The Wandering Nanny

Go Saints!!

2009-09-26T16:58:00.008+07:00

So I've been here in Australia for 5 months and I've yet to update anything but my photos. When I've sat down and tried to blog I kept coming up empty, thinking my daily life was too boring. These last few days in St. Kilda though have made me realize the little things, when appreciated, can actually be the most interesting.

The main sport here in Australia is good ol' "Footy", or the AFL. It's a bit of a combination of soccer and rugby played on a massive field. Mark's Australian friend took us to see a game back in May and I found the fans caught my attention more than the game (me not knowing rules might have contributed slightly:-). They weren't playing for a championship, just an early season game, and yet almost every fan there had some sort of team gear or colors on. Now being the end of September footy has reached it's pinnacle with the Grand Final. I live in the cute seaside suburb of St. Kilda, just a few miles from the center of Melbourne, and their football team The Saints is well loved. In their 136 years in the league they have only won once in 1934 and lost at three other attempts at the Final. This year was suppose to be their turn when they made it to the Grand Final against Geelong who've won the title the last three years in a row.

I work at an adorable family owned cake shop on the main street in St. Kilda which has survived there for over 70 years. The owner, Gideon, is a die-hard Saints fan and has spent the last week decorating the shop from top to bottom like a kid given a new box full of crafts. The main radio and TV stations have all stopped by the landmark shop to get his take on the St. Kilda fans outlook for the game. I thought I had little interest in the game today despite all the hype surrounding me and the regulars filling up the small tables to watch the TV perched atop the soda fridge. But with the last 10 minutes of the game leaving the score tied I started routing for the under dog Saints and their die hard fans. Unfortunately they ending up loosing in the last two minutes of the game and so I tip toed out of work knowing better then to try to talk to Gideon for at least a couple of days. I walked down the street to the entrance of the grocery store where the newspaper seller starting chatting to me about the game and inside I said hello to a mutual friend working at the register. The tram ride home was filled with depressed Saints fans but I saw an old friend from our hostel days and found out he's living close by. Today I realized that I finally hit the point here where I no longer feel like such an outsider. That rooting for your local team, knowing the bum on the corner, or running into friends on the tram are all the little things that make a place more then just a temporary residence.

Now that I' become so comfortable here we actually only have 10 weeks left. Me and Mark's plan is to continue saving up until mid-November and then travel for a few weeks before we leave on December 10th. We are hoping to rent a campervan and drive through out Australia (don't ask me where, we haven't gotten that far!). Then were stopping over in NZ for a few days to visit Mark's family and then he's coming back to Philly with me for a week! Yay!!

In the meantime I'm still working full time at the cake shop and actually really enjoying it. Usually there are just two staff on at a time as it's a small shop with Sam or Toby doing the coffee's. I take orders at the counter ringing people up on a 65 year old cash register. It has the old push button keys that make that beautiful "riinnnnggg" sound each time you press a number, which only go up to $7. So we hit keys two or three times and if its more then $18 we just write the amount on a slip of paper above. I've recently started getting to decorate all the cupcakes in the shop. At first I was terrible and my icing swirls always managed to be lopsided and I was covered in icing. But now that I'm a cupcake pro it's a lot more fun, and so is eating the homemade icing!!

Mark was keeping really busy working as a waiter downtown for the first five months. He was happy to leave though a couple of weeks ago when he and our roommate Jana got a job working at the Royal Melbourne Show. It's set up on massive show grounds outside the city and has large pavilions selling just about everything, agricultural stuff, and lots of over priced too old to still be running rides. I went to visit Mark the other night when he got off work and it was a lot of fun, especially since his friend let me in for free! We ended up coming home with a really odd assortment of things including amazing pepperoni, wasabi peas, wasabi macadamia nuts, and sour candy. I am so amazingly impressed with Mark's and Jana's ability to keep getting up every morning for this job. Tomorrow is their last day and they will have worked 12 hours a day for two straight weeks!! But because of Mark we are going to have the travel money that we really needed for November. Mark and Jana's next job through the same employment agency is "train counting". They will be counting passengers on trains. Yes, definitely not very stimulating, but since they both got team leader positions they'll have more hours and make more money so it's all in the name of travel!

Well I'll definitely need to write another blog about when Mark's parents visited last month and they took us on a short road trip down the beautiful Great Ocean Road. But for now I'm going to work on uploading all of my Australia photos. I'll write again soon (I promise I really do mean it this time!!)

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The Long Awaited New Zealand Blog!

2009-07-07T18:25:00.013+07:00

When I first planned my trip to New Zealand from Asia I underestimated what a journey in itself it would be. I started the trip from the Perhentian Islands off the east coast of Malaysia at 6 am in an end of monsoon season storm. I boarded a small speedboat heading to the mainland drenched with 10 other wary backpackers. The forty five minute trip felt more like an amusement park ride as we rode the crests of the rolling waves. I thanked God that I made it to the main land safely and I hopped on a 12 hour bus that crossed the country to Kuala Lumpur on the east coast.

Halfway through the long bus ride we stopped at large local rest stop where I was the only westerner. Some of my favorite times traveling have been moments like this when I’m sitting alone surrounded by locals and I completely lose myself in my new reality. Then it will hit me, really hit me, that I’m by myself at a rest stop some where in the middle of Malaysia eating unknown but delicious food in a massive chaotic room filled with 30 picnic tables and a hundred hungry locals. That feeling that comes over you when you remember just how unique and crazy it all is is one of my favorite. It’s calming in the sense that you appreciate for a moment how hard you worked to get there and how worth it it all is.

So 48 hours and 1 boat, 4 buses, 1 taxi, 3 planes, and a minivan ride later I arrived in Taupo New Zealand where I got to see my dad for the first in 5 months. Seeing family after such a long time is such a crazy wonderful feeling, especially when you’re seeing each other again in a completely different country then your own. Of course the first thing I did when we got to our hotel room was take advantage of the huge jacuzzi. Who wouldn’t after months of cold showers?!

The Ironman New Zealand was held two days after I arrived in Taupo. My Dad was there working for his brother Ken and his triathlon travel business Endurance Sports Travel. They take care of the athletes and their family’s meals, transportations, hotels, equipment, etc. I was quickly enlisted to help out in the kitchen, but I can't say my cooking was anything memorable. I was really excited the day of the race to finally get to see an Ironman live. It’s such a big part of the Glah family since my Uncle Ken has raced professionally since his early twenties. I was immediately in awe of the athletes ability to push through from the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and then after all that they run a 26 mile marathon. I harbored delusions while watching the athletes fly by of my being able to do an Ironman, but if you’ve ever seen me run you know what a sight that would be.

A couple of days after the race my dad and I flew from the South Island to the North Island into Christchurch. When we arrived at the rental place to pick up our camper van we were told the previous renters had crashed it and so instead we were given a much larger pimped out camper that we readily accepted. Our first night we drove to Arthur’s Pass where I got my first taste of winter in almost a year. After the extremely hot and humid climate in Asia winter in New Zealand was a bit of a shock to say the least. My first night in Old Bessy, as I lovingly referred to our camper, my dad was surprised to find me in bed still fully dressed with two sleeping bags and a blanket. It took a week or two before I finally got used to the cold, because lets just say I’m not a exactly a warm person. I’m writing this blog entry while I sit in my bed in Melbourne with 5 layers on and 3 blankets.

Over the next few days we passed through the town of Hokitika, camped beside Lake Kaniere, and drove down the coast towards the Franz Josef Glacier. The drives between the different sites were as amazing as the destinations themselves. I had heard from my Dad and Dan about how amazing the scenery is in New Zealand and had seen their photos, but only after our third day when I saw the Franz Josef Glacier did I realize the word ‘amazing’ has an entirely different meaning in New Zealand. It took my dad and I 40 minutes to reach the base of the glacier and from there you could climb the pre dug steps to a certain point without equipment. We climbed up about 15 minutes and found a spot on the ice to sit and absorb the view and the fact that we were chilling out on a glacier. There were several tour groups passing us heading up and down the glacier in their crampons and down jackets. We waited for one group to pass and then began to descend the ice steps. The guide yelled up at me coldly, ‘Excuse me, stay back at least 100 meters so that when you fall because you don’t have the proper gear on you won’t take down my group.’ Personally, my dad and I thought she was just ticked because we made her look bad to her group because we made it up there on our own. Haha and no, to her disappointment we didn’t fall down the glacier!

That evening my Dad and I drove towards Gillespies beach on the Tasman sea, well technically since the camper was manual my Dad drove and I just relaxed and played DJ. When we walked over the dunes and onto the beautiful stony beach the colors were just beginning to emerge. It turned out to be a never ending sunset with new bolder colors rolling across the sky each minute and lasting for what felt like an hour. My dad and I took photo after photo with each one more amazing.

On our drive the next day we were treated to beautiful views of the southern alps, climbed a bit up Fox Glacier and continued on towards Hass Pass. We made a stop at the Roaring Billy Waterfall that runs down a cliff and drops into the ice blue river below. My Dad surprised me by jumping in for a ‘chilly’ swim in the glacier water! Honestly though, should I really have been that surprised:-)

As the trip progressed my Dad and I would talk about what we thought was the best scenic view of the trip so far and each day seemed to surpass the one before. Saturday was no exception as we drove down a dirt road running through farm land and mountains that were right out of Lord of the Rings. After about an hour and a half driving down the dirt road we reached the parking lot with the start of the path leading towards Rob Roy Glacier. I clearly remember this hike because it kicked my ass. Haha and I also remember my Dad saying how he remembered it from the year before not being too hard. The exercise was good for me though after being a beach bum for so many months in Thailand and Malaysia! The effort was well worth it when we emerged from the woods and saw beautiful green hills in a valley surrounded by mountains and at the top of one was the Rob Roy Glacier. The sun was right at the top of the glacier and made pictures almost impossible so we settled back and waited for it to set a bit. As we laid back on a warm boulder we heard the first crash of an avalanche up high and searched the snow covered mountains till we spotted the falling snow that continued rolling down the side for quite a while.

We made it back to our camper just before dusk and headed out from the parking lot with the intention of visiting the local town fair at my insistence. It just looked so cute and small townish I couldn’t pass it up. After only two minutes driving back along the dirt road the camper started riding wrong so we pulled over to the side of the road only to find that we had a flat tire, 20 minutes of sun light left, no cell phone reception, and we were 15 miles from town. Enter good ol’ McGiver. Somehow my Dad figured out that all of the tire changing equipment was behind the front seats and the spare tire was under the back of the camper and needed to be cranked down to the ground. With a little trial and error we got the new tire on and the flat one stowed away. I have to say though, as soon as I saw that we had the flat tire equipment I really wasn’t worried because fixing things is just my Dad’s specialty! And just like always he had the flat tire fixed with just a few minutes to spare as the last bits of sun disappeared behind the mountains and left the valley in darkness.

Over the next few days we visited Queenstown, built a beautiful campfire along the shore of Lake Wakatipu and took a cruise around the gorgeous Milford Sound.

One of my favorite hikes though was definitely when we climbed up a mountain on the drive back from Milford Sound. On the walk up we ran into Gus and Alicia, a couple who had stayed with my Uncle Ken’s company Endurance Sports during the Ironman race earlier in the trip. Travel never ceases to amaze me with the random places that I meet people I know in the world. In this case, on top of a mountain! The views on top were nothing like I had expected or seen before. You were surrounded by the green ups and downs of valleys and mountains rolling one into the other. To the north of us was a much larger mountain and halfway up was a lake tucked right into the middle!

As the trip neared the end we stopped at Mount Cook and walked out to the Tasman Glacier lake filled with massive chalky blue icebergs. The icebergs were so large that you could barely make out the small people below taking tours of the lake in little yellow rafts. They looked more like fall leaves floating by then boats.

I was really sad when we had to return the RV and the trip came to an end. We spent the last few days in Christchurch where my Dad was really sweet and treated me to a nice hotel before I returned to Asia. It’s a strange thing saying goodbye to someone you love and not knowing when you are going to see them again, whether it might be 6 months or a year. With both my Mom and my Dad when I said goodbye it seemed almost surreal, the trip never really felt over. It was only after they’d left for good that it hit me and I realized I was back to traveling solo. After being spoiled with such a great travel companion and Dad it just wasn't the same traveling without him after that!!!

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G'day mate! Have a minute for the environment?!

2009-05-10T16:25:00.007+07:00

So, let me start by apologizing for not having written in 2 months!! I have so much to catch up on, my trip to New Zealand with my dad, my time in Bali with the madre, but first I'll just start with what I'm up to now. I've been in Australia for almost 3 weeks and things are going so much better then I expected. In the first week I got a job, a boyfriend, and a cool group of friends, in that order. My first day here in Melbourne I was walking around the city when a girl asked, "Do you have a minute to sign my petition?" I walked passed her like the hoards of people around me, but then I stopped and went back because I realized I had nothing better to do. She started talking about a petition for a human rights issue and as soon as she'd finished her spiel I asked if this was a paid position. It was. Are you hiring? They were. After a quick two minute chat on the lawn of the city library she wrote down an address of where I should go for my first day of training. So just like that, after 2 hours in Melbourne I had a job, and a pretty good paying one at that.

My meeting my boyfriend went just as easy, and happened on my first day in Melbourne. I'd been here for less then a day when a girl in my dorm room, Alex, asked me to join her and some friends from the hostel to go out for karaoke that night. Mark came out with us and we ended up chatting all night, and after a couple of more dates, it was official:-) When I've told friends I have an amazing new boyfriend, they're a bit reluctant to believe me with my sketchy track record, but this time providence helped me out and found me not only someone who treats me so wonderfully but also has an adorable British accent. You know how I love accents!!

So I'm still living at a hostel in the center of Melbourne while me and my friends look for a house to rent. I was surprised to find that about half the people in the hostel are living here on a semi-permanent basis while they look for work and a place. I've been at my job now for a week and a half fundraising for the Australian Conservation Foundation, and already its extremely repetitive, but I'm going to hang in there. I stand on the street and ask passer byers, "Hi! Do you have a minute for the environment!" or "Hi! Do you have a moment for Australian Conservation!" I say variations of these two phrases 150 plus times a day, and about 8 people stop to talk to me. I'll say this for the job, it definitely makes you immune to rejection!! Haha, you also can't take yourself too seriously when you're fighting entertainers and bums with coin cups for the best street corners. Last week I went to lunch and came back to find my library spot was taken by a guy on the bongos and a woman trying to get people to sign up for paintball. I crossed the street to try my other spot, but found a magician had set up shop and had a crowd of 20 watching his act. On Friday I came back from lunch and found my spot taken by a group of hari chrishnas rocking out with drums and chanting and a man selling books, only 2 books, both about animal cruelty. The job has its perks though, and after I tell you them I bet you can figure out the average age of the employees. Free coffee each morning at that days meeting spot, and the perks for bringing in a lot of donations include free lunch, movie tickets, extra money on your winter clothing allowance, and my favorite, a 6 pack of any beer of your choosing. The 6 pack is reserved for "high pacers" (a pac is monthly donation), and on my second day when I got a $100 dollar pac, I was rewarded with beer.

On Saturday night though I started to think that maybe I should just work three days a week and babysit the other two. I had a nightmare where I was stuck on a street corner saying desperately over and over and over again "Do you have a minute for the environment". I told myself it was nightmare and to wake up, but I was stuck on that street for way too long until I finally woke up and sat straight up in bed. I sighed as I calmed down and reminded myself it was the weekend. Yeah, so after I finish this post I'm looking for a second job.

Well that's all for now! Things are going so well, and the only thing left is to find a place to live. I promise I will post a bali and NZ blog soon!

All caught up! Southern Thailand and Malaysia!

2009-03-01T13:01:00.007+07:00

Ok, well I've gotten pretty far behind on my blog so I'm going to sum up Southern Thailand so that I can start writing about what's happening now! After Ko Phi Phi Dan and I went to Krabi and my favorite part was when we took a longtail boat out to Chicken Island in the late afternoon. All the tours were on their way out and after a short time we had the white sand and blue waters almost entirely to ourselves. Our longtail returned at low tide, and with the water receding, we just barely made it out in time before the bottom of our boat became stuck on the coral. After Krabi we made our way south and ended up on a small Island called Ko Mook. It was long and skinny, and our beach had just a handful of resorts with bungalows lining the beach. To get to the other beach you had to walk through the jungle up a hill and through the woods. On my way back to our bungalow I was just about to head into the jungle when the woman at the restaurant offered a word of caution, "Watch out for the cobras". I laughed but she told me she was very serious, so with a stick in hand I made my way out a little to close to dusk for my comfort.

Dan headed on at a faster pace to get to Ko Lipe so we split for a little while. I stayed behind on Ko Mook and ended up meeting two cool Germans, one a dive instructor and another a backpacker vacationing with her parents who had come to meet up with her for a bit. We spent each night in the hammocks by the bar discussing travel and trying to take in how cool it all was but never succeeding. Next I moved on to an even smaller Island, Ko Hai. It had only 2 bungalow hotels and a nicer hotel called Charlies in the middle. I stayed in the cheapest bungalow but helped myself to the nice pool at Charlies in the afternoon. There was interesting snorkeling around the bend and I spent most afternoons making my way through the various lagoons. It was here that I first started feeling sick but I didn't think too much of it, I'll fill you in later with how that turned out. Next I met up with Dan in Ko Lipe, a much busier island full of shops selling pancakes, sticky rice, and foot massages. I always enjoyed going to the quieter islands for awhile then spending a few days on the busier ones drinking shakes, eating crepes, and watching movies at night in the cafes. Dan and I had dinner one night with a girl I met at the internet cafe. Her name was Jane, she's Thai, and she'd just moved to Ko Lipe to work in the internet cafe. She was sweet and after talking for awhile she told me she was finding it hard to make friends on the Island, especially since she worked 7 days a week from 8 am till 8 pm. I invited her out to dinner with Dan and I and she was so shy it was cute. It turned out it pays to make friends with the internet girl though because I ended up saving a couple of hundred baht on internet during my time on Ko Lipe :-)

Next I made my way through a few Islands in the Tarutao National Park. At this point Dan and I parted ways because he was heading back north, then onto India, and I was moving south towards Malaysia and Indonesia. I was really glad I went to the national park islands because they were completely devoid of just about anything touristy. I stayed in tents on the beach and ate at the uh, interesting, national park restaurants. In Ko Tarutao I met a group of Brits and a Polish guy and we hired a boat to take us to Crocodile Cave. The boat took us to the entrance, then from there we walked a bit in till we found the kayaks in the river in the cave. We got in and paddled for about 10 minutes until we came to a point where we pulled them up to a muddy bank. The only light illuminating the stalactite filled cave came from our head lamps. It was slow going through the mud which felt more like peanut butter as we made our way up into a large opening.

At the end of my Thai island hopping I was still feeling sick. I had nausea and stomach pains every time I ate and I was very fatigued all the time, to the point where it interfered with my ability to do and see things. I saw a doctor in Southern Thailand in Hat Yai but he did very little. So I took a minibus across the border into Malaysia and across to Penang. I saw two doctors there but unfortunately they completely misdiagnosed me. So I decided after a week with them that I should move on to a large city. I met a nice American family who lives in Kuala Lumpur at a hotel in Vietnam over Christmas. I called Kathleen, the mother, and explained my medical situation and asked her if I could take her up on her offer to stay with her family for a couple of days. The family was soooo sweet and ended up hosting me for a week and a half! It was a complete blessing as I was so sick and it was so comforting to stay in a real bed and curl up on the couch with a DVD instead of staying in a hostel bed and curling up on a chair in the Chinatown market. I saw two more doctors and I was finally diagnosed with an intolerance to wheat. So I'm cutting wheat out of my diet for 3 weeks, then I'll slowly reintroduce it in small amounts. So I can eat one cookie, a piece of toast, or cake, or something small once in a while so that my body does not become completely intolerant.

I enjoyed staying with Kathleen and Derald and the girls so much, and it was sad to say goodbye when I got back to travelling and took a bus up to the Cameron Highlands. The best part of the highlands was the cool mountain temperature. The hostel I stayed in was also just the kind I like with a lounge with internet that felt more like a lodge then a guesthouse. I took a tour one morning, and that was definitely my favorite part of my stay. We visited a temple, market, a crazy bug and butterfly place (the pictures will do it more justice then my great description), gorgeously colored gardens, and a tea plantation. The tea plantation was my favorite part, as the round mountains covered in mossy green tea plants was so unique.

I had a rough ride moving on from the Cameron Highlands to where I am now, the Perhentian Islands on Coral Bay. It was a 7 hour mini bus ride through winding mountains, and with my stomach still sub par I had motion sickness the whole way coupled with a lovely headache. The 30 minute speedboat ride in which the tip of the boat flew up and landed on the water as if it was hitting concrete every 10 seconds did nothing to relieve my headache. But after a hot shower in the guesthouse (hot water was something they lacked in the chilly Cameron Highlands) I was felling much better. I was just talking to my mom on gchat and she said I should write about the different people I've met here. I meet so many its hard to keep track of everyone let alone remember names, but I'll do my best. My first evening I met two English guys who invited me out later with an English couple to go to the other side of the Island. To get there you had to walk through the jungle, the path filled with termites, and lucky for me I had flip flops. (Well actually they aren't really my flip flops. Mine I left outside of the dorm room in the Cameron Highlands and I returned to find a mismatching two sizes two big pair in their place. Haha I look like I'm wearing clown flip flops) The guys though forgot to wear shoes, we usually go barefoot all day in the Islands, and the termites bit up their feet so badly they drew blood. We were all grateful to reach the other side and hung out at the beach bar called "Safety Stop" with low tables, lit by candlelight, with mats to sit on.

The next day I chatted with the Finnish guys next door to my bungalow, but I find the Finnish a bit hard to warm up to. The following day I was checking out a book stall when I hear a polite British accent inform me quietly that my dress was tucked into my bathing suit bottom. Mortifying. Well I tried to suck it up and laugh about it (I was still dying inside) and ended up chatting with the Brit, an American, and some Spanish girls. Then later I met a cool group of Irish guys. For dinner I ate with a cute German couple that I met on the speedboat over to Coral Bay, they were a riot and I had a great night chatting with them and enjoying the barbecue of fresh fish. The following day I took an amazing snorkel trip with the same Irish guys and a fun girl from Singapore. The girl, Pamela, and I ended up having dinner later that night and chatting for a good 3 hours and afterwards we joined the group of Irish guys to watch a soccer game. Haha so I guess all this to say that people always ask me if I'm lonely when I travel, sure sometimes, but with a interesting group of people like this I never get bored!

Since being here in the Perhentian Islands my favorite experience, in a long time, was our snorkeling trip yesterday. I had the opportunity to swim around shark bay where I saw 4 or 5 reef sharks about 1 to 2 meters long (don't worry, the reef sharks are harmless). Later we saw giant sea turtles, right out of finding nemo. Here's a pic I found online of them. And lastly we went snorkeling around the base of a lighthouse in the sea, and despite my month snorkeling in Southern Thailand, I saw the most brilliant colors I've ever seen. The huge sea floor was covered in multi colored reef, clams, sea anemone, and brightly colored stingray. I was surrounded for much of the time by schools of hundreds of fish in different sizes and neon colors. I darted through the middle of one school and felt their slippery bodies touch my skin. If this storm stays away I'm going to try swimming out there again with some fins this afternoon.

Well I did it! I caught up on the last 8 weeks of travel! I'm impressed if you actually read all of it and made it this far! You can check out my photos (I'll post Malaysia photos soon) by clicking on the link below.

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A night on "The Beach"

2009-02-19T14:01:00.004+07:00

After flying into Phuket we only spent one night, because its very touristy and we wanted to get to the prettier beaches. So the next day we took a ferry to the island of Ko Phi Phi. Sadly, it was one of hardest hit areas in Thailand after the 2004 tsunami. There were about 11,000 people on the island when the tsunami struck and 2,500 or so were killed (5,000 total in Thailand). It was easy to forget the islands history as I walked through the streets crowded with beach shops, but then I'd turn a corner and there were would be a huge empty lot with just a single palm tree left. Dan and I climbed to the top lookout point and admired the skinny stretch of beach below. Photos were hung at the lookout of Phi Phi before and right after the tsunami. The most noticeable difference was the now lack of green vegetation and palm trees. I spoke to an English woman who had returned to Phi Phi for the first time since the disaster in which her brother almost died. He was suppose to meet a friend there but got hung up in Bangkok and arrived a day late. His friend didn't make it. What struck me the most about the people though is their resiliency. They've rebuilt much of the island over the last five years and they have such a positive spirit.

Next to the main island of Ko Phi Phi Don is Ko Phi Phi Lee. This is wear Leonardo DiCaprio's movie "The Beach" was filmed. There is one Aussie who has permission by the National Park Service to take groups to the island to spend the night. Dan and I lucked out because there were less then 20 people in our group the evening we went. The tour started by snorkeling in the large bay then they took us to the shore. The Aussie kicked the remaining tourists off the beach and our group had the whole island to ourselves. It was one of the most beautiful places I've been. The cliffs and mountains surround you, and its almost entirely closed off from the outside except for a small gap in the mountains on the far side of the lagoon. That evening we had a barbecue, the requisite bucket, and chatted with other travelers while we sat around on the beach. Later we literally slept out on the beach in sleeping bags, but I awoke all through the night completely frozen from the wind. I finally realized I could stay on the beach and freeze or go up to campsite and shelter of the bushes and brave the large scampering black rats. I chose the rats and Dan was nice enough to come along. I saw them scurry by but luckily they stayed away from our sleeping bags.

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Dan's Blog

A random trip to Singapore

2009-02-19T13:56:00.005+07:00

We took a 14 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok but we ran into a bit of trouble while crossing the border. In the past, if you entered Thailand by land you received a 30 day visa. However, it changed while we were traveling and when we checked our passports we realized that now you only get 15 days. That threw off our plan to spend a month meandering through the islands in Southern Thailand. We were at a loss as to what to do because once you enter the country you have to exit and go to a Thai Embassy in another country to apply for a longer visa. We continued onto Bangkok and ended up running into our Canadian friend Jessie, from our motorbike trip in Laos. He was having even worse problems then us as he'd gotten his passport stolen on a ferry done south. We commiserated with each other over our bad luck as we walked down the street to the hookah bar. With a huge lovely strawberry flavored hookah in front of us we forgot about stupid visas and passports and spent the rest of the night laughing over new travel stories since we'd last seen each other. Dan and I solved our visa problem the next day by booking a plan ticket from Bangkok to Singapore and then from Singapore to Phuket (in southern Thailand). If we entered Thailand by air from another country then we could get our 30 day visa.

My first impression of Singapore can be summed up with one word. Clean. The whole city is so clean and orderly. After coming from Cambodia where it's not uncommon for people to spit their food out onto the restaurant floor if they don't like it, Singapore was quite the culture shock. In fact, just chewing gum is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000. The metro ran on time, most everyone spoke English, the public areas were covered in well manicured gardens, and more uniquely they are extremely fashionable. There are so many shopping malls on this small island, more then thirty, that it's impossible to visit them all in one day. I did well in resisting the temptation to spend money and came out with only a new shirt and shorts. I should note that Singaporeans are the most fashionable people I've ever seen. As we walked through the malls I felt like I was in the pages of Vogue. Overall, I really enjoyed our short 2 day stay and I'd love to go back again with a bigger budget.

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The temples of Angkor Wat

2009-02-19T13:48:00.011+07:00

It was a bumpy bus ride on the dirt roads from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. The town was a lot smaller then I imagined, but also a lot prettier with a quiet river running along the edge. 5km outside of the city is a large expanse of 1,000 year old temples covering 400 km² known as Angkor Wat. The first night Dan and I met a British guy named Chris while eating dinner at a food stall in town. We made a plan to meet the next morning to share a tuk tuk around Angkor to save some money. We'd heard about how beautiful it is when you get there early and watch the sun rise against the temples. So we started out around 5:00am, but unfortunately the sunrise was more of an emergence of light without color. We were still happy though to start the day free of the large crowds. I have to admit I felt a bit like Indiana Jones stumbling upon a lost civilization as the three of us climbed through the stone corridors and rooms within the temples. At one point an old sun wrinkled Buddhist nun motioned for me to come with her to the alter inside. We both sat at the base of the alter then she began carefully removing various objects from her small basket. She gave me a stick of incense and instructed me to move it in a certain way while reciting a phrase. Then she lit the incense stick and I stuck it in the sand pot at the base of the Buddha statue. I thanked her, placing my palms together and nodding my head in a bow, and in return she tied a red string bracelet around my wrist symbolizing a buddhist blessing of good luck. It was one of my most special experiences in Cambodia.

Later that afternoon the three of us found spots on top of a temple and while enjoying the view I slipped into sleep and woke up 20 minutes later to find Chris and Dan had done the same. A half hour later we pulled ourselves up and back to the tuk tuk to venture off to a few more temples. We stopped for a snack at one of the roadside food stalls and I smelled something good being grilled. I saw a woman in the corner grilling meat on sticks and covering it with a sweet sauce. I got 6 small sticks for Dan and I and we each commented on how good it was, especially with the special sauce. As we were eating our last few scrumptious bites Chris was regaling us with tales of his time in China and South Korea. He told us of eating dog and its peculiar consistency. Stringy and chewy he said, very different from beef and chicken. Dan and I both looked at each other and realized that our wonderful "beef" on the sticks didn't actually resemble any meat we'd had before. Yeah, it was dog. Sorry Riley.

That evening was the big New Years eve party on "Pub Street" in Siem Riep. The three of us met up for dinner at the street stalls then walked over to the party. We found the whole street had been blocked off to traffic and the restaurants were selling beer for $1 a cup on the street. Halfway through the night all the power went off, leaving only a couple of glowing neon signs. The restaurant owners were unfazed though and within minutes candles filled the tables, bars, and even bathrooms and the party continued. When the power returned a few minutes before midnight the street assumed more of a Mardi Gras feel then Cambodian. It was definitely my most memorable New Year!

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2009-01-23T16:08:00.005+07:00

We started our time in Cambodia in the city of Phnom Penh. Our hotel was located a couple of miles from the tourist area, and as a result there were lots of local shops and markets. My favorite was the night market which would appear each evening at sunset just a block away. I was excited to try new food in Cambodia and I wasn't disappointed. Everything was pretty cheap with internet at 30 cents an hour and most meals were only a dollar. The interesting thing is that when you use your ATM card in Cambodia, instead of dispensing the local currency of riel, it gives dollars. Dollars are used for most purchases and your given riel as change.

Our second day there we visited a shooting range outside of the city and found the prices to be a lot higher then we expected. So we stuck to trying out an M16. If you had the money you could shoot just about anything. Backpacker legend has it that in the villages up in the mountains you can shoot a leper if you name the right price. Yes, a leper, like a human with the disease of leprosy. The scary part is that I've heard this story from quite a few people, some who have claimed to have first or secondhand knowledge of such going ons. Well I'm just going to keep on believing it's a legend.

The next morning we took a minibus to the outskirts of the city to the "Killing Fields" where the Khmer Rouge killed thousands of people and buried them in mass graves. Afterwards we visited a highschool that the Khmer Rouge turned into a brutal prison known as S-21. A popular book sold in Cambodia was "First They Killed my Father". My freshman year of college our grade was required to read this book before school started, and in the fall the author came to AU and told us about how she barely survived the Khmer Rouge. It touched me of course reading her book and hearing her speak in person, but not in the same way as when I actually visited the spot where the atrocities occured. That's one of my favorite parts of travelling; having the ability to take information and learning that was once detached and foriegn and make it real. I've read a lot of books detailing the accounts of Auschwitz survivors, but it wasn't until this summer when I visited the camp that I was able to really begin to take in the full scale of what happened there.

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Dan's Blog

Sun Damaged Chicken

2009-01-23T15:58:00.008+07:00

We ended up spending quite a while in Saigon, a large city in Northern Vietnam. Two weeks actually because we ran into a snag with our visas when Dan got sick. But as a result we had a lot of great experiences that we wouldn't have had otherwise. One of the most visited museums in Saigon is the American War Museum (what we refer to as the Vietnam War, they understandingly refer to as the American War). I knew it would be graphic before we went, but I didn't realize how the museum would affect me. It is one large open room and you work your way around the walls. They are filled with photos and accounts of atrocities committed by American soldiers. I quickly stopped reading the captions as an entire family laying on the ground with bullet holes in their heads is explanation enough. While I found it difficult to see such gruesome acts perpetrated by Americans, I was glad I visited and saw the evidence because it gave me a much better understanding of their perspective.

A few days later Dan and I visited the Cu Chi Tunnels an hour and a half outside of the city. The tunnels were constructed by the Vietnamese soldiers over the course of twenty years and spread almost 250km. The Vietnamese used the series of tunnels to stealthily enter and exit through various concealed entrances and fight the Americans. I found it interesting that a good portion of the tunnels were dug deep enough that if the Americans dropped a bomb the tunnel would remain intact. I had the opportunity to crawl through the small tunnels and on my first attempt there were people squished behind and in front of me and I retreated to the surface after going only a couple of metres in. I waited until the crowd had dispersed and Dan went down with me for a second try and without the crowds I was able to make it the first 20m then I took the first exit out. It is unimaginable to me how people lived down there for months and even years. As we passed through the jungle we saw the gruesome traps laid for the Americans and their extreme disadvantage in fighting a hidden enemy. There is a tourist shooting range nearby and the sounds of guns and uzi's erupted every 15 seconds. I felt like I could imagine in a small way the fear the soldiers must have felt knowing that at every step they could fall into a hidden pit filled with spears or be gunned down by an enemy they never saw. I've heard people talk about how the Vietnam War left so many soldiers changed mentally because of the style of warfare and after seeing it firsthand I can begin to understand why.

After visiting the museums and the Cu Chi Tunnel we were planning on heading out to Cambodia to spend Christmas in Siem Reap, but our plans changed when Dan became really sick and ended up the in hospital. They gave him antibiotics through an IV and released him later that night. It took him a few days to recover so we had to get visas extensions. The extensions ended up taking over a week and Dan was better before they were ready. So we decided to get of Saigon and head to a popular Vietnamese beach town called Vung Tao. On the minibus ride there we met a Vietnamese Woman named Hang who invited us to come to her house on our way back to Saigon. Hang is an english teacher and had recently been to the US. She told us people there were so kind to her that she wanted to return the favor and have us come to her home and talk with her students. After a few quiet days on the beach in Vung Tao we called Hang and asked her if we could take her up on her offer. She met us at the bus stop and I got on the back of her motorbike and Dan, lucky him, was given both our packs to balance precariously on the back of the other motorbike. When we entered her house Hang showed us right to the spare bedroom that was made up for us, and we realized that this wasn't an afternoon visit as we'd thought but we were expected to spend the night. So we went with the flow and unpacked and then had lunch with Hang.

My favorite part about my visit with Hang were the cultural differences. She was forever pinching me telling me to eat more then pinching Dan telling him he eats a lot. When she saw me outside in a short sleeve shirt she pointed to my arms and said gravely, "Oooh, you have spots from sun damage. Too bad. You should be wearing long sleeves. Ooooh, too much sun." I tried unsuccessfully to explain that my spots were freckles and I've always had them. But yes I conceded, they did come out more with sun, and yes I'd been getting a lot more then usual, but it isn't damaged I insisted, now with a trace of uncertainty in my voice. She gave me a placating pitying look and thats when I just started to laugh. Later when we were drinking tea on her porch she asked me at what times I usually wake up and go to bed. I told her since I've been in Asia I get up around 8 and go to bed around 10. "Just like a chicken!" she exclaimed, "You're just like a chicken! Up early, to bed early!" Dan from then on enjoyed referring to me as the sun damaged chicken.

That evening her students came and we all went out to a coffee shop, a favorite in Vietnam since they don't really have bars. Unfortunately I had a headache and an upset stomach and by the time we got home I had to excuse myself and go to bed. The next day Hang didn't seem to understand that my stomach was not up to par and all three meals were filled with fish and lots of spice. Canned, fried, salted, pickled, and grilled fish all made their way onto the menu. My stomach turned but I tried my best to be a good guest and eat as much as I could keep down. When we went to the local market that afternoon we stopped by, what else, the fish section. There were all sorts of live fish squiggling around in pans filled with a few centimeters of water. Hang selected a couple and the woman took her machete and started hacking away. Apparently you don't actually kill the fish until the last step of hacking, so the poor thing just slithered around till it was finally put out of its misery. The hacking of the fish and the mixture of dead animal smells was enough for me to slip away and find a seat outside the market in the fresh air. After Hang taught her evening English Class she took us out for a walk into the town to visit her son's bubble tea shop. My new love after banana pancakes is now bubble tea! I love it! It's flavored jelly balls in a sweet flavored tea. I haven't seen it very much in the states and maybe opening a bubble tea/banana pancake shop is in my future. We said goodbye to Hang the next day and headed back to Saigon. After a few more days there we got our visas and we were happy to be on our way to Cambodia.

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From the beach to the mountains to sledding in the desert

2009-01-08T12:37:00.006+07:00

Moi Ne was a quiet one street beach town stretching 7 kilometers. It has more luxury resorts then I've seen the whole trip with huge 5 star hotels doting the western end. We stayed on the eastern side in a small resort on the beach. It was our splurge and included a large pool with a pool bar and chairs and umbrellas on the beach. We were unsure whether we wanted to spend the money, but the receptionist had us the moment she said "breakfast buffet". We spent two days on the beach and by the pool, and the second evening we met a nice British couple, Giles and Samantha, at the pool bar. Unfortunately Samantha had her purse stolen on the beach earlier that day and they were waiting for the police to come and make a report. After speaking with them the cops made it clear that they thought they were making the whole story up so that they could make money from the hotel or insurance company. We later found out its not uncommon in Moi Ne, or Vietnam in general, for the police to be distrustful of tourists accounts of theft because it makes the country look bad. After a few drinks though they quickly forgot the craziness of the day and we all ended up taking our beers down to the beach.

After a couple of days at the beach we took a long bumpy mini bus ride up to the mountains to a town called Da Lat. We stayed in a nice guesthouse with great banana pancakes (didn't I tell you I'm a banana pancake connoisseur?). It was about fifteen degrees cooler there and it was a welcome break from the usual heat. We rented motorbikes and explored the outskirts of the city including a cool pagoda perched on a hillside with beautiful views of the surrounding rice terraces. That evening we visited a silk embroidery studio that was so much more impressive than I had expected. We were taken for a tour to the upstairs work room where women embroidered detailed pictures that looked more like paintings. It takes them 6 months to a year to finish some of the larger pieces.

We returned to Moi Ne to get back on our Open Bus Ticket. We rented a motorbike and headed to the desert of Moi Ne, which interestingly enough is located right next to the beach. The children held their sleds out to us and fought fiercely for our business. We negotiated with them to leave us in peace while we ate our lunch and we would pick sleds when we were finished eating. Their clothes were dirty and they knocked a ball around and poked in the sand. I remember thinking that they strangely reminded me of the lost boys from Peter Pan except harder, more tired. I ended up going with the little boy who had first approached me when we arrived. Another fierce kid got angry at me because he argued he was the first to ask me (bad call on my part to say out loud why I made my choice). He screamed "Fuck You Lady!!" a few times and gave me the middle finger and that's when the Nanny in me flared up. I yelled back at him that he shouldn't ever speak to anyone that way, especially if you want them to buy something. We left the kid fuming and went with our young guides up the dunes. The sand was absolutely scorching hot and I did a bit of a dance as I walked. Accompanying me was a little 8 year old girl with her dirt covered pink princess sweatshirt who put me to shame as she blithely walked through the sand. I asked her if she went to school at all. "No," she replied quietly, "My parents have no money. Need money for school." When we reached the top the older girl of 14 and the boy of 10 deftly dug out a sledding path for us. The girl explained that they pushed away the hot sand because the cool sand underneath made for a faster ride. They took a sled and stuck the front end into the sand, positioned me on top just so, and then gave me a hard push. My first time down I made it to the bottom before falling flat on my face! Ha! It was so much fun!

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banana pancakes and rice paper rolls

2009-01-07T22:28:00.007+07:00

To get to the next city, Hue, we took an overnight sleeper bus. There were rows of bunk beds extending to the back of the bus and we chose the big bed/mat at the very back. When we crawled in their were two girls already there who were none to pleased to have to share the large bed with us. The girls got off an hour two later and the bus driver put a couple in their place. I had known what would probably happen next. In Vietnam if there is not a clearly defined seat with no possibility of squeezing someone in next to you then you can be assured more people will be forced in. In this case, around 11pm the driver directed a 5th person to our 4 person bed. We all attempted to protest but knew from the start it was futile. I resigned myself to the situation and spent the rest of the night crammed between Dan and a British journalist. While it was uncomfortable at the time, that's the type of funny memory that will pop into my head years from now and still make me laugh out loud.

"the food critic"

Hue was a relatively quiet town for Vietnam and the tourist section was small so it was easy to spend time where the locals live. It's not hard to get comfortable in the tourist area with all of the amenities you need right outside your hotel. Dan has been really good in pushing us to get out to the more local areas so we can see what the cities are really like. Hue is known for their great food, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. My favorite lunch spot was a restaurant over looking the river that is owned by a deaf mute couple. I loved to order this one dish with meat, grilled vegetables, and greens and you roll it all up in rice paper and dip it into a peanut sauce. My favorite dessert sport was a small restaurant that served the best banana chocolate pancakes. Pancakes here are a common dessert and usually resemble a crepe or a very thick traditional pancake. In this case it was the latter and filled with sliced bananas and melted chocolate chips. I've become a bit of a banana pancake connoisseur.

Our second day in Hue we rented motorbikes and drove to the countryside covered in rice fields. We stopped at a historic bridge our book mentioned. The bridge itself was a let down, but the old woman sitting inside made it a whole lot more interesting. Motioning with her hand she called me over to sit next to her and talk. Her face was rolled with wrinkles and covered in carefully applied bold colored makeup. Where her eyebrows had once been were two thick black pencil lines spanning across her forehead. Her thin wispy hair was pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. She was quite the character and asked me questions about where I was from and my age, then she got down to business. She took my hand, twice the size of her small frail one, and traced the lines across my palm with her thin finger. "You want me to read your palm?" She asked. "I will tell you when you get married, if husband will be handsome. I tell you if you have babies. Oh, you're going to have many babies, many babies." I smiled at the offer but politely declined. She was definitely one of my favorite parts of the motorbike ride that day outside Hue.

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Hanoi and Halong Bay

2008-12-13T23:23:00.009+07:00

Dan and I went to Vietnam after Laos and began in the large northern city of Hanoi. We stayed in a nice hotel in Hanoi's old quarter. We've been staying in hotels and guesthouses since we left Thailand because there really aren't any hostels around. The hotels however are just as cheap except you get a private room, bath, and all the amenities of a hotel. The old quarter itself has a smaller more neighborhood feel, except for the insane amount of motorbikes that constantly clog the streets. I thought the traffic was overwhelming during the day, but at rush hour it becomes comical. When Dan and I walked out of our hotel the first evening in search of dinner we were stunned to see the whole street at a standstill. The motorbikes barely moved, while the pedestrians quickly weaved through the bikes. I think my view of Hanoi was skewed the first day or two by how overwhelmed I felt with all of the traffic. Having just arrived from quiet Laos, it was a huge change. I watched the locals technique of walking slowly across the street while the motorbikes deftly avoided them and once I tried it out and became comfortable crossing the street I finally relaxed and began to enjoy Hanoi.

The buildings in the old quarter were full of character, and the shop keepers were kind but not as keen to bargain as their counterparts in the south. On the third day, while making our way to a museum, we ran into our Swedish friends Linda and Oscar from our group in Laos. We met them that night at their hostel (one of the only ones in Hanoi) and then we all went to dinner a couple of blocks away at a street restaurant they recommended. People packed into the restaurant's typical preschool size tables and stools (still don't understand that one). We went up to a table crowded with vegetables, seafood, meat and bread and filled our plates absurdly high. We sat down and the waitress took our plates over to the barbecue where it was thinly covered with an amazing sweet sauce and then grilled. It was by far one of my favorite meals in Hanoi.

Next we booked a 3 day tour out to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. The tour bus picked us up at a our hotel and delivered us to the harbor. The tour boats were so packed in that there was a constant sound of them bumping into each other as they manoeuvred through the harbor. Our boat was typical of most, with the top deck open for lounging, the middle deck for eating and the bottom for the cabins. Our cabin was prettier then I expected with detailed wood paneling covering most of the room and had a private bath. It was nicer then most hotels we've stayed in. When the boat got on its way and entered the bay I was surprised at the size, over 1900, and number of the islets, which mainly consist of large hills or mountains protruding from the water. We spent the next day or so on the boat and visited a huge cave in one of the islets, swam, and kayaked. Mainly though we just sat on the top deck and took in the unique view.

After the boat we stayed on Cat Ba Island where we went hiking the first morning. The hike started out as easy and honestly we completely misjudged it thinking it would not be much of a challenge. We were pleasantly surprised when at the top of the first mountain peak waited a gorgeous 360 degree view comprised of the bay and islets and large mountains fading into the distance. We were even more surprised when we saw the extremely narrow rocky ledge that led up to the second viewpoint. It was scarier going up then down because you didn't know what awaited you as you precariously climbed higher. Again though the view made it all worth it. That afternoon I joined people from our tour group in hiring a boat to take us to monkey island. Dan opted to kayak and as he neared the island he heard someone on a nearby boat calling his name and waving their arms emphatically. He saw it was Linda and Oscar again, our friends from Laos. Their tour boat told them they had to swim to the island so Oscar jumped into the empty front seat and Dan paddled them both to shore. I was shocked when I saw Dan emerge from the bay with Oscar in tow.

I was happy to find the island lived up to its name when I saw a whole group of monkeys chilling out around the bathrooms on the edge of the woods. When I approached calmly and quietly they barely took any notice of me. The balance was upset however when some jackass started chasing and antagonizing the largest monkey who was about the size of a 2 year old. The guy ran towards the beach and the monkey turned its anger on me and chased me out of their area and lept towards my legs and hissed. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful though as most of the other tourists had left and my group had the island to ourselves as we laid on the beach and watched the sun set behind the mountains.

New photos and videos!

2008-11-25T19:53:00.005+07:00

I've updated my photo albums (end of Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam). You can check them out here.

Also Dan updated his Blog and Videos!

A not so quick synopsis

2008-11-23T13:27:00.008+07:00

I know it's been forever since I've updated. So I'm just going to sum up some of the fun things we've been doing and then I'll get back on track with blogging more often. Let's see, where to start....

Haha well I've yet to mention my little "accident" in Chang Mai. It was evening and I was riding my rented bicycle home from the night market. I took a wrong turn and got lost, so I turned into a gas station for directions. I figured out where I was and as I pulled out of the parking lot onto an empty street a motorbike came flying around the corner. Looking back I don't think he saw me because he didn't slow or swerve until the last second. I however saw him coming the whole time and peddled my little heart out to make it to the other side. It was to no avail though because the motorbike hit me and the bicycle went flying one direction and I the other. I landed on my back and when the driver of the motorbike saw me get up 10 seconds later he sped away with eyes that showed he was scared to death. I felt fine at the time and the locals were absolutely sweet as can be and helped get me a taxi that took me back to the hotel. As a result of the accident though I hurt my left foot. Ahhhhh the irony. As most of you know I hurt my right ankle this summer in Greece and it never healed properly and I still wear a brace. I packed one of my crutches though (the smaller wrist European kind that I could take apart and put in my pack) just in case I re-injured my right ankle. Haha but no I ended up using the crutch for the left foot which was just badly bruised! After about two weeks of hobbling on the crutch though I'm good as new.....for now:-)

After Chang Mai we spent a few quiet days in Chang Rai and then headed up to the border to Chang Kong. From there we boarded a two day slow boat ride through Lao to Lam Probong (I have no idea how to spell it). The first day of the boat ride I hung out with a group of backpackers most of the afternoon and Dan and I met up with them again when the boat stopped for the evening in Pak Bang. The next day when we arrived in Lam Probong the 10 of us stayed at the same hostel and ended up travelling together for the next two weeks!

Our group was made up of 3 americans, 1 canadian, 2 brits, 2 dutch guys, and 2 swedes. The group all started with different plans but everyone got along so well that we changed them to head down to Vien Veing together to go "tubing". Pretty much its one huge party down the river for backpackers. You get on your tube and go from bar to bar where it feels more like spring break in Miami then on the river in Lao. The bars have huge rope swings, zip lines, and massive slides into the water. After an afternoon at the different riverside bars you actually get on your tube for a while and head down the river to the end point. Our first day doing it (yeah, we did it two days in a row :-) I went down the long stretch of tubing with Will and Sasha, the two Brits. Sasha drank waaaaay too much, not too uncommon for her I found out, and ended up falling out of her tube. When Will and I finally got to her 10 minutes later she passed out in the water. I grabbed a hold of her arm and then held her ahead above water for the next two minutes until we got her to wake up and get back into her tube. The incident quickly sobered us all up, and I was relieved when Sasha opted out of tubing again the following day. Other then that debacle, it was really fun!

After a few days of tubing in Vien Vieng we kayaked to Vientiane, and ran into some rapids along the way. The guide spent at least 20 minutes explaining what to do if you fall out of the kayak on the rapids. I thought he seemed a bit overcautious, but when Dan and I fell out of the kayak in the first rapids I quickly understood his concerns. We rushed along holding onto the kayak with Dan yelling to me to keep my feet up because of the rocks below. After about 2 minutes we came towards the end and one of the guides paddled over to help us turn our kayak upright. By the end of the trip though all the boats in our group flipped at one point so I felt a bit better. We stopped for lunch half way down and the guides lit a fire and began grilling shishkabobsfor us. Dan and most of the group went up the river a bit for a 30 ft. jump off of a cliff! I watched under the pretense that I didn't want to get injured yet again, but also it was way to high for me!

When we arrived in Vientiane our group was down to 8 as we made plans to head down to Thakek for a four day motorbike ride. The dutch guys had planned to do the motorbike loop and came prepared with a good map and an understanding of the route, the rest of us just tagged along! One the first day we stopped at a gorgeous blue river for a afternoon swim and then headed back out to the road to try and make it to the hostel before dark. Unfortunately Sasha had an accident as she almost got side swiped pulling out of a parking lot and slid on the gravel. She was really scrapped up and bruised but overall she was ok. The next day the poor girl fell for a second time on the stone filled dirt mountain roads. The a good portion of the group was a bit fed up and said they didn't want to backtrack for her and told her to go back to the closest town to get her bike fixed and then meet them about 60km up the road at the next village. Dan and I weren't keen on their plan to leave her behind so the two of us followed the truck that took her and her bike back to the repair shop. The bike was fixed within fifteen minutes but one of the dutch guys who went ahead had taken the key!! Dan was the hero of the Day racing to the next town and searching for half an hour to find them, got the key, and rode the 60 km back again to the repair shop. I tried riding Sasha's bike and I saw what the problem was, it was absolutely terrible on gravel!! Her bike shook so badly you felt like it could slide out at any moment. Keep in mind too that 75% of the four day ride was on gravel or dirt roads. Dan switched bikes with her for a good portion of the day and then Sasha got back on and found her groove with it and was much better. The afternoon was a lot more fun though because it was spent almost entirely in the jungle. We drove down a dirt potholed road with the jungle leaves above creating an eerie glow of sunshine peeking through. The potholed roads were actually fun after you got the hang of bouncing out of one hole and into the next. It made me feel like I was in a video game for much of the time, constantly avoiding the chicken, cattle, dogs, and holes in the road. After four days we made our way back to Thakek and from there the eight of us finally parted ways.

Next Dan and I took a night bus to Vietnam, which turned out to be an adventure in itself! We boarded at 9:00pm and arrived the following day in Vinh at 4:00pm. When we first got on the bus the only thing we could do was laugh as we saw that every inch of floor space was filled with large sacks of rice. We squeezed into the seats, our feet resting on two sacks, and I immediately fell asleep. I awoke at 2:30am when the bus pulled over on the side of the road and I assumed that maybe the driver was stopping for an hours rest. I became a bit worried though when I woke up again at 6:30am and the bus was still parked on the side of the road, the passengers all resting peacefully as if this was completely normal. It turned out that we had to wait until the boarder crossing to Vietnam opened. One of the passengers in front of us had put his seat all the way down in the middle of the night forcing Dan with his long legs to sleep sideways. When in the morning the man left the bus for a moment we quickly pushed the armrest button sending his seat upright. When he came back he apparently wasn't to fond of our little maneuver and spent most of the next hour making fun of us in Vietnamese. As Dan aptly pointed out, it would be really hard to travel here if you didn't have good self esteem. We tried all the usual tactics, ignoring, smiling, offering food, back to ignoring, and by the time we got to the border he had lost interest. The border was a bit crazy and after 3 hours of processing our paperwork and passports we were on our way, haha but not for long! We stopped in a small town for 2 1/2 hours to unload all the rice from the rice bus and after that we really were on our way to Vinh. We stayed there for the evening and the next day took a bus to Hanoi, where we are now!

My first impressions of Hanoi are a little jaded by how overwhelmed I am with all of the motorbikes. After getting hit by the motorbike in Chang Mai, crossing the street always makes me a bit nervous. Here there is only one traffic law, every man for himself. Here is a youtube video I found of the Hanoi streets. The people seem friendly though and all of the shops are filled with interesting fruits and new food. I only spent a couple of hours outside this morning before coming into the internet cafe, so I don't think I can really tell you all that much yet. I'll write more once I've spent more time here.

Motorbike trip through Laos

2008-11-15T19:54:00.005+07:00

Dan and I have been traveling through Lao with a group of ten people and it has been so much fun! It has sort of been a time warp, we've been having such a great time that I forget that we've all been together for almost two weeks. Tomorrow we start a four day motorbike ride through the mountains and jungle, I'm really excited. When I get more time I'll write more!

Over the mountains and through the woods

2008-10-28T18:09:00.004+07:00

Our time spent in Ayuttua went slowly as it was so unusually hot, even for Thailand, and it zapped your energy pretty early in the day. We rented bicycles for $1.20 and rode around town visiting the various wats (Temples), the towns only real attraction. In the afternoon we took a longboat tour with tow french girls from our hostel down the river to reach 3 other wats. We climbed the skinny red stoned steps angled near vertically to the top of the last wat and got an amazing view.

The following morning we started what would take 6 days in and out to see the extremely remote Thi Lo Su waterfall waterfall, the 6 largest in the world. We started the trip with high spirits, but they we're slowly broken down each step of the way. With our first 7 hour ride to Tak we missed our connecting mini bus to Mae Sot. When we tried to negotiate with a waiting taxi driver to take us to Mae Sot, he refused to budge one baht, despite his prices being four times more then average. When we tried to talk to other tax drivers about giving us a ride into town to the only guesthouse, it was clear the first driver had told everyone else not to drive us anywhere. We were officially blacklisted and stranded. We later learned that there exist a taxi mafia who we apparently fell victim to that night. When asked at the bus counter for walking directions to the guesthouse, the police officer behind the counter had pity on us and gave us a lift in the back of his truck. Our room immediately reminded me of an insane asylum, and the eerie yellow glow of the single light did little to help the ambiance. We weren't entirely disheartened though, not even when the water from the shower and faucet poured out in a muddy brown stream. Instead, the next morning we had a refreshing cold shower from large seven eleven water bottles and then caught the 2hr mini bus to Mae Sot. From there we'd been previously warned by Dan's brother Matt that this is the hardest part of the trip, at least the vehicle part. We took a Sung Thaw, a truck with benches in the back and a cover, 4 1/2 hours through the mountains on the road of 1,216 curves, and because of the motion sickness spills I gratefully only felt about 500 of them. Dan and I were pleased with ourselves when we arrived in Um Phong without having been sick. We booked a room in the guest house and signed up for a 2 day guided tour to the waterfall. We had hoped to simply get a ride there, but the road does not open until November 4th when the water has dried up.

We began the next day in good spirits as we took a 4 hour rafting ride down the river and straight through pure jungle, complete with monkeys playing in the trees. From the jungle grew so many shades of green that it was brilliantly colorful. At the end of the ride we pulled up onto the muddy bank eager to begin the 5 mile hike to our campsite. Our guide, 15 year old Boss, led us to the path and you can see a picture of me, full of naivety and false hope. The first 2 1/2 miles turned out to be straight up a mountain. Literally. The 2 2 1/2 miles down only brought to life a whole new set of muscles as our bodies arched backward to keep from unwillingly running down the mountain. When we arrived we found our tent and took a bath in the river. The river was actually gorgeous, refreshingly col and the grey blue water was supplied directly from the falls. We hung around camp the rest of the evening with Tom and Pick, our British and Thai friends. The next morning we eagerly made our way to the waterfall 1 km away. We dove right into one of the lower pools and Dan successfully swam behind the waterfall (a smaller branch of the main one up higher). Honestly, after all we had gone to to get to the falls, we had expected to find the meaning of the life there. The waterfall was absolutely amazing, but I had put such high expectations on it that it ultimately let me down a little. Looking back on the trip, it was not the waterfall that held the most value or insight, but instead the journey itself. If i can climb straightt up a mountain then my expectations for future possibilities has definitely increased. At the end of it all we made the trek up and down the mountain, the raft ride, and then the 4 /2 hours down the road of 1,216 curves. I later found out the road is appropriately named "The Death Highway to Mae Sot". The stress of making this long trip back was considerably eased by know what was ahead, and the hike and Sung Thaw passed by quickly. Looking back I am so glad that we made the trip!

The Tiger Temple

2008-10-20T12:20:00.007+07:00

Dan and I met a guy one night a bar in Kanchanaburi who volunteered at a sanctuary for Tigers run by monks, called the Tiger Temple. He told us about a program where you can be hands on with Tigers for a whole morning. We signed up and a couple of mornings later we arrived at the sanctuary at 7:30 and were joined by an Aussie couple. The Canadian guide who ran the morning program had come to Thailand 8yrs earlier and met one of the head monks who said he was his son from a previous life and adopted him. For the next four years our guide lived as a monk. He left the monk hood, I'm not sure what you'd call it, and lived here at the Tiger Temple with his monk father and married a Thai woman. Well, this interesting guide brought us to the temple where we bottle fed first the 2 month old cubs an then the four month old ones. At least half of the milk dribbled down their furry faces and pooled on the floor. When they finished their bottles we were able to play with them for twenty minutes, teasing them with their favorite plastic bag and stuffed toys. As cute as they are, you always have to be on your guard as their claws are long and sharp and once they bite its hard to get them to release. The cut on my finger can attest to that.

The staff set up breakfast and gave our offering of Pepsi's and Tim Tam cookies to the monks (we were told these are their favorite treats). The monks recited the morning prayers as we tried to keep our toes pointed away from them because it is very offensive. Breakfast was a colorful buffet of Thai dishes. After eating we walked the baby Tigers on leashes to the nearby 3 tiered swimming pools but it took at least fifteen minutes because they walked every direction but straight, their curiosity constantly peaked by the slightest movement or smell. When they got to the pools they jumped right in, frolicking around like puppies and tackling each other for their favorite toys (you can see the video). We had to be aware of our position to the tigers at all times because if you turn your back to them they pounce on you, this goes for the adults as well. Towards the end, the tigers revolted and started making breaks for it. At one point there were only two out of eight cubs in the water, with the rest bounding away with the volunteers running after them.

We reluctantly said goodbye to the babies and walked down the red dirt hill to the seven and nine month tigers. It sounds young, but actually they are a couple of hundred pounds. We walked the tigers down towards the canyon with a staff member holding a second leash. We were constantly reminded to stay behind the tiger or it would pounce on us. Needles to say, we stayed behind. At the bottom of the canyon was a large pool where the tigers were released to play. We were guided to "the circle of life". A literal circle drawn in the dirt that we could not leave. The tigers are taught that this area is off limits, but if you leave the circle there are no guarantees. We stood and watched for 45 minutes as the Tigers pounced and wrestled each other in the water. They crouched in the water and crept around, resembling an alligator stalking its prey. Very quickly things would grow quiet for about 15 seconds, and then suddenly the whole pool would erupt in action as they chased and tackled each other. All of this happened with us standing only 4 feet from the waters edge. When their play time was up we walked them back up the hill and repeated the process with the one and two year olds who were considerably larger but also a little less rambunctious in the pool. In the afternoon when the tigers were sleeping the public is allowed in to see the tigers sleeping in the canyon. A they fall deep into sleep the staff take pictures of people in different poses with the tigers. We took photos next to them, with their heads on our lap, and laying down with them. Yeah, it was pretty cool!

Now that the excitement of the Lions has passed Dan and I are in Ayutthaya where we'll spend today and tonight riding motorbikes around to see the Wats that the town is know for. Oh, I almost forgot though. When we were in Bangkok yesterday I stopped by an Internet cafe and found I had an email from Kevin, a friend I'd made in Europe this past summer, and he said he was in Bangkok. We had first met in Prague watching the Euro cup in the town square and then we ran into each other again two weeks later leaving the Budapest train station. I ran out of Internet time to write him back, and Dan and I went out to breakfast. We sat at at table and I looked to my right and there sat Kevin. Talk about a small world! We've met 3 times randomly in 3 different cities around the world in the last 4 months!

Photos

Videos

River rides and waterfalls

2008-10-19T13:00:00.008+07:00

Dan and I headed to Kanchanaburi and the first day there we did the usual errands, finding an internet cafe and setting up stuff for the next day. When we finished we eyed the motorbike stand, they are similar to vespas, you can see it in my pictures. Dan was excited to rent them, I was less then eager. Honestly, I had my moms repetitive warnings on the danger of motorbikes running through my head. Sorry mom, the bike won. I practiced a bit in the alley next to the rental shop, were we got them for for the day for $5.00. We first visited the bridge over the river Kwai (like the 1950's movie) and then decided we had had enough of the cities and towns and their choking pollution and headed out into the countryside. We started off on the main road out to the country and then cut off to a much smaller one that took us through small villages and farms. We continued in the direction of the mountains and the view only became more gorgeous the farther we drove. I have to say, I felt pretty damn cool on the bike cruising along, although I suspect the Thais didn't think it that unique as 50% of them drive motorbikes. Actually all ages ride them. Just yesterday I saw a little girl about 9 years old with her 4 old brother on the back driving through Kanchanaburi. It's also not uncommon to see parents holding their infant between their legs with one arm and driving the motorbike with the other. As Dan puts, the 40 year old mother in me cringes every time I see a baby on a bike.

The following day we signed up for a tour of local attractions in the area. The day began at 7:00am, one of our earliest so far, and we peeled ourselves out of bed and off to breakfast and into the tour van at 8:00. We were joined on the day long tour by a french couple and two English guys, Tom & Rich. We started with elephant rides around an "elephant camp". The trip was bitter sweet as I strained to enjoy it, but failing as I passed a baby elephant tied on a two foot long chain around its ankle to a metal post. It wasn't alone in its misery and was surrounded by other adult elephants in the same short ankle chains. I was relieved when we were finished and was much more excited for the bamboo raft trip down the river in which I could be safe in assuming no animals were hurt in the process. The ride was quiet and tranquil with the only noise coming from the birds in the jungle surrounding us.

When the ride ended the tour van took us to Erawan National Park with the amazing seven tier waterfall. The water was as glassy blue as glaciers. You could see the foot long brightly colored fish and 3 feet below them to the stony bottom. You could swim on each tier and we started on the 3rd one which was 8 feet deep and perfect for floating on your back and gazing up at the moss green jungle foliage above. Dan had hoped to see some monkeys playing in the trees, but unfortunately the commotion of the swimmers kept them away for the moment. At the 4th tier were, as the guide so creatively put it, the two breast. The enormous round rocks are perfect to slide down. I chose the safe route and went sitting down, but Dan and the two English guys went on their stomachs and sitting backwards. The fifth level surprised us with clear blue pools flowing one into the next and jungle vines dipping the water. I climbed from pool to pool grasping at the slippery rocks, and stopping at each one to appreciate the jungle and how blessed I am to be here.

I'm running out of Internet time so I'll give you a quick summary of the Tigers and you can check out the pictures and videos and I'll write more later, promise! (Also, the pictures squish when I turned them upright, we really haven't shrunk or gained 20 pounds. The pictures are better though if you click slideshow) The next day we went to a Tiger sanctuary where we signed up for a morning program and their were only two other tourist there. We played, bottled fed and swam with 2 and 4 month old Lions. We also walked the 7 and 9 month old lions down to the cave where they played for an hour 2 feet from us in the water and then did the same thing with the older one and two year olds!!

Vagabonding Videos

2008-10-13T19:37:00.002+07:00

Here is a link to our videos that we're going to be posting throughout the trip! Dan has a lot of videos up there, the ones from asia are labeled October 10th and on.

Dan's Blog

2008-10-13T19:16:00.004+07:00

You also check out Dan's blog while we travel for his funny take on things!

http://www.experiencingasia.com/

My Photos

2008-10-13T18:32:00.004+07:00

I'm going to post my photos on the internet as I travel so I have a backup of them incase my camera gets lost or stolen. Here's the website where I'll be posting them: http://picasaweb.google.com/Lauralai35

Dan brought along a video camera and he's going to be posting our videos as we travel. I'll post the link when we have them up!

Bangkok to Siracha!

2008-10-13T18:18:00.004+07:00

Dan and I had 21 very long hours from NYC to Bangkok with a stopover in Tokyo. All in all the trip totalled about 30 hours, it definitely felt like it. But because I slept so little on the planes by the time we got to our airport hotel I fell right asleep and I haven't had a problem falling asleep yet even with the eleven hour time difference. The only tricky part is staying asleep on the "Traditional Thai Mattresses" as the hostels like to advertise, which as Dan so aptly puts it are so hard they can double for a cutting board. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get used to it one of these days. The first two days in Bangkok were a bit of a whirlwind of sorting out our credit cards which were turned off after we used them in Tokyo coupled with exhaustion and jet lag. We managed to see a bit of the city though including KoSahn Road, the backpackers hangout, and took a ferry down the river to get around. We are back in Bangkok now so were going to see a bit more of what we missed tomorrow.

After Bangkok we checked out of our Hostel and headed off towards the direction of where we thought the bus station was located, but after twenty minutes we stopped and asked directions and found we were way off course. A quick taxi ride brought us to the bus station where for $2.80 we caught an air-conditioned bus to Sirahca. Two hours later we arrived and called Dan's family friend Tip form the pay phone and she arrived quickly in a tuk tuk. Tuk Tuks are 3 passenger open aired motorized carts that serve as cheap taxis. Tip was sweet enough to host us for the weekend and let us stay in her apartment. As soon as we arrived we changed into our swimsuits and were off again on a whirlwind of a weekend. Tip certainly was not lacking for ideas of stuff to do right down to the museum of "Little Miniature Things" :-). We took a couple of buses to get to the beach where there were very few tourist, really there are few tourist everywhere we go, because it is still low season. The tourist/farang were scattered on the waters edge in the sunlight while the Thais were all thoroughly covered. Tip explained that the reason so many people, women especially, wear long sleeves and pants is to keep their skin white. I've found on my recent hunt for body wash that most products have a whitening ingredient to make your skin lighter.

We met up with Tips friend Paul, from Holland, and after a few absurdly overpriced beers from a great local brewery we headed out to see what Pattaya is all about. To put it bluntly the whole town is simply about sex. It is one huge red light district from one end to the other. The only farang there were western men middle aged to decrepit looking to watch some shows, be showered with fake attention, and get lucky. They walked around the town like they owned the place. This is where Paul lives because he is "studying Thai". Right. Prostitution is a common practice here somewhat regulated by the government and it is not unusal to see western men who have hired women as "companions" for the day or their entire vacation. The couple will go everywhere to together. It's sobering to compare the mans cocky pleased face and the women's blank emotionless stare. We spent the evening walking around and looking at the different bars filled with women or ladyboys, tried various street food, and got a coffee at "McCafe" (the popular coffee shop inside McDonald's).

We returned late to Tips apartment in Siracha and fell quickly asleep. The following day we met up with Tip's two friends, one of whom had a car, and drove over to the next town to see the Water Buffalo Races. Unfortunately it turned out the races were not until the following day, so I just got to pet some Buffalo. Tip picked up lots of amazing Thai snacks though that she brought with us to the beach later that day. The beach they took us to is tucked away at the far end of a Thai Navy Base and westerners are only allowed to go if they are accompanied by a Thai person. As a result we were just about the only farang on the beach, and I think that's one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. I wore my bathing suit but saw the previous day at the beach that the Thai women swim fully clothed. So I put a t-shirt and shorts over my suit and jumped right into the pristine warm ocean water. Dan wasn't exactly keen on jumping right in as he had forgotten his swimsuit so Paul, who joined us again, had so kindly brought an itsy bitsy speedo for him to wear. Tip picked up that Dan was less then thrilled with his proposed swimming attire and made a quick stop at a road side market to find him some shorts. She grabbed a pair that looked like size small camo printed boxers. I've read that laughing burns calories, if so I laughed off my entire lunch when he put those on. The rest of the day we spent swimming and eating all of the great Thai snacks tip had brought along including a prickly fruit that you break open and inside is a little thing that looks like a butt and taste like a mango. It's delicious. One of my favorites was sweet sticky rice cooked in a large bamboo stick.

After swimming Dan and I were exhausted but tip still had a lot on her agenda. We told her we wanted to go home and shower, and thus got a brief respite of 30 minutes. That evening Tip and her friends took us to an amazing Thai restaurant right on the beach and afterwards they surprised us and took us to get Thai Foot Massages. I'm definitely working in one massage a week into my budget.

Today we took the morning off and hung out at Tip's and watched movies and made good use of the free internet. We decided to come back to Bangkok for the night and tomorrow we will go to Kanchanaburi in the afternoon where there is great hiking, swimming in waterfalls, and going on a jungle trek on the back of an elephant. I can't wait!!

A Map of My Travels!

2008-07-10T00:38:00.005+07:00

View Larger Map

Where am I exactly?

2008-07-09T22:25:00.003+07:00

That morning in Cesky Krumlov I overslept and by the time I left my hostel I was cutting it close, but I figured if I walked quickly and didn't get lost then I would make it in time. Well I walked fast alright (or should I say hobbled on my crutches) but I took a wrong turn and ended up 15 minutes away from the bus station with only 10 minutes until my bus departed. I asked a woman on the street for directions and she said motioned that I could jump on the bus that was just pulling up and that should take me to the train station. After a couple of minutes on the bus I looked more closely to the sign in the window and realized that this was the bus I had wanted all along! I was so relieved and settled in for the short 30 minute ride to my next transfer. I made the next bus with 2 minutes to spare and didn't get to the next station for another 4 hours.

When I arrived I realized that I had lost my schedule that told me the names of the towns and the buses I wanted. I wasn't bothered because I knew my next bus was in 45 minutes at 12:15 and that would take me directly to Krakow. I found my way to the information desk and and asked about the 12:15 bus. The woman pulled out her pen and wrote "2:45 Krakow" in large letters. Argh!! The last thing I wanted was to sit around in this depressing station for an extra two hours. I accepted my fate and went in search of lunch, but quickly regretted my choice of a seemingly appetizing baguette that actually contained cream cheese, pickles, cheese, meat, and some unidentifiable brown stuff.

After giving up on lunch I spotted the ticket counter and hoped the information lady was wrong and perhaps they knew of the 12:45 bus that would get me out of this dark station. Unfortunately, the ticket lady, after furious hand motions on both sides, got across to me that the next bus to Krakow did not leave for two days. I quickly blabbered in English that this just didn't work for me as it was the end of my trip and I flew back to the States in three days! Not a word of this translated and she just laughed at what she apparently saw as quite a funny situation, I on the other hand was on the verge of tears. It had occured to me as I stood there helpless that I didn't even know what city I was in, let alone country. That information was lost with my itinerary I left on the last bus. I took a deep breath, trying hard not to break down right there in front of a bus station full of Polish/possibly Czech people, and asked slowly, "Where am I?" It didn't matter how many times I said it she didn't understand. As a last resort I tried writing down the words, "City? Name? Here?" Finally it clicked and she replied, "Ahhh, Brno". I motioned for her to write it down and then asked where the train station was. Oh course that didn't translate either, not even with my emphatic conductor gestures and enthusiastic "Choo Choo! Choo Choo!"

I eventually found my way to the train station and with 4 different local trains I could make it to Krakow by 10:30. I didn't care what time I made it at this point and I graciously bought the tickets. From there on I barely made my train connections and would still be wandering Poland were it not for the help of local people who took pity on the wandering cripple and guided me to the right platform. My biggest compliment, although also a bit disconcerting, came from a young Polish man I met on one of the trains.

Polish Guy: So is this your first time in Poland?
Me: Are we in Poland?
PG: Uhhh, yeah.
Me: Yes, then this is my first time.
PG: You are travelling alone in Poland on those sticks? You are very brave.

The days travel from Cesky Krumlov to Krakow totalled 16 hours, but the time seemed to pass by without my even noticing. I wrote in my journal that day, "As a result of the trip I've become much more patient, I have to be or I would loose my mind jumping from one 8 hour train to the next. I've also been in so much pain and discomfort that I had to make the decision early on to accept and move past it or else risk ruining my trip."

Prague and Cesky Krumlov

2008-07-09T21:33:00.001+07:00

I spent most of the bus ride contorting my body into different positions, each one more uncomfortable, in an effort to get some sleep. I arrived the following morning at 4:45am with the sky already fully lit. I tried to take the metro but with no local currency I didn't get very far. I opted to walk and follow the terribly drawn map on the back of the hostel brochure. As I neared the old town center I found I was literally the only one outside except for the occasional street sweeper or left over partiers from the night before. I was so tired that I failed to appreciate the absolute treasure I had, seeing Prague's old town in solitary silence. To see the streets just as they've been every morning at this time for hundreds of years, without cars, hoards of tourist, or kitschy shops. I somehow managed to find my hostel by 5:30 and collapsed on the couch in the lounge. The hostel receptionist took pity on me and let me into my empty dorm room at 7:30 where I enjoyed a rare quiet sleep until 12:00. I spent the afternoon wandering the streets seeing the main sights and in the evening I went to the town square where a huge screen was set up and hundreds were gathered to watch the Eurocup. I hung out with kids from my hostel until they went off on a pub crawl and I remained behind to watch the game. I ended up talking with an interesting American who was on his second overland backpacking trip from Europe through Asia. I got a lot of good advice for my trip in the fall!

The next day I took a walking tour that turned out to be a huge disappointment, especially after my last great one in Berlin. Afterwards I made my way across the old town and up the hill to Prague Castle. I spent a couple of hours wandering the castle grounds and finding a quiet spot in the gardens to journal. That evening I went back to the old town square to watch the Czech Republic play in the Eurocup. It has been great this summer to be in the countries when they are playing in the cup. All of Prague seemed to show up in the square to watch the game! Unfortunately they lost to Poland, but since I was hanging out with a group of Brits none of use cared very much. We wandered through Prague in search of a pub to sit down in and ended up in a quiet one a ways from our hostel. We soon realized that below our new favorite bar was a strip joint. This was quickly made clear as each woman who entered would beckon the guys to follow her downstairs where she would give "strip lessons, good price." I was happy when my male companions declined and we made our way home after a few pints.

I woke early the next morning and caught a bus to Cesky Krumlov, a small medieval town about 3 hours south of Prague. After following more terrible hostel directions, i.e. "leave the bus station and walk towards church tower." Hmmmm, which of the 12 church towers might that be? Unfortunately, it wasn't the one I chose and I got a full tour of Cesky Krumlov with my pack and crutches before I finally found my hostel tucked along the riverbank across town. After unloading my pack and eating a meager lunch from my food bag I set off to explore a bit more and took a great tour of the local castle. As it started to get dark I spotted a couple with an appetizing looking pizza and they directed me towards the shop. I carried that pizza home like it was my last supper and savored every bite of it. The Chinese girl who sat across the table and watched me devour it can attest to my ferocious appetite that night. I stayed up later than I planned talking with an interesting Irish man who was on his second backpacking trip across the world (I met at least 4 or 5 people on their second trip). As a result, I wasn't too keen on getting up at my planned hour of 4:30 and ended up hitting the snooze button. Thus began the longest day of my five week trip...

Leaving Germany

2008-07-08T22:17:00.003+07:00

Marieke and I watched Germany play in the Eurocup at her local pub, then rode our bikes home where I packed up my things and said my goodbye's. Marieke was leaving for work early the next morning before I'd be awake. It was hard to say goodbye to my second travelling companion of the trip and to return to solo travel again. However mixed with my disappointment was also excitement. Travelling alone gives you the opportunity to see how strong and capable you really are. The last part of my trip would certainly test my capability and sheer will to not end up stranded in say, the bus station in an unknown town possibly in Czech Republic or Poland but unsure which one...

The next morning I awoke to the sounds of Marieke's mother moving about the kitchen preparing breakfast for me. Marieke had passed on to her mom my longing for eggs since they aren't an easy thing to carry with you when you're backpacking. Luckily they have 20 chickens on their farm so her Mother had whipped up a large bowlful for me along with a lot of other meats and cheeses. I wasn't quite sure the proper way to eat all of the different condiments and meats she had laid out for me, so I just made it up as I went with a few odd glances from her mother's way. The breakfast silence was aided by the fact that her Mother spoke no English at all. Through a series of hand gestures we conveyed the basics of breakfast and what I was going to do that morning, mainly update my blog and enjoy the time off. I was thankful to realize that Marieke had passed on to her mother that my food bag was running low and so she filled it up with a variety of German snacks. All of them delicious and finished off within two days, except for the weird beef jerky/fat sticks which I tried unsuccessfully to pawn off onto other unsuspecting travellers. After spending the morning updating my blog and returning week old emails I heard a quiet knock on the door as her mother motioned toward the kitchen door for lunch. Marieke's father had come in from the barn and the three of us sat down to lunch. This time I followed her parents lead as I tried to figure out how the different types of new food were to be put together and eaten. At the end of lunch her father pulled out three large photo albums of his visit to D.C. to see Marieke two years earlier when she was an Aupair. He would describe the photos in German and I pieced together about every 15th word that sounded similar to english and it was in that way that we spent the next 45 minutes looking at photos, half of them doubles.

After lunch I finished packing and Inika came to give me a ride to the local train station. She walked me up to the platform and helped me figure out the cheapest ticket to Hamburg. As I settled into my seat I gazed out the window at the beautiful scenery of the German countryside and wished that I could have spent more time exploring it's other cities and villages. In Hamburg I reluctantly bought an overnight bus ticket to Prague and settled in for a long 12 hour ride.

Back in West Chester

2008-06-19T19:49:00.001+07:00

I'm safely back home but I'm still going to put up the last week of travel stories. I'll have them up in the next couple of days!

How to Post a Comment

2008-06-19T19:40:00.004+07:00

My mom said people have been having some difficulty posting a comment on the blog, so here's a quick how to.

-At the bottom of the blog entry you want to comment on click on the blue underlined word "comments"
-On the right hand side of the page write your comment under, "leave your comment"
-Below the comment box is "choose an identity". This is part that I think might have been the problem. Select "Name/URL" and put your name in but not a URL.
- Click "publish your comment"

If this doesn't work let me know!

Traveling with Marieke

2008-06-19T19:33:00.001+07:00

I arrived in Berlin and hobbled my way to my hostel where Marieke, my German friend who I was going to spend a few days with, met up with me later that evening. She arrived late so we just went to the beer garden for a bit. The next day we wandered all around Berlin and in the process we found me shoes! Finding shoes was such a huge thing for me because I had been wearing two different sandals for most of the trip because the cuts on my feet were in different places. I found a pair of gold-strapped sandals early on in Greece, which I like to call my Greek Goddesses, which work on my right foot. On the left foot, I wore the Haviana flip-flops I had picked up. So to find a comfortable pair of matching shoes that didn't hurt my cuts after three and half weeks of those other ones was such a Godsend!

The second day in Berlin Marieke and I took a free walking tour that I had heard so much about. It was great! The guide was very funny and told a lot of interesting stories instead of all facts and numbers. I think I have a good knowledge about the history of Germany during WWII but I knew very little about the years of communism. The day before the tour, we walked around and the city was full of pretty buildings and open parks. After the tour though, the city meant so much more to me as we walked by the square where the infamous Nazi burning of the books took place. We saw the Berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, the Reichstag, and the location of Hitler's bunker where he killed himself at the end of the war. Most of Berlin was destroyed during the war, and later East Berlin was partially rebuilt in the cold austere style of the communist era. After the fall of communism in 1989, more modern buildings went up and the end result is an architecturally diverse yet also confused city.

After Berlin Marieke and I took a train to her village in Northern Germany. I learned that the stereotypical idea of mountains and flora is actually Southern Germany. Where she lives it is almost completely flat and primarily farmland. Marieke's friend Inika picked us up from the station and took us to Marieke’s house where the girls made a typical German meal for me. That evening four of her friends came over and made raspberry cocktails, and with each cocktail their trepidation decreased and their English improved. We walked a few minutes down the road to the soccer fields. In their small village, soccer is the primary means of entertainment. The girls started introducing me to the team and I quickly saw how connected they all were with the team consisting of their cousins, brothers in laws, and friends from school. Everyone knows everyone and that's not an exaggeration. I loved it! During the game we drank beer and sprite, a common favorite. It's actually really good! And of course I couldn't pass up my new favorite food, bratwurst with mustard and ketchup. After the game, we went out to the big pub a couple of towns over where all the young people go. It was the best night out I'd had so far! The next morning was the worst I'd had so far. Marieke, Eva, Inika and I took the local train into Hamburg and in our fragile condition opted for a bus tour. Later, when we were feeling better, we took a boat tour and it was great just relaxing on deck and talking with the girls. That evening Marieke and I road bikes 5 minutes down the road to the pub, one of the two stores in town. There about 15 locals were seated around 3 tables placed in a U shape around the big flat screen. The Eurocup was on and Germany was playing. To tell you the truth I can't even remember if they won or not, it was just fun being there during the cup!

A weekend in Venice

2008-06-19T18:19:00.003+07:00

Jessica and I took a long train ride to Venice and were walking out of the Train Station when we ran into Natasha, my friend from high school who I still keep in touch with. She is backpacking with a friend as well and we didn't know we were both going to be in Venice. Jess and I were at a loss as to where to begin looking for our hostel and the curt information woman was no help at all! So when Tasha and Liz said they had a hostel and knew how to find it we quickly followed them. The hostel turned out to be full but they directed us to a woman, Anna Stefano, who lived nearby and had two bedrooms she rented out. They were perfect! Jess and I even had the forgotten luxury of a private bathroom! That fist day in Venice was also my birthday. I was reluctantly turning 23. I had this great idea that if I slowed the aging now when I'm 40 I'll only be 30. So I let the girls attending my birthday soiree know it was my 22nd birthday, again. We found a great Italian restaurant tucked away in the labyrinth of Venetian streets. Seeing Venice at night was such a special gift. It was so quiet and the streets were filled mainly with Venetians. San Marco Square, the largest square in Venice, was nearly empty in comparison to the dominating crowds the following day.

The next morning when Jess and I started off the streets were still relatively calm. We spent the morning wandering the touristier and well known areas and stopped for lunch at a restaurant suggested to us by a local. What started as a warm Italian welcome quickly turned cold when we declined to pay for bottled water and opted instead for our water bottles we had filled from our hostel tap. Asking for free water, or tap water, also seems to be passé but Jess and I were not deterred from saving the extra $5.00 at every meal. Despite the owner’s dislike of us, the pizza margherita was still amazing! We spent the afternoon wandering around the quieter local areas of Venice. At every turn, Jess and I would find which street had less people and we would walk down there. It led us to small streets and bridges filled with families returning from church or meeting for lunch. I loved everything about Venice except for the stares. I am in no way exaggerating when I say people stopped in their tracks to stare at me as I hobbled by on my crutches. I had unfortunately chosen that day to bare my battered legs for the first time since Greece. I thought the cuts had healed significantly, but apparently when pared with crutches I was a spectacle for tourists and Venetians alike. It put a damper on the otherwise perfect day.

In the evening, we met Tasha and Liz again for dinner then said our goodbyes and went to the station to catch our night train to Budapest. As we neared our sleeper cabin, we were approached by a family who wanted to switch cabins with us so they could all be closer together. We had no problem with this so the conductor took us 6 cars down to their cabin, which as luck would have it, turned out to be a first class private two bed room. It came complete with our very own sink, mirror, outlets, and fluffy comforters. We were in backpacker heaven. In our excitement we decided to video tape our train and cushy compartment. Jessica began recording when we heard, "Hallo, Hallo!" She turned around to find the conductor waving his arms disapprovingly. As you can hear on the tape, she replied, "None of that?" He ushered her into the compartment and made it clear that we were not to leave again, causing our elation to turn to fear as we realized we were prisoners in our own compartment. It was a first class compartment though so we didn't care. After several video recordings of our favorite new song, "The Strugglers", we went to sleep. Unfortunately, we never slept for long because we were woken up four different times that night, each time with a loud banging on the door followed by, "Polizia! Polizia! Open Up!" We'd done the border patrol passport drill before, but never 4 times in one night! Apparently, our scroungy backpacks and disheveled appearances aroused suspicion because several times they radioed in all of our personal info to the station. Luckily, we had decided to stop all of our drug smuggling activities the day before.

The trip came full circle as we left the train station and we walked to our hostel in Budapest, the one we had started in 3 weeks earlier. Despite our disappointment that it was Jessica's last day we tried to make the most of it and went to the baths, similar to the Turkish baths. They are large marble carved rooms with hot pools of water. At the end, we both got well deserved massages! The next morning we were pretty much on time for the airport (except for those few minutes lost from me falling back to sleep, oops) until we got off the metro and onto the airport bus. The driver told us the wrong place to get off and we ended up at the wrong terminal and very late. We threw our stuff in a cab and I quickly told the cabbie, "We need to get to terminal 1 VERY fast!” Apparently that was all he needed to hear to transform from a Budapest cab driver to 007. He was off and running as we averaged 100 miles/hr., weaving in and out of traffic the whole way. Jess made her plane though! I reluctantly said goodbye and I hobbled off alone to catch my flight to Berlin. I've been missing my Sherpa ever since! It's just not the same without her!

Flying over the Swiss Alps

2008-06-09T18:46:00.002+07:00

Jess and I reluctantly left Grindelwald and took the train down the mountain to Interlacken. The hostel was the worst one we've stayed in so far, ok maybe not as bad as the one with the dead bugs. It's called Balmers and is clean enough and has a big kitchen, both very important. But it had so many rules that I heard more than a few people comment it felt more like a boarding school than a hostel in the Swiss Alps. But I won't dwindle on that.

While in Interlacken, I finally got the opportunity to get outdoors, but not in the way I had originally planned. I went hang gliding right off the side of a mountain. The instructor picked me up at my hostel and I think he was a little nervous when he saw my crutches, but after I did a few acrobatics for him he was satisfied that I would be ok. We drove up a nearby mountain for about 20 minutes, and stopped three quarters of the way up. We walked a little ways across a field until we came to a clearing. There were other hang gliders and paragliders taking off from there, so we got in line and waited for the wind to shift directions. We were harnessed in and with a few running steps we glided off the mountain. The instructor held the front bar and steered and I hung above him enjoying the ride. I thought while we were flying about how I would decribe it. When you look up at a bird circling above and think, "Wouldn't that be amazing to fly." That's how I felt. Like I had finally been given the opportunity to fly above the city and mountains from the point of view of a bird. It was very surreal.

The next day we took four different trains to reach Venice. On our third one the train stopped in a tunnel for over an hour because there were problems with train navigation functions all over the area. The couple seated directly across from us was Maria from Italy and her Swiss boyfriend. They had met in Sudan where they both worked for the Red Cross, Maria as a doctor and her boyfriend as an architect. They spent over a year working in Sudan and seeing first hand the atrocities of the genocide going on there today. They had just recently returned and Maria was going to Italy to visit her family. So her boyfriend took the train most of the way with her and then went back to Switzerland, just so they could spend the afternoon together. They were so adorable together and he kept saying what a wonderful doctor she was at the hospital in Sudan. Maria had me turn my ankle in different directions and she said she was pretty sure it would heal fine once I could finally rest it. Maria was the second doctor to look at my foot, excluding the Greek one. The other was a Japanese orthopedic surgeon on the top of the mountain in Switzerland. With the language barrier though it was a bit hard to understand the diagnosis.

I've got to leave now to catch my overnight bus to Prague, but I'll finish tomorrow!

The girl, the greek, and the Eiffel Tower

2008-06-09T18:07:00.003+07:00

I´ve been asked so many times what happened to my legs and ankle that I'm tired of saying, "Oh that, I was just a breakfast monster running for free food and didn't see the one solitary stair and fell flat on my face." So I'll share with you some of my other versions that I told people when they asked me what happened.

Well, we were walking in Vienna when I saw a little girl walking across the street, right into the path of an oncoming tram car. I screamed, "No little girl, no!" and pushed her out of the way only to be pummeled by the train car myself. So I ended up with a few gashes and a sprained ankle, but it was all worth it to save the poor little girl.

Well, I was in Greece and this nice Greek guy asked me out for a drink. So I went out with him to a bar and we got talking when his girlfriend came in, who I didn't know about and she seemed just as surprised to see me. Her Greek temper raged and she came storming at me like a bull. Punches were thrown, a switchblade appeared (thus the cut up knees) and I was knocked down. By the time the police got there the damage was already done. But I'll tell you, I won't be going out with any Greek guys again any time soon.

Well, I was in Paris and I'd had a few too many drinks when we walked across the city to the Eiffel Tower. I decided that it would be a great idea to scale the Eiffel Tower to get a better look at the city. I made it about 20ft. off the ground when I lost my footing and fell. It was only the next morning when I woke up in a jail cell that I realized how hurt I was. Who knew it was illegal to climb the Eiffel Tower?

I always told the truth at the end. At Hostel Ruthenstiener in Vienna though, I forgot the last part. So apparently word of my heroic act spread and a few people began asking me about it. I was happy to escape my lies when we took a train to Switzerland the next morning. The other girls in our train compartment were from our hostel, and when we started talking about my ankle she replied, "At least it was for a good reason right? I mean saving the little girl from the tram car and all." I replied hesitantly, "Yeah, about that..."

The Strugglers

2008-06-09T17:22:00.007+07:00

by Laura & Jess

(to the tune of the monkeys song)

Hey Hey were the strugglers
People say we struggle around
Ain´t no shame in strugglin
So just stop staring us down

Hey Hey I'm the hobbler
Breakfast monsters my name too
When people see my cuts and crutches
They saw now what did you do

Hey Hey I'm the sherpa
tbc....

Jess and I wrote this lovely ballad in the Turkish Baths in Budapest. We sang the song over and over trying to come up with lyrics and we very quickly cleared the entire bath.

My Sherpas

2008-05-29T00:18:00.002+07:00

This blog entry is copied from my journal... I'm writing this journal entry form the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps. As the gondola neared the top of the mountain, I felt an overwhelming surge of emotion. The first thought that came to mind was "this is where God is". The Bible says you need only to look at God´s creation to know that he exists. Never has that been made clearer to me then today. If a writer were to say he could accurately express the beauty of this landscape and the accompanying emotions he would be lying. I´ve thought a lot of about how I would describe the mountains and village of Grindelwald, and I´ve come up with a lot of flowery cliche expressions. I finally concluded that there are no words that can describe it, so I´m simply going to post a few links to photos here and hope they can describe it better than words. When I first arrived in Grindelwald I was left speechless by the beauty of the mountains, and then I was sick to my stomach at the realization that I wouldn´t be able to explore and hike. These mountains literally scream "Hike me!" I took the gondola up with Jess and two friends from the hostel. They got off at the first stop to go hiking for the day across mountain bridges and melted glaciers. I won´t lie, I was completely jealous! I continued on the gondola to the top, and found my way out to the viewing point. I was speechless as the snow covered alps came into view. It was as if God were saying to me, "And you thought I was going to let you miss out on the fun. Have more faith!" After this I will.

To backtrack a little, I last wrote when we were in Vienna and still unsure of our next destination. I took the suggestion of a fellow cripple, a kid who´d fallen off a statue of St. Someone or Other in Prague, and went to Graz Austria where there was suppose to be a big weekend music festival. When Jess and I arrived we lugged our packs, me without crutches at this point, a mile or so to the hostel. Our first clue that perhaps our crippled source was not as reliable as we´d first thought was the absence of almost anyone else at the hostel. This at a time when there was supposedly a "huge" music festival. We checked in and went down to the room and saw that it was really dirty with dried food everywhere and sticky soda all over the floor. One look at the bed revealed bugs. Small dead black bugs. With that our packs went back on and we went upstairs to get our money back. The women at the reception didn´t seem as shocked as one would hope when we told them there were dead "keifers" in the beds. We held our ground and got our money back and trudged the mile back to the train station. We had made up our minds about Graz, from what we´d seen it was run down, dirty, and we could not find another hostel, even using the internet. So Jess and I looked at the map of Europe, and decided Zurich Switzerland sounded nice and bought a night train ticket for 8:30 that evening. We decided to follow the guidebooks suggestion and see the old part of the city. We took a cab down and were dropped off on a small cobblestone street right out of Heidi. We took our first restaurant suggestion from the guidebook and followed a small path between two buildings and found a cute restaurant tucked away at the back. My meal, despite being the cheapest thing on the menu, was amazing and well worth the extra Euro! We explored the old town and ended up spending the last hour and a half eating bratwurst and gelato in the town square and people watching. It turned out Graz was beautiful, you just had to know where to look.

That night when we got on the train and found our sleeper compartment we discovered a room the size of a walk in closet with bunk beds 3 high on each side. Our roomies were a cute German couple, the wife six months pregnant, returning from vacation. The four of us stayed up talking and entertaining each other, and when we returned to our compartment we found we had a fifth roommate. He was a brusque, long blond haired, mutton chopped Austrian man complete with a patterned silk scarf tucked neatly in his button up shirt. If I were a cartoonist I would have a good time drawing him. Our roommate turned out to be more than just cartoonish though, and was also a very loud snorer. Needles to say, I didn´t get much sleep that night.

The next morning we arrived in Zurich at 8:30am and called from the pay phone to secure two rooms in a hostel. After getting checked in and showered, we hobbled out to explore. Our first stop was the pharmacy where I finally got crutches. From there we attempted to locate the Zurich free bike station, and an hour and a half later when we finally found it we were told they had all been checked out. So we took a boat ride down the river and around Lake Zurich. That evening, after making dinner in the hostel kitchen, we hung out no the roof deck with other backpackers.

The next morning we got up early and secured two bikes for the day. We tried to decide where to go next and decided to take the advice of another traveller and take a train the next morning to the village of Grindelwald in the Swiss alps. We met another backpacker, Adam from Canada, who was was also going there. Adam graciously took Jessica´s place as my sherpa, and carried my backpack through all the train stations and to our next hostel. Picture to follow of my two favorite Sherpas dragging around all my stuff! So the three of us took the trains to Grindelwald and checked in at the Downtown Lodge. And now here I am writing all this from the top of a mountain. Perfect!

Photos of Grindelwald
1
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3

The Hobbler

2008-05-23T18:57:00.006+07:00

Sorry its taken me so long to write! Right now I'm back in Vienna hanging out in an internet cafe and catching up on emails and blogging. So we started off in Budapest and then went to Vienna and spent a few days wandering the city. It was such a stark contrast to Budapest, which doesn't seem to have the money to keep up the same perfect facade as Vienna does. We wandered around in and out of museums and shops and just when we felt like we were getting to know our way around, as it always seems to go, it was time to leave. So we flew to Athens last Saturday, I think it was Saturday it`s easy to lose track of time, and visited the acropolis. After we had seen that we immediately left Athens, because while it has its more pretty historical neighborhoods, on the whole its a bit dirty and has a lot of pollution. So we took the ferry to Santorini on Sunday afternoon. Once aboard, Jessica realized that her wallet was missing, someone had stolen it in the crowd outside of the ferry. As it turns out, ferries don't seem to be our thing on this trip! Once we arrived at our hotel we cancelled both of her cards and now we are just sharing funds, so it worked out ok!

The hotel, Villa Reina, was absolutely gorgeous, and our first splurge of the trip. It was our first time not in a hostel and we relished our private bathroom and comfortable bed with sheets that didn't leave you feeling like you'd slept on sandpaper. The best part of all was the pool, which it turned out later I spent quite a lot of time by it. Santorini is so gorgeous, but not in the way that the landscape is beautiful at home. As one young Greek guy asked me, "Why do you think the island is so beautiful, it is not even green?" Its true, the land is mostly dry and brown, but the dusty ground in contrast to the clean white homes is striking. The huge dropping cliffs with their shades of orange, red, and green make driving difficult as it`s hard to watch the road. The people though are what truly set both Santorini and Greece apart. My nationality and fair skin don't immediately render frustration towards my country, as it does in many of the places I visit. The owners of Villa Reina are an adorable gorgeous Greek couple who inherited the hotel from their mother. They immediately made us feel special, as if they really were happy to have us there. Little did they know that we would turn out to be a lot more work than any of their guests in quite sometime.

The trip had been going a little too easy, so the travel gods decided to shake things up a little our first morning in Santorini. Jessica and I were running to breakfast because we had woken up late, and we never pass up the chance for free food. With my far from perfect eyes I didn't see the step by the pool and I came down wrong on my right ankle and sprained it. I also succeeded in scrapping off the skin on the tops of my feet and put two gruesome gashes on both knees. Needless to say, it hurt, a lot! The owner, who Jessica and I affectionately refer to as our Greek Crush, or GC for short, drove us to the Emergency Room/local clinic. The doctors were a bit heavy handed with the iodine and left me near tears. While I sat a crumbled mess on the gurney the ER doctor asked me out for a drink. Well, at least I can get one funny story out of this I thought, so I accepted on the condition that Jessica would come as well, my chaperon. So after that I spent the afternoon by the pool at the hotel, and our splurge hotel became well worth the extra euros. Later, Jess and I went back to the room and tried to wash away the scrounginess of the backpacker lifestyle in our coveted private bathroom. We ate dinner in a traditional Greek restaurant, filled with happy loud Greek families, always a good sign that you've picked a nice local restaurant. I ordered sausages, which at first sound boring, but they were amazing!! Afterwards Jess and I went up to the town center where we met Antonio, the doctor. We walked with him through the labyrinth of streets in Fira to a cute bar that overlooks the water. Jess reluctantly became the new best friend of an American who has a house in Santorini.

I talked with Antonio and learned that he grew up in northern Greece, then moved to Athens for college and med school. After med school he did his required one year in the military, as all Greek men do. He then moved to Santorini to work in the clinic for a year. I asked him about some of his recent cases and he said there were two teenagers who were driving a 130km and crashed. The driver, who had his seat belt on, survived while the passenger didn't have one on and suffered severe internal injuries and later died at the hospital. The clinic on the island is not equipped to perform more than minor surgery, but Antonio said had the boy been at the hospital in Athens he might have survived. He said the locals are always really nervous about their not being able to perform surgery on the island should anything serious occur. It doesn't take much searching to find that even an idyllic place like Santorini has its troubles. That point was driven home when we walked back to Antonio's car, parked at the hospital, and there was a large crowd of people quietly sitting outside. Antonio went inside to see if they needed help and returned two minutes later. He said a a 26 year old woman had killed herself. Tourist pass through gorgeous vacation spots like this one and enjoy seeing everyone as quaint happy locals riding donkeys and having big fat Greek weddings. There's really not anything wrong with this ignorance, but the reality of the difficulty of life always lies just below the surface.

The next day Jessica and I rented a smart car, the two person car that looks like a roller skate. We cruised around blasting Greek music from the radio and began to think we were pretty cool. Then we would remember that peoples heads weren't turning to look at us because we were cool, but because we were driving a roller skate. Smart Car did us well though and we went to two different breathtaking beaches, both with a huge mountain on one side and dark black sand. In the evening we took the back road and drove to the other side of the island to Oia. We walked into the village, perched a top a rock wall that drops in to the sea. For a 5 euro cappuccino we were able to sit at a cafe and watch the sun set over the ocean. Afterwards we went back to fira and decided to try and use my hobble, as we affectionately refer to it, to get us some free drinks. It worked at the second bar and we met two nice guys that work on a private yacht that sails around the Mediterranean. What a life. They said its hard work and they often put in 14 hour days. I still would prefer their job to any 9 to 5.

The next afternoon Jessica and I took a ferry to Paros, on my cousin Joe's suggestion, and we loved it. We stayed in the main town of Parikia and again rented a car to cruise around the island. We visited several small sea side towns and ended up spending most of the day at a quiet secluded beach we stumbled upon overlooking mountains and aqua blue ocean. We reluctantly bought our tickets back to Athens last night and I hobbled with our bags to the ferry. When we reached the ticket collector it seemed that we were short one ticket, which we still have no idea whether is fell out or was not given to us in the first place, I suspect the latter. Jessica did a mad sprint back to town and purchased a ticket. I saw they were close to closing up the platform, and with that we would not make our flight back to Vienna. So I grabbed our backpacks and purses and hobbled to the platform and deposited our stuff. I was told to move in a mixture of Greek, English, and I think some German. I held off long enough and tried to work the hobble, and Jessica made it back and we hurried aboard. Like I said earlier, ferries don't seem to be our thing.

When we arrived in Athens it was 1:00am so we figured it was not worth paying for a taxi and a hostel when our flight left at 10:00am. So instead we took the bus to the airport. We hobbled around for a while finding that all the good sleeping spots were taken, until we spotted the nice handicap alcove. Figuring I qualified us for this spot, we quickly made camp. I pulled out my sleep sheet, pillow, and earplugs and was asleep within five minutes. Unfortunately, making camp on the airport floor isn't allowed so around 4:00am we were forced back into the hard chairs with dividers between each seat. We got very little sleep as we tried to contort our bodies around the chairs in search of a comfortable position. In the morning though we had a good laugh as I got my own personal wheel chair ride right to our gate. When we got off of the plane I got another ride to baggage claim! We took the bus back to the hostel in Vienna that we stayed in one week ago, and now we are spending the afternoon figuring out what we are going to do next. A lot of our plans for Jessica's last 2 weeks involved hiking and walks, so our plan is going to have to be altered. But, since we only had a rough itinerary in the first place, it shouldn't be too hard! Ill blog again when we figure out where we'll be going next! yassou

"It is the first of many beginnings"

2008-05-10T07:33:00.009+07:00

I haven't blogged since my trip to Ireland two years ago, and I haven't blogged regularly since it was fashionable sophomore year. However, with my travels starting back up again I'm going to make a concerted effort to bring the blog back to life.

So to start off my new blogging resolution, here is a really beautiful quote that my friend Rachel, stationed in Micronesia with the Peace Corps, recently sent me.

Pack nothing. Bring only your determination to serve and your willingness to be free. Don't wait for the breath to rise. Take nourishment for the journey, but eat standing, be ready to move at a moments notice.

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind -- fear, silence, submission. Only surrender to the need of the time -- to love justice and walk humbly with your God.

Begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into old slavery. Set out in the dark. I will send fire to warm and encourage you. I will be with you in the fire and I will be with you in the cloud.

I will give you dreams in the desert to guide you safely home to that place you have not yet seen...I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way and to learn my ways more deeply.

Some of you will be changed by weathers and wanderings that even your closest friends will have to learn your features as though for the first time. Some you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loses and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth and feel abandoned by you. Some will find friendship in unlikely faces, and old friends as faithful and true as the pillar of God's flame.

Sing songs as you go, and hold close together. You may at times grow confused and lose your way...touch each other and keep telling stories...Make maps as you go, remembering the way back from before you were born...

So you will be only the first of many waves of deliverance on the desert seas.

It is the first of many beginnings -- you Paschaltide.

Remain true to the mystery.

Pass on the whole story...Do not go back. I am with you and I am waiting for you.

--Alla Renne Bozarth

I leave for Europe this Tuesday, May 13th. A lot of people have asked me over the last month if I am excited, but really the trip felt too surreal to get excited. Jessica and I first talked about backpacking last August and bought our tickets in December. The trip has been in the making for nine months and it had yet to sink in that I was actually going anywhere. It was only today when I got to work and realized that I would not be coming back for over 5 weeks that it finally hit me. The butterfly's in my stomach continued to build all day as I realized I'm embarking on my trip in four days with a rough itinerary and guidebook in hand. I know that because the trip lacks a rigid structure it will end up taking us to a lot of unexpected places. The quote that Rachel sent me above suites this trip well.

Ireland Photo Album

2006-04-26T03:34:00.000+07:00

Here is the link to my photo album!

Biking Day 1

2006-04-26T03:27:00.000+07:00

(not from my journal)

I got Emily situated in the hostel and then I finally left the bike shop around 1ish. I was really worried I was starting out too late. So I was all confident as I made my way through the streets of Dublin and out to the highway. I was supposed to be on the N6; unfortunately, I ended up on the N7 and didn’t figure this out until I had gone well over 8 miles. It was so scary. The N7 is six lanes wide with a lane on the outside for Bikes and Buses. I did not like being put together with huge commuter buses. I prayed… a lot.

I finally pulled over and asked directions at a B&B. The woman had no idea where I wanted to get to (mainly because I could not pronounce one of the town names correctly), so she went upstairs to ask another woman. That woman instructed me to follow the N7 just a little bit further. So I took her directions and headed back out on the N7, until I realized that the “little bit further” part was actually a part of the highway that bikes are not allowed on. The honking Mac trucks and speeding cars quickly made me aware of this fact. So I turned around, now going in the opposite direction with even more cars beeping and then ran for my life across the highway pushing my bike in front of me. I made it to median, took a deep breath and ran across the other side of the highway. Needless to say, I peddled quite quickly back to safety of the small town I had just left and ended up asking directions from a cabbie. He spent 10 minutes trying to figure out a way for me to get back on course without killing myself, and I finally asked him if he could just drive me to a good starting point. He was nice enough to go along with it and we had an interesting talk on the 30-minute drive over to where I should have been. So after that it was smooth sailing….oh wait. Wrong day. No, I was definitely lost for the rest of the day because Ireland does not have street signs. NONE! No names whatsoever. Just signs pointing to the next town. It took me at least a few days and about 20 wrong way kilometers to master the art of navigating around Ireland.

Biking Day 3

2006-04-26T03:26:00.001+07:00

(from my journal)

Today I had a great breakfast with a family (British grandmom, her son, his 2^nd wife, his daughter, and the daughter’s husband) crazy linkage. They made me feel right at home, well even though it was none of our homes. I washed my clothes the night before and they weren’t dry so Chris (The B&B owner) took them over to the neighbor’s house to use her dryer. Chris then helped me figure out a better route for the next three days. Athlone it turns out is a cool large town with a big castle. It will be a great place to spend St. Patrick’s Day! After I left Chris’s house, it took only one minute on the bike before I realized the gears weren’t changing…at all. I looked in my bike guidebook to see if what to do, borrowed a screwdriver from a telephone repairman across the street, and fixed it! It’s such a simple thing, but it is a perfect example of why I like to travel alone. Because you have to rely on yourself (and God -> see day 1) and as a result, you realize how capable you really are.

Some random observations of Ireland:

-People like to lay concrete all around the house, all the way to the edge of the house. No bushes.

-The houses always seem to be painted DRAB colors. No exaggeration there.

-There are a lot of baby animals, especially lambs.

-People still use the hundreds year old stone fences to keep their animals in.

-Drivers most often give a nod when passing me. Sometimes they just life a finger from the steering wheel. Always one of the two, sometimes both.

-The Irish use peat, which comes from the bogs instead of coal. I read that it makes less smoke than coal. They’ve used up a lot of the bogs says Chris, so they are trying to conserve them. I read they are also making artificial ones.

-The people in the small villages don’t stare at me as much if I put my green corduroy pants over my black spandex. I also took the visor off my helmet. Both helped. People still stare at my “shock yellow windbreaker.”

-The animals are always covered in mud. I feel bad and want to give them a bath.

-Chris gave us Baileys for our porridge and it was awesome!

-The dogs like to follow/chase me down the road. This has happened at least 5 or 6 times.

-The sheep “baaa” when I say hi. Seriously.

Biking Day 2

2006-04-26T03:26:00.000+07:00

(from my journal)

This was the long day. But I didn’t wake for breakfast until 10:15 because there were no outside windows in my room to wake me up. I had a traditional Irish breakfast in a very cute old kitchen, made by a very cute old woman. I talked with the woman who owned the B&B about her life, and she told me a little bit about Ireland and the hard times it has been through. She told me how people used to leave the country to find work but now there is enough here in Ireland that most of the young people stay. I noticed this in the housing industry. Outside of almost every town a housing development is going up.

When I started out, this being my second day, my butt was so sore I didn’t know if I could continue. I stopped in the town bike shop (a rarity) and the man said that people used to put seat covers on, and held up an example of a plaid ¼-inch thick piece of padding. He said now people just buy better saddles. That’s what I should have done, or a gotten a better one from Cycleways (the bike shop in Dublin). I started off but realized I left my booties (waterproof shoe covers) back at the B&B and had to return.

The whole day was beautiful and not too cold. But then I reached the Slieve Bloom Mountains. By that time I had traveled 60 km and I had no energy left so I pushed my bike for 8 km up to the top of the mountains. On my way down the mountains it was getting dark so I turned on my lights and was extremely thankful for my “shock yellow” windbreaker that I have been so embarrassed off. An older couple stopped their car to ask me “How long to civilization?” Once they discovered I was biking solo the older woman remarked, “My you are brave!” I replied in all scared truthfulness, as one can only feel alone on the top of a fog-covered mountain at dusk, “I’m feeling it.”

Well, I made it down to the Ardmore House B&B. It is a beautiful early 19^th century home, with six bedrooms and vaulted ceilings. Once again, (as at every B&B) I wish I had a camera when Chris came to the door and saw my, how do I describe it, wind beaten soul.

Biking Day 4

2006-04-26T03:24:00.000+07:00

(from my journal)

In Birr I saw a castle! My first castle! The public can’t go in though because a family lives there, the original family. It is one of only 12 castles in which a family still lives. The rest have been left vacant or turned into hotels. The man at the desk told me all of this, and that Northern Ireland has a National Trust which people can donate their castles to. Even then, they have to give a large sum of money for the maintaince and so as a result, many of the castles are just left empty and decaying.

After Birr Castle, I continued riding and went through the cute village of Banagher by the River Shannon. I missed my turnoff but a nice Irish man helped me find my way and even offered to drive me. I felt bad though because I kept asking him to repeat himself because I couldn’t understand his accent. After I left Banagher, there was a really bad snowstorm with strong sideways wind that left me wind burned. It even sleeted and that along with the sideways wind made it almost impossible to ride. When I finally got to Clonmacnoise (my final destination), I went down, saw the ruins at sunset, and took some beautiful pictures.

That night I stayed at the Kajon House B&B just outside of Clonmacnoise. John and Kate Brennan run it and they were soooo sweet and welcoming. I wish though that I had a camera each time I arrive unexpected at a B&B after a long day outside. They don’t know what to make of me. This was the case with John and he said that he would give me time to clean up before having a cup of tea. Haha, they always say that. Why don’t you “clean up”. I must look pretty bad! Well I know when I arrived at his door I had grease on my face from fixing my bicycle, and my face was horribly wind burned. Anyways, it turns out John used to own restaurants in Dublin and is an excellent chef. He made me an amazing dinner!

Biking Day 5

2006-04-26T03:21:00.001+07:00

(from my journal)

So I’m in an Italian Restaurant in Athlone at a table for one. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but when I walked in, table by table everyone glanced at me. The waitress had to get special approval and instructions on what to do about a table of one. Finally, she pulled two tables apart and sat me at one of them.

(not from my journal anymore. Unfortunately, it was here that I stopped writing)

That morning, after an amazing breakfast by John, I rode down a few kilometers to Clonmacnoise. John told me about the back way to go so I didn’t have to pay haha. I took my bike around bike and entered through an old gate in a large stonewall. At first, all I could see was an old cemetery, but it was one of the most beautiful cemeteries I have seen, and I know people don't usually think of them that way. I followed the dirt path up to the ruins and found myself alone among 1500-year-old buildings and an all white graveyard from the 12^th century set right next to a large lake. Some fisherman kept staring at me from down on the shore, and I think I know why (the shock yellow jacket again). The ruins were so beautiful in the mist and I felt like I had been transported to some mystic place in time. I really didn’t want to leave but I wanted to make sure that I allowed enough time to get to Athlone for the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Fortunately, I only had to ride 25 km, compared to my usual 80. As a result, I got into town early and I was able to check in to my B&B (which I finally called ahead to) and get out and see the Athlone parade. I found out later that my two cousins from Mullingar were in the parade and I had seen them but didn’t know who they were at the time. After the Parade, I took a long nap and then went to the Italian Restaurant that I talked about above. Next, I decided to be brave and venture out alone to the bar down the street where my B&B hosts said it would be all kids my age. It certainly was, however these were the best-dressed kids with amazing Irish features. Then there was me in my unwashed black fleece, and worn green corduroys. Wow, it took everything in me (and 2 pints of Guinness) to keep me there. I finally got talking to a nice guy named Nigel and hung out with him and his friends the rest of the night. So overall, it was a fun St. Patrick’s Day.

Biking Day 6

2006-04-26T03:20:00.001+07:00

This was one of the hardest days of my entire bike ride because the wind was blowing straight back at me. Because of this wind, it was near impossible to get up the hills and extremely hard to even get down them. This day was more of a psychological test than physical. It was all about not giving up. It helps when you have no choice but to go further (there was nowhere to stop even if I wanted to) and I had to get to Mullingar to meet up with my family.

I called May McCourt, my grandmothers cousin, when I was 10km outside of Athlone. I told her I would be quite a bit later than I expected. She inferred from my tone of voice how tired I was and so she got in her car and came looking for me. She then called her husband to tell him to come looking for me and he in turn called his daughter and her family (it was not a hard task to spot me, as I was the only 20-year-old female on a bike filled with packs and wearing a shock yellow windbreaker.) I was so relieved though when I came up the hill to the edge of town and saw Kevin waving to me (again, not hard to spot him either as he is a cute old British man with a thick head of gray hair). The search party was called off and they took me back to their house for a nice cup of tea and a warm shower.

Later Kevin and May took me out to dinner with the family. It was so nice to finally be with a nice family after traveling alone for a week. After dinner, my cousin Niall took me over to the pub across the street to meet up with two other cousins, Laura, 21, and Phillip, 18. They were celebrating with their other friends from the town band. When I say town band, everyone always thinks rock band. But no, it was a town marching band and this is actually really popular in Ireland. Go figure. Well, we had a great time and ended up going to a club at the end of the night. When it was time to go, the last song the DJ played was an Irish jig. It was great because everyone just starting hoping up and down and they all made it look so natural?!

McCourts Day 7

2006-04-26T03:20:00.000+07:00

McCourts Day 8

2006-04-26T03:19:00.000+07:00

McCourts Day 9

2006-04-26T03:15:00.000+07:00

Ireland Photo Album

2006-04-26T01:35:00.000+07:00

Here is the link to all of my Ireland pictures!

Some of my Favorite Pictures

2006-04-26T01:29:00.000+07:00

New Posts

2006-04-02T20:54:00.000+07:00

I'll post the continuance of my Ireland trip in the next few days! I'm also working on editing my pictures so I'll have those up this week!

Dublin

2006-03-26T07:47:00.000+07:00

I took the tube to the airport Monday morning, and my friend Emily happened to get on the same train car as me on her way to the airport as well (We were going to cycle together in Ireland). She had come the day before and spent a day in London and then we had both booked the same flight to Ireland. When we got the airport Emily took the elevator and me the stairs, which each led to a different place. Consequently, I looked for Emily for 20 minutes then when I when I just decided to go get my tickets the woman said the flight had finished check in and I needed to run to catch it. I made a mad dash to security, politely excused myself to the front of the line, then ran into Emily who was doing the same thing. We made it to the plane just before they stopped boarding, and I was reminded once again to get to the airport early, which I know I will never do. I guess I just hate sitting in airport terminals. I always think I am smarter than those ignorant fools who wait at the gate two hours in advance. If I could just perfect my timing so it didn't involve running madly through the airport, I think I would most certainly be the smarter one.

When we arrived in the Dublin Airport Emily marveled at all of the souvenirs, which I have to admit are so tempting. Dublin has an entire market just revolving around things with the clover on it. Shirts, shoes, thimbles, oven mits, earrings. Anything with a clover is fair game. And of course the Guinness logo is also one of the biggest tourist sensations. They have whole stores devoted to selling only Guinness merchandise. Interesting, you don't see Miller or Coores stores in the U.S.

We checked into the Hostel and just did some errands. Food, shopping, email, bike shop, picture taking, etc. We had dinner at nice hotel then went to bed early. Unfortuantely this is the point where Emily got really sick. The whole night before we were to leave she was not feeling well at all. So the next morning we talked and she said she needed a few days to recover. I went on expecting her to meet up with me in a few days but unfortuantely I found out that she didn't get better, only worse and had to go home. It was really dissappointing and I mean it when I say the trip wasn't the same without her on a bike beside me. I missed you so much emily!

London

2006-03-26T07:22:00.000+07:00

I started off for the Airport on Friday March 10th, but just as I was leaving I realized that my camera had died. Now with all of the beautiful views in Ireland I couldn't go without a camera so I hurriedly bought one in Best Buy. It was the quickest most expensive purchase I've ever made. It turned out there was no need to rush though because when I got to the airport the woman at the desk informed me that my flight to NYC was delayed so I would miss my connection from there to London. She said the only London flight she could get me on was at 11:45, and it was currently 4:00. Providence lent a hand when my flight to NY was over booked, and American Airlines gave me $250 dollars to go on a flight one hour later, which made me not care so much about the delay. On the way home my flight was over booked again and I got $300 from Continental to fly on Aerlingus. Now I'm just daydreaming about where I can go next, free of charge.

I got into London around lunch and found my way to Brigid's doorstep. Her two friends were staying there as well, for 9 days. We all went out to Lunch then Brigid and I did some shopping on the street that is famous for shopping but I can't think of the name. After some interesting conversation about my professors vibrating cult head and some coffee, we went out to the pub. On Sunday I went to the British Museum and the Tate Modern. I first visited the British Museum a year and a half ago and I was excited to see the marbles (the friezes around the top perimeter) from the Parthenon. The marbles are only in this museum because Sir Elgin took them off of the Parthenon and transported them to England where they would be "safer". However, after visiting Athens I saw how the structure is unoriginal and bare when void of the most historically and artistically significant pieces. I couldn't enjoy them this time knowing how damaged the marbles are and how different the Parthenon is without them. Later I went to the Tate Modern and it was interesting, but I can never really get into modern art. I just always think, I could do that, all I need to do paint is two squares on top of each other. After the museums I met back up with Brigid and we went out to the Pub for a bit. Then early Monday morning I headed off to Dublin to do the whole cycling thing.

Off to Ireland

2006-03-08T03:40:00.000+07:00

So I think I'm going to start blogging again this semester.

I hiked the Wicklow Way solo last November and I enjoyed it so much that the only thing I could think about afterwards was when I would return. So in 3 days I'm off to spend the weekend in London with my friend Brigid who is graciously hosting me. Then on Monday morning I'm meeting up with my friend Emily and taking a quick flight to Ireland. We're gonna spend the day just getting everything in order and seeing Dublin. Tuesday morning we start out on our 8 day biking trip across Ireland. Well its sorta a loop around the middle of the country, starting and ending in Dublin. On Saturday the 18th we're going to stay with some Irish relatives of mine in Mullingar. I'm really excited about that because I want to get to know more about my Irish heritage...and its a free dinner and bed :). But of course Friday the 17th can't be left out, because that is the night Emily and I are celebrating Saint Patricks day in Longford (well in whatever random pub there is in Longford)....mmmm I can taste the Guiness already.

Well, obviously there isn't much more I can write till we actually get there. Right now I am just bogged down with lot's of last minute things, but considering I starting packing a few weeks ago, I think I'll be ready by Friday.

Tonight is a reunion party with all of the students that I studied with in Madrid. Our program leader, MariCarmen, is in town so I cannot wait to see her again. K, I'm gonna go nap now. Adios

Continuing Morocco Story....

2005-11-20T07:47:00.000+07:00

I realized I didn't finish my story about Morocco cause my eyes hurt. The main thing I wanted to blog about was our bus ride from Fez to Tangier (the port town). I think I'll just copy what I wrote in my journal...

After we had finished exploring the Medina in Fez, we took a taxi to the train station. By the time we got there we had NO money left and looked for a bank. All of the banks were closed and we were so hungry and must have appeared desperate enough that a kind shopkeeper accepted our mismash of euros and dirum coins in exchange for a pack of Spanish cookies and a liter of water. Once on the train, we found a car with two women and two men. The moved their stuff around and in the end we all fit comfortably. I drank a little water and from the looks on the other people's faces I could tell that they couldn't drink as well as aeat until sunset (because it was the holy month of Ramadan). So Chrissy and I waited to eat or drink, and just as the sun began to disappear on the horizon the whole compartment sprung to life. Immediately everyone offered their food to eachother and our simple dinner of bread and cookies turned out to be much more balanced. Well maybe not. The cute guy (lol I didn't know his name so Chrissy and I deemed him "cute guy") gave me cookies and the young girl dates. The woman offered us orange juice and some of her cake. It was an amazing experience to break fast with a wonderful group of Muslims during Ramadan.

After dinner I fell asleep and Chrissy read her book, when all of a sudden we stopped and the woman and cute guy asked us if we were going to Tangiers. We said we were and they beckoned for us to follow them. Mind you they spoke French and Arabic and us English and Spanish. Chrissy and I were surprised because we knew we weren't supposed o arrive in Tangiers until 11:15 and it was only 6:45. We blindly followed until they led us to a bench on another platform. The woman refused to take the only available seat and insisted I take it. We spent the next hour there until the train arrived and they found us all a compartment. We all settled in and talked a little. When I say talk I mean we communicated through body language, gestures and the small amount of English the woman knew. It turned out the man was in Fez on business and the woman was visiting a friend. the guy had a serious crush on Chrissy. When we asked the soman if she was married (she had a ring) she said yes and asked about Chrissy and I. When the guy heard Chrissy had a boyfriend whom she used gestures to say she love, he asked, "you love him a little or a lot?" unfortunately for him, the answer was a lot.

So when the guy got off at a stop before Tangiers, it was then that we realized the two weren't married to each other. The woman found that hysterical. When we commented (after he left) that the man was cute, she proudly replied, "Yes, but my husband is very very beautiful!"

We end dup having to change compartment sa few times, but we never knew why and couldn't get a straight answer out of the conductor. We tried to asks and the woman giggled. We notices she just obediently accepted the fact that we needed to change compartments without questions and I think she found our tenacity funny.

My journal ended here, but what happened was that when we finally arrived in Tangier (not a very safe city) at 12 midnight we still had no money, no idea where an ATM was, and no money to pay for a hostel. The prospect of sleeping in the train station was quickly becoming a reality. Just as we were exiting the station however, I spotted a small MAC and rushed to that little piece of technology overflowing with relief. After getting out some cash, the woman took us out to the curb and helped secure us a taxi. We hugged goodbye and with the help of providence we were fast asleep in less than half an hour.

The next day was a crazy trip back to Madrid, and in no way simple. Here's what I wrote in my journal...

We arrived in Tarifa (Spain) in only 40 minutes. There were 2 cabs waiting outside and they were immediately filled. So we tried to walk to the bus station. We asked directions every few minutes because we could only understand the first part of everyone's instructions. (We ended up spending 25 minutes walking in a complete circle!) When we finally arrived at the station just on time the attendant informed us he only excepted cash and we were short. The only ATM was back at the entrance to the train station!! The bus was due to arrive any second and the attendant said I'd never make it back in time. (However, if we didn't make this bus, we would miss our connecting train and not be able to return to Madrid until the next day, and subsequently miss class) I threw my luggage down and sprinted in my Jeans, and dirty donkey poop covered shoes a half mile to the MAC. I ran back, which was considerably harder and complete the whole run in under 7 minutes. Tash would be proud. As i approached the station I saw the bus had arrived and about to leave. I quickly begged the driver not to leave and ran into the ticket office, cash in hand, to find a very surprised attendant. He didn't think we would make it, but I was sure that if God had gotten us this far he would get us ont hat bus. All I need to do was run. Running is not a simple task for me.

We settled in on the bus and after a few local stops the passengers consisted of travelers under the age of 25, most backpacking. I felt as if I had finally been initiated into this secret society I have so longed admired. I could now boast, os so nonchalantly, of all the cool places I've traveled (not with family, school, or a tour). I felt cool. Really cool.

Well, after bask in in my coolness, I realized we had arrived in Sevilla one and half hours late. We had 20 minutes before our train ride home left, and we had to get from the bus depot to the train station. We caught a cab and while Chrissy worried I mused over the coolness of my backpack. We arrived with time to grab a snack and got on the train just before it pulled away. It turned out not to be just any ordinary train, but the exclusive, and expensive, AVE train. It was a very sweet ride, exactly what we needed.

the end

Where to begin!

2005-11-20T07:14:00.000+07:00

So Rome and Florence were amazing! I only wish we could have stayed there longer. I will definitely return again with lots of time to appreciate all of the artwork. It is really difficult to travel in a group of 50 and still be able to see the art and hear what the guide is saying about it. My travel style is the exact opposite. I love to go with just one person and take my time wandering the halls of the museum's or streets. I'm definitely not a schedule type of a person, so when I have to spend my whole trip being places at exact times for an allotted amount of minutes it can be frustrating. That is why I'm so excited about my upcoming trip to Ireland! I'm going alone, which sounds depressing to many people, but exciting after always being in a 50 person group. I don't really have an itinerary as of yet, even though I leave this Friday. My plane gets into Dublin and I'll be able to travel for 5 1/2 days. For part of the time I'm going to see relatives my Mom's side of the family. My Pop Pop is looking into that right now, and I think it will definitely make my trip! Instead of just seeing the tourist side of Ireland, I'll be able to stay with a family and see their town and life. I also can't wait to hear stories about my relatives in Ireland since I know very little.

On a random note, I'm finally meeting Spaniards! Last night I went out with my friend Kristin to a salsa club in Sol. We met two nice Spaniards our age who were there with a big group of friends. The girls didn't talk to us, but that's nothing new. The guys were so funny though and I finally felt like I found kids that were similar to my guy friends at home. I hit it off with David and were going to meet tomorrow. He wants to practice his Spanish and me my English, so were going to speak Spanish the first half and English the second. I'm also hanging out with my Scottish friend Gavin tomorrow cause he wants to practice speaking Spanish, so It should be a interesting day as far as communication goes...

My parents sent my glasses so now I have no excuse for not writing! So I'll try and update more often. Hasta luego!

Roma y Firenze

2005-11-09T06:09:00.000+07:00

I'm off to Rome and Florence with school, so I'll update and finish everything I said I would when I get back Sunday night. Ciao!

Granada & Morocco Photos

2005-11-09T02:21:00.000+07:00

Here are 50 out of 90 photos. My internet connection went down halfway through posting them. But I'll get the rest up later!

Perdi mis Gafas

2005-11-09T02:17:00.000+07:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I'm keeping up on all of the details of my travels in my journal, and I will post them soon. However I lost my glasses on the train to Granada and it is extremely difficult to read.

So at first I had written here quick synopsis, but it turned out to be quite long....

2 weeks ago I had a long weekend because it was spanish holiday. So Chrissy and I took a train to Granada right after mid-terms. I met a really nice Scottish guy who worked his way around the world and traveled for a few years before university. Of course I picked his brain about every detail because that is exactly what I want to do. He is studying in Madrid for the semester, and I actually met up with him two nights ago for drinks and we had a great time. Chrissy also met 2 girls who had been backpacking for 2 months and who were from her town and knew a lot of the same people! The world just keeps getting smaller. In Granada we hung out with girls, Rita and Susan, visited the Aluhmbra and feasted on free tapas. In our hostel, we met two nice guys from South Africa and England who reccommended we go to a small village in Chefchaouen in Morocco. As we were already planning on going to Morcoo next we decided to take his advice.

On the train to Tangiers where we would catch the ferry, we met another traveler who also reccommended Chefchoauen. With that our minds were made up. We took the ferry from Tangiers to Algeciras, then caught a taxi to the bus station. When we arrived it was mayhem. A mayhem in which we were the only female's within sight. While making our way into the station a man yelled out, "Chefchoauen! Chefchoauen!" I turned around and he indicated that the bus waiting outside was heading to the little town. He pointed to the arabic sign in the front window of the bus, and confidently announced, "See, Chefchoauen." No, I don't see, but should I take you word for it? After paying for our tickets (350 dirhum, $3.80). Once we got settled into our seats we doubled checked with the other passengers that the bus was indeed going to Chefchoauen. The tempterature, rose, and not a woman got on, and we quickly relized it would be a long ride. About 4 hours later we stopped at a restuarant for a break and dinner. It took ten minutes to make my way to the counter to get us some soup. Outside while looking for seats I ran into a nice American Kid who was with 2 other friends, they are all studying in Madrid, but were on holiday like us. We're actually hanging out with them tonight. They told us some interesting stories about being barred in a guys house in a little town they had just come from. Hmmmm, I felt all warm and fuzzy. So I asked him, "Well have you seen any other women travelers." "Uh, no, actually none."

Once we arrived in Chefchaouen and made our way to our hostel that was reccommended to us by a kid we met. The town turned to be absolutely amazing and hardly sketchy at all. We immediately collapsed into bed, for after 13 hours of travel we were exhausted. We actually slept in the next morning, and it was soooo great to get the extra sleep. In the morning we met a nice group of UVA kids who are studying in Copenhagen for the semester. We picked a time to meet for dinner then went off to explore the town. We spent the whole day wondering the streets and stopping to look at the unique crafts. We walked up the mountain next to the town and followed the path to the ruins of an old mosque. It was a bit sketch though so we made our way back down with a group of spanish kids.

The next day we took a bus to Fez, which is situated farther south in Morcco. It was an interesting bus ride. Interesting and very very hot. It wouldn't have been that bad if we had stopped for a food or bathroom break, but we went straight through for 7 hours. I met two nice kids on the bus though, Gabrielle from Canada, and Yanick from Belgium. They didn't have a hostel so they joined us in our search for ours (which the UVA kids recommended). Just about every hostel we stayed in was recommended by travelers we met. So Gabrielle, Yanick, Chrissy and I strapped on our packs and made off into fez in search of our hostel. An hour later we found it and gratefully collapsed into our beds. After a nice hot shower and brief nap, Chrissy, Gabrielle and I went out for dinner. We had a great time and relished the amazing food the owner lavished on us. As soon as we returned to the hostel I passed out and didn't wake up till 7 the next morning. Chrissy and Gabrielle stayed up talking for hours about their different culture and lives. It was a conversation I was sad to miss, but if you know me you know I LOVE my sleep.

The next day I woke up early and made my way out into the quiet streets. The difference between the morning and day was amazing. Hardly a soul was awake, for they had been up all night for Ramadan and most were sleeping in. I was able to learn my way around the area surrounding our hostel and to truly appreciate the intricacies of the city. The dirty streets I had seen the day before were now perfectly swept and small neat piles of trash dotted ally ways. A donkey passed with two huge bags resting on its back. A followed closely behind picking up the piles of rubbish and dumbing them in the bags upon the donkey.

I made my way to a small cafe and enjoyed a glass of mint tea. Mmm, mint tea is definately my favorite thing from Morocco. I struck up a conversation with an interested french man sitting at the table next to mine. It turned out that he had been traveling with his wife through Morocco by moped for two weeks. His wife had returned home to France and he was continuing on for a few more weeks. He was an amazing example of an adult that never looses his desire to travel, and money does not keep him from going anywhere. Instead, he stays in hostels and finds ways to cut costs, and as a result he travels much more than any american adult.

After my tea and people watching I made my way back to the hostel and the girls and I went out to breakfast. Afterwards we joined up with Yanick and tried to locate a guide to show us around the medina. The medina is the maze of streets that makes up the old part of Fez and it is extremely difficult to navigate alone.

My eyes are completely out of commission for now but I'll finish later...

IQ and Politics

2005-10-24T01:14:00.000+07:00

Here is an interesting website I stumbled upon. It simply shows the average IQ of each of the 50 states at the time of the 2000 election, and then highlights which states voted for Kerry and which states voted for Bush.

It is definatly something to think about!

A visit to Salamanca

2005-10-23T10:43:00.000+07:00

Hola! Today was so much fun, but really random. Chrissy, Ali, Kristen and I got up really early, well early for us (6:30) and met at the train station at 8:00 to go to Salamanca. When we got there we realized that it was the wrong train station so we had to catch the later train at 11. The ride was 3 hours and I studied about half of it, I consider that productive for me.

Salamanca was beautiful! The streets were all cobblestone, and lined with local butchers, florists, and just about every quaint store. We spent most of our time wandering around the city, as it is small enough that one can get their bearings in an hour. The town is well known for the Universidad de Salamanca, the most prestigious university in Spain. We hoped to see lots of kids our age around, but it seems they all partied a bit too hard last night as the streets were empty. In fact, not only were there no college kids, but the streets were also devoid of any Spaniards at all, save the occasional tourist. My favorite site was the Cathedral. True, it was very similar to most other cathedrals, until you looked up. The ceilings were painted with such detail, despite the fact that it would never clearly be seen, that it immediately captured the viewer. I layed down on a deserted pew and stared in aw at the ceilings and massive columns for at least 15 minutes. The cathedral housed the usual small chapels with small candles burning. However, I’m continuously surprised to find electric candles in place of real ones. I’m not sure of the formal name, but the candles you light after a prayer. A tourist drops a 20 cent piece into the hole and one of the electric candles lights up. It’s extremely disappointing. The church in Salamanca was the first one I’ve seen with real candles (although it also had the electric ones). I guess they’re afraid the tourist will burn the church down?

We spent the rest of the day wondering in and out of cathedrals, down streets too small for cars, and all around the university campus. An hour before we had to go, it started to pour so we found refuge in a picturesque café and ordered 2 rounds of hot chocolate. On our way back to the station we picked up some wine for the ride and made it on board just in time. We found four seats around a table and broke out the homework. We were good kids and studied for an hour and a half. When I struggled to open the wine a kind man next to us pulled out his pocket knife and sliced it open. When he saw we didn’t have a cork screw as well, he attempted to open it. He did a great job but at the last minute spilled some all over his pants. We felt horrible! But still the wine flowed and the homework....um flourished. Then the Italians came. They told us we were in their seats (which we were cause we wanted the table to study) and we tried to explain that they could have our real seats in the other car, but unfourtantely we were speaking Spanish and they Italian. A Spanish lady yelled at us to hurry up because there were many people waiting to get into the car. In the confusion my wine spilled all over my pants and the seat. The future occupants were not very happy. We finally made our way to our correct seats and studied a little, and talked a lot.

When I returned to my house, my senora asked why my mouth and teeth were stained a bit red. I sheepishly explained that we’d had a lot of wine and did a lot of homework on the train, and she just laughed and said, “que bien” (that’s great!). I love my senora. After dinner I broke out the hookah, a Turkish pipe to smoke flavored tobacco on, and my senora and I smoked it. Again, I love my senora. How much cooler can she can get than to encourage me to break out the hookah and then help me set it up on her coffee table?

Well I was thinking of going out to salsa dance tonight with Chrissy and her friend that is visiting, but I’m thinking I’m a bit to tired after everything today. Ok, eso es todo para ahora. Hasta luego!

New Pictures Posted!

2005-10-22T01:16:00.000+07:00

Here are some pictures from when my parents visited and we went to Segovia and my Dad and I went hiking in the mountains outside of Madrid!

I also put up loads of pictures from Greece and Turkey. I need to get some more from Chrissy of the last day or two in Istanbul though because my camera ran out of memory.

Also I have so much to write that I've been putting it off! Today I spent forever putting all of these pictures up, but I promise I will update the blog soon!

The best email ever

2005-10-06T22:55:00.000+07:00

This is an email from my little girl megan that i nanny for during the shool year. She's eight and just started third grade. I miss her sooooooo much so i started crying (yes seriously, i know im a dork) when i received her email....

Dear LauRa,

How are you? I ‘m great! Guess what! My dad pulled out my tooth on Monday, 9/26/05. It didn’t even hurt! It was my tooth # 7. I got a Sacagawea coin! My teacher’s name is Ms. Rabiah. She is nice and funny! How is Sp@in? Are you having a good time? Me and Corinne selled lemonade. We made $13 the first time and the second time we made $10. So that makes $23 selling lemonade over the summer. We are writing personal narratives in our class. My is about going to the American Girl Place. I am going to dedicate it to our family. I’ll tell you some people in my class that you know. Sophia, Erin, Molly, Ella, Adam, and there are a lot of new people in our class. And I started my drama class again and I am practicing violin a lot.

Love,
Megan (or green pea)

Turkey and Greece

2005-09-29T11:12:00.000+07:00

I'm off to Greece and Turkey tommorow with school! Be back in 10 days! And the day I get back my parents arrive!!

My Flat

2005-09-27T04:07:00.000+07:00

I posted some pictures of my flat . I'm heading to class soon so maybe ill take some pictures of our school and then some of Cheeky later (and I'll even put myself in a few :P)

I used up the amount of photos I am allowed on my first picture site . So to see all of my new pictures from now on click here .

Pictures

2005-09-26T03:33:00.000+07:00

Finally here are my pictures!

A local...almost

2005-09-26T02:21:00.000+07:00

Well I've been in Madrid for two weeks now and I really feel like I'm starting to fit in and finally see the city as my temporary home instead of just a foreign unknown. The stares have mostly subsided since I bought some Euroshoes (dressy sneakers that they don't consider sneakers). It's funny because just about everyone in the group has purchased a pair of shoes from here because they couldn't take the stares any longer. No matter how european or nondescript our outfits were, we were always known as American because of our shoes. Literally, I would step on a train and within a minute just about everyone around me had looked at my feet. It was uh...Interesting.

This past week was really fun, especially since I've been feeling better. After the insistence of my Senora and mom I went to the doctor on Wednesday. He told me I had a sinus infection so he gave me an antibiotic and I'm feeling much better. I guess the one good thing that came out of my being sick is that I became good friends with the nice guy in the metro that sells tissues.

Friday was one of the best times out I've had since I've gotten to Madrid (not counting Santander because that was hard to beat). Chrissy and I went in search of a salsa club called The Tropical House in Principe Pio. We stopped at a Mexican bar first because we saw there were a lot of kids our age in there. We ended up talking with some kids from a Connetticut study abroad program (mainly Middlebury and Amherst students). They invited us to go with them to a hookah bar in another part of the city. It was the best hookah bar I've been to before because it was so authentic (well as far as I know). The ceiling was covered in low hanging middles eastern tapestries and we sat on large pillows or small benches. We ordered a fruit hookah and sangria and ended up hanging out there until it closed at 2:30. On our way to find a hip hop club one of the girls knew about, I heard a loud crash and a massive chunk of brick slid in front of my feet. I looked up and saw a guy had been hit over the head with the brick and he his friends were trying to get him away from the scene. The guy was holding his head closed and blood was everywhere. It was a crazy part of town. We finally made to the hip hop club where it turned out it was the equivalent of a club in the U.S. with a lot of American music.

Yesterday, our group went to Toledo for the day. It was absolutely amazing from a distance and adorable up close. The only complaint I had was that it was so touristy that it took away from what could have been a nice small town feel. We visited the famous el greco painting, a huge church that was the most amazing I've seen yet, and a Jewish synagogue that is now a church. The city's architecture and history is unique because it has three different groups living there. The Christians, Jews, and Muslims. You can check out my pictures because they always do a better job of showing the beauty.

When our bus returned to Madrid last night, MarieCarmen (our leader) took us for Tapas (its another name though, I'll find out the right one). We ate at this beautiful restaurant on the top floor over looking the Palacio. They were the best appetizers I've ever had in my life! I came back raving about them and my Senora said, "Tapas, tapas, all you liked were the tapas! What about Toldedo?!" That was fun too :P Also, they had huge barrels of cider that when you open the tap the cider flows about 4 feet straight out and lands in a bucket. You have to stick your glass in the flow to get a drink. I felt like I was at a 16th century kegger.

Last night I got my traditional 12 hours of sleep and woke up at 12:30 today. After a scolding from my Senora to clean up my extremely messy room and stop picking at my horrendous blemishes, I've been writing emails ever since. And now, as I've been saying forever, I'm finally going to post my pictures.

One week down!

2005-09-17T19:24:00.000+07:00

So I just finished my first week in Madrid. It went by pretty uneventfully, I didn't do much as I was focusing on all my energy on getting better, which I almost am. Pretty much my week consisted of classes, food and sleep, the latter two being the essentials. The area around my University is beautiful and centrally located for getting anywhere in the city. Yesterday I walked about 30 minutes to Serrano street, the fashion area of Madrid, to everyone's favorite store, El Corte Ingles. Corte Ingles has everything, and is broken into different department stores in separate buildings. Clothing etc., technology, books, and a grocery store. It's like a Bloomingdales, Best Buy, Borders, and Acme all rolled into one. My sole purpose though was to buy some shoes, because my flip flops just don't seem to be cutting it in fashion conscience Madrid. I did pack a pair of dressy shoes, but I left the match at home.

I visited the Prado museum on Wednesday with my art history class, but we just did a quick intro to all of the different periods. Our professor said we'll be going back once a week for class and I think it will be amazing to have the opportunity to see the paintings first hand instead of on a slide, huge difference. I want to go on my own as well, because it is a completely different experience going by yourself and taking as much time as you want to look at each painting.

Yesterday, kids from class organized to meet up at 12 near the soccer stadium, and wrote the plan on the board so everyone could see. It worked, and about 20+ kids showed up. The only problem was that about 40% of us didn't bring ID's. I've only been to one other place in Madrid, and few places in Santander and I've never been asked for ID to enter anywhere. Well we ended up doing some sharing and pulled a few tricks and we were all able to enter to the club. Normally, I really do not like clubs, but when I go with a large group of people it is fun.

Before I came here I was warned about the Spanish guys, but I haven't had any problems with them. In fact, they are actually shy sometimes. In the club last night the guys stayed in their little huddles and the girls in theirs. I would talk to the Spanish girls, but they just do not seem to want anything to do with American girls. It's like a whole Jets and Sharks thing going on, no se. Actually, yeah, I almost got into a fight with one of the girls. Now that would be a story. I accidentally bumped her....hard....when I was dancing. I said 'lo siento' but I don't think she heard me so she called me over and gave me some sort of lecture with really really scary eyes. I was so freaked out I didn't have any clue what she was saying, so I just muttered lots of "lo sientos" "pardons". Anyways, so towards the end of the night we met a nice group of Spaniards and I ended up getting some tango lessons. I was horrible!! But in the end it didn't matter and I had a lot of fun and I was finally able to practice my Spanish with kids my age from Spain.

Well I tried to post all of my pictures yesterday, and I had them all ready, but something went wrong and it didn't work, argh. So I'm gonna try again and then I'll post the link. Hasta luego!

Funny Quotes de Espana

2005-09-17T19:16:00.000+07:00

"My kids are going to wear burlap sacks from the day their born. They won't wear anything else until they can say, 'Daddy, I don't want to wear this burlap sack anymore, it's itchy.'"

~Ben, pointing out the how frivilous clothes are for kids

"I love little naked boys, but not in pedophilic kinda way."

~Nicole, pointing to a cute little naked boy on the beach

"This is the gay area, but it is fun for everyone else as well."

~Javier, our Professor, drawing a map of the best party places in Madrid

"Yeah you'll help me, you'll help me to DIE!"

~Paula telling us about last years group of students

"How do you say...tits? Oh, is that not correct? Sorry, I only know the dirty american slang."

~Paco, our art history Professor, pointing at the breast of an ancient statue.

Estoy en Espana!

2005-09-14T18:16:00.000+07:00

I arrived in Spain a week ago with my friend Chrissy. We flew out of Reagan together in Washington, D.C. with a quick stop over in Coppenhagen, random. Once in Spain Marta, the niece of the program director, met us at the airport and we took a shuttle to the Hotel Paris in Madrid. After a tour of the historical part of the city and dinner out with everyone, about half of the 50 students went out to an Irish pub. Later Marta took Jessie, Diane and I to a Salsa dancing club which was awesome! I've only salsa danced once with Jerry in Washington, D.C. and I have to admit I remembered very little, but it was still fun. The next day however, I payed for my fun and I was sick the entire 7 hour bus ride to Southern Spain.

For the next week we lived in the dorms at the Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo in Santander Spain. Every morning we had 4 to 5 hours of Spanish class, then siesta, and from 4-6 spanish culture class. You'd think 5 hours of spanish class would be tortorous but our professor smokes so much we had a 15 min. break every 50 minutes. The best part about Santander were the people I met from other countries. UIMP offers a three week intensive spanish course for people from all over the world, and we were there for the middle week. The second night there my friends and I went to La Plaza de Canadio where I met a lot of students from UIMP, because as it turns out La Plaza is the place to be. By the end of the week I had friends from England, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Morroco and Greece. With so many languages being spoken, often times the only common language was spanish. So as a result, I got a lot of practice, which I greatly needed.

During the week we took trips all around southern spain, touring small historic towns, 1000 year old churches, and massive castles. Check out my link for pictures (link soon to come), they do more justice to the breathtaking scenery and pueblos than I ever could.

After a week in Santander, and many afternoons of basking on the beach (on of my favorite parts of the city), we returned to Madrid on Sunday. When we arrived at the Hotel Paris where all of our luggage was stored, there were 40 Senoras awaiting us. They were assessing us with skepticism and we were assessing them with mucho fear. I mean I have to admit, at first glance these Senoras are pretty intimidating. Laurance, my flatmate, and I were one of the first to be introduced to our senora, cheecky (I don't know how to spell it but thats how it sounds). She was appaled at our number of bags, 2 each, and couldn't get over why we would ever need so much luggage for only four months. Because of our massive amount of luggage cheecky put us in two cabs, and after telling the driver her address, sent me off alone. I tried not to panic and just enjoy the sites, but that changed when the driver stopped and told me to get out. He explained that this was number 15 like my senora said, but he didnt know where exactly I was suppose to go. So there I was with all my luggage standing on the sidewalk with no idea where I was and no senora in sight. I waited about ten minutes, contemplating the fact that I didn't know cheeckys address, her phone number, the number of our director, or have a cell phone. So I laughed. I couldn't stop laughing, and you can imagine the stares I got from the spaniards but I didn't care because if I didn't laugh hard I knew I might cry. Finally cheecky appeared around the corner and after trying for a minute or two to get her attention we finally went together to her flat.

I love love love her apartment!! It is full of antiques and character, and not mention it has a lot of space for madrid. I'm going to post pictures of our flat and cheecky soon.

I've been sick since I got here but Cheecky quickly assumed the role of surrogate mother. I'm not allowed to go out of the house without at least three layers on, even though it really is not cold out I swear! Also, she had me gargle lukewarm water and vinegar for my throat the first night I was here. Again, random. But that's Cheecky, random but hilarious.

Yesterday was our first day of classes at The College for International Studies in Madrid. I really like my professors that I've had so far. They all speak english very well and are acutally really exccited to teach us. Go figure.

Well, cheeckys amazing cook has just finished making lunch so I'm going to go eat. Hasta luego!

Travel

2005-02-07T03:53:00.002+07:00

Here are some of my favorite travel quotes:
(I love traveling if you haven't caught on yet)

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the places and moments that take our breath away."
~Anonymous

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
~Mark Proust

"Journeys end in lovers meeting"
~William Shakespeare

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."
~Martin Buber

"Travel! And thou shalt find new friends for old ones left behind."
~Sir Richard Burton (The Arabian Nights)

"Do no go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world."
~George Santayana

"Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world."
~Gustave Flaubert

Europe Pictures

2004-12-07T08:18:00.000+07:00

Here are our pictures from Paris and London...

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/laura4650/my_photos

Too much turkey

2004-11-26T07:30:00.000+07:00

Well, our last day is almost over, sigh. Last night was really fun though because we met lots of cool people, and as in the last hostel, they all left a day before us so now we have to find ourselves some new friends. There are so many aussies here, they're seriously invading Europe...not that I mind. This morning we went to Buckingham Palace, and it wasn't as impressive as I had hoped. Westminster Abby and the Houses of Parliment were a lot cooler. The detail of the architecture is amazing! I can't imagine how long it took to build them. Later we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, and from what we could see it was beautiful. We wanted to go in but once we figured out the exchange rate we've had to cut out food and entrance fees from our budget. It's ok, we get free breakfast so we eat 3 bowls of cereal in the morning and are set till our non-existant dinner.

This afternoon Lindsay went back to the hostel to sleep (she does massive amounts of sleeping, she reminds me of Jess). I meant to go to the British Muesame but I got lost and then just walked around. It was great though because I went down whatever street I wanted and didn't worry about where I was going. Somehow I ended up back at the hostel though. Well, there is not much more to say. I guess I'll see the fam tommorow and my "university mates" Sunday, as my aussie friends like to say. K, later

One more day

2004-11-25T05:26:00.000+07:00

Well today was fun because I got to go the art muesams in the morning. Lindsay is not a big fan of them so she went and got her nails done instead. I went to the British Muesame first because it is only a 3 minute walk from our hostel. I saw the Parthenon Marbles like I wanted, and also a lot of famous greek scultpure (although I liked the Louvre collection more). After that I took the tube to the National Gallery. It has an amazing collection! Everywhere I turned I saw paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci, Michealangelo, Degas, Suerat, and Monet, to name a few. I went and saw their special Raphael exhibit. It had over 80 of his paintings and sketches. Unfourtantely, I wasn't aloud to take any pictures in the National Gallery, so I just bought some postcards of my favorite parks.

In the afternoon Lindsay and I went to the Tower of London again; this time when it was open. The history of the building goes back over 600 years, and tons of famous people were kept there and then beheaded, like Sir Thomas More and Anne Boylyn.

Now I'm just killing time and waiting for 3 pound dinner they serve here (cheapest food we can get). I'm not sure how good it will be, but considering how hungry I am I really don't think it will matter what it tastes like!

Tommorow we're hoping to see Buckinham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul's Cathedral, and go to Cambridge Market.

On a random note, Lindsay and I are having serious trouble figuring out how the heck you walk on the sidewalks here. We've got the one leg in front of the other part, but everyone keeps running right into us (or maybe vice versa). We thought maybe because they drive on the opposite side of the road, maybe they all walked on the opposite side of the side walk as well? If anyone has an answer to our pecuilar problem, we'd be really grateful (and maybe even bring you back a souvenir).

I'm off to eat. Adios!

Around town

2004-11-24T13:15:00.000+07:00

Well I thought I would post again because I have more time now, and more coins. Hmmm, so what did I write in my last post.

Well today we finally worked out our train tickets and got to the hostel by 2. We lost an hour, so now we are only 5 hours ahead, so that gave us some more time to check out the city. It was really weird though when we came out of the tube at 4:30 pm and it was dark out! I knew that London is gray this time of year, but I didn't know it gets dark that early. So we went to the Tower of London in the dark at 4:30, but they said it closed. So we're going to go back tommorow afternoon.

After the tower we went to Oxford street. It was paradise! Breathtaking! What is it you ask? Perhaps a thousand year old section of the city? Buckingham Palace? Nope...shopping...lot's and lot's of amazing shopping! K, all you men and pretty much anyone else can tune out at this point, but I'll continue. I loved the shopping because the Londoners have the most amazing sense of fashion. Since I have way too much clothing my new rule has been that I will only buy new pieces for my wardrobe if they are unique. Well, that is why Oxford was heaven, because everything there is unique and thus I can shop, shop, shop! (my mom at this point wants to say, Laura save your money!! don't worry madre, it's all christmas presents :-)

For dinner Lindsay picked out a restaurant that sounded interesting on the Thames. When we got there it was perfect! We had a cute little table for two right by the window, overlooking the London Bridge. Until I got here, I always thought that the London Bridge was just part of a song, hmm, learn something new everyday.

The funniest part about dinner was our faces when we looked at the menu. It was the most British menu ever created. We counted, and out of about 12 dishes, we only recoginized 2 or 3. What we did choose was great though, and it finally filled us up for the first time.....well since we've gotten here. The constant baguette, mystery meat, and cheese has just somehow lost it's appeal.

Oh and Uncle Michael, Monmontrae probably didn't come up on google cause I have no clue how to spell it, lol. Unfourtantely we didn't make it there because we were so tired from jet lag, but it is the artsy section of the city with lots of unique restaurants and the Moulin Rouge.

Tommorow morning I am finally sparing Lindsay the torture of spending hours in the Muesame with me. She is going to go get her nails done and I'm going to the National Gallery of Art, and the British Muesame. The Gallery has a Raphael exhibit I want to see, and the British Muesame has the Elgin Marbles (the marbles removed from the Parthenon I think around the turn of the century?). Of course there is a lot more to see, but that's what I want to spend the most time on. In the afternoon our plan is to go back to the Tower of London when it is open, then maybe a cathedral or two. Tommorow night we might see a play (Lindsay doesn't know this yet, and I think I'll put off telling her). Well, that is about it for now. Only two more days :-( Errrr, well I keep reminding myself I'll be back next fall when I study abroad in Madrid. But what will I do without Lizard?

P.S.- Mom if you wrote, my e-mail isn't working right now so I'll try checking it again tommorow.

Word of the day:dodgey

Moved on to London

2004-11-24T02:25:00.000+07:00

Hey guys! Well I must write quickly because I only have 5 minutes left on my internet time. The past few days have been awesome. Yesterday Linds and I went to an amazing chateau outside of Paris. We had to walk about a mile through the woods to get there and then just as we went up the hill it came into view. We b0th just stood there so amazed because it was so massive and overlooked the most adorable town. Later we went to see the Eiffel Eower again at night and we took the elevator up. We were all ready to climb it but unfourtantely you're not aloud to climb at night. This morning our alarm clock didn't go off so we missed our Eurostar train to london (the chunnel). Luckily we rescheduled for the 11:45. Our new hostel looks so cool! It has hundred's of bedrooms, a restaurant, and lots of hot water lol. We're going now to see the Tower of London, and then who knows what. It's lindsays birthday today so we're going out to a nice dinner (gracias madre) then out for a fun night on the town. Well, write later.

au revior, oh wait we're in london,
see ya

Paris!!

2004-11-22T02:50:00.000+07:00

Bonjour! Well Lindsay and I arrived in Paris around lunch time yesterday. We went scavaging the local grocery stores for something edible and cheap and came up with 2 cans of spaghetti and water. Mmmm! Lindsay is having some trouble with her credit card, so we spent forever trying to find a place to cash her traveler's checks. Well apparently they're a thing of the past, because absolutely no one would cash it. We went into a lot buildings that looked like banks, but weren't. I still have no idea what type of business' we went into. I swear the one place was a real estate agent.

So we gave up on cashing them, and made our way to the Eiffel tower. It was so cool because it's so big that you don't need directions to get there, you just keep walking till you get there. We went through all sorts of small winding streets. It's amazing, no matter how small and obscure a street you might think it is, there is always a small grocerer and bakery. When we finally made it there it was getting dark and they had just turned on the lights on the tower. Every so often the whole thing shimmers with millions of little flickering lights. Lindsay, being the amazing photographer that she is, took a lot of cool pictures. I can't wait to see her black and white ones.

Last night we were going to go Momonatrea with some friends we met at the hostel, but by 10:30 we were both falling asleep so we went to bed early. This morning we got up early and went to Notre Dame. The cathedral was having a service, which made it all that more amazing. No where can I feel the presence of God more than in a church where people have been worshipping for over 700 hundred years. I think that is part of the reason I love centuries old cathedrals.

Of course we couldn't go to Paris without going to the Louvre, or at least I think so. Lindsay isn't all that into art, so she was a good sport. I left her in about 2 or 3 spots where she fell asleep and I went off for a while then came back later and woke her up. Other we are very similar, we're also really different. For example, we were standing outside the Louvre and I said, "Linds! We're in the Louvre. There is so much art to see!" She replied, "What else would I want to see other than the Mona Lisa?" lol

We realized that all the shops are closed on Sundays, so we ended up getting pizza. But it was the best meal we've had yet. The hostel has a dumb rule about lock out hours from your room so they can clean from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Like they really need 6 hours. Oh well, I'm off to beg the woman at the front desk to let us in so I can change my shoes. Lindsay might fake sick so she'll let us in. Au revoir!