Jay Graham - International Man of Mystery

Home and in Retrospect

2010-02-11T22:02:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday August 4 I came home.

I took the bus to the Dublin International Airport. The guy at the security counter in Dulin said he had never seen a passport as marked up as mine. I have to admit I'm a bit proud of all the ink on my passport.

I slept pretty well on the plane on the way from Dublin to Chicago. I didn't have time to get philosophical about being on American soil or kiss the ground like the Pope does. I only had an hour and a half to deboard plane, get through Customs and Immigration, go through security, and get to the gate for my connecting flight to Nashville. The Immigration officer asked me where I'd been and I told him I'd been to about 30 countries. He then asked me to name them. So I rattled off a recount of my travels that I had done hundreds of times to fellow travelers. That was the first time it occurred to me that maybe I should have booked a ticket with a longer layover. I had been to places like Colombia, Bolivia, Cambodia, Kosovo, etc., that could possibly seem suspicious. I had a party to get to and really didn't want to miss my connecting flight. After listing off my countries, he asked if I had been to Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Cuba. I told him I had not. He then stamped the last tiny bit of blank real estate left on my passport and I hurried along through security and to my connecting gate. The plane was already starting to board by the time I got there.

I was struck by how it didn't seem like any time had passed. Flying in to the Nashville airport felt like coming back from any domestic work or leisure trip. My mom, sister, niece and nephew were there to greet me. Leaving the airport and traveling on I-40 and I-440 was really weird in that it seemed like my trip, even the most recent parts, were a distant memory. There was new building on the Nashville skyline. The Gulch looked different. But Nashville looked mostly the same as I left it, even if I looked different. I lost about 45 pounds and grew about 6-7 inches of hair while I was gone. I was kind of surprised my niece and nephew recognized me right away.

I went to the Outback for a sort of coming back party. About 20 or so friends showed up. It was so good to see everyone again. Even though I hadn't seen anyone in a year, it seemed like no time had passed and I picked up right where I left off. Huge thanks to everyone who made it out.

I'd like to give a shout out to a few people:

1. My family - for not freaking out too bad about me quitting my job and traveling for a year to a lot of places that are perceived as being dangerous. Or at least not letting me know they were freaked out.

2. Greg "The Beast" Overby - for taking care of my mail and scanning and emailing a bunch of stuff to me. It was a thankless, unrewarding job, but someone had to do it.

3. Heather, Jen, and Jason - for meeting up with me in Costa Rica. A lot of people said they come see me on my trip, but only they were truly game.

4. Everyone who read my blog and posted comments or sent me messages about the goings on back home - I guess it's the modern day version of getting letters from home, and they meant a lot.

5. Everyone I met along the way - far too many people to name. If I hung out for a few weeks, a few days, or even a few hours with you on my trip, I really enjoyed the time we shared. I really wish I had done a better job documenting the people I met and the conversations I had.

Have I changed any as a person since I started the trip? I don't think I've changed to any great extent. I'm in my mid 30's and I think who I am is pretty set at this point. If I had done this trip 10 or 15 years ago I think I might have a different answer. I think that maybe by doing it at a younger age maybe I would have gotten to be who I am earlier maybe? I am happy with the physical change though. I hope I can keep off the weight I've lost. It would be really nice to go as The Dude next Halloween instead of as Walter.

I have a few bits of advice for anyone thinking about doing something like this. People tell me all the time that I'm really lucky to have had this experience. I don't like to think of it as luck so much, but luck probably did play a part to some extent. I tell people, only half-jokingly, that they need to work hard, save money, and don't get married. If I was seriously giving advice, It would be first and foremost you need to be debt free and have a good bit of money saved up. Not to get all Dave Ramsey on everyone, but having money and zero debt is absolutely necessary to do a trip like this. The second thing is that you really have to want it. Quitting a job and traveling a year is not a decision that one can come to rationally. I was quite obsessed with making this trip. I had a globe and a world map in my office at work. I had a atlas above my fireplace at home. When I daydreamed, I daydreamed of traveling and specifically I dreamed of this trip. It made no financial sense whatsoever, but I did it anyway. Third and lastly, anyone doing this kind of trip must be sociable and be able to make new friends easily, but also be comfortable with spending time alone. You will get to a foreign country. You'll be all by you yourself, and it's going to really freak you out. But there are lots of people out there in the same boat as you.

The theory of diminishing returns that I learned in college economics proved to be true on this trip. A year is a long time to travel. Although I've seen a lot, there are still many more places I haven't seen. I haven't been to Japan, China, Russia, Nepal, New Zeland, most of Africa, and much of central America and Mexico. Yet, getting anything else in on this trip would have been wasted. I had had my fill and was ready to come home.

Three questions about the trip I get the most are a) what was my favorite place, b) did I feel safe, and c) how were the hostels.

a) I really enjoyed all the places I went. It's hard to say what I like the best. But if I had to list three places that exceeded my expectations, they would be Colombia, Laos, and Bosnia. None of these countries were high on my radar screen. None had a marquee sight like a Taj Mahal, a Machu Picchu, or an Angkor Wat. But there was something special about these places and I think they will be the hot new places for tourists in the coming years.

b) If you believe what you see on movies, TV, and even the news, you would think the world is this horribly dangerous place, and that is just not the case. If you believe movies like Hostel or Turistas, the moment a foreigner gets off the bus there's a guy in a car looking at him or her through binoculars and talking on a cell phone with his organ harvesting/kidnapping partner. The biggest thing I worried about was petty crime, i.e., my backpack or wallet getting stolen. As readers of this blog will no doubt know, my backpack was stolen twice and my wallet stolen once. I met several people who were robbed, but these robberies were mostly late at night and they didn't lose huge amounts of money. I would have lost a lot less money and valuables if I had been robbed coming home from a bar or club late at night.

Having said that, there was one instance early in the trip in Panama City. It was the day before Thanksgiving and I had just arrived from Bocas del Toro and was flying to Medellin, Colombia the next day. I walked down the street from my hostel to a local market to get lunch and a new pair of flip flops. On my way back, there was a big crowd gathered on the street. As I made my way through the crowd, I noticed bullet holes in the glass of a building. I turned around and saw a body laying on the ground. He had been shot and was laying face down, likely dead. He looked like he might have been a teenager, but I couldn't really tell since he was face down. I actually had my camera with me but thought it would be unwise to start snapping pictures.

c) Are hostles ok? Yeah. If you're not too high maintenance. At one place the showers had translucent dividers between the coed showers. It wasn't very clear. I could tell there was a body in the next stall over, but I couldn't really see much detail. I really couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. I made the comment to some other people at the hostel that Europeans were more comfortable with nudity and that shower set-up would never fly in America. They thought I was kidding. They assumed from watching reality shows that all Americans were quick to get naked in public. But by and large the hostels were clean and a great way to meet fellow travelers of all ages.

There are a lot of small differences in English among Brits, Ozzies, and Americans. A trunk of a car is a boot, a jacket is a jumper, pants are trousers, sneakers are trainers, and cigarettes are fags. It is very common for an Englishman to say, "I'm stepping outside to have a fag." In Australia, root means to have sex. So if you say you root for the home team, Aussies would think you to be a dedicated fan.

I didn't buy any souvenirs to speak of. I had replaced most of my clothes during the trip either because they had worn out or because they had gotten too big. I did have a suit custom tailored in Bangkok. It fit me perfectly in April 2009, but now the pants are a bit too loose and the coat is a bit too snug. But I didn't buy any real souvenirs. I couldn't carry then in my backpack. Shipping stuff home would have been expensive and iffy. Now that I'm back, I kind of wish I had bought a few pieces of artwork. It would be kind of cool if I had bought a painting from that artist in the favela in Rio. I also would have liked some works I saw at this little market in Vietnam. These would have made infinitely better conversation pieces than something I bought at IKEA or Target.

OK. So I've been home since August. It's now February. You may be thinking, "Why has this taken so long and what have I been doing?" The reason it's taken me so long to write the last few posts and the trip wrap-up is because I didn't really know how the story was going to end. The story couldn't end with me being 37 years old, unemployed, and living with my parents. Also, it felt less weird to write posts when I was away and anyone reading them would be thousands of miles away.

When I got home, my intention was to spend a couple of months at home and then get a job and start graduate school. I was accepted into the MHA program at the University of Washington. After three months of looking for a job out there and getting absolutely no responses, I had second thoughts. The plan was to work and go to school. But the prospect of a $7,000 tuition and fees bill with no money coming in was pretty daunting. I went out to the first weekend class meeting, and after talking to fellow students about the local economy, I felt even worse about my prospects of finding a job in the Pacific Northwest. I decided to leave the program in time to get my tuition refund and open my job search nationwide.

Apparently a recession came while I was gone. It has taken a lot longer to find a job than I had imagined. But I've finally found a job at a hospital in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. I start February 15.

I have enjoyed writing about my trip. I hope you have enjoyed as well. My life will be exponentially less interesting going forward, but I plan to keep up a blog and will post as time allows and inspiration hits. The address will be:

http://jaygrahamsworld.blogspot.com/

I hope every one has enjoyed reading my blog. I had a blast writing it.

Jay

Europe Part 3

2009-12-10T22:03:00.025-05:00

On July 8 I took a bus from Skopje (pronounced Skopia), Macedonia to Sofia, Bulgaria. Most of the advice I got from other travelers who had been to Bulgaria was to skip the big cities and get out into the countryside and small towns. That was pretty good advice, although Sofia was not a bad place at all. I really didn't do much in Sofia other than get out for one good day of sightseeing. I was pretty worn out from the previous three days of traveling.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

Some statue of a guy on a horse.

Another cool looking statue.
Some cool looking building.
Sports arena.

Advertisement. I'm not really sure what they are advertising. I can't tell if it is watermelon that is being advertised or if it's some kind of metaphor. It's a bit racy, but fairly representative of European norms.

Many these countries use the Cyrillic alphabet. Bulgaria seemed to have less signage in English than many of the countries I've traveled in. Reading maps is difficult unless the streets are labeled with both English and the local language. An English-only map is useless because the street signs are in Cyrillic. A local language map is useless because it's impossible to pronounce the names of anything written in the local language. When traveling by train or bus, one has to know both. Below are them names of places in Bulgaria (България) that I visited:

Sofia - София
Plovdiv - Пловдив
Veliko Tarnovo - Велико Търново

My train ticket from Sofia to Plovdiv.

I liked the Train station in Sofia. It had an old school communist-era vibe.

On July 10 I took a train to Plovdiv, The City of Seven Hills. Plovdiv dates back 6,000 years and is one of the oldest, continually inhabited cities in the world. Plovdiv was a beautiful city.

It had a Roman Stadium and a Roman Amphitheater, both dating back to the 2nd century.

From what I've read, twenty years ago, commerce in Bulgaria was quite different. In the Communist days, people had money, but nothing to buy. People would line up for hours to buy staples and basic stuff. My experience walking the streets of Plovdiv was that the opposite was true. There were tons of stores lining the streets selling the latest fashions, but they were almost completely empty, with the shopkeepers sitting outside on the front steps smoking and talking with the other shopkeepers. It seems like there are tons of things to buy, but no-one was buying anything.

I would have liked to have spent more time in Plovdiv, it was a really cool town, but there was no one else at the hostel I was staying at. I didn't really see any tourists (at least English-speaking) walking around or in the pubs. I only spent two nights in Plovdiv and then I took a train to Veliko Tarnovo.

The train station in Plovdiv.

It was pretty small.
Pics of sunflower fields taken on the train from Plovdiv to Veliko Tarnovo. The Bulgarian countryside was very nice.

On July 12 I arrived in Veliko Tarnovo. It was a charming town nestled in a steep valley. There was a castle on a hill.

On July 16, I took an overnight train from Veliko Tarnovo to Bucharest, Romania.

Since I would be coming back to Bucharest to fly to Madrid, I didn't want to stay there so I decided to go on to Brasov. It was still pretty early in the morning. Getting cash in Romania proved to be the most difficult of all places I'd been. I heard people say they had trouble getting cash out of ATMs in all of Eastern Europe using cards from western banks due to the level of fraud. But I had no trouble at all until getting to Romania. I finally found an ATM that would work with one of my cards so I took out a bunch of cash, went back to the train station and caught the next train to Brasov, the capital of the Transylvania region.

One good thing about being in Romania was a return to the Roman alphabet. The signs were easier to comprehend. The Romanian language originated from Latin, like Spanish, French, and Italian. This is a bit unusual geographically, with Romania being surrounded by Slavic countries.

I took the 2.5 hour train ride from Bucharest to Brasov. Brasov is another cool town and is the home base for traveling in the Transylvania region. Their motto is, "Brasov, Probably the Best City in the World."

On July 19 I took a castle tour.

Transylvania has only a loose connection to Dracula. The below pic is of Castle Bran, also known as Dracula's Castle. Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, was an Englishman who never visited Romania. He had read about a charming Romanian Prince named Vlad the Impaler, who ruled with an iron fist and savagely brutalized his enemies by impaling them. Impaling involves inserting a long spike into the anus, through the torso, and, out the mouth, and leaving the person to die. Vlad's method of impaling was particularly painful because it was done without piercing the vital organs. If a vital organ was pierced, the victim would go into shock and die quickly. Vlad's method produced a slow, painful death.

Castle Bran was the castle of his brother. There is no evidence or even likelihood that Vlad ever set foot in this castle, but it is the closest thing to a Dracula's Castle for tourists to visit. The Romanian people embrace their Dracula connection, or at least the people who sell Dracula related merchandise do.

Another castle on the tour. Some actors act out what I assume is a traditional Romanian play.

One of the little things that really crack me up about traveling is the way some signs and menus get less than stellar translations to English. This menu at a little restaurant in Brasov is a good example. It covers the cute (Trout in the Frying Pan), to the funny (Fried Crap), to the accurate but not very appetizing literal translation (Salt and Vegetable Dressing). There were tons of examples of this all over the world.

On July 20, I took a train from Brasov to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. I had heard nothing but bad things about Bucharest. I heard it was nasty, dangerous, and there were stray dogs everywhere. If I hadn't heard all these things, I would probably have thought a lot less of Bucharest, but given my low expectations, I didn't think it was all that bad.

I took a tour of the Palace of Parliament. The Palace was built in the 1980's under President Nicolae Ceausescu. A huge swath of the city's historic center was demolished to build this monstrosity of a building. It is the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon.

These steps were built and rebuilt five times to get them to Ceausescu's exacting specifications.

If I'm a little light on details about Bulgaria and Romania it's probably a combination of not really that much out of the ordinary happening and the amount of time that has passed since I was there. One night in Brasov me and about five guys took a girl out for her birthday. I don't remember her name (she was from Los Angeles), or the guys (one was from Australia and two from England), but we had a really good time. She did not know any of us before that day. Brasov had some pretty cool bars and nightclubs. I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday back in February, mostly because I had just gotten in to Australia the day before and slept most of the day because of the jet lag.

On July 22, I flew from Bucharest to Madrid, Spain. Spain was hot. Damn hot.

Spaniards love their ham. It can usually be seen hanging in the stores and restaurants with the hoof attached.

I went to the Bilbao museum one day. I did some other stuff too, but I'm drawing a blank on the details.

Madrid is a lively city. Spain is a late night town. People don't eat dinner until after 10:00. I even saw a lot of old people out after midnight in bars and outdoor restaurants.

One thing I really wanted to do in Spain was go to a Bullfight. In South America I seemed to always be just missing the bullfighting season in whatever country I was in. In Spain, it was a bit of an off-season, but there was still a fight. The Sunday night bullfight in Madrid featured younger bullfighters and only cost 5 Euros (Yes!!!). I was having trouble finding someone to go to the bullfight with me. No one at the hostel wanted to go see a bullfight. It was easier to find a date to go to a prison in Bolivia than to find someone to go to a bullfight in Madrid. Finally I met John from Texas who wanted to go. He was raised in Texas and moved to Scotland when he was fifteen. He had the craziest accent I ever heard.

Bullfighting is a bloody sport and I can can see how it would freak a lot of people out. The bull comes out and spends some time charging the Matador's team members. This is just simple charging with the team members holding pink capes. The matador is the only one who uses red. Then a guy comes out on an armored, blindfolded horse. The bull will charge the horse and the guy on the horse jabs a long spear a few times into the bull's back. The bull looses quite a bit blood and is weakened. Then the picadors come out. The bull charges the picadors and as it passes them, they get out of the way and jab two spears into the bulls neck. This weakens the bull further. After three passes (six spears) the Matador comes out and fights the weakened bull. After the bull charges the matador about a 15-20 times, the matador takes out his sword and sticks it into the bull's neck, killing the bull. The bull's carcass is dragged out of the ring by a horse cart and men come out and scoop dirt to cover the bloody spot. The process is repeated five more times (2 times per matador). It got a bit repetitive after the second fight.

Bullfighting is a judged sport. If the matador does a good job, he gets the bull's ear as a trophy. If he does an outstanding job, he gets both ears. If he does a superb extraordinary job, he gets both ears and the tail. If the matador sticks his sword into the bull properly, it will kill the bull instantly. This is desirable in the scoring. As mentioned earlier, these were young bullfighters. One of them was only 19 years old. He looked like a little kid. None of them got to keep any parts of the bull this night. In fact, one of them took four stabs to finally kill the bull. Blood gushed out the bull's mouth. The crowd was not pleased.

Plaza de Toros.

Although I was pleased with the low price of the ticket, it ended up costing me quite a bit more. Either at the fight or on the subway on the way back, I got pick pocketed. Luckily I had taken out my ATM cards and credit cards, but I lost about 100 Euros and my drivers license. This would be the last time I would be robbed on the trip.

The next day I took a train to Sevilla. Spain has a very fast and efficient (if a bit pricey) train system.

Plaza de España. Some scenes of Star Wars Attack of the Clones were filmed here, but were digitally modified in the movie.

Typical Sevillan street.

The Alacazar.

The Cathedral.

Some miners were holed up in the cathedral on strike. I'm really not sure why they were in the cathedral. They kind of kept to themselves and didn't bother the tourists.

The Plaza de Toros.

Nighttime in Sevilla.

On July 28, I went to see The Boss at La Cartuga Olympic Stadium. I kind of planned my trip around this. I wanted to go to Spain and I wanted to go to Sevilla anyway, so I planned the timing around this show. I went with three Brits I'd met who were spending their holiday following The Boss around Italy and Spain. This had to be one expensive holiday. The general admission ticket was 75 Euros ($108). This is the most I've ever spent on one concert ticket. I don't know if it was worth 75 Euros, but it was a pretty damn good show.

The stadium was not completely sold out, but it was pretty close.

Urinals for men in the back of the floor area. Europeans are quite a bit less modest about urinating in public than Americans.

The show was pretty damn good. This was my first time to see Bruce, so I was pretty pumped. He came to Nashville on August 21, 2008, exactly four days after I started this trip. This show was announced after I bought my ticket and paid for my Spanish school. Putting off the trip to catch this show wasn't really an option.

I think Bruce learned about three or four phrases in Spanish and repeated them over and over again. At the beginning he yelled out "Ola Sevilla!" about ten times. When he introduced the band he yelled "El Hombre Grande!" about five times. The Brits I was with said the set lists were better in Rome and Bilbao, but I was happy.

As true with Spanish culture the show started late, lasted until well after 1:00am, and people all seemed to have a killer time. I wonder where the Spanish get their money (75 Euro concert tickets and 8 Euro beers) and their energy (late night concert on a Tuesday night).

Sevilla was extremely hot. In the afternoons it would regularly get up to about 110 degrees. The siesta is strictly observed. Businesses close down from about 2:00 to about 5:00. Everyone goes home to escape from the heat and to take a nap. Businesses open back up around 5:00 and stay open until about 7:00 or 8:00. Dinner is usually eaten between 10:00 and midnight.

On July 30, I took a took a Ryanair flight from Madrid to Dublin, Ireland, my last country before returning home. Ryanair is one of, if not the largest discount carrier in Europe. Discount airlines in Europe advertise tickets for ridiculously cheap prices. Sometimes as low as a few Euros per ticket. When I booked my ticket, the initial fare for the one-way ticket was 15 Euros. As I clicked through the screens, it seemed like each click cost me more money. 18 Euros for taxes. Five Euros for an online check-in fee. Ten Euros for a checked bag. Five Euros to for a payment fee (I basically had to pay a fee to pay for the ticket). All told, my 15 Euro ticket ended up costing me over 50 Euros.

Ryanair really is the bottom of the barrel for flying. Some people think flying on Southwest is slumming it, but Ryanair takes the cake. The seat pockets have been removed to make more room for more rows of seats. The doors to the overhead bins are plastered with advertisements. There was a soccer team on board and they screamed soccer soccer chants for the whole three hours.

It was almost midnight when I got into Dublin. I handed my passport to the customs agent and he looked it over. By this time, my passport was quite full. I had just enough space for a European Union sized stamp to enter Ireland and a stamp to get back into America. The customs agent told me there wasn't any space left in my passport. I pointed to a spot on a page. He then proceeded to chow me the Irish stamp, which was different from the standard EU sized stamp. It took up almost an entire page, which I didn't have. He flipped through it again and told me that without sufficient space for a stamp, it was not a valid document. I didn't know what to say other than to beg for him to "be cool". He flipped through it one more time and stamped the back flap, which was totally not an authorized visa page, and let me pass. When I got back to the states I sent my passport off to have more pages attached so I could travel again some day.

The next morning I took a walking tour of Dublin.

Trinity College.

Dublin Castle, which was not a castle at all.

Sand sculptures near Dublin Castle.

Some churches - St something or other. There were two big ones in Dublin. Both charged 10 Euros each to go inside. By this point on my trip I had been in enough churches and didn't deem these two to be worth 20 Euros.

This building was formerly a warehouse that was a music venue in the 70's and 80's. It is one of the venues where U2 got their start and built their following.

Pubs, pubs, and more pubs.

No better sight than a settling Guinness.

I was really looking forward to my first pint of Guinness. I've heard that a Guinness in Ireland tastes totally different from a Guinness in the states. I really couldn't tell a difference, but it had been over a year since I'd had a Guinness in the states. I had wanted to spend a good bit of my time in Ireland in drinking myself silly in pubs. But at 4.50 Euros a pint, I would only be able to drink myself mildly amusing.

Ireland is a crazy expensive country. A simple meal like fish and chips or Irish stew would be at least 10 Euros. A nicer dinner would be 25 Euros if you made the early bird special. The money I saved by traveling in Asia was spent in Western Europe.

Bridges over the River Liffey.

Doors of Dublin.

Spire of Dublin.

The Guinness Brewery.

I had four days in Dublin, which was probably a little much for Dublin, but not really enough to get in another location. Dublin is a lot of fun, but it's really not a very attractive city. I wanted to get out and see the Irish countryside. On the advice of a fellow traveler, I decided to go hiking in County Wicklow.

It seemed an easy day trip from Dublin. I took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to the last station Greystones and hiked to Bray, the next to last station. This was a good hike and a great way to see the Irish countryside, even if I did get a little lost along the way.

I hike up a mountain/hill on a marked path. The marked path to the top was pretty straight forward. I wanted to go down a different way. So instead of turning around at the top of the hill, I just kept on walking. I figured if I kept going down the hill, I would eventually end up in Bray. It's not like it is in the US. Ireland is a small country and the chances of walking for a day, or even a few hours without running into a town, were small. I did go through some shady looking paths and climbed a few fences.

Passed several sheep farms.

I passed a farm house, after which a paved road started. A car was outside, and some kids were out playing in the back yard, but I kept on going. I came up on a motorized gate. I couldn't get around it or over it. I had to wait for a car to come by, which thankfully only took about 15 minutes.

The countryside was absolutely gorgeous. Keep in mind that I am not a good photographer and have a very basic digital camera.

It was closing in on the last day of my trip. I was growing weary of traveling, but I wanted to do something on my last day and night. During the day, I took the DART to Howth, a charming little fishing village on the last stop on the other end of the line.

That night I went on a literary pub crawl. Ireland has a great literary tradition (Wilde, Joyce, Shaw, Yeats, etc.) and many of the pubs where they drank themselves to death are still in business. Two Irish actors took a group of about 20 on a tour of five pubs. At each one they acted out works of Ireland's famous authors. It was a very entertaining look at that part of Dublin's history.

On the morning of August 4, I took a bus to the airport. I was going home.

Europe Part 2

2009-11-09T23:40:00.007-05:00

Serbia

The train from Budapest to Belgrade was really old and not nearly as nice as the one from Salzberg to Budapest. It was an overnight train. The 70 Euro additional cost for a sleeper car seemed expensive, so I didn't purchase it. Luckily I had a whole seat meant for four people to myself so I could sleep a bit. I was woken three times up to check my ticket, to stamp the exit from Hungary and the entrance into Serbia.

I got into Belgrade early in the morning. The sun had just come out to illuminate a horribly depressing place. Belgrade is big and much of it consists of old, rectangular, Soviet-era grey buildings. It also seemed slummy (not sure if that's a word). The first slums I'd seen in Europe. It very much reminded me of the scene in the movie Eurotrip when the gang get's their first taste of Eastern Europe.

Knez Mihailova is a pedestrian-only street in the old part of Belgrade. It is lined with fancy shops and restaurants. This is about as good as Belgrade gets.

Belgrade fortress is pretty much the only tourist site in Belgrade.

It was cold and it rained pretty hard most of my three days in Belgrade. Luckily the hostel I stayed at had a large selection of DVDs, so I spent the majority of my time watching movies and drinking Turkish coffee.

One of the highlights of my time spent in Belgrade was eating at the White Horse restaurant. As the name implies, the specialty of the house was horse meat, with steaks and tar tar seeming to be the most popular. It was an old school European restaurant that was decorated with pictures of horses. They didn't even have an English menu. I had the horse steak. I imagined horse meat being very tough, stringy and gamy. Horses look very lean and muscular and are always running around. I couldn't imagine the meat being any good. Boy was I wrong. It was very tender and juicy and was cooked a perfect medium rare. I was very impressed.

There was a lot of construction going on in Belgrade. They are working to rebuild the city from the wars of the 1990's, but there are still plenty of bombed out buildings. If I see a sight like this in America, I assume that it is from neglect and disuse. In Eastern Europe, it is usually happened as a result of a war.

Bosnia & Herzgovina

On June 23 I took a bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Bosnia, like Serbia was once part of the former country of Yugoslavia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia broke apart into the countries of Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. The various factions and ethnic groups basically could not get along and after the iron grip of the Soviet Union dissolved, various treaties and wars led to the map that currently exists today. The war in Bosnia between the Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and the Bosniaks, was particularly bloody and the scars are still very much visible. Serbs and the Croats are predominantly Christian and the Bosniaks were predominantly Muslim, but visually they are indistinguishable.

Bosnia is mountainous country, but lacks dramatic, Alp-like peaks. It reminded me a bit of West Virginia. Sarajevo is a long, narrow city nestled between two mountain ranges.

The bus went on one of the mountain ranges on the way in and I got some great views of the city. The bus then kept going about 30 minutes more and I wondered if I was on the right bus. Sarajevo has two international bus stations. One is in the center of town and the other is about 20 minutes out of town. My bus went to the one out of town. There were no ATMs at the bus station (or much of anything else). Not many people milling about spoke English. I finally found someone who spoke a bit of English and he directed to the place where I could get a bus into town. I had no local currency so I held up a five Euro note and asked the bus driver if he took Euros. He shook his head and got off the bus and talked to a guy standing at the stop. He got back on the bus, took back my 5 Euro note and gave me the equivalent of three Euros change in Bosnian Marks. I knew my hostel was near the city center, but other than that I really had no idea where it was or which stop I needed to get off at. I just had a brochure with a small map. An old man on the bus who spoke no English tried to tell me through a series of motions that he knew where my hostel was. I've been around the block before and I know what he's doing, but I went with him anyway. We walked for several blocks and he takes me to a hotel that is not at all my hotel, but on the way in, I noticed a street sign corresponding with a street on my map. I told him goodbye and he tried to get me to go into the other hotel (that will probably pay him a commission for bringing me in). I told him I have a reservation somewhere else. Some kids were playing soccer in the street and he tried to get them to translate. He was easy to loose being that he was old and couldn't walk very fast. This is the first time someone who didn't speak a lick of English tried to scam me. I finally made it to my hostel at the top of a very steep hill overlooking the city.

I didn't waste any time in Sarajevo. The next day Harris, the hostel owner took a group of us on a trip to Srebencia about two hours from Sarajevo on a very curvy road. Srebencia was the sight of a particularly brutal part of the war. Bosnian Serb forces had surrounded the town, which was a UN protected safe haven for the Bosniaks. People were evacuated from their homes and sent to shelters in nearby factories. The Bosnian Serbs entered Srebencia, ignoring a UN mandate and the Dutch peacekeeping soldiers. The men were sent to the hills and many were slaughtered. This was the bloodiest battle in Europe since World War 2.

I spent most of the next day on a tour of the city of Sarajevo.

A tunnel system was dug to transport supplies and people through the Bosnian Serb controlled areas. The main tunnel went under the city's airport.

Many, many buildings are still completely pockmarked with bullet holes.

It's so hard to imagine how such a long and brutal war could happen in the city that hosted the Winter Olympics less than ten years prior. We toured the stadium and the bobsled track from the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Much of the Bosnian countryside is off limits due to land mines. Clearing land mines is a painstakingly slow process and only a small percentage of the countryside has been cleared.

Old Town Sarajevo.

The spot in downtown where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire was assassinated, which is considered to be the start of World War I.

The Sarajevo Holiday Inn.

Other shots in and around the city.

Although the war ended almost 15 years ago and the fighting has ceased, there is still a great deal of tension in the country between the factions. Cities are divided along ethnicities. On a hill overlooking Mostar sits a large cross built by the Bosnian Croats. To an outsider, it would seem to be no big deal, but to the Bosniaks, who are muslim, it might as well be a huge middle finger. Even beer has been politicized. A bar in Bosnia is either a Bosnian bar or a Bosnian Serb/Croat bar, with each serving brands of beer specific to that ethnic group. If a foreigner goes into a bar and asks for the wrong kind of beer, it will probably slide. But if a local goes into a bar and asks for the wrong brand of beer, well, that would get your ass kicked.

Also, a car bomb went off a few blocks from where I was staying.

On July 26 I left Sarajevo for Mostar, a picturesque town with a bridge. The bridge is famous and dare devils will jump off the bridge (after collecting money from the crowd). The bridge was built in the 16th century and was destroyed during the war in 1993 and was later rebuilt.

On June 17 I went on Bada's tour. Bada was the brother of Majda, the hostel owner. Bada had a van with a disco ball. He was really high energy, like he'd been drinking about five energy drinks (whatever the Bosnian version of Red Bull is). There were about 9 people on the tour, including Tomas from Sweden, Aleksandra from Switzerland, and Simon from Australia, all of whom I met in Sarajevo and traveled to Mostar with. The tour started out with a tour of an old fortified city on a hill.

The next stop was some waterfalls.

At the waterfalls area, there was some kind of biker event going on. This could easily have been in Kentucky.
The next stop was the town of Medugorje. In 1981, six children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in the nearby woods. The apparition has not been officially endorsed by the Catholic Church, but that doesn't stop thousands of Christian pilgrim from visiting the site every year. The town was quite small and considered a backwater, but is pretty built up now from tourism.

A large church in the center of town.

On the church grounds sits a bronze statue of Jesus known as the Weeping Christ. Water trickles from a spot on the side of the knee. Pilgrims buy special tissues to wipe the statue and capture a bit of the water.

The town is quite built up now, with many stores near the church in the main square selling souvenirs to the visiting pilgrims.

The last stop was at a Dervish Monastery. This monastery sits at the foot of a mountain that is the source for the Buna River.

I think there were some other stops, but I can't remember exactly what they were and I dont have any pictures. The tour was great, but it was a little long (about 12 hours) and I had had my fill of Bada by the end of the day.

Croatia

On June 28, I took a bus to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dubrovnik sits between the Adriatic Sea and the mountains and has a very beautiful, well-preserved old town. Dubrovnik is probably the most tourist visited city in the former Yugoslavia and is a popular port of call spot for Cruise ships. It was packed with tourists during the day.

I spent about three days in Dubrovnik. Aside from exploring the old town and walking the city walls, I spent most of my time relaxing at the beach. Dubrovnik was a great spot for that after several days of heavy touring in Bosnia.

Montenegro

On July 1, I took a bus from Dubrovnik to Budva, Montenegro. Montenegro split off from Serbia in 2006. Leaving Serbia a land locked country and the Serbian Navy wondering what they were going to do.

Lots of people ask me how the hostels were. As with hotels, and guest houses, there was quite a bit of variation, but overall they were clean, well-kept, a bit noisy, but very social. They weren't at all scary. The scariest thing I saw in a hostel was coming back to my bed and finding a cat nursing two kittens, like I did in Budva.

We took the kittens downstairs and outside the building. The mother was soon to follow. They changed by bedsheets and all was right. Until the cat brought her kittens back. I'm not sure what it was about my particular bed that the cat found so inviting. After another change of linens, all was right once again.

Budva is like a smaller Dubrovnik. It is on the Adriatic sea, perched between the sea and mountains, and has a well preserved old town. Budva, like Dubrovnik, has a rocky beach. It is kind of a party town, with loads of visiting Italians and Russians taking advantage of the warm climate and (relatively) low prices.

Dinner at the Disney pizzeria in Budva. I don't think it was licensed by the Disney company.

I took a side trip to Kotor, about 30 minutes away by bus. It looked a lot like Budva. It was on the Adriatic sea and had an old town.
I spent July 4th Weekend in Budva. We had a Forth of July cookout at the hostel, despite the fact that I was the only American there. Some things are pretty universal. If you charge four guys with starting a grill, there will be four separate opinions about how to light the fire and how to cook the meat. This is universal and crosses all cultures. Myself, an Australian, a Brit, and a Lebanese took turns trying to get a fire to start and arguing over the best method to do it (being as there was no lighter fluid).

One thing that annoyed me a bit about Budva was people parking cars on the sidewalk. In order to get around, you have to walk out in the street.

Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia - Three depressing countries in three days.

Looking ahead, I had booked a ticket on Easy Jet to fly from Bucharest, Romania to Madrid Spain on July 22. I wanted to see Bulgaria and that was my next destination. I could have taken one bus from Budva all the way to Sofia, but it would have been about 20 hours, and judging by the quality of the buses I taken previously, I wasn't very interested in doing that. I could have taken the train, but the former Yugoslavia is not served well by trains and I would have had to go really far out of the way to get there. So, in the interest of breaking up my trip, I would go to Tirana, Pristina, Macedonia, and then Sofia. I tried to avoid just going to a country for a day just to say I'd been and get a stamp on my passport, but this seemed like a good way to break up the trip. Also, if I got somewhere and wanted to stay longer, I could have (I didn't).

On July 5, I took a bus from Budva to Tirana, the capital city of Albania. Albania is probably the most behind of all the Eastern European countries that I visited. In order to get to Tirana, I had to first take a bus to Ulcinj to catch another bus to Shkodra. From Shkodra, I had to take yet another bus to Tirana. Shkodra didn't have a bus station. The bus from Ulcinj stopped in the middle of town. There wasn't much English spoken in Shokdra, but from the directions I'd received in Budva, mini-buses, or furgons, would be circling the main square and I would ask which one went to Tirana. That is exactly what happened. In the span of about five minutes, numerous furgons pulled up. The side door would slide open and a guy would announce where the bus was going. I was told there were lots of furgons going to Tirana, as it is the largest city in Albania. Sure enough the third furgon that pulled by was going to Tirana. It seemed a bit shady, but it worked.

The window on the bus to Ulcinj. Obviously Michael Sembello has fans all over.

After six hours, two buses, and one furgon, I'd made it to Tirana. At first glance, I didn't see anything in Tirana that would make me want to stay there.

Mother Theresa Square.

Many things in Albania seemed just a little off. There were no McDonald's in Tirana (that I saw), but there were Kolonats. It sort of looked like a McDonald's, and the food was sort of similar to McDonald's, but it wasn't close enough to be an outright ripoff.

Albania was a Communist country until 1992, but it had no ties with the former Soviet Union after 1961. The Blloku district was once home to the Communist party leaders and non-Communists were not allowed in. After the Communists were ousted in the 1992 elections, Albanians were curious to see this neighborhood that had been such a mystery. Many imagined posh mansions. It was actually quite meager living. They must have been really disappointed. The district now hosts many restaurants and nightclubs and is the trendy (for Albania) part of the city.

The Blloku district.

Albania is a poor country. Budding entrepreneurs rent mini-four-wheelers to local kids.

Skanderberg Square

I don't know what programs are offered at UFO University, and I was afraid to ask.

Tirana has more than it's share of Soviet era buildings. They have done a decent job of making them more presentable by painting them in wild pastel colors.

Locals call Albania Shqiperia and call Croatia Hrvatska. I don't know how these English names came about. Usually it's fairly easy to figure out the English names for places. Italy (Italia), Venice (Venezia), and Florence (Firenze) were pretty easy. These were a little confusing.

On July 6 I took the bus from Tirana, Albania to Pristina, Kosovo. The bus left near Skanderberg Square at 6:00pm. There was no bus station, just an area where most of the buses gathered passengers. There were several buses to Tirana and all of them left at 6:00. There was no English spoken and no other tourists except for me. I asked how much the fair was and the guy on the bus pulled out a 10 Euro note and showed it to me. I paid him the 10 Euros. I probably overpaid, but it's hard to haggle with a guy who doesn't speak English.

The bus ride was supposed to take eleven hours, which would have put me in Pristina at 5:00am. Which was fine. I could explore the city and possibly get out that afternoon without having to pay for a room. Well, the bus pulled into Pristina at 12:00 midnight, which seemed like a very inconvenient time for all buses leaving Tirana to arrive. I hate getting into a city late at night with no reservation. I was left in the position of asking a cab driver to recommend a hotel and take me there. I might as well have asked, "Take me to an overpriced hotel in town that pays you a big fat commission". He took me to a place that was actually a room in someone's house. It wasn't too bad and it was only 10 Euros. The owner asked me to give the driver 1 Euro for his commission. It's a racket, but at least they were up front about it. I got up fairly early the next morning and left. I didn't need much time in Pristina.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, but my country does not recognize it as a independent state. They did not stamp my passport when I entered. The process for crossing borders by bus in these countries is that a border guard will get on the bus and collect everyone's passport, take them to the border office, stamp them, and return them to the bus driver, who will then hand them back out. I'm not sure why they didn't stamp my passport. Even though my country's government doesn't recognize Kosovo's independence, I am not forbidden from traveling there. I didn't think too much about it until I left Kosovo and the border guard asked me (I think) where was my stamp. I made stamping motions while shaking my head and saying "To Pristina, No Stamp". They let me leave the quasi-country, which was a relief.

Pristina looks like a lot of cities in Eastern Europe. It had its share of Soviet era buildings and buildings dilapidated by war.

One thing I did find amusing about Pristina was that the two main streets in the city were Mother Theresa Boulevard and Bill Clinton Boulevard. There was a Caesars casino at the intersection of these two streets (which is probably not affiliated with the US Caesars Palace).

I didn't spend too much time in Pristina. There really wasn't much to see. On July 7 I took a bus to Skopje, Macedonia. It was fairly forgettable.

There was an old bridge that crossed the river into the old town.

There was a pedestrian boulevard lined with restaurants and shops.

There was an old church that reminded me of something. I couldn't quite place it.....

Old town.I can't believe Patty Smith, Carlos Santana, and George Benson were this hard up for gigs.

An unusual looking modern church.

It is a small world and just like in Asia, Australia, and other parts of the world, I ran into people I met along the way. Most everyone goes to the same places, so it's not unusual to see people again. When you see someone it's exciting and like seeing a long lost friend, even though you knew this person for only a few days or a few hours. In Skopje, I ran into Josie from Holland who I had met in Sarajevo. In both Budva and Tirana, I ran into Aleksandra from Switzerland, who I hung out with in Sarajevo and Mostar. She probably thought I was stalking her.

I found myself really missing America, and not just my friends, family, favorite restaurants, but also the references. Most people who travel speak English, but they don't usually pick up on all of the cultural references. For example, when I was in Machu Picchu, I saw some llamas and said, "Tina, come get some ham!". If I was with Americans, we would have shared a little laugh. Then there would be about 3-5 minutes of trading lines from Napoleon Dynamite. Germans don't pick up on Napoleon Dynamite references.

I saw two things in Bosnia that made me laugh, but it had to be a quiet laugh by myself. One was this.

The name Blagojevic is synonymous with the disgraced former governor of Illinois and future Celebrity Apprentice contestant Rod Blagojevic. But here it is a pretty common surname.

The other was the man on the 20 Mark note who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ohio congressman and perennial presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

I had less than a month until going home. By now, I was really kind of over the trip. A year is a long time to be away from all the things familiar to me. I had four more countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, and Ireland) to visit before coming home. Any other time I would be as excited as all get-out to visit these places. But I was not very excited. I wasn't hating it, I just didn't really feel anything. I had to keep reminding myself of the great opportunity I was having and remind myself how lucky I was.

On July 8 I took a bus to Sofia, Bulgaria.

Europe, Part 1

2009-08-24T13:08:00.036-04:00

My apologies for taking so long to get my blog updated for Europe. I've been home for a little over a month and, to be honest, I've been pretty worthless. I've been getting caught up on a year' worth of television, spending time with family and friends, and looking for a job (still no word). This is the first of three posts that will cover my time in Europe.

I flew from Tel Aviv, Israel to Munich, Germany. I flew because leaving Israel to the north by land really is impossible. It would involve going through either Lebanon or Syria, neither of which have diplomatic relations with Israel. Neither country would let me enter anyway because of the Israeli stamp on my passport. Neither even country recognizes the state of Israel. I flew to Munich Germany because it was a cheap flight on one of the few discount airlines serving Tel Aviv. I checked on rates to Istanbul, Turkey and Athens, Greece. Those flights were quite expensive (at least $400 one way), even though they were much closer to Tel Aviv. Only two discount airlines fly from Tel Aviv. I could only get to Germany or Riga, Latvia for less than $200. Since I wasn't really sure where in Europe I was going, I chose Munich because it was fairly centrally located and I really wanted to see the Bavarian Alps of Southern Germany.

I got into Munich about 5:00am and took the train from the airport into the city. I couldn't check into my hostel until 3:00. It was still really early. I had breakfast, checked my email, wrote a bit of my blog, and it was still really early. I was about to fall asleep and decided I needed to get out and do something.

I walked around central Munich. Munich is a beautiful city. It was mostly leveled during WW2 and was rebuilt almost exactly the way it was prior to the war. I found a free walking tour by the same company that did the tours in Jerusalem. It wasn't as good as the Jerusalem tour. The tour guides had this sort of weird energy and were kind of annoying.

The Glockenspiel in Marienplatz. Three times a day the bells ring and the statues go around in a circle. There is always a large crowd of people gathered to see this happen, but it is really nothing special and is a pretty big letdown.

Other pics from Marienplatz.

There were tons of biergartens and outdoor cafes with people drinking beer at noon on a weekday. Beer drinking is very ingrained in the German culture and they usually drink it by the liter. German law stipulates that German citizens have the right to drink up to a liter of beer at lunch without suffering repercussions. I can't imagine drinking a liter of beer at lunch and then going back to work.

On June 12 I took a tour to the Bavarian Alps and Neuschwanstein Castle. The German language is kind of funny in that you see a lot of really long and complicated words, but they're really just 3 or 4 words combined together. Neuschwanstein translates to English as New Swan Stone. The scenery on the way to Neuschwanstein was absolutely gorgeous. Everything looked perfect. Not a single house, mountain, street sign, or even a blade of grass seemed out of place. This is real storybook, Grimm Brothers territory.

The first part of the tour was a bicycle ride around Swan Lake.

The trip included time for a swim in Swan Lake. However, it was a bit brisk that day and it was, after all, an Alpine lake, so only two people jumped in. Me being one of them. The water was really, really cold and, needless to say, it was a short swim.

Neuschwanstein Castle is thought to be the inspiration for the castle at Disney World. It was built on a mountain in southern Germany between 1869 and 1886 for King Ludwig II. The king was an interesting figure. He was obsessed with Richard Wagner and much of the castle design was an homage to him. The King died under mysterious circumstances before it was completed and it was opened to tourists just a few months after his death.

Typical Bavarian building in a town near the castle.

On the night of June 13 I went to a few beer halls with some people I'd met at the hostel. I don't remember any of their names. Beer in Germany is, it goes without saying, quite tasty. These beer halls and biergartens are huge and packed. The most famous beer hall is the Hofbrau House. I can't imagine what Munich must be like during Oktoberfest.

The guy in the pic below to my immediate right threw up all over the table. He was American. Young Americans seem to have a hard time holding their alcohol. We get a later start than our European and Australian counterparts.

The people I met traveling in Western Europe tended to be younger, and on shorter trips. This makes sense as first trips to Europe are usually Britain, France, Germany, and Italy and not Serbia, Bosnia, or Romania. They also tended to have this weird energy that I found off putting. I had a few "I'm getting too old for this shit" moments in Germany and Austria. I decided I would spend most of this leg of my trip in Eastern Europe. In addition to the travelers being a bit more mature and laid back, things are quite cheaper than in Western Europe. It always surprises me how much things cost in Western Europe. The prices are marked in Euros and at first glance, look reasonable. But the price has to be multiplied by 1.42 to get the price in US dollars. Also, Eastern Europe is in a transitory period now and I wanted to see it before things changed too drastically. Scotland, France, Scandinavia, etc., will look about the same in 20 years as they do now. My immediate plans were to travel to Salzberg, Austria, and then to Budapest, Hungary.

On June 14 I left Munich and took a two hour train ride to Salzberg, Austria. Salzberg is a small, beautiful, remarkably well-preserved city in the Austrian Alps, famous for being the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for The Sound of Music.

On June 15, I went on a Sound of Music tour that went to most of the filming locations as well as other locations pertinent to the real Von Trapp family. I know a Sound of Music tour doesn't sound like the most manly way to spend a day. It would be easy to say that I only went on the tour because two cute American girls, Stephanie and Jillian, I'd met the night before were going. But I really wanted to go on this tour. Many of the images in my head of Europe come from the Sound of Music. The tour, led by a very funny Scotsman, was very entertaining and included a lot of trivia about the movie, differences between the movie and the real Von Trapp story, and what has happened since the filming.

The Sound of Music is based on the real lives of the Von Trapp Family Singers and for a Disney movie-musical, stays reasonable true to the real story. Maria Augusta was really studying to be a nun and was sent to be a governess to a wealthy local Naval Commander's seven children. The children took a liking to her, they married, and fled Austria prior to the Nazi annexation of Austria. There were a few changes made for the movie for dramatic effect which I will discuss later.

Also on the tour was a family of three from Mumbai, India. It occured to me that if I think Austria is an expensive place, then these people must really think things are expensive. I went from paying about $4-$6 per night for a hotel with private bath in India to paying $30-$35 for a hostel bed in Germany and Austria. A cup of tea in India was about 20 cents. Here I had one for about $3.

The tour started and ended in Mirabell Park in central Salzberg. This is where the Song "Do-Re-Mi" ended. Through the magic of movie making, the song began in a meadow about 40 kilometers outside Salzberg. Maria and the kids learn to sing, ride bicycles, take a horse carriage ride, and make it all the way to Mirabell Park in downtown Salzberg all in the span of about six minutes.

The house where the scenes of the back of the house were shot. It is now a conference center. The actress playing Gretl nearly drowned here when all the children fell out of a boat. No one knew she couldn't swim.

The gazebo where the exterior shots of the "16 Going on 17" were filmed.

All of the interior shots were filmed in a studio in Hollywood. Only external shots were filmed in Austria. The gazebo was built for the movie and was originally located on the grounds of the building in the previous photo. The owners liked the gazebo and decided to keep it there. But there were too many instances of people who were 16 going on 42 sneaking in and night, dancing around, and injuring themselves. The gazebo was eventually moved to a park a few kilometers from the original location and usually remains locked.

The road where Maria, with her guitar and suitcase, skips and sings "I Feel Confident" on her way to the Baron's house.

Mondsee is a town a few miles from Salzberg. The wedding scene was filmed in the Mondsee Cathedral.

An actual collection of skeletons adorns the front of the cathedral.

Some other scenery near Salzberg. It was incredible.

Ok, a few more things and I'll stop talking about the Sound of Music. A few differences between the movie and the real Von Trapps:

1. The Von Trapps had been married for ten years and had three kids of their own before they fled Austria. The Baron considered joining the Third Reich, but decided against it.

2. They did not flee over the montains into Switzerland. They took the train to Italy. In fact, although Switzerland does border Austria, it is nowhere near Salzberg. In reality, crossing the mountain as they did in the movie would have put them in Germany and they would have walked right by Hitler's summer home.

3. The Baron was not the cold, hard disciplinarian, as he was portrayed in the movie. The family always denied this.

4. The childrens' real names were Rupert, Agathe, Maria, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina.

The family moved to London, then to America before eventually settling in Stowe, Vermont. They were nearly penniless when they left Austria due to the failure of an Austrian bank in which he kept most of his money.

After the tour we went to the Hohensalzberg Castle. This is the castle on the hill in the background of the below pic.

Views of the city from the castle.

The Castle.

The hostel I was staying at had a nightly showing of the Sound of Music. I was excited to see it after being on the tour earlier. I had never seen the movie all the way through and had no idea that there was this Nazi subplot. I sat down to watch it with Stephanie and Jillian. We got kind of bored after an hour and decided to go to a pub down the block. I still haven't seen the movie all the way through.

On June 16, I took a train to Budapest, Hungary. It's kind of hard to read in the below pic, but the monitor indicates the speed of the train is 253 km/hour (157 mph). I know there are trains in Japan that go faster, but that's pretty damn fast. It's the fastest I've ever traveled on the ground.

The Salzberg train station. I love all the old train stations in Europe and the fact that they are still being used as train stations.

The Budapest train station.

Budapest is a great city. It has very little of the ugly, grey, rectangular, Soviet era archetecture that (I would later find) dominates the former Soviet controlled countries. It is a good transition from Western Europe to Eastern Europe.

The Danube river separates Buda and Pest, the two main parts of the city. Buda is hilly and Pest is rather flat.

I stayed at Tiger Tim' place, a newer hostel in Budapest. It was one of my favorite hostels on the trip. The staff took everyone out to bars and clubs every night. It was great for the three days I spent there, but I can't imagine working there and doing it all the time. I like going out with locals to local restaurants and bars. It is a much better way to experience a place. As a tourist, I only know what is in the Lonely Planet, which usually runs a few years behind. And when places get a Lonely Planet mention, their quality tends to stagnate or suffer because of the automatic traffic the write-up brings in. Budapest is a great city, by the way, for nightlife. And fairly inexpensive.

Bath's are a big part of Hungary. The Szechenyi bath is one of the biggest and oldest. It has many pools, both indoor and outdoor, heated at different temperatures and is filled with people of all ages (well, ok, mostly older people). The waters are thought to have healing properties. They felt pretty good after a few nights on the town.

Hungarian Parliament building.

St Stephen's Basilica.

Inside St. Stephens is the Basilica of the Holy Right Hand, which contains the mummified right hand of St. Stephen.

Pics of the city from the top of St Stephens.

On June 19, I took an overnight train from Budapest to Belgrade, Serbia.

Coming Home

2009-07-23T11:24:00.002-04:00

I'm coming back on Tuesday, August 4. My flight gets in around 3:30. I plan to make a beeline to the Outback on West end if anyone wants to meet me for a drink. I'm assuming of course that the outback on West End is still there. Someone please email me if it is not.

It's hard to believe I'm coming home in just 12 days. Traveling for a year has been absolutely great and I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything, but I'm really ready to get back. I would equate it to eating 12 pieces of a really good a pie. The first three were really great. The second three were really great. The last few have been good, but it's the 12th piece! It's time to push away from the table. I'm looking forward to seeing my own country, to see how it's changed, to see how I've changed.

I need to update the blog for Europe, but it probably won't happen until I get home. I've been in Europe since June 10, mostly in Eastern Europe. I've been to Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and am currently in Spain. I will be in Spain for a little over a week and then I will go to Dublin, Ireland. From there I will fly home.

I've have been accepted to the Executive Masters in Healthcare Administration program at the University of Washington, which will begin in late September. I'll be looking for a job in that part of the country as well. I'm really looking forward to getting started with the program. But I'm looking forward more to spending some time with friends and family, going to all my favorite restaurants, and getting caught up on a year's worth of TV.

Israel

2009-07-14T09:06:00.004-04:00

Israel has fascinated me for a long time. It's amazing that such a small country that is only 60 years old had been the center of of so much fighting and controversy - a place that flares strong emotions for both sides. The Israeli Declaration of Independence was made in May 14, 1948, an event is known as Al Nakba (The Catastrophe) in the Arab world. I don't pretend to even begin to know how the situation will eventually resolve. If you talk to Israelis it's all the Palestinians fault. If you talk to Palestinians, it's the Israelis fault. Israelis say if the Palestinians put down their weapons and recognize the state of Israel, then there will be peace. Many Palestinians fully expect to return to their old homes in Israel. They also think that is they stop the fighting, then Israel will try to take more land and build more settlements. They think many want to see Israel inhabit and settle all the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River (and truth be told, they probably do).

On June 3 I arrived at the Israeli border crossing. The Israelis don't mess around when it comes to security. At the first station they opened my backpack and went through every single article I had. I felt bad for them because I had been doing some serious hiking the last few days and my socks were pretty funky. They were all pretty young and probably carrying out their military service. All Israeli men and women must serve in the military for three years. The next station was an interview with a cute girl probably also carrying out her military service. She asked me a lot of questions. She asked the standard questions like why I was entering Israel, where I was going, where I was staying, how long I was staying, how I was leaving, did I know anyone in Israel. Many countries state they require proof of onward transport, but this was the only place I've been asked for it. She seemed really interested in my trip. She flipped through my passport and asked me what I did and where I went in Malaysia, Egypt, and Jordan. She asked me what my religion was. I thought, "Woo, slow down baby, that's kind of personal, we just met." The whole process took about 30 minutes. I walked out of the border station and into the land of milk and honey. I then realized I didn't have any New Shekels. I had to go back into the border station, I had to check in with the guard, who had to check with her boss, who then came out and escorted me back in to the exchange counter so I could exchange my Egyptian pounds.

Because I have an Israeli stamp on my passport, I am forbidden from visiting Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen (Kuwait? After all we did for those guys back in 1991?) All these countries consider Israel to be enemy-occupied territory. Even if you can convince an Israeli border guard not to stamp your passport, they will look for other evidence such as an exit stamp from Egypt or Jordan. I don't plan on visiting any of these places any time soon, maybe ever. But if I do, I'll have to get a new passport.

I took a cab to the Eliat bus station to catch a bus to Tel Aviv. The next bus wasn't leaving for another two hours, so I had lunch and walked around a bit. Eliat is a resort town on the Red Sea. Taba (Egypt), Aqaba (Jordan), and Eliat are all very close, I would guess only a few miles, but traveling between the tow would take a very long time due to the border crossings. It was a really hot day and I grew tired of walking around and went back to the bus station to wait on my bus. There were a lot of soldiers at the bus station and on the bus, many with big rifles strapped across their backs. I'd gotten used to seeing police and military personnel with large guns, but in Israel, it's often women. There's something kind of sexy about a girl in an army uniform with big rifle.

It was about a five hour bus ride to Tel Aviv. Southern Israel is a dry, hot, barren desert. I got into the bus station about 10:00pm and took a cab to the hostel. Tel Aviv is a modern city on the Mediterranean reminiscent of Miami. I didn't do too much the next day other than walking around taking some photos and doing some much needed laundry.

I was taken by how normal everything seemed. If you take away the Jewish aspect and it's rocky history, it is basically a European country located smack dab in the middle of the Middle East. It is a very wealthy country with a large middle class. In most Middle Eastern countries it is either difficult or impossible to find a drink. In Israel, that is definitely not a problem.

I met Arielle and Dena, two Americans from New Jersey and we decided to go out that night to see the nightlife in Tel Aviv. We went first to a beach bar - basically lawn chairs on the beach mixed with illuminated orange cones. Then we went to a blues bar. Then to an Irish pub. There are a lot of bars in Tel Aviv. Then we went to a club that was only open to men over 25 and women over 21. I was the youngest guy there by at least ten years. There were a lot of older guys with young women. It was a little creepy. I realize that I'm not too many years away from being the creepy old guy, but this place had a strange vibe. We left and went to a dance club. They played good music. We were dancing and having a good time when I got challenged to a dance-off. I don't know what I was thinking getting sucked into this because the guy was a much better dancer than me. Several people in the club were watching and I heard at least one "Oh no you didn't!".

There weren't many historical or cultural sites in Tel Aviv. I thought about going to the Diaspora Museum the next day, but I went to the beach instead. There would be plenty of that kind of stuff in Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv was a lot of fun. God's chosen people like to have a good time. There were a lot of really beautiful women in Tel Aviv. I'm kind of surprised there aren't more Israeli supermodels. It makes me a little sad though. It's not impossible to date an Israeli girl, but you start with two strikes against you for not speaking Hebrew and for being a Gentile.

On June 6 I went on a tour of Nazareth and the Sea of Gallalee. I was a little surprised that I could get a tour that day with it being the Shabbat. I'd heard that Israel really shuts down from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, but that was really more true in Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv, with Tel Aviv being more secular and Jerusalem being more Orthodox. The first stop of the tour was in Nazareth, the boyhood home of Jesus. Modern Nazareth is a city of about 60,000 people, but back in Jesus's time, it was a small Jewish village of about 500 people, most of whom lived in caves.

For most Christian holy sites, churches are built over them. The name of the church usually relates to the site it covers. Also, most of the churches are at least the third built on the site. Churches are destroyed and rebuilt by Byzantine, Persian, and Crusader invaders.

The first stop was the Basilica of the Annunciation. This Basilica was built over the cave where Mary received word from the Angel Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus.

The next stop was a short walk to the St. Joseph church. It is built over the cave containing the carpenter workshop of Joseph and the home of the Holy Family.

Next we went from Nazareth to Capernaum. The Israeli countryside is really pretty. Orchards, vines, and green fields light, fed by irrigation from the Jordan River light up the hillsides.

Unfortunately, this comes at a price in that the Dead Sea is evaporating at an alarming rate.

We drove by, but didn't stop at the Wedding Church where Jesus performed the water into wine miracle. It is obviously not the actual church, mind you, but one built on the site of the wedding where the wine was needed.

The well where the servants drew the water that was to become wine.

Capernaum was a fishing village on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus lived, taught, and performed most of his miracles. St Peter, as well as other Apostles also lived here.

The Church of the House of Peter.

House of Peter, underneath the church.

Remains of the synagogue where Jesus taught.

Sea of Galilee.

Next was a short drive to Tabgha to the Church of the Multiplication. As it's name suggests, this is the site where Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 people with two fishes and five loaves of bread.

The rock upon which the loaves and fishes were multiplied.

The last stop of the tour before heading back was to the Jordan River. This spot was directly south of the Sea of Galilee (which is dammed). The river is wider at this point and the scenery is much nicer that the site I visited in Jordan. There were signs indicating that the site of Jesus' baptism occurred a few meters from this site. So which is the real site? Well, as with pretty much all biblical places, the actual locations are subject to a certain amount of speculation and guesswork, since the Bible doesn't give exact coordinates. However, from what I've read, most biblical scholars believe the site in Jordan to be the actual site. But if I was filming a movie about the baptism of Jesus, I would probably use this location as it is more scenic.

There were quite a few people getting baptized that day.

That was the end of quite a long day. We headed back to Tel Aviv and then to Jerusalem.

Since it was the Shabbat, some streets were closed down. They take the Shabbat pretty seriously in Jerusalem. In the Old Town, ATM's do not even work from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. I checked into my hostel, which was in a 700 year old building in the Old City. I liked staying in the Old City because that's where all the sights are, but it really shut down after dark, requiring a 15-20 minute walk to central Jerusalem for dinner or a drink.

Jerusalem is old. The current city walls were built around 1500, and are a relatively new addition to the city. It is also a holy city for three of the world's major religions.

I went on a free walking tour of the city that covered most of the major sites. The Via Dolorosa is the route leading from the Lion's Gate into the heart of the city. It is famous for being the route taken by Jesus to carry the cross to his crucifixion and includes markers for the 14 stations, the last five of which are inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built over the sight of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

Below is the altar over the rock of Calvary, the site of Jesus' crucifixion. The process is to get in line to the right of the area. Then you get down on your knees and knee-walk to a spot under the table. There is a gold plate with a hole in it signifying where the cross was mounted. People kiss the hole and lay objects on it they want to have blessed. Having objects blessed was kind of an unfamiliar concept to me. Most people were blessing necklaces and crosses on the gold plate. I had my passport blessed.

The Stone of the Anointing. Where Jesus' body was prepared for burial.

The Rotunda contains a piece of the round stone used to close the tomb and the tomb itself. For the tomb, the process was the same as with the crucifixion spot. You had to get on your knees and walk to a spot underneath a table. There was an loud and curt Orthodox priest making sure the line kept moving.

The gold dome so central to most photographs of Jerusalem is the Dome of the Rock. It is built on a larger area called the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is a holy place for Jews in that it is built over the biblical Mt. Moriah, the location of the foundation stone of the world. It is the place where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice. It is holy for Muslims in that it is the spot where Mohammed ascended into heaven to confer with Allah and the prophets, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. This meeting established, among other things, the Islamic tenet of praying five times a day. This makes Jerusalem the third holiest city in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina. The dome is actually controlled by Muslims as part of a deal. People of all faiths (except Orthodox Jews) can enter the Temple Mount and walk around the grounds, but only Muslims can enter the Dome of the Rock.

The Western Wall of the Temple mount is considered the most holy Jewish Shrine. It was built 2,000 years ago as a retaining wall for the Temple Mount, which contained the Second Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. It is also known as the Wailing Wall because the Jews gather to express sorrow over the temple's destruction. Visitors to the wall must dress conservatively, and there are separate sections for men and women.

Men must cover their heads. Paper kippahs are provided for people without their own. Mine kept blowing off my head.

The tradition is for visitors to write their prayers down on a piece of paper and stuff it into one of the cracks in the wall. Prayers written by famous people, for example the Pope (who had visited the previous month) and President Obama (the previous year), will invariably be retrieved by someone and sold to the media. So if you are famous and visit the wall, you may not want to write anything too personal on your note.

The next day, June, 8, I went to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is located in the West Bank. The West Bank was captured by Israel in the 1967 war and occupies a grey area somewhere between being occupied by Israel and being run by the Palestinians. I got a tip from a Canadian couple that a bus could be taken from the Damascus Gate in Old Town into Bethlehem for about $1.25. So I took the bus, passing the infamous security wall, into Bethlehem. I took a cab with an older Australian couple from the bus stop to Manger Square.

The Church of the Nativity, as the name implies, is built over the cave where Jesus was born. It includes three chapels, one Orthodox, one Catholic, and one Armenian.

The main door to the church is only about four feet high, signifying the humility one must exercise as one walks in.

The Orthodox chapel.

The Catholic Chapel.

The Grotto. The silver star marks the spot where Jesus was born. The process here was the same as at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The main street through Bethlehem. It really wasn't a bad place. You get a different view of the Israel/Palestinian conflict here. The people here are very restricted. Most of them cannot enter Israel and find it easier to get to other countries. They are basically trapped there. They were quick to tell me they were occupied.

That afternoon I took a tour of the Mount of Olives by the same company that gave the free tour the day before. The Mount of Olives is directly east of Old Town Jerusalem.

We took a car to the top of the hill. Starting at the top was an easier tour, since were walking downhill, but it presented the sights in reverse chronological order. We started at the top of the hill at the Chapel of the Ascension, a small chapel built on the site where Jesus ascended into heaven.

Footprint of Christ in the Chapel.

The next stop was the Church of the Pater Noster, where Jesus taught his disciples to pray (The Lord's Prayer).

The interior and exterior walls are filled with translations of the Lord's prayer in every conceivable language.

The large Jewish cemetery covers a large part of the Mount of Olives.

The next stop was the Garden of Gethsemane and the Church of All Nations. The Garden of Gethsemane is the place where Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before his execution and where he was arrested. The Church of All Nations is built over the sight where Jesus wept and sweated blood. The oldest olive trees in the garden are believed to be about 500-600 years old. The olives produced by these trees are for the Pope. Every year the olives are harvested, pressed into oil, and shipped to the Vatican.

The Church of All Nations includes the bedrock where Jesus prayed the night before his arrest.

This was the second day of intense touring. I was knackered.

On June 9, I wrapped up a few loose ends I wanted to see in Jerusalem. I had a flight booked on June 10 from Tel Aviv to Munich at 1:15. I asked the hostel manager about buses to the airport, telling him I had a 1:15 flight. He asked AM or PM. I booked the ticket a month ago and the whole time assumed it was 1:15 PM. I looked it up and it was, in fact 1:15 AM! I had plenty of time to get a bus to the airport, but I'm really glad I checked. So I would be leaving the night of the 9th to catch my flight and would get into Munich in the early morning hours of the 10th.

I found Israelis to be very friendly people. Many really went out to their way to meet and talk to me. They are really appreciative that I was visiting their country. They were understandably very opinionated on Israel issues.

One thing I didn't find in Israel was a Jewish deli. Israeli food is very Mediterranean, with Pitas, hummus, and fresh salads with fresh tomatoes. The food was really, really good, but I really had my heart set on a pastrami on rye with mustard and a Dr. Brown's Creme Soda.

Flying out of Tel Aviv is about what I expected. Passengers are recommended to get to the airport three hours ahead of time. First is an interview. It was similar to the interview I had getting in to the country. It was another lovely lady who seemed really interested in my trip. She looked through my passport and asked what I did in Malaysia, Jordan, and Egypt. I went through baggage security next. They x-rayed my bags and still opened and thoroughly examined the contents. Then I went to the check in counter. Then through emigration, then through gate security. All in all it took a little under one and a half hours to get from the airport entrance to my gate.

I was looking forward to getting to Europe. I was looking forward to eating pork again.

Happy 4th of July

2009-07-04T07:22:00.002-04:00

I wanted to drop a quick note to wish everyone a happy 4th of July.

I'm a bit behind in updating my blog. In the past month, I've been to Israel, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro. I've been a bit busy. But hopefully in the next few days I'll have some quiet time to myself to catch up on the blog.

I'm coming home in exactly one month. I fly home from Dublin, Ireland on August 4. Hard to believe I've only got a month left. But I'm looking forward to coming home.

Egypt

2009-06-23T10:17:00.006-04:00

Third world annoyances at first world prices.

On May 22, I took a ferry from Aqaba, Jordan to Nuweiba, Egypt. I had gotten my visa for Egypt the day before at the Consulate's office in Aqaba. The one hour ferry ride cost $70, which I thought was an exorbitant sum and couldn't believe everyone on the boat had paid that much. It ended up being about 3.5 hours from the time we boarded to the time we got off in Egypt.

I purchased my ticket at the ferry station as well as my exit stamp for Jordan. I took a bus down to the boat and showed my passport to the inspector. He said, "No stamp". I showed him my stamp (the kind you stick on) but he repeated, "No stamp". I think that was the only English he knew. He talked to a group of guys and motioned for me to go with them. They spoke a bit of English and were from Syria. We had to go back to the place I purchased the ticket to get an exit stamp (the kind with ink and a stamper) for Jordan. So we returned to the boat with our exit stamps in place.

The four Syrians were really, really nice guys. They had obtained one year visas to work in Libya, which has more and better paying jobs than Syria. Two were computer technicians and one was a chef. I don't know what the fourth one did. One of the guys didn't speak English as well as the others and they would cut on him and give him grief like guys do. We talked about what American music they liked, most of them were older artists. They loved Lionel Ritchie. They asked me what Americans thought of Syrians. I had to think about that for a second. They said laughingly, "that we're a bunch of terrorists?" I didn't have the heart to tell them that that probably wasn't too far off the mark. Like everyone I encountered in the Middle East, they didn't hate America or the West.

During the ferry ride, two men came around with an ear thermometer. They took the temperature of all western-looking (i.e., white) people on the boat. I hope there aren't any ear to ear transmittable diseases. If there are, I probably have one. Shortly before, the government of Egypt ordered the slaughter of all 300,000 hogs in the country as a precaution against swine flu. I thought 300,000 hogs in a mostly Muslim country sounded like a lot, but about 10% of Egyptians are not Muslim. There weren't any swine flu cases in Egypt, and many people thought it was a bit of a drastic step. I think there might be some prejudice against hogs.

When the boat was approaching the dock on the Egypt side, they went around one by one and asked the foreign passengers (i.e., white) people to go to the front of the boat. The boat stayed docked for what seemed like over an hour. They interviewed all the western people, mainly asking us how we were feeling. We presented the form given to us when they took our temperature. Finally they let us off the boat.

It was pretty little late in the afternoon when we finally got off the boat. It was really hot. Much hotter than in Jordan. I split a taxi to Dahab with an American and two Canadians. I had dinner with Rick, the American. He was living in Jordan and moved over here to study Arabic because he wanted to be a translator. He said he had been spending his time trading stocks online and hadn't been keeping up with his Arabic. He was kind of an odd guy and reminded me of Michael Bolton from the movie Office Space.

People traveling in the middle east tend to be older and on tour buses. It's more unusual and a bit more difficult to travel independently, definitely the path of most resistance. If I had it all to do over again, I would have skipped Egypt on this trip and done an organized trip later in life.

I spent the next three nights in Dahab. Dahab is a resort town on the Red Sea, more specifically the Gulf of Aqaba. Saudi Arabia was visible across the water. Diving is popular here. I went for another introductory dive and have to say that the Red Sea is the best diving out of the three places I've been (the other two being the Cayman Islands and Great Barrier Reef, Australia). It was the clearest, bluest water I've ever seen. However, having said that, now that I've been diving three times and gotten over the novelty of breathing under water, I can't say that I'm dying to do it again or get certified.

On May 25 I left Dahab and took a bus to Cairo. I took a cab from the bus station to my hotel in the Talat Haarb section of the city. Cairo is a large, modern city with few crosswalks. Crossing the street is absolutely mad. I've crossed some pretty crazy streets before, but Cairo takes the cake. It's like playing chicken with the cars. You have to put yourself out there and confidently walk out there. If you wait for a comfortable crossing distance between cars, you'll stand there all day. I found the best way to cross the street is to wait for some locals to go and walk on the opposite side of them from the cars so they act like a human body shield.

Egypt is sort of a democracy. In 1981, the country declared a state of emergency and has been under it ever since. The government has the right to imprison any individuals for any period of time for any reason. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, has been president since the former president Anwar Sedat was assassinated in 1981. Elections have been held over the years, but he was usually the only candidate on the ballot due to restrictions. This is a good example of how giving up liberties for safety is a slippery slope.

Men greet each other with a warm embrace and a double kiss on the cheek. Sacha Baron Cohen always did this as his character Borat. I thought it was just a comedic bit to make westerners squirm. But men in the Middle East really greet each other this way.

Aluminum cans in the Middle East have the old pull tabs that I hadn't seen since the 70's. Pull tabs are all over the place and litter the streets.

On May 26, I visited the Egypt Museum. The museum had the best collection of artifacts, some dating back 4,000 years, I've seen, but the museum is really old and badly in need of updating. The descriptions of the artifacts are either inadequate or non-existent. Cameras were not allowed inside.

The Mummy Room cost an extra $20 to enter. But it was well worth it. The ancient Egyptians really had the whole mummification process down. It's one thing to see statues, carvings, and paintings, of ancient Egyptians, but it's another thing altogether to see King Ramses II in the flesh. I got the below picture from the internet.

King Ramses the second ruled from 1278 to 1213 BC and is the most famous of the ancient Pharaoh kings. He had 200 wives (some of whom were also his daughters) and over 150 children. Incest was common and quite acceptable in ancient Egypt.

With spending so many resources on temples and tombs and so much inbreeding, it's no shock that the ancient Egyptians died out. Very little of the ancient Pharaohs is apparent in today's Egyptians, with centuries of invasions by Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Arabs. However, that doesn't stop them from cashing in on it.

For my first few days in Egypt in Dahab and Cairo, I was really kind of digging it. On May 27 I visited the pyramids. I won't say my opinion of Egypt went downhill from there so much as it went off a cliff. I've never seen more touts, scammers and people wanting backsheesh than at the pyramids. I expect there to be some hassle at a site as famous as this, but it was really off the charts.

I had two goals for the day. See the pyramids and really spend some quality time there, and do it cheaply. Most people spend only one or two hours at the pyramids, which seems like a really short time to spend on the only remaining of the seven wonders. Organized tours were running about $50 plus admission prices. I decided to try my hand at taking the bus. Tourists don't take buses in Cairo because all the writing was in Arabic. I went to the main bus stop and tried to find the right bus using my limited knowledge of Arabic numbers. I was about to give up when I guy saw me and asked me if I was going to the pyramids. He said he was going there as well and he'd show me what to do. I smelled tout on this guy, but I had absolutely no idea what I was doing so I went along. He had a good story. He was living and working in Dubai as a manager of a Pizza Hut and was here visiting home on a holiday. His wife was Hungarian and he had an early morning training session in downtown Cairo and was returning home to Giza from that. He would point out things along the way, like the Nile River, Cairo University (where President Obama was to speak in a few days), and the only Pizza Hut in Giza. It was about a 40 minute bus ride and at about 30 minutes he mentioned a government run place where I could buy a tour that would include all entrance fees. I knew it. He was being entirely too nice to be helpful. So we got to the bus stop in Giza by the pyramids and he took me to this place. It just didn't have the look and feel of a government run tourist place. I then sat though the hard sales pitch. I said no thanks several times and that I wanted to see the pyramids on my own. He said you can't See the pyramids on your own. It's too far to walk. I finally got up and left. The guy on the bus with me tried to give me the hard sell again. I asked him why he was doing it and he said he was just trying to help me out. I thanked him for his help (he was really helpful and I was pretty clueless about which bus to take) and went to see the pyramids.

It was no better once inside. There were tons of people selling postcards, trinkets, miniature pyramids, etc. I despised how they come up to you and, after asking the first time, start walking along beside me invading my space asking me to buy their crap seven or eight times.

One of the scams is someone in the park asking to see your ticket. You show them your ticket and they say "follow me". They take you a few feet to where you can get a good picture. They will keep this going for as long as they can. They will then ask for backsheesh. Anything you give them they will say it's an insult and ask for exactly twice as much. You can give them $100 and they'll ask for $200. If you don't give them backsheesh they will follow you around and pester you until you do. I got roped into this one time before I realized what was going on. The guy really didn't even do anything. He asked for backsheesh and I told him he didn't do anything. He kept following me around and finally I went up to a uniformed tourist policeman and told him to get the guy off me. After telling the guy to get lost, he then asked me for backsheesh for getting the guy to leave. Oh yeah. The police are in on the whole backsheesh bit too. Anyone in Egypt who is being nice or helpful to you only wants to sell you something or wants backsheesh. You can't ask someone for directions. If you do, they will say follow me and take you there. Then they'll want backsheesh. You really have to be on top of your game to avoid this. I would be at a sight and some guy would point me to a place to take a photo that I was going to anyway. Then he would want money.

So the first lesson was to never show the ticket once on the inside of the park. After the first time I would simply say I showed my ticket at the gate already. Then they would ask if I wanted a camel ride or a horse ride. Also when getting a picture taken they will rush in right as the picture is being taken and then they would want backsheesh for posing in the picture. It was so sleazy there I couldn't stand it. That scene in The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman sitting on a hill looking at the pyramids in silence could never happen. In reality, they would have been surrounded by touts selling postcards, crappy souvenirs, or camel rides. President Obama was in Cairo a few days after I left and I saw on TV that he toured the pyramids. I'm guessing he probably didn't have to deal with the touts. In fact, I bet they shut down the whole park that morning.

I paid about $25 to go inside the the two largest pyramids. Going inside the pyramids is a complete waste of time and money. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing to see inside the pyramids. There is a low tunnel that leads to a chamber. That's it! There were no carvings on the walls, no statues....nothing. It took maybe about ten minutes tops at each pyramid.

Looking back, I think I would have preferred to have seen the pyramids for an hour on a guided tour.

That night, I went to a bar with two Canadians and a Costa Rican to see the Manchester United - Barcelona football match. This was apparently the biggest game of the year and was for the world championship. The Costa Rican was the only one who really cared about the game, the rest of us just didn't really have anything better to do. Alcohol is legal in Egypt but not really part of the culture. A night out usually means men going to a cafe to drink tea and smoke sheesha. We walked around for a while and finally decided to try the Cairo Hilton. Luckily for us, there was an English pub there with a big screen TV. Unluckily for us, it was really expensive. I had a $20 shepherd's pie and two $6.50 pints of Stella beer (not to be confused with Stella Artois). Barcelona won and I still don't care about soccer. Soccer, hot tea, and the metric system are three things the rest of the world is crazy about but never really caught on in America.

On May 28, I went to visit the Islamic Quarter and Coptic Cairo. The Islamic quarter consisted of a bunch of narrow, jumbled streets, mosques, and markets.

I thought this was useful as a reference for identifying Arabic numbers.

I walked around a bit and then took the subway to Coptic Cairo. The Cairo subway system is pretty good. Some of the cars are for women only. I unintentionally got on one of the women-only subway cars. I was looking at the map, thinking about where I needed to get off when a lady came up to me and told me that it was a women-only car and I was forbidden from riding on it. She was nice, but direct. I jumped off right before the doors closed and waited for the next car to come along.

Coptic Cairo is the city's Christian quarter. In ancient times, the Holy Family spent a few years here in hiding from King Herod.

The tourist cop in the below picture was trying to scam me for backsheesh because he pointed me in the direction of one of the churches I was looking for and told me the closing time.

On the evening of May 28, I took an overnight train to Aswan. I had gone to the train station earlier that day to buy a ticket. The sleeper train was $60 for a shared sleeping compartment. The lady at the station wrote this amount down on a piece of paper and also wrote down "tip". "Whatever you like," she said. I asked why she wanted a tip. It wasn't like she was a delivery person delivering the tickets to my hotel room. I came down to the station to buy the ticket. She responded, "Whatever you like." I thought about it. Well, maybe there's some way to screw me if I don't giver her a tip. So I gave her $1. I was getting fed up with this. I was tired of being viewed as a walking ATM. I guess I didn't mind the hassle so much in India because everything was so cheap. But in Egypt things were expensive.

Cairo train station.

I boarded the train and got settled in. There was no other person in my compartment. The waiter (I guess for lack of a better term) came in and said if I wanted the compartment for myself he could arrange it. I said that wouldn't be necessary. I paid for a ticket for a double and I fully expected another person. There were not enough people on the train to require another person and he was trying to scam me for some backsheesh. He came back in a few minutes later and said that he didn't mind arranging for a private compartment and if not, he might have to put an Egyptian in with me. That statement disgusted me on several levels. After the train took off he came back and said he had taken care of securing me the private compartment. I said thanks.

I got into Aswan in the morning of May 29. I thought I could walk to the hotel from the train station. After walking around about 15 minutes I accepted a ride on horse drawn carriage for 5 pounds (about $1). I didn't even haggle with him. I was probably fairly close to the hotel, but was really lost. It seemed like a good deal and I took it without even haggling. When we got to the hotel, I paid the guy five pounds. looked at it and said, "No, five English pounds". I said not just no, but hell no. He then said ok and asked me for backsheesh for the horse. I said no and went to my hotel. At this point, I came to the realization that I really didn't want to be here.

Markets in Aswan.

The guy at the hotel asked me if I wanted to book a trip to Abu Simbel. It left a 3:15 the next morning. That was a little bit earlier than I was wanting to get up, but it was something I wanted to see. Abu Simbel is about 3 hours from Aswan, near the Sudanese border. Leaving at that hour would put me there at sunrise. Then there would be about three more stops to some temples and a dam and I'd be back around 3:00pm.

On May 30 I got up at 3:00 am and left for Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel has been totally relocated to avoid floodwaters caused by a dam on the Nile. The statues are real, but the mountain is constructed of blocks and mortar.

The next stop was the Philea temple. The tour van dropped us off. We bought tickets. We had to take a boat to the island. Of course that involved haggling. It hurts your bargaining position since they knew we'd already paid to get in, but an Egyptian girl from London did the bargaining and got us the boat ride for about $1 each.

When we got back to Aswan, we took a feluca (sailboat) ride on the Nile.

On May 31, I took a van tour from Aswan to Luxor, stopping at the Kom Obo & Edfu Temples on the way. Egypt is all desert except for the areas around the Nile. The Nile valley is very fertile farmland, unlike any of the rest of the country, which is the driest, most barren desert you can imagine.

Kom Obo Temple.

Edfu Temple.

I was really kind of tired of temples at this point. They all started to look the same and I was growing more and more tired of dealing with touts.

I got into Luxor fairly early in the afternoon. I checked into the Bob Marley Hotel, which is exactly what you would picture, with posters all over the walls and a chilled out staff. It seemed a bit out of place in Egypt. Signs on the door indicated it was a no hassle zone. I bought a train ticket and arranged a tour of the tombs of the West Bank for the next day. I walked to the Karnak temple and Luxor temple that evening. They were the most spectacular of the temples I saw. I definitely saved the best for last.

Karkak Temple.

Luxor Temple.

On June 1 I took a tour of the tombs of the Valley of the Kings in the West Bank. No photos posted as camera were not permitted inside the tombs. But the paint on the images was remarkably intact and the colors were brilliant.

The Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple.

I noticed the below eye symbol all over Egypt. It looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It is the Eye of Horus an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection. Finally it hit me....

It was from the cover of 1982 album Eye In The Sky by the Alan Parsons Project.

The evening of June 1 I took an overnight train back to Cairo. I got into Cairo on the morning of the 2nd. I would have stayed another night or two in Luxor, but President Obama was giving a speech in Cairo on June 4 and I wanted to get out of town before the big "O" rolled into town. On normal days security in Egypt is pretty tight. I went through more police checkpoints than I could count. I can't imagine what it would be like with the current US president in town. I went to the bus station and caught a bus to Mt. Sinai. At the bus station, I met Jeff, a paleontologist from Michigan, who was also going to Mt. Sinai. He had been working in Egypt on a grant and spoke a bit of Arabic. We got into Mt. Sinai about 10:00pm and went to the base near St. Katherine's Monastery. We wanted to hike up the mountain but they told us we needed a guide. It was a full moon outside and the path was well-marked. I wondered if this was another scam. The tourist policeman at the office said we did, indeed need a guide and it would cost $15. This still seemed like a scam, but he wasn't letting us go up without one. The guide showed up in about 10 minutes and took us up the mountain. We got up there about 2:00am. It was about a two hour hike and was pretty steep. I was spent. We rented some blankets from a local shopkeeper at the top and slept on top of the mountain.

Mt. Sinai is the place where Moses climbed and received the two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments from God. We woke up about 5:30 to see the sunrise. I did not see two stone tablets, but I did see hoards of German and French tourists. Most people climb the mountain early in the morning while it is not too hot and to see the sunrise. That was a good idea as the views were incredible.

St. Katherine's Monestary is at the foot of the mountain and was built on the site of the burning bush.

On June 3 I came down from the mountain and took a taxi to Nuweiba. There was no bus service from St. Katherines to the east, despite what the Lonely Planet guidebook said. I then took a bus from Nuweiba to Taba and then walked to the Israeli border.

I was looking forward to Israel and Europe. I was getting a little weary of the hassles of traveling in Egypt, and maybe the third world in general.

Jordan

2009-06-11T13:17:00.015-04:00

On May 14, I flew from Delhi to Amman, Jordan via Kuwait City. Of Cairo, Tel Aviv and Amman, Amman was the cheapest place to fly to from Delhi. Of all the carriers to Amman, Kuwait Airways was cheaper than the others by about $50. So I thought, why spend $50 more for the same ride? Kuwait is the third richest country in the world in per-capita income. How bad could their national airline be? I would later come to regret that decision. I purchased a ticket on their website. I've had problems with my Capital One Visa credit card authorizing plane and train tickets purchased online. I've been denied a total of five times, each time involving at least two phone calls to Capital One. One of those times was for a $10 train ticket purchased on the India Rail website. I've explained to those morons no less than eight times that I'm traveling and airline and train tickets should be expected, so I thought that finally it would be over. I was actually a bit surprised when the transaction went through. I got a confirmation email and all was right with the world, until the next day.

I got an email from Capital One stating that there had been suspicious activity on my account and I needed to call them. I also got an email from Kuwait Airways saying my reservation had been canceled due to "suspected activity on the account" I called them and, sure enough, they thought my airline ticket was a suspicious activity. I asked to speak with a manager. I asked her, "How many ^*$^#W@ times do I have to tell you I'm traveling and will be buying airline tickets online? Will you look at my transaction history? How many charges were denied for suspected fraud? How many went through after calling? All of them right? Do you people just like hearing my voice?". I was talking loudly because I was using Skype and the connection wasn't the best. Everyone in the internet cafe was looking at me. She said the charge was not denied and it was simply a verification service to alert me of potential fraud. The airline website didn't have a customer service number, so I called the local Delhi office. They told me the charge did not go though, which is not what my credit card company told me. It was coming up on two days before my scheduled flight. They said they would check with headquarters and try to resolve for me. My goal was to fly to Amman, Jordan on May 14 and only be charged once for it. It didn't seem like too much to ask for. They told me that to fly on that route, I would need to come to their office on Cannaught Place in Delhi and to pay for the ticket. I had a hotel near the airport and was looking forward to sleeping after that crappy 12 hour bus ride back from Dharamsala. So I took a rickshaw into Cannaught Place ($3). Went to the Kuwait Airways office on the fourth floor of a non-descript building and paid cash for a ticket that cost $7 more than the ticket I'd booked online (they said that booking through the internet was cheaper). What kind of payment acceptance operation is this? I then took a rickshaw back to my hotel ($3). Having gone through that, Capital One owes me $13 and a day of my life back. I'm still waiting. I could have booked a ticket online on antother website, but I really couldn't chance having another charge denied by Capital One since I was flying out the next day.

I cannot wait until I get home and cut up this stupid Capital One Visa card. In fact, I don't think cutting it up will do justice. I need something bigger. In an action movie, the villain cannot die simply from a random gunshot. He has to die some spectacular, horrible death with explosions. I need to think of some spectacular way to destroy this credit card when I get back. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I went to the airport and boarded my 6:00am Kuwait Airlines flight. The in flight magazine gave a history of Kuwait Airways and noted that in 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the company and all it's aircraft fleet were stolen or destroyed. In 1991, they relaunched with an all new, modern fleet. It appeared that little had changed since 1991. The plane, and everything about it seemed old. When the in flight safety instruction video got to the part about portable electronic devices, it showed crossed out pictures of an old Sony Walkman cassette player, an early 90's Gameboy, and a really ancient looking laptop computer. The seat in front of me had a very small, fuzzy screen for in flight entertainment. They passed out headphones, but that was pretty much a worthless exercise since the audio wasn't working on the entire plane. I probably shouldn't complain, it was really no worse than flying Delta, but after flying Ethiad from Brisbane to Singapore, with the personal entertainment center with over 100 movies, young and attractive flight attendants, great food, and a wide variety of free booze, it was really a let down. It was how I imagine flying was 50 years ago (except for the personal entertainment center). Kuwait Airways had crappy food, mostly male flight attendants, an entertainment center that would have been impressive 15 years ago had it had sound, and no booze at all (alcohol is illegal in Kuwait). Looking back, I would have gladly spent the extra $50 to fly Ethiad through Abu Dahbi or Gulf Air through Bahrain. I couldn't have possibly envisioned the hassle and disappointment this flight would bring when I booked the ticket.

I had an eight hour layover at the Kuwait airport. The airport was really nice but small and with few shops and restaurants. No smoking signs were flagrantly disregarded. There was a cloudy haze as the airplane was approaching. I thought I would be able to see one of the average two days of rain Kuwait gets annually. I boarded my connecting flight to Amman. I guess the airport is pretty far out of the city, because all I could see out the window was the desert and a massive sandstorm.

Jordan is a country of over 6 million, 65% of which are Palestinian. Jordan has taken in a lot of Palestinian and later, Iraqi refugees. It has a very western friendly King (Abdullah II) who is the head of state, but there is an elected parliament. His wife, Queen Rainia wears western clothes, champions many causes such as education and womens' rights in the middle east, and is absolutely stunning. The Jordanians love their royal family and their pictures are literally everywhere. It has pretty good relations with Israel. Alcohol is legal (although not really part of the culture). Although it has its problems, Jordan seems to be a model of what a modern, moderate middle-eastern country can be. I don't think that gets enough attention in the press.

I got into Amman that evening and took a bus from the airport into town, then a taxi to my hotel. Amman was a good base for day trips and I spent a couple of days there. The first couple of days I spent walking around Amman getting oriented.

The Roman Amphitheater.

Al-Husseiny Mosque.

The Citadel.

The National Archeological Museum includes parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The hotel arranged day tours and I took two. They weren't tours so much as they were an arranged driver. On May 17, I took a day trip with four Italians to sights in northern Jordan. The first stop was to the Roman ruins of Umm Qais.

The second stop was Ajloun Castle. Ajloun was built high on a hill between 1184-1188 by the Arabs as protection against the crusaders. It had some fantastic views over the countryside.

The third stop was Jerash. Jerash is probably the second most popular attraction in Jordan next to Petra. It has an outstanding collection of Roman ruins - much better than the one's I've seen in Rome.

On May 18, I took a trip to Madaba, Mt Nebo, Bethany Beyond the Jordan, and the Dead sea with two old French ladies. Old people share a lot of similarities regardless of where they are from. They are a bit clueless and verbalize it. If they can't find something, they will say, "I can't find this, where is it?" to no one in particular. They were very sweet, however, and I had a great time with them that day.

They had both either been to or were going to Syria. Most people I met traveling in Jordan were going there. It was not somewhere I had originally thought of going, but it sounded like an interesting place to visit and a lot of people go there. I did a little research. Syria requires a visa before going and the consulate in Amman does not issue visas to foreigners. So I'll add that to the list for a future trip - maybe when I'm as old as the French ladies.

The first stop was St George's Church in the city of Madaba. St. George's was built in the 19th century, but has a floor with a mosaic map of the holy land that dates back to 560 AD. The map was a remnant of an old Byzantine church long since destroyed.

The second stop was Mt. Nebo. Mt. Nebo is the place where Moses climbed, looked out over the promised land, and subsequently died at age 120. On a clear day you can see Jerusalem. It was a bit hazy that day and I, unfortunately, could not see the promised land.

Bethany Beyond the Jordan is the site of the baptism of Jesus. Over the years several churches had been built near the sight, all of which which were destroyed by flooding, earthquakes, and/or invaders. These ruins were not excavated until 1994 after Jordan signed the peace treaty with Israel. Jesus was actually baptized in a spring feeding into the Jordan, not the actual river itself. After 2000 years of climate change and 50 years of diversion of the Jordan for irrigation, the river is a sad little stream that could easily be walked across if not for the Israeli soldiers with big guns on the other side. The actual sight of the baptism is no longer under water, but a hole has been dug and filled with water from the spring. You can be baptized in this very sight if you have the forethought to bring along your own priest or minister and don't mind getting in green, stagnant water.

The Jordan River (what's left of it) near the sight.

The Baptism sight.

Ruins of churches built near the sight.

Modern Greek Orthodox church built near the sight. Most Christian churches in the Middle East are Greek Orthodox.

The fourth and final stop of the day was the Dead Sea. The Jordan River runs from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. It does not empty into an ocean, so the salt and mineral content are incredible high and one can float quite well. It was a strange experience and one I'd been looking forward to for a long time. Out of curiosity I touched my finger to my tongue to see what it tasted like. I expected something close to the taste of ocean water. But it was so strong and powerful I can't really describe it. It burned my tongue. The Dead Sea is actually evaporating at what is quite an alarming rate.

I posed for the obligatory picture.

As I was posing for the camera, one small drop of water rolled from the top of my head into my eye and burned like crazy. Much worse than my tongue.

On May 19, I took a public bus to Wadi Musa, home of the famous Petra ruins. Petra is probably most famous for being a filming location for the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

My guidebook recommended devoting two days to Petra. I went the first afternoon and then the next day. If pressed for time, I could have probably gotten most in most of it in one full day.

Petra was built in the 3rd century BC by the Nabataeans. From the park entrance it is about a 1.5 kilometer walk through a ravine that comes out at the Treasury.

On the second day, I hiked up to the monastery. It was a long climb but well worth the effort.

Climbing around the monastery is forbidden, but after 5:00, apparently no one cares. A guide took a few of us up to the top. It was a strange feeling being on top.

It was even stranger when the guide took off running from the rim and climbed up on top of the center ball.

The Treasury and the Monastery were the two best preserved carvings. There were many other sights that were a bit more worn by time and the elements.

The desert landscape views were incredible.

After the second day, I stopped at the Cave Bar outside the park entrance for an incredibly expensive beer. I couldn't resist a beer in a bar that was 2,000 years old (the cave structure, not the actual bar).

On May 21, I left Wadi Musa by bus to Aqaba. Aqaba is a resort town on the Red Sea. I was going to spend a few days here, but decided to leave after a day as there was not really much going on and I'd heard Dahab in Egypt was a better Red Sea location.

On May 22, I took a ferry from Aqaba, Jordan to Nuweiba, Egypt.