved beds. The train was two hours late and it was pure pandemonium! A man told us we could still get on, and we ended up riding from about 7 pm until midnight in 2nd class. We met the nicest older British couple and they let us "squat" in their sleeper car. There were even people sleeping in the linen closet. But once we reached Jodhpur they made us get off the train. Hello-what are four girls going to do alone in Jodhpur at midnight (especially since Jess and I had come from there!)? So we hopped off the train, ran about ten cars back, and climbed back on. We were in 3rd class. If 4th class existed, it would have been 4th. The seats consisted of hard, wooden benches. The windows wouldn't close and it was freezing cold inside. The only smell was that of the bathroom. People were lying on newspaper. There didn't seem to be room and not everyone looked at the four of us with our big backpacks in a friendly manner. But then I tried to explain that we paid for seats but didn't have any and someone said "You have seats here". There was tons of activity as people made room for us and parted the way. Obviously we were stared at, and one man went into the bathroom and left the door open one inch through which I could see his eyeball. We felt a little nervous about our decision to climb onto the 3rd class car. But then conversation with our fellow passengers started when we bought chai (tea). We started talking to two students on the train. They were really friendly and I ended up staying up all night talking to them about their lives, arranged marriages, Indian culture, families, etc. It was so great. Other than freezing and being up for two nights straight, it was such a memorable experience I'll never forget. Wendi, Jess and Ashley didn't fare quite as well. A soldier on the train offered that they could huddle on his bench and share his blanket. Without going into details, let me just say that he was really excited and an exhibitionist. Oh, and the girls are traumatized. I'll let you form the mental picture. Ok, apparently I've gone into way too much detail because I can see that this is as long as the last email and there's so much more that has happened! We arrived to our hotel in Jaipur after our very interesting train ride, and slept for a good part of the day. Wendi and Ashley ventured out and met a rickshaw driver named Nana, who became our constant companion over the next three days. He is a 71 year old Muslim Indian who wakes everyday at 4 am to go to yoga in a park. He had to leave school when he was eight years old and his father passed away, in order to earn money for his family. So he doesn't read or write any language but he learned English. He was like our adopted grandpa in Jaipur. He took us all through the "Pink City" and to the Jaigarh Fort and Amber Fort. We had amazing views of the city. The Amber Fort had intricately carved rooms and corridors - the Maharajah lived there with his 12 wives and 350 girlfriends. Pretty impressive (both the fort and the number of women he kept!). We visited Galta, the Monkey Temple, where between 3000-5000 monkeys live (we only saw a few hundred, but impressive nonetheless!). Nana took us to phemonenal roadside restaurants for yummy thali. We went to a Mughal shopping emporium where we went a little crazy (the packages should arrive in the next week or two). He took us to a salon where we had our eyebrows threaded for 50 cents and a one hour massage was $8. He also introduced us to Simi and Pooja, two girls who are planning to open a store. They invited us to their house for breakfast and theoretically to consult on their business. Theirs was the first house with a servant and where we didn't have to eat on the floor. We had egg sandwiches and we chatted and had a great time, and we were really excited that we actually had some girl friends in India (usually only the guys talk to us). But when it came time to leave they put the hard sell on us and we awkwardly bought some small items. So much for girl friends... Yesterday morning we were up at the crack of dawn and on a train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is hugely impressive, but it was a bit of a stressful day with the hassling and the long pushing line to get in (everyone was cutting in front of us because we don't stand pressed up against all the others). After we saw the Taj Mahal, I was in the mood to get to Delhi and take a shower. So I split off from the girls, assuring them I'd be ok, and went back to the train station. My train was delayed and apparently the one I got on was the slow train. I ended up (where else?) in 3rd class. But my train car was so fun...there were four young guys (20 years old) from Kashmir who really befriended me. They bought me a snack and we ended up drinking whiskey and coke together. We exchanged emails and phone numbers. My train was so slow, that although my friends took a later train, they beat me to Delhi. They were really nervous when they got to the hotel and I wasn't there yet! Unfortunately (don't read this, Mom!) some terrorists with bombs were arrested at the New Delhi train station about two hours before I arrived. So the station was a little hectic with police and metal detectors. I found a taxi to take me to my hotel in the Pahar Ganj (Main Bazaar area) and of course he ripped me off but less than others wanted to. The roads were closed due to New Year's celebrations so we had to walk down these dark alleys together. I kept thinking "Was this smart?" but finally we arrived. I think my friends were relieved when I got to the door. Jess had to leave for the airport at 11:30 pm last night (ringing in the New Year alone, poor girl) and she told us later that she rang in the New Year being shuttled to the hotel in a van filled with balloons, with a midget in the passenger seat.  It probably was not her best New Year's!  But we were so tired and wiped out that we just stayed in the room, wished each other Happy New Year half-heartedly at midnight, and passed out. The following day we went shopping in the bazaar all day, and tried to fight off the coolness and dampness of Delhi.  We definitely did not pack appropriately.  We had a belated New Year's Eve and went out to (no joke) a Tex-Mex bar!  After three weeks of having ONLY Indian food, it was well needed.  We finally got a proper buzz! Better late than never! Our last day's game plan is to visit the Lotus Temple, the Friday Mosque, the Red Fort and some other Delhi hot spots. I get home on Wednesday night and it's back to the office on Thursday. I am going to have culture shock when I get back to the orderliness of my life! Anyway, if you made it to the end, well, you are either a fast reader or really dedicated! Happy New Year and I will talk to you or see you really soon! XOXO Em

Namaste From India Part I

I've only been gone for a little more than a week, and it feels like a lifetime! First of all, hello to everyone and of course Merry Christmas (if that’s a holiday you celebrate). I am in the desert right now, and it’s never seemed less like Christmas. I’m one week into my two and a half week trip to India, and I think I could fill up ten pages about the experiences so far! The sights, smells, tastes…it’s overwhelming at best and insane at its worst. There is so much to tell you I don’t know if it should be grouped by experience or in chronological order….so I’ll just tell it how it happened. I doubt anyone wants a ten page post, so I’ll try to keep it brief…or at least briefer…but definitely set aside a chunk of time if you care to read this. 

Well, my trip started with some bad news. Jess, who was supposed to meet me in Frankfurt for the second part of our trip, was delayed ten hours out of Seattle and clearly would miss her connection in Cincinnati. So that left me traveling the whole way alone. Not a dealbreaker, but a bummer. Or at least until they announced that they had overbooked my flight and were there volunteers? I sprinted to the counter and ended up getting flown to Amsterdam followed by a WORLD BUSINESS CLASS (read: seats that fold into beds!!!) to Mumbai. Let me tell you, as I lay there on my second flight, I thought “If I die now, I’ll be happy”. It was phenomenal. I shouldn’t go on about it since Jess flew Seattle to Cincinnati to Atlanta to New York to Mumbai and got in 20 hours after me…but I can’t help it! It was amazing! 

Arriving to Mumbai was not so amazing. My bag didn’t arrive. I actually arrived earlier than my original flight, so I figured it would arrive with the original flight. It didn’t. So I got into my first “line” in India – and I’m using that term loosely. A line in India consists of a pushing throng of people, all pressed up against one another. It was mayhem. Randomly the girl in front of me turned around and said, “Are you from Rochester? Are you Emily?”. We had gone to high school together. I swear, the world is unbelievably small. So I filled out the lost bag paperwork, and I felt a little nervous. There was no computer to tell where the bag was. Everything was manual. At this point it was 3 am and I prepaid a taxi and went outside. There were hundreds of people there. I found the taxi somehow, and we set off. The car was an “Ambassador”, of which you can find millions in India. It’s definitely reminiscent of a Lada or maybe a Trabant. Which means it has character and is a piece of… Thankfully, I had reserved a room for two nights at the Mumbai Marriott. I got a good discount through my friend. But, my taxi driver couldn’t find the hotel, and I was getting more nervous by the second. Eventually he found it and the security to get into the “compound” was quite high. Armed guards check your trunk, under your hood, under your car… Once I checked in, it was almost 5 am and I had been up for almost 40 hours. I slept late, and went downstairs to have lunch. In a well-meaning (I’m sure) gesture, the waiter brought me a goldfish in a bowl along with a pamphlet called “Conversations with Louis”. 

As if being out at a restaurant alone isn’t bad enough, here’s a fish you can talk to! It was hysterical. 

I spent the day recuperating and finally Jess arrived. Even after her four flights, her bag arrived. Mine was still nowhere to be found. The following morning we ventured into Mumbai. This consisted of us getting a taxi at the front door of the hotel. He drove us out of the compound, and at the bottom of the hill a chain of fellow taxi drivers blocked our way! They exchanged words and told us to change cars. Well, Jess and I were pretty sure we were going to be sold on the black market so we refused. Another driver got in our car and off we went! It took 2 HOURS to drive 25 miles. 

The roads here are like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my life. Roads are for (and I am not kidding): cars, trucks, carts being pulled by humans, animals and tractors, elephants, cows, goats, dogs, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, mopeds, jeeps…you name it, it’s on the streets of India! It was fascinating. Also, most vehicles do not have side mirrors or turn signals (well, they may have turn signals but they don’t use them). The horn is the preferred method of communication here. 

We spent the whole day in Mumbai. We saw the Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal Hotel (we walked in as self-assured as possible so as not to be stopped, and used the bathroom—it was divine!), the street markets, the shops, etc. We had an awesome lunch and dinner downtown – South Indian specialties for lunch and seafood for dinner. Our driver actually waited for us all day – at one point we passed his car and saw him sleeping in the backseat with his legs sticking out. So he took us back to the hotel at night. We had to directly pass through the slums of Mumbai. They estimate that 10,000 people arrive every day to Mumbai in search of work. 18 million are homeless or so impoverished that it’s the same as being homeless. As we passed the wooden boards, tarps and rags that make up the slum houses, I realized, as I always do, how lucky we are in the U.S. 

When we got back to the hotel, my bag still hadn’t arrived, so I decided to take it upon myself and go to the airport. I was terrified that once we left Mumbai we would never get it back. Jess was too tired to come (I was mad for five seconds but then realized how hellish her trip had been – did I mention she had a middle seat from NY to Mumbai?) so I let her off the hook. After a bizarre experience of wandering secret airport halls alone, and coming upon 10 workers sitting in wheelchairs and chatting, and finally finding the airlines office, it was determined that my bag was being delivered. The driver claims the hotel said I wasn’t staying there, but the hotel maintains he never went in the first place. But it finally arrived, so I was happy! 

The next day (Tuesday I believe) we spent half the day in Mumbai and then headed to the airport for our flight to Udaipur. The domestic airport is quite nice and all of the jets on the runway looked nice as well. Then our flight was called. We take a bus out to the ONLY propeller plane on the runway! Oh my god, I was terrified…and it didn’t help that Jess had told me that morning about two girls who died in prop plane crash in Afghanistan recently, who worked with her friend. She tried to modify her story mid-flight about how it was weather related, but I wasn’t buying it. Aside from the power going out as we descended into Udaipur, the flight was ok. They served drinks and a whole meal – how long has it been since they served meals on domestic flights in the U.S.?! 

We walked across the runway and found our prearranged taxi driver our hotel had sent. Our hotel, despite it being a “splurge” at $13 per person, was a piece of shit. We had to shower in the dark the next morning because the power was out. We were concerned about the rest of our hotels (which are cheaper and cheaper as the trip goes on!). But I’m digressing from the story…

Udaipur is a fantastic city in Rajasthan. Its nickname is “City of Sunrise” (not that we ever saw it!) and my book touts it as the city that “reinforces the romantic stereotype of India”. The streets are cobblestoned, the city is on the shores of beautiful Lake Pichola, and the City Palace is a phenomenal sight. Of course, it’s also complete chaos, because as I’m learning, anything that you say about India, the opposite is also true! Cows and donkeys and rickshaws and bazaar sellers crowd the streets. We were almost run over about a million times. And I’m barely exaggerating! But somehow it all works. We haven’t seen anyone killed, although we’ve seen a lot of close calls.

Our first morning (after showering in the dark) we went to find Guddu, a guy who had been my friend’s boyfriend’s guide last year. Thank god we did! Guddu is this cute 21-year old guy who knows everyone in and everything about the city and surrounding areas. Without him, I don’t know what we would have done. He first took us to the Jagdish Mandir temple, from the 17th century. This is where we saw our first monkeys. We had lunch on the rooftop of a hotel, looking out at the city. He sent us to the City Palace and on a boat cruise to Jag Mandir Island. We could see women in their brightly colored saris washing clothes on the lakeshore. 

Once we returned from our lake cruise, we got into the car of Guddu’s cousin brother or perhaps uncle. It’s not clear how they are related. His name was Chiki, and he spoke no English. We drove for 22 very scary km along winding mountain roads to Nagda, a 10th century temple that was destroyed by a Mughal attach. It’s unbelievable to see these intricately carved pillars and parts of the temple that are lying on the ground. On our way out, a little girl offered us a baby goat. I don’t know why, but I did get her picture and tipped her some rupees. After we left Nagda, poor Jess had to use the restroom. Her first public restroom experience was of a bathroom that was a floor. No, there was not a hole, just a floor! She practically flooded it! 

After her interesting bathroom stop, we headed to Eklingji – the most magnificent temple I have ever seen. It’s a Shiva temple, or rather a group of temples. The first was built in 734. The following 107 temples were built in the following 750 years. When you get to the temples here, you have to take off your shoes (and socks too, in this case). We often buy flowers from the women who string them into garlands. We were absolutely blown away. 

Guddu brought us back to Udaipur in time to catch the 7 pm showing of the James Bond movie Octopussy. This was back when Roger Moore was James Bond. Parts of the movie were filmed in Udaipur (as any local will tell you, or perhaps it’s better said as every local will tell you) so we felt like we should see it too. We walked up to the roof of the hotel where the restaurant with the movie showing was. We pictured lots of people eating, drinking, and watching it on a big screen. What we got was Jess and I alone watching it on the roof on a TV! It was hilarious! The setting that is, not the movie. 

The next day in Udaipur was as phenomenal if not more phenomenal than the first. Again, Guddu and Chiki picked us up at 8 am in front of our hotel. Guddu, who is a little high strung, had about 17 activities planned for us. I knew we would never get it all done! But we did get a lot done. First, we drove for a few hours into the countryside. We passed villages, women walking with huge jugs of water or bunches of grass balanced delicately on their head, oxen walking round and round wells to pump water…it’s almost impossible to describe but hopefully the pictures will do it justice.

We finally arrived at Kumbhalgarh Fort. Built in the 15th century, this fort is apparently one of the most impressive sights in Rajasthan. This fort is also on top of a mountain. Seeing as we hadn’t eaten breakfast (we were warned repeatedly not to eat street food so we turned down the delicious offering from a roadside stand from Guddu) it was not easy to climb it, but once we did we were not disappointed. It was unbelievable. 

Next, we went to Ranakpur, another set of Jain temples (similar to Eklingji). There are 1,444 intricately carved pillars, and no two are the same. It was built in 1439. There are 29 halls and 80 domes. Can you even imagine what this looks like?! It was again, unbelievable. Our last stop was a traditional craft village, which was more like a human zoo. Kind of, “Come look! Real traditional people making real crafts! Would you like to buy an oil lamp?” Ok, I’ve been typing for about 40 minutes, so I’ll wrap it up with the story of last night. 

After visiting the fort and then Ranakpur, we went back to Udaipur to eat dinner, wash up, and change into comfortable clothes. Why, you ask? Well, first read the following paragraph from Jess’ guide book: “Unless you are on a serious budget and traveling in India for months, we recommend you avoid all forms of bus travel. Often crammed full of commuters, state-driven buses are driven at blood-curdling speeds along dangerous and punishing roads. Numerous so-called luxury buses, operated by private companies, often ply similarly dangerous roads at night. Be aware that safety is rarely a priority and sleeping is almost impossible thanks to generally uncomfortable seating and noise.” So how did we spend last night? On an overnight bus, of course! 

Before you think I am reckless or stupid, let me say that there are no trains from Udaipur to Jodhpur and the place we bought our tickets assured us it was safe, and even showed us a picture of a bus that looked like a Greyhound. Ha! How different reality was! We waited for the bus at a roadside stand. Suddenly we were herded across a busy street to the bus. The bus was a monstrosity. There were burlap sacks tied to the roof. The whole thing was very rickety looking. When we climbed on we nearly died. The sleeper cabin we had was actually slightly wider than and not as long as a twin bed. It was almost full with our backpacks, let alone when we climbed up. There were no sheets or blankets or pillow. Climbing up was interesting…the latter had three small iron rungs to the side of the sleeper. So once you climbed up then, you had to sort of leap or haul yourself into the sleeper. We were in hysterics, laughing so hard we couldn’t even move, probably because we knew the insanity of the situation. And once we started to calm down, someone on the bus came and motioned for Jess to take off her socks – she had stepped in cow shit earlier in the day and apparently even her socks smelled. We’re still not sure – was there a complaint? Were we the smelliest people on the bus? Meanwhile, the bus was overflowing – with people and bags filling every possible space (seats, aisles, etc.). And we could barely control ourselves. I have to say, Jess’ book is right. Once we stacked the backpacks and stopped laughing and lay down, we felt like we were on a jackhammer. The bus slammed up and down over bumps. The horn was honked every 20 seconds. And periodically we would slow down and let more people on. There was no bathroom and it was a seven hour ride. Need I say more? 

I actually did manage to sleep for about an hour towards the end of the trip. Suddenly I was awakened by Jess who was demanding a Ziploc bag from me. I was like, “I don’t have one! What is your problem?”. She had to pee so bad that she was sweating and hallucinating and had reached the point of being willing to pee in a ZIPLOC BAG in our “cage” that everyone could see into (there wasn’t a curtain – just a wire door. I forced her out of the compartment and she climbed over all the sleeping bodies and out of the bus door.Out of control. 

To cap off the craziest night so far, we arrived to some corner on the bus and were dropped off. You try walking through the aisles of a bus with your backpack, over people and bags of rice – it was a treat. Our hotel had warned me that no rickshaw driver would take us to his hotel (they make commission from certain hotels who employ them, in a sense). His directions to me were “Go to the train station, walk east for three minutes, and turn left when you see two trees”. Pretty exact, don’t you think? So we took our chances and had a rickshaw take us to our hotel. He pulled up to some random place that pretended to be our hotel but only had a sign in Hindi. He told us our rooms were no longer available but he could give us a room in another hotel right away. I was too exhausted to fight but luckily Jess didn’t give up and we forced him to take us to the train station, which incidentally was full of people either lying on the floor or staring at us or both. We followed the directions and walked to our hotel, where we fell into bed. It’s a bargain at $8 a person – very nice and decently clean and we even have hot water! As far as the bus ride, we had all this adventure for only $6! What a bargain! 

Well, I’ve taken 300 pictures so far and still have lots of time and adventures to go. This is exactly the trip I needed to get me far from my normal life! I’m really having an awesome time, and can totally recommend India to anyone who likes adventure and doesn’t mind insanity! I hope everyone is well and I’ll try to keep you posted on the rest of the trip! For tomorrow night's overnight train ride, we're on a waiting list for seats or beds in 3rd class, so we could possibly end up on a 3rd class train where no seats are reserved and people are packed on like sardines, hanging out windows, sitting on the luggage racks, and curled up on the floors. Hopefully we'll get beds, but I'm sure the adventures will continue. If you made it to the end of this post, you’re crazy! XO Emily

Cuba is La Candela!

"La Candela" is how the Cubans describe something or someone that is HOT or ON FIRE. Cuba is la candela!!! All I ask of you is that you PLEASE don't forward thid to anyone who works for the U.S. government or immigration!

So, I just got back Sunday night and suffered through a pretty busy week at work where my poor feet cried out for the flip-flops they got so accustomed to! After 9 days of vacation, being in a cube in Michigan is a little painful, I must admit. Although I was only 90 miles south of Florida, I felt like I was on another planet. I don't even know where to begin. I guess I can start by saying that I went to Cuba with a lot of romantic notions about Castro and Cuba. I felt like Cuba was this small island of socialism, surviving through the years, telling Dictator Bush to "F off!" I had a lot of respect for Castro in this sense. Who else has resisted succumbing to the evils of capitalism like Fidel? 

However, I can tell you that after having been to Cuba, I have changed my mind. While many Americans are buying bottled water as a fad, although our tap water is clean and healthy, Cubans are lacking in so much. Here are some facts that you might not know: 

• Cubans are not allowed to leave Cuba. They have to get permission to go anywhere. Most people we met had never been on a plane. 
• Many Cubans don't have jobs. Almost none have careers. There is almost no industry to speak of, and they're paid so little, that if they wake up and feel like going to the beach, why not? Monthly salaries range from $10-$20/month. 
• Cubans are given rationed food. Yes, even in 2006, Cubans have to go once a month and get their allotment of rice, beans, sugar and oil. Beef doesn't exist on the island, although pork and chicken are favorites. Fruit is scarce, although tostones are amazing friend plantains. The sweet potato is another common dish. Having gone to a grocery store in Havana, I can tell you that their groceries cost as much or MORE than ours. Can you imagine paying $4 for a can of tuna fish? Can you imagine paying $4 for a can of tuna fish when your monthly salary is $10?
• Cuba has 4 channels. All are state-controlled. 2 are educational and 2 show news and pro-Castro rallies. 
• Cuba doesn't have billboards or commercials to speak of. This is due to the fact that they don't have anything to buy. Going from the most consumeristic society in the world to the least consumeristic country was a shock, to say the least.

 

• Castro's government owns all houses and land in Cuba. Cubans rent it from the state, but cannot buy. 
• One Cuban friend had an operation recently. It was postponed a day because there was no water in the hospital. Another friend had to go to the hospital to have his blood pressure checked. Both blood pressure pumps were broken. 
• There is an American embassy in Havana. Strange, huh? It has a scrolling marquis that scrolls anti-Cuban slogans. Even stranger, huh? Castro erected about 50 flagpoles with black flags to partially block the embassy (now for this, I can't blame him!). 
• Cubans are not allowed in most nice hotels/resorts. Very socialist, don't you think? 
• The most popular year for cars in Cuba were apparently 1952 and 1982. We should learn a lesson from them about the mechanics of cars, because how is it that no one we know has a car more than 10 years old???

 

• The main highway in Cuba is two lanes wide. You often see people selling cheese or jam on the side. You also see tractors, horses and carriages, open air trucks filled with people, scooters, and motorcycles with sidecars.

 

• Cubans have appliances that are about 50 years old. Being in a Cuban kitchen reminds me of a 1950's movie set. The government has an exchange program where you pay $5 a month for the next ten years to get a new fridge/stove/etc. because the newer ones use less electricity. 
• When the "special period" began in Cuba in the early 90s, after the Soviet Union fell apart, electricity was only available for a few hours each day. Now, electricity stays on, but we had to cancel our Thursday night dinner party because there wasn't water. The Cubans weren't surprised, since they had heard the government might not turn on the water the day before. 

Having said all of this, you might be thinking that Cuba is horrible or crazy or backwards. This would be a totally incorrect impression. I would go back tomorrow, and in fact I plan to make another trip there! Cubans are the happiest people I have ever met in my life. Cubans are the friendliest people of any of the 26 countries I have ever visited. They're totally sociable and outgoing. Cubans have amazing rhythm and must have salsa in their blood, because they are constantly dancing! Cubans know all their neighbors and although have little, give what they do have. Cubans are the most inventive people ever. If you have no money and there are no supplies available, I guess you figure out how to be inventive pretty quickly. Cubans are appreciative. Cubans are interested in learning about other places and meeting new people. The architecture in Cuba is phenomenal. Even the crumbling buildings are gorgeous. As you can see, Cuba is a complete contradiction. 

They have nothing and are happy. This could be another lesson we take out of their book. The one thing Cubans will all agree on is "no es facil" (it's not easy). Yet they invent and scrounge and give and above all, they survive. 

Ok, onto the actual trip (I'll try to be shorter here!). Having passed through Mexico to pick up my friend Inge and stay one night in Mexico City, we took a bumpy plane ride on Cubana air and two hours later, landed in la Habana. Havana was nothing like I expected. I mean, you think you know what it will be like from the news or from documentaries or from pictures, but when you arrive you realize you had no idea. Our taxi driver brought us to the center of the city to Vedado, next to Centro Habana, where our casa particular was. We had the luck of staying with a fantastic gay Cuban named Pancho. To make ends meet, Cubans often rent rooms in their house. Inge and I each payed $30 a night--you must be thinking that Pancho is rich! However, he had to pay $300 a month in taxes, whether or not he has guests, so in the end he is just surviving. This is a common theme among Cubans. 

Our first night in Havana, we went to dinner at a place called Jazz Cafe, overlooking the ocean. Upon our waiter's advice, we then headed out to Casa de la Musica in Miramar, where we got to see live Cuban music. Unfortunately we noticed quite a few tourists at the bar, so we decided to head out and see what we could find. When we got outside we were confronted with a. 20 taxistas and b. 20 prostitutes. Prostitution is probably the most common (and best paying) job in Havana. It provides people a chance to earn some money and enter into bars/clubs/restaurants. It was not at all uncommon to see a 50-year old western man with a 20-year old Cubana. So if you know someone who goes to Cuba solo and often, you might want to check up on him! Just kidding (sort of)... 

Anyway, heading towards the taxistas, only one of them didn't hassle us and when we asked him where there was a bar, he took us along. His name is Joel (pronounced Yo-ell) and his friend, a santero named Andres, joined us. Santeros believe in Santeria, an ancient African religion, and Andres dedicated himself to wearing all white for a year and abstaining from alcohol and drugs. Well, Andres and Joel decided to take us to another bar. As we pulled off of the side of the road in Joel's 1981 Lada, we hit another car! All the people in the street were yelling "Go! Go!". Apparently accidents between two 25-year old cars don't really count for much. The guys took us to play pool and to a club that seemed to be upstairs in a tree house, although my memory could possibly be impaired on that account. 

This first night is when "Inge and Emily" became "Ana and Emilia". No one could understand our names, so we decided to choose new ones for ourselves! And from then on, Joel was almost our constant companion. This worked out extremely well since we had planned to rent a car but I forgot my license and Ana's was expired. Combined with the fact that there are no street signs, it could have been difficult. So we became friends with Joel and although illegal, he took us to and from the beaches. Yes, illegal because Cubans are not allowed to have foreigners in their car. Another arbitrary anti-Cuban law. The miles he drove us in his Lada! The amount of times we were stopped by the police! The bribes we had to pay! 

Ana and I spent a few days at various beaches around Havana. We went to Playa Santa Maria, west of Havana. It was a paradise--we rented chairs for $2 and sat by palm trees and ocean. We had grilled fish for dinner. We went to Baracoa one day, which is east of Havana. We went to Salado my last day. We went out every night and listened to amazing music. We even had a DJ burn us a CD from a bar we particularly liked. The only things I brought back with me from the trip, and I mean the ONLY things (because I was kind of freaked out about going through customs) were two burned CDs. I'm obsessed with the music from Cuba after this trip! 

One day Joel took us to the "Baths of the San Juan River" about two hours outside of Havana. It was probably only about 30 miles away, but we had to stop every few minutes to add gas to the car (under the hood, who knew?!) or add water to the engine. We explored Habana Vieja (the old city) and walked along the malecon (boardwalk). Overall, without going into too much detail because this seems quite long enough, we had an amazing trip. We met some of the greatest people. We were invited into people's homes. We got such a sense of life in Cuba. We stayed up way too late and slept way too little. Ana missed her flight (she had to leave 2 days before me) so she only left one day before me. I almost missed my flight because it was randomly an hour earlier, but $10 later I had my bag checked and was at the gate. Corruption is great when you have money. 

Ok, I have officially written way too much. I guess I hope this conveys how fantastic Cuba is. I think everyone should go there, and tell me beforehand so I can send you with a suitcase of stuff. Things like aspirin, toothpaste, and bars of soap are a luxury in Cuba. One guy told us he doesn't like to drink because he feels bad buying a bottle of rum when he's lacking something. And he's always lacking something... 

Anyway, I did miss you all, and I hope this story finds you well. Please, drop me a note and fill me in on what's new. If it takes me a little while to write back, it's because I'm pretty swamped. But I wanted to at least tell you I'm home and tell you that you have to go to CUBA!!!! XOXO Em

The Baltics

Hello everyone.... Where did I leave off last time? I believe I had just left St. Petersburg in my last post--for a lovely overnight bus to Tallinn Estonia. What a nightmare!!! First of all, bus rides are horrific in Eastern Europe (I know this from living in Prague). They tend to be hot and crowded and people often stand in the aisles once the seats are filled. This was no exception. Wendi, Marissa and I apparently bought the last three tickets for the bus and were in the last row. Yes, we were sitting bitch. And we weren't alone either, because there was a British couple in the other two seats. 5 of us in a row. Wendi and Marissa almost missed the bus because we couldn't for the life of us find a Russian to tell us where the platform was. Ha! That's because it didn't pick up at a platform. It picked up at a random spot in front of the station! But they were in the kiosk picking up some bread and fruit and water for the ride, leaving me on the bus sweating buckets that they wouldn't make it back on! Luckily they did and the journey began... 

I'm sure you recall me saying that it doesn't get dark until midnight. So the bus left at 10 and at 11 we stopped for a cigarette break. People also congregated in the back of a building and were squatting and peeing in front of all. At midnight we were trying to fall asleep (Wendi finally lay on the floor in the aisle--I hope she throws those clothes out after this trip!) when we arrived to the Russian/Estonian border. We had to take our bags and file into a building. We all got through except for our British neighbor. For no apparent reason he was held back. The bus was going to leave him! Thank god for my limited Czech, because it was pretty well understood in Russia and I got the bus driver to wait for ten minutes. They finally let him get on the bus. A friendship was born. 

All of the people on the bus had been waiting very patiently. I learned why. Once our new friends got on the bus, we drove approximately 20 meters to duty free. The entire bus evacuated to purchase cigarettes and liqour. Plus, they all had a cigarette. We finally got back on the bus. The bus drove another 20 meters and we got off once again, got our bags, and filed into a transformed garage (?) where the Estonians gave us the once over. We got back on the bus. 20 meters further someone boarded the bus and took our passports somewhere. All in all, it took over two hours. It was nice and cozy! We slept about an hour, at the most. 

When we finally rolled into town, it was 7 am. We took a taxi to a hostel where we had tried to get a reservation. The girl told us, "Ok, I don't have your reservation, but rooms open at noon". We walked around beautiful Tallinn with our heads spinning, but we got some great pictures since the town was pretty empty. Naturally some extremely wasted people were just leaving the bars but when we saw them heading our way, we took off down a different cobblestone street. 

Tallinn is GORGEOUS! It's the self-proclaimed "Heart of Northern Europe". The Old Town is filled with medieval buildings, parks and a castle. Their town hall is the oldest in Europe. You can definitely see that there is an influx of money from Scandinavia. Well, Tallinn is also pretty small. By 9 we had seen it all! So we went to a cafe, and who should enter but our bleary eyed British friends from the bus who had been held up on the Russian side, Patrick and Becca. These two are HYSTERICAL! They have been traveling since March. They started in Thailand and headed through Laos, Cambodia and China up to take the Trans-Siberian railroad through Siberia, Mongolia and Russia. Their stories were unbelievable. How about that in Cambodia you can pay $300 to shoot a rocket launcher at a cow, or $40 to shoot an AK-47 at a chicken? Did you know that the Mongolian drink of choice is fermented horse milk, that is made in a bag lined with last year's batch (to begin the fermenting process of course!). I could have talked to them for hours. They also had some of the funniest insights about Americans. They mentioned how "open" we are. In their words, "Brits would say 'I'm not going back to school, it's not my thing' but Americans say, "I don't think I'm going back to school. It stems from my fear of failure, and it first starting affecting me in middle school when I...". They think our self-analysis is hilarious! 

Well, when we went back to the hostel at noon, a new girl was working. She had no idea who we were and no room for us. She did send us somewhere else finally, and we found a woman to rent us a room in her flat (?). We're not sure what the place was, but we were sharing with some other people. I took a nice two hour nap and then we got up and went out with the Brits. Tallinn has some trendy bars...we went to an Irish bar, a Turkish belly dancing bar, an Estonian bar and a cave bar. Poor Marissa, she actually flew home on Sunday morning, but first we stayed out until 5 am (it was already light again when we left the last bar) and she slept through the alarm. I think her trip home was pretty hectic! It would be if it started with the taxi to the airport arriving when you were still asleep! 

So Marissa left and Wendi and I took yet another bus to Tartu, Estonia. This is the oldest town in the Baltics. We visited the Raekoja Flats and did a little mini-hike up to the Cathedral Hill. There is a 15th century cathedral practically in ruins up there...the best part is the sign that is posted that exclaims, "Be cautious! The building is liable to fall down!". Apparently they're not as afraid of lawsuits as we are... Tartu is supposedly the "intellectual, historic and nationalistic heart of Estonia". We thought it was a little boring. But the trek was worth it because we stayed at the Tartu University dorms that are turned into a hostel in the summer and we had our own bathroom! You really learn to appreciate the little things when you are traveling! 

So Monday morning we got up at 5 (makes me miss work! At least when I go to work I get to "sleep in" until 6:30) and we took a bus to Riga, Latvia. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was completely surprised and delighted. Yes, I did just use the word "delighted". But let me tell you, according to our guide book, Riga is the capital of Latvia and Latvians are actually in the minority. There are as many Russians as Latvians, plus a lot of Polish people and Ukranian people, etc. It was founded in 1201 and the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I figured it would be beautiful but I didn't realize HOW beautiful! I fell in love with Riga, and in fact Wendi and I spent the entire day walking around, visiting beautiful churches and cafes. We also went to the "Jews in Latvia" museum, which was quite interesting. It seems that by 1935, 10% of Riga's population was Jewish - there were about 40,000 Jews here. Then after WWII, there were 150. It's a very sad history. 

We popped into the main Orthodox cathedral just in time to see a service...the women cover their head and kneel on the floor and sing and later kiss the ground, get touched on the forehead and kiss the priest's sleeve. It was so interesting. Riga is a town of millions of outdoor cafes and bars and we wandered all over the town, taking lots of twilight pictures. It seemed really magical, which sounds cheesy, but I really didn't think another city other than Prague could seem so magical. You'll just have to experience it yourself! 

Tuesday we left Riga (only because we are flying out of Riga and needed to go to Lithuania). As always (did I mention that my friends refer to me as a freak magnet?) the bus was filled with travelers. With 5 hours on my hands, and Wendi listening to her discman and clearly ignoring me, I ended up in conversation with a 44 year old Venezualan man named Cesar who is on a six month tour of Asia and Europe. Why, you ask? Well, he is looking for a wife! This came out later in the conversation and I was already in too deep. Luckily I convinced him that Wendi and I are not looking for husbands. He ended up sharing a taxi with us to come and look for rooms at a hostel from my book, and naturally the hostel had ONE room left. It was a triple. Yes, you guessed it, Wendi and Cesar and I shared a room. At least it had three separate beds, but it didn't have sheets so I was super paranoid about bedbugs. Enough about our sketchy accomodations...

Vilnius is another amazing city! Lithuania was the first Baltic nation to declare independance from USSR in 1990. Vilnius was built in 1323 and has the largest Old Town in all of Europe. Much like Tallinn and Riga, there are various churches and cathedrals and squares and fountains and old city walls. Also, the most random statue in Eastern Europe calls Vilmius home. It's a statue of Frank Zappa's head! The Lithuanians liked his anti-authority message :) 

Let me take a second (just a second, I promise, I know this is getting long!) and tell you a few things about the Baltic states. First of all, they speak amazing English here. This was very surprising for me, since it was not that way in Russia at all. Also, it is very trendy and Western, in a way that is almost scary. As the world is more and more homogenized, people's looks become interchangeable and there is a McDonald's on every corner. But considering most people know little about the Baltics, I find it very intriguing that they have become so Westernized in such a short period of time. Even ten years ago this was a very different, post-Soviet area. This is not to say that there is not poverty. Much like in Russia, there are people driving Audis and Hummers and BMWs alongside homeless people and people in 25 year old Lada's. It's really an eye-opening experience. 

But I should get back to the travels, and I'll wind it up here because this is excessively long and it's almost time for dinner here and it's the last time I will be online! From Vilnius, Wendi and I did a day trip to a more typical Lithuanian town called Kaunus. It's about 1.5 hours away, and we spent a nice day walking miles in the Old Town and the pedestrian shopping area. It was pretty uneventful and we were happy to get back to Vilnius and relax at night (with no Cesar in the room!). 

Thursday was another day to explore Vilnius, and in the late afternoon we put on our backpacks and made the 40 minute uphill trek to the bus station to come back to Riga. Our bus ride started off uneventful, and I even managed to sleep for about the first hour (out of 5). Our bus had 3 official stops, and about 10 unofficial ones. It was the strangest thing, the bus kept pulling over and letting people off in the middle of nowhere! I could understand if there was even a farmhouse in sight, but there were just rolling hills... Just past the border crossing into Latvia, Wendi suddenly freaked out and grabbed me from across the aisle. She had seen a dead man, spreadeagle and with his eyes wide open, in a ditch!!! I mean, you couldn't make this stuff up. Obviously we had no way to convey this to our driver (the one time one of our bus drivers tried to speak English he told us we had "3 times 10 minutes" and then attempted to leave people at the station when they were hanging out, thinking they had a half hour) so the dead man may still be there. Wendi was a bit shaken up and can't stop thinking about it. 

At this time we started talking to two other guys on the bus. One is a Japanese professional tennis player and the other was his Italian coach, although they live in Spain. Very international, eh? We ended up going out for dinner and drinks with them at a German beer garden and we had such a good time! How can you not enjoy a place where martinis cost less than $3!?!! So we got home at 3 this morning. Today we slept in and spent the day relaxing in Riga. It couldn't have been a more perfect day. Cloudless blue sky, sun, around 75 (speaking of which, I hope the heat wave is over when I get home!) and we needed a day off with no bus rides and no ten mile walks!!! Tomorrow we're going to the museum of Latvian Occupation. So I'm bruised, cut, mosquite bitten and tan (or is it dirt) and ready to come home! I get in Sunday night and am back to the office on Monday! I'm glad to have heard from some of you that all is well, and I can't wait to see you or talk to you next week! XO Em

Helsinki, Finland and St. Petersburg, Russia

Hi everyone! Let me preface this post by saying that if you don't have a lot of time, don't start reading this! I haven't begun typing yet, but I've had enough adventures in the last 9 days to know that this will be a long one! Also, you may not care to hear about the trip so far, but I tried not to leave anyone out :) 

Anyway, the trip has been fantastic!!!! My flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was uneventful and I didn't sleep but I did watch three movies...and I met Wendi in the Amsterdam airport as planned. We tried to get seats together on our flight to Helsinki but they couldn't do it. Well, she randomly got bumped up to first class as we were boarding, and I was sandwiched next to a guy from Atlanta who chatted the entire time...I now know Pete Sampras' birthday, the number of commuters at University of Georgia, and every single car he's had from age 16-38 (all relevant facts, can't you tell!?). When we FINALLY arrived to Helsinki, Wendi was well-rested from having her own ROW in first class, not to mention a gourmet breakfast. Do I seem bitter? I am! However, no planes had crashed so I was grateful and ready to begin the trip. 

Finland is beautiful and actually contains 100,000 lakes. It is actually a huge archipelago. Helsinki is nice, but it didn't impress me as much as the rest of our trip has. However, there is a nice pedestrian area called the Esplanadi, and there is a market by the pier, as well as your typical ornate architecture scattered throughout. Just by chance, we were in town for the weekend of a heavy metal festival, so the younger people were all in leather corsets and all black (naturally) which sort of freaked us out until we found out why! Wendi and I napped while we waited for Marissa, who arrived about three hours later and without her suitcase. We went out and had some dinner and walked around and we were so exhausted that we went to bed before midnight. Well, at midnight it was still light. And at 4:45 am when the sound of a jackhammer outside of out hostel window woke us up it was light again! It could have been midday it was so sunny. The summer here is unbelievable! You don't need as much sleep because you never feel like it's late and you get so much energy from seeing the sun so much. On the flip side, in January it's only light from 10 am until 3 pm, so I'm not saying it's utopia...but it's pretty damn nice here now! 

So on the lovely Sunday that we were woken up at 4:45 by construction, we took a train about two hours west of Helsinki to a town called Turku. It is from the 13th century and is the oldest town in Finland. Formerly, it was the Swedish capital! Turku is a cute town with a nice river and cathedral and parks...we spent the day there and tried the perry siider (pear cider) that they are known for. It's excellent! 

Monday was just not my day. We started the day by going to the open air market down by the pier. We got fruit and vegetables and fish. We planned to picnic on Suomenlinna Island, which is a 15 minute ride on a ferry. There is a huge fortress there that was built to be against the Russians, and the whole island is a World Heritage site. Well, as we waited for the ferry, the three of us decided to eat our fish. I wonder why the seagulls decided to attack me and leave Wendi and Marisa alone?! Not only did they steal my fish (which was annoying) but then one landed on my HEAD! It was standing on my head! Aren't seagulls dirty rodents with wings? It was disgusting. And my friends could only laugh and laugh....fast forward about 20 minutes and we were on the upper deck of a ferry, cruising in the sunshine to the island. You couldn't have asked for better weather. I did my best to ignore the toothless drunk man nearby, but it got difficult when he got off of his bench, walked toward me, and GRABBED me! We got into a pushing match, during which time I was half hoping no one had seen him grab me and half hoping everyone did, so that I wouldn't just look like someone who gets in fights with strangers! My friends were, of course, cracking up--they call me a "freak magnet" because if anyone crazy is nearby, they generally approach me! As if the day couldn't get any worse, after spending an amazing day on the island, we went back to Helsinki and decided to hop on a tram to see where it would take us. Enter another drunk man, this time screaming at us that he is "selling beer, cigarettes and medicine for cheap!". I am telling you, Europe is the only place with bilingual drunks! He had to be ejected off of the tram by the driver because he got so rowdy. 

Tuesday was the first day we had bad weather (rain) but we didn't care because we spent seven hours on a train to St. Petersburg, Russia. Wendi was the intelligent member of our group who spent part of that time teaching herself Cyrillic. Naturally, being competitive, I had to learn too. I can now read the occasional sign or storefront! St. Petersburg is the "Venice of the North" some would say. It sits on the mouth of the Neva River on the Gulf of Finland. The city itself is actually made of 44 islands among 50 canals. It was founded by Peter the Great as the capital of Russia in 1703. The city is absolutely incredible! I would go back in a second. There are gorgeous buildings and bridges and churches and palaces as far as the eye can see. And we seriously pounded the pavement all day for four days straight, and STILL didn't see everything! 

The one downside to St. Pete is that they have a mosquito problem. Our disgusting fifth floor hostel room with no screens was unbearable without opening the windows, so we used this "mosquito equipment" which looks like what I imagine a Glade plug-in would look like and doesn't work at all. But other than the incessant itching of our arms and legs, we had an amazing time! 

We spent two days doing walking tours with a Russian guide. I never do tours because I always picture a woman leading around 40 people with an umbrella waving in her hand. But our tours were small and personal. The first day (Wednesday) we were with "Mike" (Mikhail, I assume) who had such an impeccable British accent I was shocked to find out he was Russian. He toured us around to the artist's area, the Kuznechyy Farmer's Market, the Pushkin statue, the Cathedral of our Savior (colorful Russian domes--I took a million pictures, you'll see them when I get home!), to the Summer Gardens, to Petrograd (home of the Peter and Paul fortress) and then to have some beers! For dinner he directed us to an amazing Georgian restaurant with a nice Barry White CD playing in the background, and we ate with an older couple from Australia about to embark on the Trans-Siberian railroad. It was highly preferable to the Russian restaurant we lunched in where they were playing Abba and a man walked in wearing a t-shirt "celebrating Osama bin Ladin and the 9-11 attacks"...we kept our heads down when we saw him! 

On Thursday, Wendi and Marissa went to the Hermitage (an art museum that rivals the Louvre) but I preferred to spend my day walking around the city. I saw the Kozan Cathedral, the Eternal Flame, and the Mikhaylovsky Garden.. It started raining later in the day and so the three of us went to a banya. Apparently the pipes and drainage system in St. Pete haven't been changed since the city was founded (1703) so you can't drink the water, but all the books say if there is one thing you should do, it's go to a Russian bath. Let me tell you, this was an interesting outing. I've been to the Hungarian baths and they are amazingly huge pools of varying degrees of water, surrounded by beautiful ceramic tiles and sculptures. Not so in Russia! The bathhouse was pretty plain, and basically people just lounge around either in a hot room or in a REALLY hot room. It's like a sauna, but HOTTER than anything I've ever felt--it's 70 degrees celsius. You actually can't breathe when you go in. In the Russian banyas, it is customary to offer and receive a beating with a birch stick. I have to be honest, we didn't do it. I saw other people smacking each other with bunches of birch sticks, but I held myself back ;) 

Our Friday tour started out rainy but the weather cleared up and we had a great day. We became friends with three people from the Air Force who are living in Germany and they were really fun. We stopped mid-tour to have some beers and really enjoyed the day with them. Just by chance our group went to Rasputin's old home, and while we were outside a dog started barking at us. A man came out to see what was going on and randomly invited us up into Rasputin's banya! There were half naked men sitting around playing backgammon and no one gave us a second glance. The walls and floors were amazing; very intricately detailed and ornate. I got pictures! Our tour guide Vera said in four years of giving tours she has never been inside. Vera also took us to St. Isaacs, where the domes are covered with gold and 70 slaves died of mercury inhalation when the cathedral was being constructed! I think at this point in the vacation I had gone through about five rolls of film. 

Friday night we took an overnight bus to Tallinn, Estonia. Talk about an interesting trip....I think this post is long enough though, so I'll add that to Part II later this week! I'm in Riga, Latvia right now, and my time on this computer is almost up, so let me post this and I promise to write more later this week. Overall, I'm having a great, great time! Of course I miss everyone, and I would love to have clean clothes as well as a shower that doesn't involve flip flops and walking down a hallway in a towel, but this trip has been amazing fun! I can't wait to develop all my film! Miss you!

Germany and Austria Roadtrip

Working for Volkswagen has a lot of benefits, not the least of which is getting to meet amazing people from all over the world.  When my German friends Hagen and Sabine along with my Austrian friend Irene invited me to come spend two weeks over Christmas visiting them, how could I turn down such an opportunity?!

Jess, one of the fellow "50 and 50 by 50" club members, wanted to join me so off we went...

We flew into Frankfurt where we met Christian (also a fellow VW friend).  He took us back to his apartment in Meinz, a university town that borders Frankfurt.  As is usually the case after an international flight, the first thing we wanted to do was shower.  Poor Jess was walked in on by one of Christian's roommates!  She was not even in the shower yet but had the luck of meeting him face to face butt-naked.  Thankfully she is so laid back that she recovered gracefully.  It was great to see Christian and Axel and Stefan and of course we spent our first evening in a biergarten even though we were ridiculously exhausted from the jetlag :)

Hagen's parents loaned him the family VW "Caddy" for our roadtrip around Germany and Austria, which was amazing.  It was spacious and because it was a diesel, we got great mileage the entire time.  Hagen can be a bit particular and spread a blanket on the backseat, theoretically so we would be more comfortable although I think it was more so we wouldn't get it dirty.  We felt like we were dogs and kept referring to it as "the dog blanket".  Along with Hagen's childhood friend Marcus and Sabine, we loaded up and drove to Alpbach, Austria.  

Alpbach is this gorgeous mountain village in the Alps where Irene is from.   Her parents run a bed and breakfast, and everyone in Alpbach knows everyone.  It was not uncommon for Irene to run into everyone from her 5th grade boyfriend to her 8th grade teacher to her aunt's best friend...it's that kind of vibe!  We stayed in a flat across from the village cemetary and nearby the village square.

Alpbach has the kind of charm that is almost impossible to find anymore, as the world gets more and more homogenous.  There are only 2,500 people who live there, and all new construction has to be built in a certain style, in order to preserve the village.

We spent our days sleeping in and then going to the mountains in order to take in the scenery.  The guys went skiiing (along with Jess one day) while the girls opted for drinking beer by the fire in the mountain lodges :) 

One night Irene invited us to go sledding.  Having grown up in Michigan, sledding to me consists of a ten second ride on a plastic sled down a small hill (usually in someone's backyard).  Sledding in the Alps is a different story!

First, we piled into some small European SUV with 4WD that careened up a winding, dark, mountain road.  I was thinking, "Where are we sledding?".  When we got to the top, we hopped out and each got a small, wooden sled with metal skids.  I realized that we were expected to sled on the road (sans guardrail, mind you!) down the mountain!  Whole families with kids were hopping on their sleds and whizzing off.  We had no chance but to do the same!

You FLY on those things!  The hill is impossibly steep!  There are no guardrails to keep you from flying off the side of the mountain!  Although it was one of the most terrifying things I have done in my life, it was also one of the most exhilarating!  

For me, I think one of the best aspects was that along the way, there are pubs on the mountain! It's a pub crawl, but instead of walking bar to bar, the transportation is by sled!  So you basically sled pub to pub and with each beer, you feel a little more relaxed about your possible impending death...

From Alpach we took two separate daytrips.  The first was to Innsbruck, where Irene works.  It is a beautiful town and it was all decorated for the holidays.   The mountains are in the background and I can see why so many people love the city.  My previous experience in Austria was just visiting Vienna, so it was great to see another city.  Having Irene with us meant having a local who knew exactly where to take us.  We climbed up a tower for fantastic views.

The second trip was to Salzburg, also referred to as "The City of Mozart".  It's baroque town center is a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Sight.  I have found that I always fall in love with cities with rivers (i.e. Prague).  Salzburg was no exception!

We spent the day wandering around the city, poking into various shops and cafes.  

We had dinner at a very traditional restaurant, where the seating is at picnic tables and you join whoever happens to be there.  I ordered kasespaetzle, a German specialty of egg noodles, friend onions, and a swiss-type cheese.  The people at our table kept glancing over at us when the food arrived.  As they got up to leave, they smiled tentatively at us and said (in English), "You enjoy Salzburg?".  We said, "Oh yes, it's wonderful!".  They smiled and said, "Your food smells very bad!".  We were so confused and Irene told us that Austrian humor is different...

We spent New Year's Eve in Alpbach.   The village square turned into the happening place to be ...there was a bar made of ice, music, tons of people, fire throwers...we ended the night at a local bar and luckily we didn't stay out all night, because the following day we were off to Berlin.

The drive to Berlin took most of the day, because apparently every German was also traveling.  I've never seen so much traffic on the Autobahn!  We mostly slept upright in the backseat while Hagen drove and Marcus navigated.

Berlin is such an awesome city!  We stayed with our friends Florian & Nadine, and we had the chance to see our friends Ralph, Heiko, Sascha.   

We visited Unter der Linden, the boulevard at the heart of the center of historic Berlin.  We visited what is left of the Berlin Wall.  We went to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum that now stands there, site of the former checkpoint between West and East Berlin.  Strangely, although I was only five years old when my family lived in Germany, I can remember the tall towers along the wall between the East and West!

Somehow it was very easy to go out until 6 am in Berlin without realizing how late it was...and somehow the evening generally ended at a currywurst stand...I specifically remember singing Happy Birthday to the currywurst stand man.  And there is definitely a picture of us hugging our taxi driver, who was Iranian, because we loved him for some reason!

Hagen had gone to stay with his parents in the village of Gardelegen, partway between Berlin and Wolfsburg, while Jess, Sabine and I partied in Berlin.  We took the train to Wolfsburg and toured the Autostadt and then went to Gardelegen for the night.  

Although Hagen's parents don't speak English, Jess and I were somehow able to communicate with them!  Gardelegen is a really cute town and very much off the beaten track of where most tourists would go!

From Gardelegen we headed north, towards Emden, which is where Sabine is from.  En route we stopped in Hamburg for two days, to stay with Sabine's friend Rebecca.   True to form, I loved it!!!  (It is on water).  I loved everything about Hamburg...each of the different areas of the city, the architecture, the parks, der Reeperbahn (prostitution/bar/club area)...

Rebecca's apartment was beautiful and spacious and, like everyone else, the hospitality shown to us was out of this world.  They toured us around the city and took such good care of us while showing us all the important sites.  The nightlife in Hamburg also goes to around 6 am and we took advantage of it!

After leaving Hamburg we stopped in Bremen for dinner.  It is another beautiful town!  In Emden, we stayed at Sabine's mom's house.  I have to be honest...the way people talk about the northern part of Germany, I was not expecting much from Emden.  But it's a cute city and people were really friendly and we had a lot of fun going out with Sabine's friends.  

We even took a trip one afternoon into Holland, since Jess had never been there.

We spent a drizzly day shopping in a cute town there.

Everyone we met/stayed with made our trip so amazing, but Sabine and Hagen especially made it what it was!  They took two weeks out of their lives to tour us around Austria and Germany.  Unfortunately, it was time for them to get back to their normal lives and so Jess and I took a train back to Frankfurt.  My friend Simone offered to take us out for our final night before our early morning flights back to the U.S.  You know how you know you should be in bed early before a travel day but then around midnight you are having fun out at the bar and you decide, "Who needs sleep?!"?  

Well, that is exactly what happened to us!  We had so much fun going out with Simone that we slept for an hour before she hurriedly pushed us onto the train and we made our way to the airport!

It was a fitting end to our crazy trip!

What to do in Prague

This is an email I sent in 2003, a year after I left Prague!  Since apparently I have no memory, I still use it to help guide people (although it's now 2011!).

 

First of all, just from any guide book and from where the crowds are, there are definitely places you will go. Wenceslas Square (Vaclavske Namesti) is a long boulevard type of square with the National Museum at one end and then the start of the Old Town at the other. The Metro stops are Mustek and Muzeum. There is lots of shopping, cafes, a nice hotel named Hotel Europe I believe....it's cool. There are some cool stores if you walk along Na Prikope...places your girlfriend will probably like (Mango, Zara, Clockhouse...).

 

As you head towards the Old Town Square (Staromestke Namesti), you will see lots of crystal shops and great stores. There are great streets to wander around on. You can get lost wandering around. Any map will show you the old Powder Tower (Prasa Brana) and also the Obecni Dum, which is an amazing artsy building. In the Old Town Square, there are bars, restaurants and cafes but of course they charge outrageous prices. Prague is the sort of place where you can eat a full meal for $3 or $15, depending how touristy the area is! The astronomical clock is in the Old Town Square. At the hour mark, everyone stands around to watch it and hear the chimes. From the Old Town Square, if you turn onto Dlouha street, you will walk a few blocks and on your left, after passing a club called the Roxy, you will come to a cool teahouse called Dahab. You can get many different types of tea and smoke a hookah. It's cool.

 

Celetna is another street that goes off of the Old Town Square, that has good shopping and better prices than right in the center. In the other direction, towards the river, you can follow the crowds and to to the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most). It is the pedestrian only bridge with many vendors, street musicians etc AND GREAT VIEWS. On the east side of the river (the opposite side of the castle) and a little bit south of the bridge, you can rent a paddle boat or a canoe and spend some time on the Vltava River. It's fun for an hour or two!

 

When you cross the Charles Bridge, to go over to the west side, there are stairs that go down to an area sort of under the bridge, like along the water. There are cute bakeries and shops, and the John Lennon Wall (worth seeing, I think). If you don't go down those stairs and you walk west across the bridge, pass the stores, pizzerias and McDonalds and the next main street that you come to is Karmelitska. To the right is a cool bar called Bar St. Nicholas. It's sort of a cellar area. There is a cool bier hall type bar also to your right in the square to your right, the square is called "Malostranske Namesti". I don't know the bar name, but you can't miss it because there is always live music and lots of people.

 

If you cross the bridge to go to the west side and turn left on Karmelitska, you will pass more stores and restaurants. The street name becomes Ujezd. You will pass a bagel place called Bohemia Bagels that has great spinach soup and internet! Across from the Bohemia Bagels on the west side of the river (on the street Karmelitska/Ujezd) you will see a funiculur--which is a train that runs up the hill side. Take it to the top (second stop) and you will be at some beautiful gardens...it's a nice place to relax and of course has great views! Next door to Bohemia Bagels is Bar Ujezd. I think it was the first rock bar to come out of Communism (1989). A little more down and there is an AMAZING Italian restaurant called La Fame. My student Katy opened it. The pizzas are great, so are the pastas, so is the Pilsner Urquell on tap. It's all lit by candlelight. They speak English. If you go in, you have to ask for Katy and tell her that you are my boss now ;) If you continue down Ujezd, you will pass Vltavska St and about one block later is the Staropramen Brewery. Fresh beer brewed right there. Amazing garlic soup. Excellent goat cheese salad.

 

 

What else, what else....you can't miss the castle! It's amazing. You can take a tram (23 or 24) up to it, or you can walk all the stairs. If you walk up all the stairs, which start along the west side of the river near the Manosov Bridge, you will arrive at the top to Golden Lane. Golden Lane has some stores, old apartments, No. 20 is where Kafka once lived, and you walk up to the St. Vitus Cathedral and the courtyards. There are GREAT views of Prague from the castle area.

 

 

The best way to walk down is on Nerudova St. It's a sloping street with tons of beautiful buildings and shops. It leads you right back down to the river.

 

As far as food goes, I know some good places to eat! One place is called Dynamo, and it is on a street called something like "Psstrova". It is behind the National Theater (Narodni Divadlo). It is a modern type sea green restaurant with really friendly service and good filet mignon, caesar salads, wine...and in fact, if you have time you should see something at the National Theater. You can go to the box office and get seats for as little as $3, because arts are funded by the government. The place is BEAUTIFUL inside!

 

 

For brunch, you HAVE TO GO TO Radost FX, which is also a club at night.  Rhianna filmed a video there too. Radost has the most amazing vegetarian breakfasts. Omelettes, potatoes, bloody mary's....and this is on a street behind the Museum, really close to the tram and subway stop I.P. Pavlova. It’s around the corner from the tram stop. Radost is worth the trip!

 

Beer....my favorites are Pilsner-Urquell and Gambrinus! Don't drink Radegast, it's like the worst of the Czech beers. Budvar (the European Budweiser) is ok, but too many of those and you will have a crazy headache. It has too much sugar I think. If you can find Eggenberg on tap, get it! It's an excellent beer that is local to the town Cesky Krumlov, to the south. Eggenburg dark is probably the best beer I tried in Prague!

 

I am trying to think if I can recommend anything else...I really like the area around Bethlehem Square (Betlemski Namesti) because it's a little bit off the beaten track. You can wander on those streets for hours.

 

Czech people aren't always the friendliest, until you know them. But as far as how they treat tourists, it's not always great. Expect service to be slow. "Prosim" is please. To say "Check, please" say "Oo-chet, pro-seem". Beer is "pivo". Dark beer is "pivo cherny" and light is "pivo beelay". I'm not spelling them right, because the spelling doesn't help with pronunciation! We always tipped about 10%, just to be nice, but Czech people round up.

 

If you have any questions or anything, email me or call me.  You will have a great time. Oh, be careful of the pickpockets, there is a lot of small crime like that, but nothing criminal. And the public transportation is on your honor, but they have undercover people checking for tickets, so you should go into a metro station and buy some. The word for ticket is "jyzdenky". I'm so excited for you...

 

 

A Monthlong Roadtrip in Turkey

So Wendi and I decided to head back to Turkey from Croatia.  Maybe we were starved for the friendliness and hospitality, after a year with the dour Czechs.  I can’t even begin to explain the hospitality of the Turks.  Even the carpet sellers would hassle us to buy carpets and we would tell them, “We don’t have jobs or houses, why would we need a carpet?” and they would invite us in for a tea and a chat.  And then they would recognize us and talk to us every time we walked by which meant Wendi and I couldn’t walk faster than about a mile an hour in the areas of Istanbul we knew.  I think the ritual of tea is one reason it’s so friendly.  Everyone invites everyone else for tea.  There are little storefront rooms all around the city where elderly men just brew tea and coffee all day long, and young boys serve as the runners.  Local businesses have these “chips” that they give the boys when they arrive with the tea.  It’s kind of like a system of credit.  But I digress…

Wendi and I found a hostel in the Sultanahmet area that had a bar in the basement!  How convenient J  Our first day back we walked to the Grand Bazaar to visit our “old” friends from our February visit.  They were so surprised to see us, and so happy.  Aly, the owner of the leather shop, introduced us to his friend Mustafa.  Now Mustafa looks about 50 and his passport says he is 45 but he claims to be 34.  Hmm.  This tells you how sketchy he is.  But that of course didn’t stop Wendi and I from going to dinner with him!  (Here is where I remind you that I have not earned real money in a year).  Mustafa took us to this amazing restaurant and ordered tons of appetizers and kebobs and drinks.  I seriously think hours passed and then he informed us that we were waiting for his friend Mehmet.

So Mehmet arrives and he is really funny, but also 45!  We all leave together in Mehmet’s car and literally, 20 meters from the restaurant the tire went completely flat!  It was POURING rain (of course).  Wendi and I were nice and held umbrellas over them while they changed the tire (well, ok, we had just accepted a feast from them so I suppose it was more like our duty!).  Well Wendi had a cold and Mustafa insisted that she get medicine.  Ignoring our protests, we drove all over Istanbul and finally went to a HOSPITAL where Mustafa was able to get a prescription for Wendi without her ever seeing a doctor.  Okayyyyy…so then we were off to find an open pharmacy (and at this point it was past midnight) and we finally found one.  After filling Wendi’s prescription, Mehmet took us back to his apartment.  Wendi and I slept in one room together and locked the door, but we found the whole experience a little odd.  We slept until almost noon and then Mehmet and Mustafa took us to breakfast and their friend Ahmet joined us.  He was a dead ringer for Antonio Banderas!  I swear, you can’t make this stuff up.

That night the guys took us out again (at this point we feel like mail order brides or something) but they know all the best restaurants and we had coffee at a café overlooking the Bosphorous and they were just really generous and friendly.  Mustafa is obsessed with Wendi so he gave us his mobile phone to use for the month while he goes to Holland.  Also, he organized a rental car for us for $10 a day through a friend of his.  We figured a road trip in Turkey would be a fun way to see the country.

The guy who rented us the car (no papers to sign, we just handed over a bundle of cash and they gave us keys…) didn’t speak much English.  He told us we were going to be driving a taxi.  I got this mental picture of Wendi and I touring Turkey in a yellow taxi.  But then he clarified that the car wasn’t yellow, but rather pink!  Another mental picture!  It turns out that the car is white and it is the same make and model as all Turkish taxis.  It’s called a Turkish Tofas Sahin.  Never heard of it?  How would I describe it…well, it’s old and slow.  That’s about it.  We refer to it as the “yavas tofas”.

We were supposed to get the car at noon, but again, since this was kind of an underground deal, we didn’t complain when the car showed up at 8 pm.  We hit the road that very minute.  We drove all night, passing through Ankara (where we got lost and had the nicest taxi drivers help us find the right road by climbing in our backseat to physically direct us to the road) to Cappadocia, which is the area of Turkey with the craziest landscape you have ever seen!  Star Wars was filmed there, and that’s how it really looks.  We stayed in a hostel in the town Goreme, and our room was in a cave.  We had a great time there, met tons of crazy people, and hung out each night at a cave bar called “Flintstones Bar”.  During the day we visited the surrounding sights, like the fairy chimney rock formations.

From Cappadocia we drove towards the Mediterranean coast.  About an hour into the drive, we got pulled over for speeding.  This in a country where there are no speed limits posted!  And where you share the road with sheep and goats.  Of course, theygave us a ticket which we paid on the spot (about $30) and then started chatting with us.  By the time we left them, we were wishing each other pleasant days and thanking each other.  Like most of the Turkish people we met, they were so nice and friendly and seemed happy to meet American tourists (granted, Wendi and I were a sight, flying by, driving an ancient Turkish taxi with our hair blowing in the wind and Madonna on the discman!).  As we pulled away, I thought, “They just gave us a ticket and now we are pals???”.  But we drove on (a little slower, but not much) and we were looking forward to the sun and beach of the Mediterranean.

When it started pouring rain around dinnertime, we were still on the road and we were a little bummed out.  We stopped for dinner at a random roadside restaurant in the middle of nowhere at 8 pm.  Our waiter was really cute so we invited him to sit with us and have a cup of team.  Unfortunately he spoke hardly any English, but when Wendi went to the bathroom, I was pretty sure that he had invited us to sleep at his house.  I was a little embarrassed to clarify this (what if that is not what he had asked me?!) but by miming and with his limited English and our limited Turkish, we realized that he really had invited us.  Well the speeding ticket had put a dent in our pocket so we thought “Why not?” and we all drove to his house.

He lives with his family in a village.  Literally.  His family welcomed us warmly and didn’t seem to think that Adem bringing home two unscarved chicks with a car was abnormal.  There was no furtniture in the house, only Turkish carpets.  And don’t forget the Turkish toilet – that would be the hole in the ground.  Wendi and I sat cross-legged on the floor across from Adem, his mom and dad, his brother and his wife and their baby, and somehow we managed to communicate.  I use that word loosely since our “communication” consisted of Wendi and I looking up a word in the dictionary, repeating it, and having them nod vigorously.  We were very comfortable there nonetheless, and on our way out in the morning, Adem’s mom (who was sitting on the dirt floor in the kitchen baking bread) sent us on our way with some fresh breakfast.  We dropped Adem back at work and went on our way.

We spent the next two nights in Olympos, which is the site of the burning flame (Chimaera) that has been burning for centuries.  Olympos is cool since it is forbidden to build using concrete there.  So we slept in treehouses!  Our tree house even had a bathroom.  There was a beach nearby and a bar with a firepit in the middle, and it was fun, except that there were only other travelers there and we enjoy hanging out with the Turks, so we left after two days and drove to Kas, a beach town about two hours west of there.

In Kas (which means “eyebrow” in Turkish) we stayed at a really nice hotel that set us each back $4 per night.  Incredible!  Immediately we met really nice people and had fun partying with them.  One guy, Meki, who had a restaurant, and his Dutch friend Edmund decided to go with us on a day trip to a town called Kalkan.  Of course Meki had a friend who had a restaurant there and his cousin had a disco there, so we were hooked up in that town!  We went to a restaurant in the mountains where you picked out your own trout from a stream, they caught it and grilled it for you.  Super delicious!  We were out with them until 5 in the morning and then we slept for a few hours and then left town – onto the next adventure!

We drove to Fethiye, another town on the Mediterranean.  The weather was nice and the first day we were walking along the harbor and I mentioned to Wendi that we needed to meet boys with boats…and we did about five minutes later!  They invited us for a bbq later that night and for a boat trip afterwards.  Poor Wendi got stuck with the psycho who started crying when she turned him down.  Who then proceeded to get so drunk he wouldn’t and couldn’t drive his boat.  Who kept us out on the water until 2 am!  But again, that’s another story.  Until then, we did have fun with them and the weather was great.  Bobbing on a boat on the Mediterranean with a bright moon overhead is pretty awesome!

We spent the following day on the beach nearby in Oludeniz.  We laid out and when we went back to the car at the end of the day, the cutest little 9 year old boy hitchhiked with us back to Fethiye.  The following day we went on a 12-island boat tour.  The pervy 50-year old captain hit on me and offered me a job on the boat, but I turned it down.  Unfortunately this is the town where I got a throat infection and had to go to the local hospital to be treated for it.  Never mind that when we pulled up there were goats tied up outside.  Never mind that the doctor spoke no English and burned the white spots out of my throat while I didn’t know what was going on and Wendi was flirting with another doctor.  Never mind that my VISA balance is now $100 higher!

So we drove back to Istanbul through a cute ceramic producing town called Kuthaya and spent another week visiting our friends around Istanbul.  We finally bought souvenirs, drank tea with everyone we could (that was our goal and we managed to get invited to tea at the usual carpet and leather and souvenir shops, at a gas station, at a pharmacy, and with the police!) and basically chilled out.  What an amazing experience the whole trip was!

Now I’m back in Prague saying good-bye to everyone.  I feel ready to be home, partly because the flat we are staying in has either fleas or bedbugs and Wendi and I are covered, literally COVERED in bites.  Also, as I am writing this from the basement of the school where I used to teach, Wendi is sitting next to me and some man just knocked on the door and when Wendi looked over he flashed her.  I guess it might be time to go home.

Croatia and Slovenia

So after our adventures through Bulgaria and Romania and Hungary and Slovakia, Wendi and I spent two weeks in Prague with our visiting families.  My mom and her friends were insane – but so fun!  They had the best time…drinking, shopping, seeing the sights, shopping, drinking, eating.  You get the point.  I had planned on doing some cultural day trips with them but we really never left Old Town Prague.  They were just having so much fun drinking and shopping!  Wendi’s family was more cultural than my crew, but also so incredibly nice and fun.  As broke as we are, and with as much travel we still plan on doing, it was nice to have all of our meals paid for J

Wendi and I decided to visit Croatia, which (we found) is kind of like an undiscovered Italy!  We flew from Prague to Zagreb, Croatia, to start our trip.  Immediately we fell in love with the country since there was a beautiful park surrounding the airport and super friendly people to help us figure out how to get into the city.  When we arrived at our hostel, however, we were a little skeptical to stay there.  The only hostel in Zagreb is a former refugee shelter from the war in the Balkans, and although the war ended in 1995, they haven’t done much to “spruce up” the building.  It could have still been housing refugees based on the people we saw there!  The first night I was convinced that Wendi had died because there was so much noise in the hall and people trying to kick our door in and she didn’t wake up.  So I decided she was in the bed across the room, dead.  Not very rational in the light of day, but seriously, at that moment, I was terrified!  But besides the hostel, we spent a really nice two days walking around and visiting plazas and cafes and parks and gardens, and even the “nicest cemetery in Europe” (according to the guidebook!).

From Zagreb we took a train to Slovenia, the most prosperous of the former-Yugoslavia countries.  This means it’s the most expensive.  We couldn’t find a place to stay in Bled, this gorgeous Alpine town surrounding a lake with a church on an island in the middle of it.  We spent two hours walking around the lake in the dark with our heavy backpacks, knocking on every door that looked like a pension door.  We ended up finding a nice private room in someone’s home.  We planned to hike around the lake the following day until we realized that it was about 30 degrees out during the day (there was snow in the mountains) and we had no coats!  We thought “We are traveling south of Prague, so the weather will be nice” but clearly this was not applicable in the Alps!  We spent a total of two days in Bled and then another day in Ljubljana, which is a cute city with cafes lining the river.  It was fun.

Then back to Croatia we went, and we took an overnight train to Split, which is a coastal town about halfway down to the southernmost tip of the country (Croatia is a really long, skinny country).  From Split we took a bus to Dubrovnik, which is as south as you can go.  I got completely carsick as the bus wound along the hilly coast.  It was not so fun.  We spent three days in Dubrovnik, which is a beautiful town surrounded by ancient city walls, right on the ocean.  The only downside was staying at the hostel run by a psychotic man named Mr. Music but I won’t even go into that.

So Croatia has hundreds of islands, but only about 70 are inhabited.  We decided to visit Korcula Island first.  It was a short bus and ferry ride from Dubrovnik and we got there the night before Easter.  Which was a total stroke of luck since the island is famous for its Easter processions where the entire population of the island (1000 people, perhaps?) wanders through the city with crosses and candles.  It was really incredible to witness.  We had planned to go to Hvar Island the following day, but since no one told us about daylight savings time (I am always the last to know), we missed our ferry.  It worked out in the end through since we had another half-day to kick around on Hvar.  It was a gorgeous day – by far the nicest Easter weather I have ever experienced.  We actually got sunburned on the top deck of the ferry to Hvar.  Hvar is supposedly the most beautiful of the islands, and we saw crystal blue water, amazing sunsets, and narrow cobblestone streets.  So yes, I would tend to agree with that assessment!

From Hvar Island we went to Split and Trogir, which are two indescribable towns.  Hopefully my pictures do them justice.  Both are seaside and full of amazing architecture.

Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania

Ok here goes…the first part of our trip.  I have a feeling it’s going to be a long one!

So I am typing from an ancient computer in rural Romania and this computer is probably one of the slowest I’ve ever used, so let’s see if this even goes through…

I left Prague three weeks ago (feels like months!) and Wendi and Stephanie (two of my roommates from Prague) and I flew to Istanbul.  We should have known how nuts our trip would be when we met some Turkish guys on the plane who owned a shoe store in Prague and were hysterically funny.  The flight seemed like nothing. 

The plan was to stay with a friend of a friend named Bill who is an American Foreign Service Employee at Ford in Istanbul, but at the last minute he had to return to the US for a funeral.  He emailed me and (generously) offered that we could still stay at his apartment.  I had never even met him!  How nice is that?!  He sent me directions by taxi to get to his apartment.  Sounds simple, right?

Wrong!  We landed in Istanbul and got a taxi.  Bill lives on the Asian side of the city and the airport is on the European side.  So our taxi driver, who looked all of 17 years old, wasn’t very knowledgeable about the Asian side.  Thank god he liked us (he spoke no English but Wendi could communicate with him in French) and he spent almost two hours driving us around until we found the apartment.  Driving in Istanbul entails speeding along roads with no lanes where there are people selling bread and other items in the middle of the street.  Even the Ford foreign service employees don’t have cars!  Well, Bill’s email said he would leave the key with the guards at the apartment complex.  They had no idea who we were and they had no keys!  We were feeling a bit stranded, but Ayup (our taxi driver) parked his taxi and took us to dinner – at BURGER KING!  It was close by, but still, we couldn’t believe we were at BK in Istanbul.  We hung out with him there for about an hour, and then I re-read Bill’s email which ACTUALLY said something like, “I will leave the keys with the guards or under the doormat”.  I was just slightly embarrassed, just a bit, and we went back to the apartment and there was the key!  So Ayup got to leave (our three hour excursion cost $30) and we went inside.

Bill’s friends, other 20-somethings who are engineers at Ford in Dearborn, MI are so nice.  They took us out all weekend, taking us to their favorite club and showing us how to take the ferry across the Bosphorous to the European side of the city.  We had a great time with them.  We met some of their Turkish friends and they took us to a show called “Sultans of the Dance” which was kind of like “Lord of the Dance” but Middle Eastern.  It was awesome.  They took us to a leather store at one of the entrance’s to Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar where we met the nicest, most welcoming Turkish people who we ended up hanging out with the whole time we were there.

But before I get off track, Istanbul might be my favorite city in the world!  First of all, the people are uber-friendly…always approaching you to talk, to hear how you like Turkey, and to tell you how sorry they are about 9/11.  Turkey has a high percentage of Muslims but every single person expressed sorrow for Americans.  We would stop to get a gyro on the street and the vendor would want to talk and tell us about his life…I have never met such talkers (no wonder I like them so much!).  We spent a whole day at the Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar, which are two of the oldest bazaars in the world.  There are something like 4,000 stores in the Grand Bazaar.  They sell everything from carpets to jewelry to spices to belt buckles.  If you need something they don’t have, they will send a boy running to find someone who does sell it! Their English is great, and they have good lines too, like, “Please help me to help you spend your money!” and “How can I rip you off today?”.  Any street you walk down has people hawking perfume, spinning tops, clothes, shoes, evil eye charms…but we’ve held ourselves back because we are trying to conserve our travel fund and we have to carry everything on our backs!

We spent a few days visiting the tourist sites like the Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque and all over Sultanahmet.  It was sunny and warm every day.  And of course Turkish food is delicious – kebabs and cucumber and yogurt and garlic and rice.  The street food is great…we were eating $1 doner kebab sandwiches almost every day.  We became a regular at the stands! 

Transportation in Istanbul is so interesting.  First of all, they have one metro line (in a city of 14 million people) that goes in a straight line!  Not terribly helpful.  They also have a tram line.  Not so helpful either.  But the taxis are cheap and an even better option is the dolmus.  This is a van that has a set route but lets people on and off wherever they want on the route.  Dolmus actually means “full” in Turkish,  and this is because these vans stuff themselves beyond capacity, and just sort of swerve to the side and slow down for people to get on and off.  The sliding side door is automatic and you kind of climb out while the vehicle is still creeping along.  It’s a trip!

We were sad when it came time to leave, especially since we hung out with the same group of Turkish people every night, but it was finally time to leave.  The Ford boys were all leaving to travel due to a religious holiday in Turkey, where animals are slaughtered in the streets by veterinarians while the imam’s look on. 

So Wendi, Steph and I hopped a train to Plovdiv, Bulgaria.  We had no choice since we had bought the tickets days before we read an article in an English Turkish paper about RIOTS in Plovdiv’s Gybsy neighborhoods all that week!  Evidently the electricity was turned off in those neighborhoods, which prompted the inhabitants to tear through the streets destroying buildings and cars.  Hmm.  We decided to avoid that part of the city.

I think our train left around 11 pm.  We had a sleeping compartment (couchette) all to ourselves.  Our toothless train conductor was very friendly and I was able to speak to him in Czech.  We probably went to bed around 1 am, and from previous experience, we knew that passport control would kock on our door when we got to the border of Bulgaria.  So we weren’t surprised when we heard the knock at 6 am, just a little disoriented.  We were a little confused when no one came to look at our passports.  After waiting a while, we went into the train hallway.  It was deserted, and the doors to the outside were open.  When we stepped off the train, it was like a scary movie.  It was cold and foggy and there was one set of stairs leading underground with one bare lightbulb to see by.  Hmm…we wondered what to do.  We finally verntured down the stairs, through a tunnel, and up another set of stairs.  It was a police line-up.  At 6 am.  The three of us and a few hundred poor Bulgarians.  Police were walking along the train, shining their flashlights underneath (because so many Turks are trying to immigrate to Bulgaria?).  Once they were sure the train had nothing attached to the bottom, the train PULLED AWAY!  WHAT?!  Our bags and everything were in our sleeping compartment.  We were so confused.  Our passports were all checked and the train returned from it’s quick jaunt to who knows where.  We got back into bed and slept.

And slept and slept.  The train got to Plovdiv four hours later than scheduled.  We had a lot of trouble trying to find our hostel, and ended up along a highway with our bags until someone pointed us in the right direction.  Too bad they did, cuz this place was a shithole.  It was old, dusty and cold.  No toilet paper (but there was a toilet and not just a hole in the ground with footpads).  Oh, and there also wasn’t hot water.  It felt like being back in Prague!  One interesting thing about Bulgaria is that they don’t have bathtubs.  Nope.  They have a drain hole in the middle of the bathroom floor and a nozzle on the wall, and when you want to shower you kick the trash can to the side, close the toilet seat lid, and go to it!

Anyway, Plovdiv is supposed to be the cultural capital of Bulgaria , but we weren’t so impressed.  It was a town.  And a town where everyone was constantly trying to pickpocket us.  So we hightailed it to Sofia, Bulgaria’s biggest city.  The train ride was the saddest I’ve been on.  There were shacks lined up along the tracks.  Shack is actually too nice of a word.  The “houses” were made of pieces of wood and sheet metal that don’t even connect at all corners.  It must be freezing inside.  There was garbage all over the place.  Kids were playing in the garbage.  Seeing the poverty was unbelievable.  People were herding goats and sheeps alongside the tracks.  Donkees and horses pulling carts are still common means of transportation in Bulgaria, although cars from the 1970s rank a close second.  I thought every woman in Sophia was a prostitute until I realized that the style is literally worse than the 80s.  Spandex adidas pants with white socks and pumps, faux fur coats, big bangs, jeans with bows and zippers at the bottom…

But in Sophia we had some random Bulgarian food.  Since none of us can read Cyrilic, we can’t understand a word on the menu.  We mimed chicken (flapped our arms like wings) at one restaurant and were served bowls of chicken liver.  Um, yeah, we had bags of chips for dinner instead.  We stayed at a decent hostel in Sophia, although we had to share our room with some French guy, some old British man, and an American Peace Corps volunteer.  We got up early the next day to go to Rila Monastary, which is a gorgeous monastery in the mountains about 3 ½ hours outside of Sophia.  It was definitely the highlight of the country, in my opinion.  In fact, at the end of the day (after we had already spent seven hours on a bus) we decided to take an overnight train to Romania that very night.  It had begun to snow and rain and it was freezing.  We had such good weather until then that we can’t complain, however!  But in hindsight, Bulgaria was one of my  least favorite places I’ve ever visited.

So our train took us to Bucharest uneventfully.  No police line-up to report!  We only spent a day in the capital (where again, people tried (unsuccessfully) to pickpocket me everywhere I went) before leaving for Brasov.  Brasov is in the area of the country called Transylvania, and yes, yesterday we went to Dracula’s castle!  Which is not actually very foreboding looking, and a myth anyway, but it was cool to go to Bran Castle anyway.   The back story is that this guy Vlad “The Impaler” was from the town of Sigisoara.  He was a crazy, ruthless man who used to impale people through their ASSHOLES and then plop them in a field.  It was so gruesome that when the Turks came to conquer this area, they turned back.  For years, Vlad lived in Bran Castle.  The castle inspired Bram Stoker to do a Dracula movie.  Kind of cool!

At the castle, poor Stephanie fell down the castle stairs, right after the women who worked at the entrance were harassing us to buy hand-woven hats and slippers (which we did because we were freezing and because we felt bad for the women who were obviously having trouble making ends meet).  We had a man who drove us around all day in an antique car.  He took us to Bran Castle and to Sinaia for $11 each.  We learned that he can live for a week off of that $33.  Romania is pretty cheap, but unfortunately it’s also pretty poor.  Dirty, poorly clothed children beg for food and you can’t say no.  We sometimes give them the food off of our plate at the restaurant, or smuggle food outside with us.  We’ve learned that giving them actual food is better than giving them money that they then turn over to their parents.  So we’ve started taking them to a small store and buying bread and cheese and fruit and milk.

A guy named Gabriel found us at the train station and we somehow ended up staying in his flat!  He is an interesting character.  He spent a good 30 minutes in his car at the train station showing us business cards from America of people who have stayed with him.  Hello, obviously if we were in his car, we trusted him!  But he insisted on showing us cards and pictures and talked a mile a minute.  Very strange.  He also seems to be in love with Wendi and strokes her hair at every possibility.  Another Romanian man is also staying at Gabriel’s.  He told us his American wife left him a few days ago and we had dinner with him.  While we were waiting for him to meet us for dinner some Romanian kids started throwing snowballs at us!  We didn’t know what to do (I mean, it’s not great PR for America if we kick their ass!).  But some nice guy got them to stop – he could undoubtedly see how distressed we were.  People here are pretty friendly.

Today we came to Sigisoara, a town in the Carpathinian Mountains that is beautiful.  We fell asleep on the train ride and almost missed our stop!  From here we are going to another small town near here and then up north to some monastaries.  After that is the student center of Romania, Cluj-Napoca.  Then we’ll probably head up to Hungary and then Slovakia and then return to Prague. 

Before I go, here’s an interesting tidbit of history about Romania.  In 1965 Nicolae Ceausescu came to power at the end of a long period of communism (1940s through early 1960s).  During his reign there were some sketchy things going on (such as an experiment in the Pitesti Prison where a group of people were tortured).  Ceausescu’s policies led to the impoverishment that we can see here in present day 2002 Romania.  Finally, in 1989, there was a revolution in Romania and Ceausescu was overthrown and executed.  Nothing about this is particularly interesting or different from other coups EXCEPT that he was executed on national TV on Christmas!!! 

Anyway, the “Girls Week Out in Eastern Europe” is just a few weeks away and Wendi and I may head back to Turkey in April.  I’ll keep everyone posted!

Day Trips

This place is craziness!  So not normal!  First of all, last Thursday night I had to sub a course an only one guy showed up, who was very cool.  So we went to a bar, and his friend met us there.  This is at 6 pm.  Let’s just say that somehow I weaved home through the streets at 6 am and woke up Wendi so I could tell her about my random “standing at a tram” hook-up with the student’s friend.  Anyway, the following day was a waste since I felt like hell.

Anyway, we decided to do a “day trip” on Saturday.  Easy in Spain, not so easy in the Czech Republic.  Our day went like this: Wendi and Leili and I woke up at 9 am and we all showered and were at the bus station at 10:15 am.  I asked in my limited Czech what time the bus to Kutna Hora is.  Noon, they reply.  We go to breakfast.  We get back to the bus station at 11:50.  No bus.  A bus driver starts yelling at us, for no apparent reason, and I ask what platform we should be at.  There is no bus on Saturday, they reply.

Fucking awesome.  So we go to the train station.  The next train is at 2 pm.  So Wendi and I go purchase millions of flights for our travels (ok, more on that later) and we go back to the station to catch our train.  The train ride is fine until the conductor tells us that we somehow missed our stop and have to pay extra.  But he was cute, and so are we, so we got out of paying and we got off at the next stop.

There wasn’t a bus for two more hours so we had to splurge on a taxi (please remember than I earn $350 a month and am planning to travel for three months!).  And when we finally go to Kutna Hora, the two things we wanted to see (a cathedral and a bone church) well, they were CLOSED.  What a fucked up day.  So we walked around in the snow for about an hour and then went and had a big dinner.  Nice…

So Wendi and I have the best trips planned!  We found one-way tickets to fly to Istanbul.  From there we are going to make our way back through Bulgaria, Romania (Dracula’s Castle…) and then to Budapest, before returning to Prague for “Girl’s Week Out in Eastern Europe) i.e. my mom and her seven friends.  Audrey and her crew will surely pay for my meals and a free week sounds quite nice!  The following week, Wendi’s parents and sister come to visit.  The day they leave, Wendi and I are flying to Zagreb, Croatia and then we will hopefully ferry over to Italy and work our way back to Prague.

Surprising News

Soooo…I quit my job.

I know, I know…I must seem like a szichophrenic…I was just saying I love my students.  But seriously, the weather and the crappy apartment started getting to us and after going home for Christmas, I just decided that I would rather teach until mid-February and then travel around the world some more.  I have the best life.

It didn’t feel that way when I got back from Michigan and upon arriving at our apartment, we had no heat and this girl was staying with us while she looks for a flat, and was already asleep using my pillow, while I used a rolled up towel under my head and slept in a hoodie to avoid freezing to death…

First, Wendi and Stephanie and I decided to go to Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania.  Then we’ll be back in Prague when my mom and her SEVEN friends come to visit.  Then in April I am having some other visitors and then I will do some more traveling, likely to Croatia and maybe Italy.  Who knows…I feel like life is mine for the living!

My parents just bought me a beater.  For those of you not hip on the lingo, that would be a 14 year old car without an antenna.  Yes, that’s right…it cost less than $2000 and it is a groovy 1988 Honda Accord with 162,000 miles on it.  I guess it’s in good condition.  As my mom not so gently reminded me, “You’ll need a car for JOB-HUNTING.”.  Hmph.  Yes, she may have a point.