Tubing !

With all the calm countryside and temple exploration over the last few weeks, it is time for some old school, carefree partying; so I must stop in Vang Vieng, Laos, home of the river tubing bar crawl. The first time I saw the river I immediately thought of the crazy spring break locations. But this place parties like this all year-round. There are a dozen or so bars that line both sides of a river for about a kilometer. There are dance floor decks, rope swings, zip-lines, water slides, mud volleyball pits scattered among them all. You drink at one bar, then jump on a raft, of just straight into the river (usually after flipping off of a rope) to the next; then repeat until after dark. Then you go back to the town, get into dry clothes, and hit the bars there. It was a long four days.
I should mention that I met a great group of Swedish guys (and one girl) that were some of the most carefree partiers I have ever met. I hung out with them through many buckets of ‘Vodka, sprite and redbull’ during my time in Vang Vieng.
I did take one afternoon and do a nice cave exploration and kayaking trip down the river. But of course we had to stop off for a few beers when we kayaked through the bar section of the river.
And good thing nothing ever runs on time in this part of the world. I woke up my last morning, after a late night of partying, at 9:50 am and was still able to throw my stuff in my backpack, jump on the back of a scooter and make it to the bus station to catch the 10 am bus out; because it didn’t actually leave until 10:20.

The Value of a Dollar

After the astounding boat ride to Battambang we were met with the usual flood of taxi and tuk tuk drivers nearly crawling over each other to beg to give you a ride. It seemed that most of the traveling passengers were in the same boat as me (well, they were all in the same boat as me, but you know what I mean) in that they did not arrange lodging before they arrived. So I joined several in a hotel shuttle van that offered the ride for free into town just so you would look at their rooms and consider staying. The hotel did not have a room I liked, so I decided to look elsewhere. As I begin to the leave the hotel to walk and find alternatives, I am offered a ride on the back of a motorbike (scooter) by a young Cambodian man. Hence my chance encounter with Dollar Sam (and yes, that is his real name). I am very skeptical as, again, the last several months have driven me to be. He assures me it is for free; so I assume his motive is to take me to a specific hotel that he will get some credit for bringing me to. But he doesn’t. He genuinely takes me to a few different hotels as I tell him what my criteria are. Once I find a hotel he does tell me, in as sincere a way as possible when you are asking for work, that he would appreciate if I would use him as my guide and driver the next day for going to explore the temples. He seems to know his stuff, and has been quite helpful, so I agree.
There is something about Dollar that is likeable. He isn’t the smooth talking salesman, per say, but his innocent way of trying to be persistent works. But it is not until I begin to understand his story that I feel the gravitational pull he has on me. When he picks me up on his motorbike the next morning at 8 am, I find that his workday has already been underway for hours. He asks if I mind if we stop at his house quickly to drop off medicine for his mother; he hasn’t had time yet because he is coming straight from his earlier job. Starting at 4 am he goes to unload rice at the local market for several hours. This doesn’t pay him money, but it does provide a supply of rice that is enough for two meals a day for his family; which I find out is 10 people (him, his mother, 3 younger sisters, two younger brothers, an aunt and her two kids) he almost single-handedly has to support. I meet his mother and two of his sisters when I visit his home. It is a small wooden structure with two open rooms (maybe 6 ft X 7 ft) about four feet off of the ground with two more platforms below with no walls. The females are constantly grinning from ear-to-ear for the few minutes I am there. Although the younger sister runs off shyly when I try to say hello. His mother is an older, slightly decaying lady with no noticeable teeth, who I get the impression what quite the flirt in her day. She provides several flattering compliments, translated through Dollar, about my handsome looks and enjoyable smile. I think I may need to bring her back home with me to give me a boost every-once-in-awhile.
As the tour unfolds across the countryside, I continue to be more and more captivated by this guy and his family. His father died two years ago from cancer. Now the block of town where his neighbor sits is going to be destroyed next year by the city government to build more hotels; but the city is not going to do much to help the current families relocate. Possibly to hardest tug on my heartstrings is while we are visiting the ‘killing cave’ used by the Khmer Rouge during the genocide of their civil war in the 1970s. He told me the horrific story passed on from his mother about the atrocities his family endured during this time. His grandmother, grandfather and aunt were murdered during the initial invasion of Battambang. His parents were forced to work 18+ hour days in the fields, with nearly no food to sustain their energy. His parents had two children at the time. His older sister was just an infant and died of malnutrition because his mother was also so malnourished she was incapable of breastfeeding. His older brother, who was about four, was murdered one day by soldiers by being swung against a tree. As we sit on top of the hill, near the killing cave, Dollar is nearly in tears explaining his mother’s portrayal of the time; and I am nearly in tears listening to it. Finally, he tells me several times how angry he is about the civil war, because if they had not killed his older siblings, then they would be around today and could help him take care of his family.
Now I am having a hard time not thinking about Dollar. How I know the struggles in his life, but yet he nearly always had a smile on his face. How he was welcomed so adoringly by the shop owners and workers along our tour route that knew him; I could almost hear them saying as we left, “that Dollar, what a sweet young man”. And how he reminded me several times during the day how grateful he was that I gave him this job for the day. Yet he never even tried to finagle a few more dollars out of me, which is really unusual for the area. Although, I did buy his lunch; again, without an ounce of expectation from him that I would or should.
I really need to figure out how to stay in touch with Dollar, and find a way to help him and his family. They are the type of people I dreamt of meeting on this trip.

What a Headstone

As I have been traveling, the most consistent theme I have seen among all cultures is that the leaders (kings, emperors, etc.) love to create grand structures for their legacies. Castles, pyramids, cathedrals, temples, mausoleums all seem to be commissioned by leaders on scales that are much more for acknowledging their power than for practical need. What I find ironic is that most of these were not completed within the lifetime of the requestor; and many were purely to commemorate their death. In Xi’An there is another great example of this in the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was/is an entire field of life-size pottery statues of ancient warriors, horses, weapons and equipment that would make up an army. They are situated around the burial place of the First Emporer of Qin to represent that he was so important he needed an army to protect him, even after death.
While I think the ego involved in why the site was created is rather funny, I do have to say it is one of the most enjoyable historic ruin sites I have visited. I commend how they have opened the excavation of the site to tourists, while not compromising the authenticity of the site itself. It was quite marvelous to see statues in their original environment. And observing the stages of the continued archeological excavation was very interesting.

The Real Stair Master

If you google ‘scariest hikes’ there are two places that repeated come up; El Caminito del Rey and Mount Hua Shan (or huashan). And if you are going to do one, you might as well do them both. So I ventured south from Beijing to Xi’An. There I met back up with a couple of Dutch guys I had met in Beijing (Patrick and Martin, who camped on the Great Wall with me) as well as an Aussie (Joel). We also picked up a new friend in the hostel (Andrew, from England). The five of us set out to hike up Mt Huashan, spend the night, do the circuit of all 5 of its peaks, traverse the planks and carved foot hold of its most famous ‘scary’ cliffside, then hike back down. There is a cable car that most tourists take up to the first peak, but that did not seem like much fun. The notorious ‘Soldiers Path’ sounded like more of a challenge. Now we had read that there were a lot of steps on this path, and that it was difficult. What we encountered was much more than I expected. There were steps the entire way up and down the mountain. We literally climbed several thousand steps over the two day period. Some of them were actually vertical ladders carved into a rock face. Obviously these soldiers did not believe in going around anything. They just created a path straight up the mountain.
The physical effort to do this climb was more than any one day of climbing on Mt Kilimanjaro. It is two days later, and my legs are still aching with every step. To add to the enjoyment, when we got to the ‘scary’ part the second day, it had to be done in the middle of an all day rain storm. So the rock and planks were even more dangerous and my hands were cold slippery. Although, I may have to give the upper hand to El Caminito for getting my heart pumping.
But it was well worth the effort. The natural scenery was magnificent. And there were old temples scattered throughout the hilltops. The first day was pretty clear so you could see across the mountain range. While the second day was completely cloudy and raining, it still provided for some great views of misty silhouettes and peaks breaking though the clouds. I can see why Mt. Hua Shan is one of China’s sacred mountains.

I'm still out here

I have obviously had a hard time keeping up on my blog since I have not posted in two months. There are several contributing factors for this that are apparent to me, and probably many others that are not. Initially, the most significant was the result of continued difficulties around travel logistics. Not only does it takes up a lot of what would be free time to do things like blog and organize pictures, but it also monopolizes (or drains) much of my mental and emotional energy. My inherent way of dealing with stress and frustration is to vent that out (…quit smirking, I know everyone already knows this about me). But I do not want my blog to become my default way to vent if I am having a difficult day. It will be no fun for you to read, or for me to look back on and reminisce, if it takes on a negative tone. Plus, isn’t that what everyone uses Facebook for? :-)
Then once I got far behind on capturing my thoughts about the places and activities it snowballed and became very hard to catch up. I have been doing better lately of at least capturing some comments in an offline form, and I will try to do better at posting them. Then I will work on filling in some of the gaps for the last two months.

China

My original plan (for as much as I had any type of real planning for this trip at all) for after leaving Beijing was to head down the eastern coast of China to Shanghai or fly directly to Hong Kong. But after to talking with fellow travelers and learning more about what China had to offer, I decided to hop my way directly south through central China. Each city looked on the map to be smaller and smaller, none with notable names, so I thought I would be getting a little off the beaten path into some rural areas. However, with 1.7 billion people in China, even what seems like a small city on the map has now grown into a highly populated metropolis with constant construction of high-rise housing.
My first stop was the city of Xi’An. Here I climbed Mt Huashan and saw the Terra Cotta Warrior (I talk about both in other blog entries). Also in Xi’An I met several really cool people that I made plans to meet up with in other parts of China and southeast Asia.
From Xi’An I hopped a 12-hour train further south to Chongqing. The city was again very big, although I found lodging in a small corner of the city called Ciqikou, that remained a quaint, albeit crowded, fishing village along the river. There I relaxed for a day and waited for a new friend, Andrew from England, to join up with me. We only stayed in Chongqing for another day until we embarked on our piece-meal adventure down the Yangtze River to explore the Three Gorges area. Yangtze is the 3rd longest river in the world. There are many organized tours to go down the river on mini-cruiseships and stop at several temples and other tourist sites along the way. But we wanted to have more freedom and stop at only a few spots, but at our own pace. So we took a bus from Chongqing to Wanzhou, then boarded a locals boat down river to Wushan; where we stayed the night. The next day we took a smaller boat to check out the Smaller Three Gorges (on the Daning River). All the gorges were quite scenic, although not as amazing as I was hoping. We were going to do some hiking in this area as well, but found that the likelihood of manageable paths was extremely unlikely.
From Wushan we took a faster hydrofoil to Yichang. Yichang is where they just finished the largest power-producing dam, which has huge benefit, but has also drastically changed the landscape of the river gorges forever. The dam was cool to see for a minute because of its significance, but was rather boring visually.
There was not much to see in Yichang beside just another city, so we decided to head straight out. Since we didn’t get to hike around Wushan, we decided our next stop would be Zhangjiajie, which is home to a magnificent National Forest, of the same name. The Zhangjiajie NF has magnificent limestone karsts towering out of the earth all over the place. They are such an unimaginable sight that it was used as the backdrop for much of the Avatar film. They digitally removed the bottom half of the karsts to create the floating jungle islands. For natural beauty, it is up there with the Cliffs of Moher for my favorite. Unfortunately, as with most things in China, they have stripped some of the natural wonder of the area by making it far too touristy by littering the area with concrete pathways, buildings and vendor stands. I have found the Chinese do not understand the concept of hiking in nature. Andrew and I were constantly fighting our way around thousands of Chinese tourists in their everyday work clothes and dress shoes strolling along with no regard for any other people they may be impeding. But other than that, and the fact that we nearly missed our bus out of town because of the terrible maps of the park that were provided, Zhangjiajie NF a wonderful day trip.
Luckily we did not miss our bus and were on our way to Yangshou that evening. It was a nice escape after a few weeks of constant Chinese culture. The area is a popular tourist stop, and therefore is very westernized. It was possible to find actual breakfast food, burgers and pizza; not to mention the constant beer-pong games being played at Jungle Jane’s Rooftop Bar. But my real reason for the visit was to get some much needed rock climbing in. And there is definitely some nice climbing there. Not to mention meeting some really cool climbers.
After a few days of R&R in Yangshou it was time to say goodbye to China and see why Hong Kong is so adamant to be separate from China.

The Great Wall Experience

One of the main reasons tourists flock to Beijing is to visit the Great Wall of China. I am no different, as my first stop in China is also Beijing. Obviously the city is rich in history and culture, providing me many additional memories as well. I visited the Forbidden City, Tian’Anmen Square, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace; all of which were quite amazing. I also ate some interesting cuisine from the street market and night market, like whole little birds, sheep kidneys, squid and eel. But all of these are fairly common experiences for Beijing tourists. My Great Wall trip, however, was not.
I couple of fellow travelers had heard about a specialized Great Wall tour, that I decided to join in on. It allowed us to camp out over night in one of the towers of a desolate section of the Wall. While most people snap afternoon pictures of a restored section, with thousands of other people filling their photos, we took sunset and sunrise pictures with no one else around for miles. Plus, our guide/chaperone had no interest in being there with us (even though I think he was supposed to stay), so he left and we had complete run of the Wall to go and do whatever we wanted. It was undeniable that I must take advantage of this situation to do what any self-respecting climber would do….scale up the Great Wall of China…from the Mongolian side, of course.
The sunset, although not the most extravagant in colors, was brilliant to see over the rolling hills of stone covered peaks. Then we hung out in the tower for the rest of the night; drinking a few beers and some other traditional Chinese liquor, talking, listening to music, and even a little live guitar playing. The sunrise the next morning was slightly disappointing because of heavy fog, but it didn’t damper the experience. We still spent the morning hiking a closed section of the Wall that had been intertwined, and sometimes completely overgrown, by the surrounding nature.
The simplest was to say it is that this experience was absolutely Great.

Oktoberfest

Unfortunately I had less than a month of time to spend in Africa, so I didn’t get to go to many of the places that I would like to visit. Oh well, guess I will have to plan another trip there some day. But I needed to leave Egypt and backtrack into Europe again. The 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest was something that could not be missed.
Even though several of my previous new travel friends were also going to visit this festival, I was not able to line up timing with any of them, since it covers a three week period. So I just had to make some new friends.
The festival was pretty much what I expected. The festival grounds were enormous, with streets lined with vendor stands and carnival rides. The ‘beer tents’ were actually giant banquet hall type buildings that were packed to capacity all day with joyous people drinking, eating, singing and dancing on top of the benches and tables. All whilst the entire city was speckled with lads in lederhosen and busty women in dirndls.
I met a couple the first day from Russia, who I shared many beers and a couple of tours with over the next few days. I also met what I can only assume is one of the few true German Rock-abilly girls. Not to mention two really funny guys from Colorado, and not surprisingly, countless Australians at this beer fest.
What I was surprised about was how interesting and beautiful Munich is as a city. I forced myself to get up early one morning and take a walking tour of the city. The history and culture were fascinating. I also took two day trips outside the city. One was to Neuschwanstein Castle. It, and the surrounding mountains, are breathtaking. I can see why Walt Disney used it as the basis for the Sleeping Beauty Castle design. Then I traveled to the medieval town of Rothenburg. It was the quintessential Bavarian charm you would think of Hansel and Gretel living in. It would probably be a boring town to grow up in; but boy could you just loose yourself there for a couple of months. To sum it up, I had a great time in Bavaria.

Egypt

The week and a half in Egypt was just what the doctor ordered. I was lucky enough to have met Mona’s aunts from Cairo when they were visiting the US last summer. The collective Barrada family was immensely gracious for my entire Egypt stay. Mona’s aunt Mona (I know, it is hard when they have the same name) invited me to stay with them at their place outside Alexandria for the beginning of my stay. A cousin, Nevine, who is a local tour guide made sure I saw all the great sites in Alexandria, and organized my itineraries for Luxor to see the tombs and temples, and Sharm El Sheikh for an adventurous scuba diving weekend on the Red Sea. Uncle Rafik took me two afternoons to play some tennis with his friends, at an absolutely amazing villa. And I didn’t even embarrass myself too bad. At least not until I missed a shot while running toward the net and ended up falling over it backward, and ultimately breaking the rusted support post. That ended tennis for the day. Another cousin, Hussein, met me one evening in Cairo to show me around some historic and cultural neighborhoods. This was quite a nice change from the crowded, dirty parts of downtown Cairo that I had been seeing. And, obviously you can’t be in Cairo (or Egypt for that matter) and not go see the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, which were astounding.
It was great to be around people that made me feel so comfortable. After two and a half months of travel so far, I greatly enjoyed this comfort break. Which is odd to say it was a comfort break, because most of the time I was running on an extremely tight schedule to get everything in. So it says tons about my Egyptian friends if I still considered the time to be comforting.

Maasai Mara

You can’t go to Africa and not do a safari. With the help of my new friends that were so gracious to host me while I was in Nairobi (and a side thank you to John at Healthpartners for getting me in contact with his family there), I was able to organize a three day safari in the Maasai Mara. The wildebeest were migrating, the lions were mating (in the middle of the road), and the elephants, giraffes, gazelles, buffalo and hippos were plentiful. I joined a couple from the UK and two guys from South America. Along with our driver, who had a very unique sense of humor, we all had a great time together over the three days. In addition to the animals, we also visited a Maasai village (which is the local tribe). Outside of them relentlessly trying to sell us souvenirs, it was very interesting to experience how they live, learn some of their rituals and go inside of their huts.

Standing Atop Africa

I have conquered Mount Kilimanjaro….well maybe not conquered, but I made it to the top and survived. I came away feeling the affects of the struggle; while the mountain, I am sure, was completely oblivious to the battles I forged upon her peaks and valleys. So I don’t think you can conquer a mountain, merely meet the challenges she presents to you.
Going into this adventure I was not sure what to expect; or even what I wanted to feel once it was accomplished. I wanted to climb Kilimanjaro because I wanted to challenge myself and feel a sense of accomplishment. Yet, I never truly felt like reaching the top would be something that was a great physical accomplishment, since most people that start the trek are able to finish. I have a few friends, and know of many friends-of-friends that have reached the Kili peak. I guess I associated it more with the accomplishment of deciding it was something I wanted to do, and then actually following through with doing it. So once I actually got to the mountain base, I thought the biggest hurdle was over. Now it was just a matter of some long hiking days, with some sore legs. But I was wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, the hiking was difficult. I am not sure if it was more or less technical than I expected, because I really did not think about it too much. But the mental and other physiological impacts were greater than I anticipated. I suffered from severe physiological effects each of the six day trek. I cannot say if they were all caused by the altitude, or, more than likely, a combination of outside factors and some unfortunate timing of common ailments, accentuated by poor acclimation. Regardless, the unexpected complications started the first night. Because of delays all day long, we got to camp very late in the day; causing me to eat a very heavy meal right before going to bed. That first night I did not sleep hardly at all. My body was in overdrive; my heart beating so fast and so hard I could hear and feel it in my ears and throughout my body. Over the next days I battled against neck and back cramps, severe headaches, lack of appetite and dehydration. I found myself wanting to do nothing but lie in my tent every chance I had. Mustering up the ambition to get out of bed each morning was a challenge. Plus, being so isolated made me feel like I was missing out on a social aspect with the other climbers that would make the experience more enjoyable. Although I soon found out that wasn’t the case because none of the climbers really socialized. They retreated to their tents right after dinner every night as well.
Getting the headaches under control by the third day helped a lot. And I was able to eat a little more. Which was good because I found out that doing the climb in 6 days instead of 7 did not mean a little extra hiking each of the 6 days. Instead, it meant the 4th and 5th days of the longer schedule were just combined into one really grueling day. Start hiking at 8:00 am for 4 hours, then stop for lunch at the next camp. But when everyone else stays there for the day, the shorter schedule hikes again for 4 hours after lunch to arrive at the pre-summit camp around 4:30 pm. You try to grab some sleep, eat dinner and re-organize your pack. Then at midnight you are off again for the 6 hour hike to the summit (where you are supposed to only stay for about 15 minutes, but I will explain that next), then a 2 hour decent back to the camp. You can try to get about 2 hours of sleep there before you set off yet again for the 4-5 hours down to the last camp for the last night. Overall, days 4 and 5 is a painstaking chain of 18 hours hiking over a 30 hour period.
Now for the supposed to part. Everyone is affected by oxygen deprivation in a different way. I know from my training in the Air Force that my first signs are with my vision. I start to go slightly color-blind. What I didn’t know is that it also makes me act like I am very drunk. So after we had been above 19,000 feet for awhile, I began to get very happy and very talkative. I wanted to make friends with every other climber on the mountain. And the more I spent time talking to people, the slower I hiked…and the longer I was at the high altitude…and the drunker I got…until we had been above 19,000 for close to 2 hours. Who needs alcohol on their birthday when you can just get an altitude high!
But then the reality of that affect on my brain was apparent as I was completely non-functional for the rest of the day. There were times when I actually needed help walking because my legs would not work properly. Although I got to be drunk without the worry of an actual hangover, the residual affects were just as bad.
But boy did I have a great time while I was standing on top of Africa !!

Tomato Soup not for the Soul

The great thing about being in Europe over the summer is the abundance of festivals you can enjoy. The next key festival on my agenda was La Tomatina (the tomato festival). It is considered the world’s largest food fight, with truckloads of tomatoes being distributed along a narrow enclosed street in the center Bunol, Spain. It is also along the typical Australia festival circuit, so I ran into a few of my Aussie friends I had met earlier in the trip.
The festival was definitely an experience. It was an early start, to get to a supersaturated street (of mostly young travelers), and then waiting in the scorching heat for the fight to begin. Luckily the other tradition of the festival is the locals standing on their balconies tossing buckets of water or spraying hoses on the sweaty, awaiting patrons below. Once the tomatoes arrived, I found that location was the key, and mine was not great. We were not close enough to the truck route to get the surplus of tomatoes. Our little square did mostly watching and threw around the straw mushy remains that made it out of the main battle zone. Trying to move closer to the action was nearly impossible as you were shoulder-to-shoulder in this sardine can town center. But when it was over I was rather glad I was not covered in the tomato soup for the trip back to Valencia. I am sure there were people that could not get the smell off for days. But at least their hair was strong and clean.

The King should spend on infrastructure

El Chorro was the rock climbers heaven that had been promised. Literally hundreds of routes scattered on multiple crags throughout the gorge and surrounding area. The only downfall was that it was so hot that the amount of climbing had to be limited.
But the primary purpose for going was the El Caminito del Rey (King's Pathway) hike. It was fantastic. It is officially off-limits, so the authorities removed the walkway from the beginning section. So you have to traverse along the cliffside right off the bat. And the anxiety continues down the whole walkway. Although it was interesting that the walk back was much faster and less cautious, as the body becomes accustomed to the tightrope act and gaping holes in the pathway.
To add to the enjoyment, the lodge was run by a nice british family, there were fun other guests, great company, a relaxing pool, and a day spent at the lake. It was exactly what I was hoping for.

The tides have changed

While my time in Rovinj, Croatia was fantastic, trying to move on to the next location started a series of travel woes that nearly took the wind out of my sails. My plan was to continue west into Bosnia, where there was a town across the border with a river that had amazing white-water rafting. It was Friday morning when I packed up to catch the bus out of Rovinj. But when I got to the bus station, it was a mess. The line to the single window was all around the sidewalk. The lady in the window was one of the worst I have ever seen. So people were standing in the non-moving line for 30-45 minutes and watching the buses they wanted to take leave half full because no one could get tickets. I finally gave up and decided this might be a good time to experience a true piece of backpacking through Europe…..hitch-hiking. It was only an hour ride to the next main town where I needed to catch a bus transfer to get out of Croatia. The area was full of vacationers, so it shouldn’t be too hard to catch a ride, right. Wrong. I walked and thumbed for nearly five hours beside the busy road out of town with absolutely no luck. Finally, after enduring a small rain pour and starting to wonder where I could pitch my tent in this countryside, I young lady stopped and gave me a ride. She was also amazed that I had been disregarded for so long.
Once at the next bus station, things did not turn around. I spent the whole night trying to figure out how to get where I wanted to go, only to be given many different answers, which continually turned out to be incorrect. By mid-Sat morning, I was so disgusted and exhausted I decided to just head back to Spain a few days early. So I changed all my attention and tried to head west. It was awhile until the next bus to Venice, so I sat in the bus station for more time. Got to Venice just in time to miss the afternoon flight to Barcelona, so sat in the airport for six hours until the nighttime flight. So I left Rovinj on Friday morning and didn’t get to an actual destination until Sunday morning.
My travels continued to be agonizing for nearly two weeks after that, but I will not go into all of the details.

Chance or Fate ??

Since you are reading this post, then I obviously made it somewhere safe at the end of my adventurous bus trip. But it turns out the bus ride was only the beginning of this story.
I am not sure if I believe in the concept of fate, or the philosophy that life is a collection of random acts. But I don't think it really matters. Either things happen merely by chance, or each roadbump is an elaborate scheme to place you where you are supposed to be at the right time. Either way I look at it, I have been unbelievably lucky each step of this trip, regardless of whether I realize it at the time or not.
The bus trip finally ended when we got to a stop in Croatia at 11pm (not 7 pm, when we were scheduled to arrive in Pula, Croatia). The bus driver and assistant were absolutely of no help. They only spoke in Italian, and were very unwilling to take the time to talk with anyone that was not Italian. We had made stops at several small bus stops along the way, and one time I almost got off because they impatiently shouted back 'Bola', which sounds just like 'Pula' when said in such a heavy accent. But since it looked like the middle of nowhere, and only 3 people got off, I decided to ride it out. Finally when we got to the main bus stop, everyone got up to get off; so I followed the crowd.
Immediately off the bus I walked up to three young ladies that also had backpacks. You always have better luck with other such travelers. They were from Holland and spoke english. They said they were staying at a campsite just a short cab ride away; I was all for that. We shared a cab and I had no problems getting a site. And it was cheap, only about $10 per day. But it wasn't until the next morning that I found out it was just across the street from the Mediterranean coast. But it got even better. Upon my first walk down their rocky beaches, I found a scuba diving center just a few hundred meters from the campsite. They had availability, and I will have completed all 4 of my required Open Water Dives by tomorrow. Even more, there are some nice rock climbing cliffs at the end of the peninsula, places for sea kayak and bike rentals, I saw a sign for sky diving, the Old Town is traditional and beautiful, the food is great, and there is tons of street music and activities during the evenings. And to top it all off; it is by far the cheapest place I have been in Europe.
Needless to say, I am loving my choice to come to Croatia. The fateful joke of it is....I am not in the city I thought I was or planned to be. It took me over a day to finally realize I did not get off the bus in Pula, where my ticket was purchased for. I got off a stop early in Rovinja. Just goes to show, sometimes you get to the best things in life by accident(or fate).

No coasting on the coasts

After several days of enjoying the relaxing pace of my Florence schedule, I thought it would be only fitting to try to squeeze several cities and activities into as small a window as possible. I got up early Friday morning to catch an 8:30 train out of Florence. I was going to spend the day in Cinque Terre, but figured I could stop in Pisa on the way. An hour train ride to Pisa, 15 minute walk through the city, 30 minutes taking pictures of some tower that just doesn’t seem to be standing up straight, then back to the train station to continue on.
By noon I was arriving in the Cinque Terre region. It is a stretch of 5 little fishing villages that cling to the cliffs on the northwest coast of Italy (just south of Genova). All I have to say is…this is one of the ‘must visit’ places if you are ever in Italy or eastern France. The pictures just don’t capture its wonder. I hiked the several kilometer trail that connects all five towns. However, I read on wikitravel that it was a pretty easy hiking trail. They lied. I consider myself in pretty good shape (let’s hope so if I am going to make it up Kilimanjaro), and there were a few long ascents that made my legs burn and my heart race. But it was well worth it. The views are breath-taking, even before the strenuous climb, and the towns are uniquely amazing. There are little shops, restaurants, B&Bs, swimming and sunbathing spots, and plenty of gelaterias to make you smile all day long. And they call the nature trail the Romance Walk (but I would only say that between the first 3 towns). Overall, it is definitely someplace I will go back to and enjoy for multiple days with someone special (hopefully :-D ). For this, I deem Cinque Terre the ‘Top Naturally Beautiful Community’ (as Edinburgh is the ‘Top Architecturally Beautiful City’ and the Cliffs of Moher is the ‘Top Natural Marvel’, but there isn’t much else there to do).
And on a side note, I finally found a spot to get in my first DWS (Deep Water Solo) climb. It was more like glorified bouldering, as it was only 10-12 meters high, but I enjoyed it all the same. The danger of falling wasn’t too great though, since I jumped off into the ocean after I topped out. Although the biggest challenge was timing the difficult riding of the waves in to actually get on the wall. . That was an adventure in-and-of-itself. The high waves liked to throw you against the rock, then wash you back off when you try to grab on. And bare-foot climbing semi-jagged rock added to the fun; as well making the last hour of the hike more interesting with a few small cuts on the bottom of my feet.

But I digress back to the topic of the jam packed schedule. After 7 hours of hiking, climbing and swimming, I was back on a train. This time to take an over night train across to the other coast of Italy, to Venice. However, it turned into an all night adventure. After booking the train, I realized it was not one long overnight train where I could sleep the whole way. No, it was three different trains that gave me just a few small 1-2 hours blocks to sleep. To make things even more interesting, I slept through one of my stops (since signs and communication on the trains in Italy is non-exsistent). So it was an entire night of travel nightmares and very little sleep. But I arrived in Venice on Saturday morning just the same, and only an hour later than planned. I only spent half a day in Venice, as several travelers that just came from there said would be sufficient.
Venice is one of those places that I originally had high hopes for due to the Hollywood portrayal, but then dropped my expectations drastically after other feedback and my experience in some other Italian cities. But I ended up enjoying my time there. The canal streets and thin walking streets are quite captivating. Although the only negative I have to say is that the local so-called information service providers are the most useless and unaccommodating as any place I have been so far. In two train stations, three bus information booths, one water taxi stand, and one actual bus attendant everyone seemed bothered to answer your questions and most of them had no idea or gave incorrect information. But oh well.
So to end my 48-hour city hop, I jumped on a bus headed toward the small city of Pula, Croatia. It was scheduled to get in at 7 pm on Saturday night. As fate has been messing with my schedule the entire trip, we have been sitting in a traffic jam just outside of Venice for the last 4 hours. Who knows where I will actually end up, or when. But the positive side is, it has given me a large block of time to catch up on transferring pictures to my computer and writing this blog. Now I just have to get online sometime to load it all to the web.

Under the Tuscan Sun

Many times Hollywood glamorizes something in a way that is impossible to live up to the expectations people create for it. That is unless we could walk around with Hi-Def special effects glasses on, with a soft-spoken narrator and small orchestra in tow. But when I decided to take a day trip to explore the Chianti wine region south of Florence, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it lived up to the allure. It took only a cheap, 1 hour bus ride to Greve in Chianti, and 20 Euro to rent a scooter for the day, and I was wisping my way under the Tuscan sun, with my hair blowing in the wind. Well, maybe not exactly, since it was only a 50 cc scooter, it was mandatory to wear a helmet, and my hair is still pretty short. (It was the damn narrator in my ear telling me to write these things). Nonetheless, it was everything I had hoped it would be. Vineyards lining the roads as far as you could see, beautiful plush-green rolling hills, and those quaint little cobblestone houses really do exist. I stopped at two wineries for tastings, visited a medieval town, and went back with a bottle of wine for dinner.

The Florentines still rule

There is a reason I had several people tell me I had to visit Florence if I was going to spend time in Italy; because it is a fabulous city. After visiting several other major cities in Italy, I could appreciate what each of them had to offer, but I just wasn’t thrilled by any of them. It felt like there was a lot of other negative vibes you had to try to overcome while absorbing the relaxation of vacation. Then I got to Florence and the negative vibes went away. The city was cleaner, the people were more pleasant, and the transportation was quick to figure out.
My last day in Rome didn’t go as expected, so I decided last minute to leave in the morning instead of the late afternoon. This meant that once again I headed into a new city on the train with absolutely no plan or accommodations once I got there. I keep telling myself I need to quite doing that…but it works out better as often as it leaves me frantic, so maybe I will keep playing the odds. But this time when I got off the train, walked into the street, and began to stare aimlessly in each direction trying to figure out where to start, I had several people come up to me and try to assist the obviously oblivious foreign backpacker. One of these people was a girl from Turkey/Canada (yeah, I was confused at first too). She pointed me in the direction of a hostel she had checked into a few hours before; and even gave me pointers on booking it online first to get a very reduced rate. After just a short period of time searching for an internet café and figuring out the busing layout, I was checked-in with plenty of time for a shower (with consistent hot water and good pressure, oh yeah!) before the in-house prepared dinner in the court yard. The place was great. I met several other cool people around the dinner table the couple of nights I ate there.
The low prices, free internet access (albeit a sporadic wifi signal), comforting feel of the city, and easy access to other travelers made it a quick decision to stay there for several days. In that time there was plenty to do. It had plenty of history and magnificent architecture. I visited the Uffizi Art Museum, which is one of the best in the world. And several of us from the hostel went to Piazza Michelangelo for a picnic dinner, with local Chianti wine, and watched the beautiful sunset over the city.
Plus, Florence is a great central location to take day trips in nearly every direction. I may have to put Florence atop the list for the best ‘all-around’ city I have visited so far. Although, it was not more structurally amazing than Edinburgh. So maybe I will just need to create ‘The Tops’ lists for different categories. Hey, it’s my blog, I can do whatever I want.

Italian interactions

I have found it very interesting to watch how Italians interact with one another. I am again reassured that stereotypes usually have a pretty solid base in reality, regardless of whether or not you agree with the acceptability of stereotyping.
I have seen countless Italians get very worked up and become very emphatic in their dialogue. They talk loud and quickly, wave their hands around and are very passionate about what they are saying. It is sort of like being in an entire country of Thompson's at a family reunion :-)

And still defending champion....

For pure beauty of a city, Edinburgh, Scotland is still leading. I just finished visiting Rome. It is without a doubt rich in history and fascinating sights, but they are in pockets throughout the city, with normal big city life intermixed. So I would still put Edinburgh as the leader, in my humble opinion.
While in Rome I did all the normal tourist sites; Coliseum, Roman Forum, Vatican City (Basilica, St Peter’s), Trevi Fountain, etc. They were all as to be expected…beautiful and historic. In these tourist areas you don’t get a real sense of the people of the city. I have found so far that in the major cities that are very touristy, when you wander into the ‘locals’ areas, you find attitudes that match the stereotypes for a culture. I encountered some of what I will call true Italians. They didn’t want to be bothered by a backpacker tourist. I couldn’t even get anyone to break me change to use the payphone. But it has given me a new perspective on how I view people that would bother me during my normal life. You know, the one’s that slow down at every intersection because they don’t know what street they are looking for, or that stand in the middle of the sidewalk and gaze around, blocking everyone that is scurrying through life.
I continue to be unsuccessful at trying to explore activities outside of the tourist norm. I have tried several times now to plan a scuba diving trip. But between the difficulty to quickly become knowledgeable of a new city, and then communication problems (internet, phone, and just language), it has eluded me so far. It looks like I will need to try to plan ahead more than a day and anticipate where I will be several days in advance to get something scheduled.

Lucky Number 7, hopefully

I have made it to my 7th country, Italy. I started in Milan. I continue to eat my way through Europe; but I guess that is just the way it is supposed to be. Although it could be worse now, since Italian food is a little more fattening than tapas and baquettes. I have found that when I order a pizza, they come out as these plate-covering 16 inch pies, which I am convinced I will never be able to finish. But before I know it, I am folding the last piece and shoving it into my mouth. It must be because they make the crust so thin. Yes, that is what I am going to keep telling myself.
Milan was a pretty interesting city. The highlight was the duomo (or main cathedral) in the center of the city. It is one of the best churches I have seen so far. There were some nice parks, a good shopping area, an old castle that is now a museum, and various other historic monuments and sculptures.
I met a guy from Vietnam and we hung out together to explore the city. He was quite nice, and has offered to show me around Ho Chi Ming City if I can make it to Vietnam while in Asia.

Oh, and if you were wondering, I finally got my vaccination shots.

After just a few days in Milan I went south to Napoli (Naples), Italy. They were right when they waid the further south you go, the less they speak any english. And they seem to get a little less sociable as well. As far as the city goes, Naples doesn't really have anything to offer. It is fairly dirty, and there are many areas that are not very safe to go into. However, there are a lot of good sites around Naples that you can visit from the central location. Unfortunately, theings seemed to be against me and I had difficulty being efficient at getting to these places. The public transportation was pretty plentiful, but the most difficult for me to get a grip on. Places have weird hours, things close early, and I just wasn't able to do as many things as I had planned.
I did make it to Pompei. It was a very interesting ancient ruins of a city that was destroyed by the local volcano (Vesuvius). From Naples you can also get to some nice islands and coastal regions (like Sorrento and Almafi), but I didn't make it there.

Mixed Feelings

I am finally on my way to Italy. As I ride the train through the Alps of eastern France, I have mixed feelings. For the last few days I have been looking forward to moving on to the next area. Even in Geneva it felt very much like I was still in France, because the demeanor was similar and everyone was still talking French. Plus half the people at Paleo were from France. But now, as we work through the mountains I have this urge to just get off the train and hike up into the hills. I feel like I didn’t get to experience nearly enough Alps activities. I have seen dozens of huge cliffs and peaks that I crave to climb. Hopefully I find some similar areas in Italy that will satisfy this craving.
Plus, I spent 45 minutes on the train listening to language podcasts to learn Italian…I am so good to go. Ciao!

Excitement is following me

In my normal mode of procrastination, I still have not gotten the vaccinations that I should have before going to some of my destinations, like Kenya. I purposely decided to get them in Europe because they would be much cheaper. When I was in France, I never found the time…yes that is my rationalization excuse for blowing it off. I tried to get it in Switzerland and found it was just as expensive as the US. (I forgot the mention that although I really enjoyed Switzerland, it was extremely expensive. It was impossible to have an actual dinner for less than the equivalent of $30-40. And I saw that a Big Mac meal was $12). So since I was so close, I decided to stop back into France for a day on the way to Italy.

I met a young lady and her mother sitting with me on the train. They were unbelievably nice and helpful. They lived near the city I was going to, Chambery. She gave me the name of a bar that her friend owns and the name of a doctor where I may be able to get my vaccinations. This is only interesting because I did stop at the bar for a few drinks and some advice when I arrived. It was a cool little bar with tons of local artist’s work on the walls. They directed me to a place where I could get a room for the night, and I stopped to get a quick bite after I checked-in. When I headed back to the bar, I was shocked to see the building beside it was on fire. And this wasn’t a small building, or a little fire. The fire department was battling it, but it was already out of control. It burned down 3/4 of the block, including an apartment complex and a hotel. Luckily the section with the bar made it through. And luckily that wasn’t the hotel they suggested for me.

And FYI, I still didn’t get my vaccinations. Everything was closed because it was Saturday. But I found out Italy is nearly as cheap, so I will get it done there on Monday….hopefully.

Free Hugs

No matter what situation you are in, it appears to me that the body and soul need to (or just inevitably do) go through the typical cycles. Most days I find myself really enjoying this trip. Some days I am relaxed; some days I am eager to explore and meet new people, and even enjoy the challenge of learning a new language. Some days it is bright, sunny and warm and I find every situation enjoyable. Some days I am somewhat frustrated and overwhelmed. And some days I find myself feeling isolated.
Today I am camping in a field with 100,000 other people; yet I feel pretty lonely. I realized that most of the time on this trip I have been in situations where many of the people around me are also travelers. They are on their own or in small groups of two or three. They are easier to interact with, and usually also looking to meet new people. Here, while there are lots of people, they are mostly in larger groups, already with tight ties. Plus it is rainy, so I have spent most of the day in my tent. Which is only good because it has given me time to catch up on lots of blog posts.
A little solace did come when I passed another tent with a ‘Free Hugs’ sign. If you have never heard of this, you have to look it up on YouTube. It is a great campaign. A push for an open door to human connection is an awesome concept. It also made me appreciate all of the people with whom I gain comfort and connection from. Having someone there that makes us feel connected is a valuable thing. Some people have many, others only a few, but it is usually such an effortless scenario that we begin to take it for granted. I hope everyone reading this takes the time today to tell someone in their life that the connections they have with them makes their life more valuable. Many of you those people to me, and I greatly appreciate what you bring to my life.

Ok, done with the pity party and cheesy blog. The rain has stopped, let’s see what tomorrow brings. Maybe I will finally make it to Italy.

Climbing the Swiss Alps

Camping at Paleo, with the Swiss Alps as the backdrop gave me an overwhelming urge to go rock climbing. After a quick trip to town to do some research, I found there was a nice crag just a short train ride into the mountains. It was a nice spot. Nothing totally amazing, but several different faces with 30-70 foot routes, all bolted for sport leading. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, so no one was there. I enjoyed the view for a short bit, but then decided there was only one thing that could be done…..gotta free solo it.

There were some areas that were not too high (30 feet) and looked pretty easy (5.6/5.7-ish). So I did two climbs that were not too risky. Then I found a really nice area that looked great to boulder and traverse. (I know all the non-climbers have no idea what I am talking about). I got in the zone and was working a nice combination of moves; so much so that I suddenly found myself 25 feet up. My ‘no-limitations’ side took over and decided it was easier to finish going up than to downclimb. At about 40 feet I started to second guess that decision, but now it really was too late; had to make a 5.9+ move over a little bulge to be able to top out. My heart thought it felt more like a 10c move at this height with no rope. Wow what a rush! Now that is what I call experiencing the Swiss Alps.

After the climb I sat at the top and basked in my glory for a few minutes. Just enough time for some other climbers to arrive…with ropes. Great timing. So I made a few new friends and got to do some more climbing with them. Climbers are always so friendly.

Fell into another one

This trip has thus far been a series of random, well-timed, lucky events. The day I arrived in Dublin they was a huge gay-pride parade that had the whole city hoping, perfectly timed arrival in Aberdeen to join in on a weekend hiking event, in London the day after the Wimbledon finals, Pamplona for Running of the Bulls (planned), in Spain when they won the World Cup, in France for Bastille Day, and in France to see the Tour de France. The latest of these coincidences is that just north of Geneva is where they are having the Paleo Festival. It is one of the biggest music festivals in Europe. Five days of around 100 bands on 6 stages, with nearly 300,000 spectators. By luck, I heard about it, knew I would be close, so tried to get tickets; which I was able to do. Mostly bands that I don’t know, but good music non-the-less. I did see Ziggy Pop (who looks older than dirt, but he still puts on a decent show and the Europeans seem to love him) and Motorhead, which I knew; and a guy from Minneapolis, Brother Alli, who was pretty good. Only got a ticket for 1 of the 5 days, then camped on-site for a few days and just enjoyed the festivities. It was a giant field of every hippie in Europe, I think.

Pleasant Surprise

I couldn’t figure out where to go from Lyon. My original plan was to head into Italy; but I couldn’t find any flights, trains or buses for a good price. My other options looked like flying to Belgium, and hitting Amsterdam and northern Germany earlier than expected; or taking a cheap train to Geneva, Switzerland, which wasn’t too far away. Switzerland hadn’t really been on my list of places I had to go to. So I was stuck with a decision. I know, what a horrible problem to have.
Thank you Mona for pushing me to go to Switzerland. Geneva was a hugely pleasant surprise. Everyone is so nice. The city is very relaxed. It is beautiful tucked beside Lake Geneva and the Alps. And there are a ton of things to see. I visited CERN, home of the LHC proton-collider; where people are doing research so far beyond my comprehension, I felt like a 2nd-grader. I also saw the Red Cross museum, UN headquarters, World Trade Organization, etc. But most importantly I bought a Swiss Army knife, had fondue, and ate some excellent chocolate!

True France

After Bordeaux, it was east to Lyon, France. This was supposed to be a short stop on my way to Italy. Yeah, right. I am going to quite even trying to act like I have a plan. Lyon was so relaxed I decided to stay a few days. Met some..you guessed it, Auzzies..and stayed in a hostel that sat on a hill overlooking the city. It had free wifi internet, power for recharging everything, a bar on the deck, and a laundry mat right up the street. Some wine, local beers, baguettes, crepes; life is good.
Plus, I was able to take a short bus ride 30 minutes south of Lyon (to Tain L’Hermitage) to see a stage of le Tour de France. It was interesting. Let’s just say it took a lot of planning and prep work, a good bit of time just waiting in anticipation, 45 seconds of excitement, then I found myself standing there wondering if it was really over that quickly. Something very cool I am glad I got to experience, but not quite as fulfilling as I had anticipated. You can draw whatever correlations you would like for this.

Bon Jour

'Bon Jour' and 'Merci' is about as much French as I know. Heading into my first wine country proved to be a bit harder than Spain. From San Sebastian, Spain I went to Bordeaux, France. If you ever want to experience many aspects of France, without having to go to Paris, then I would highly recommend Bordeaux. The city has great history and architecture, there is a very long street (Rue Saint Catherine) that has all the shopping you could ever want, great food, and of course the city is surrounded by French wine country.
I met another Australian (surprise, surprise) and a Swedish girl in Bordeaux. We wanted to go tour the wine country, but the guided tours for the day were already full. So we decided to rent bikes and trek into the country-side ourselves. Of course this creates a good story because nothing can ever be easy. It was 30 miles later that we arrived at our first and only winery to actually tour and taste. We picked their national holiday (Bastille Day, which is really a not what they call it) to go on this tour, so most of the chateaus were closed. But it was fun anyway. We saw lots of grape vineyards and beautiful countryside. We bought a bottle of wine from a shop, along with cheese, crackers, fruit, and bread and stopped in a vineyard and had lunch.
After our long bike ride, it was great to get back to the city, have a wonderful dinner, and enjoy the Bastille Day celebration. Bordeaux had a great fireworks display. Probably the best I have seen that was not choreographed to a music or laser show. And it was enjoyable to see how much the people enjoyed the fireworks. There were cheers, and oohs and ahhs all the time. It was much more enjoyable than 4th of July shows that are taken for granted now.

More Bull...

Ok, because of requests I will provide more detail of the Running of the Bulls event. To start, I was lucky enough to get the full rundown of the strategy needed to successfully get through the run and into the stadium at the end by a really cool Auzzie in Barcelona the day before I went. So I had a perfect game plan…where to start, when to move, when to run. But as with most game plans, it got completely disrupted and was useless. The part I did not know what that at some point during the morning, it was no longer acceptable to take pictures while on the street. A police officer was kind enough to inform me of this as he kicked me off the street right before the run was to begin. Apparently they had made an announcement; apparently my Spanish is not good enough to understand announcements made only in Spanish :-).

Instead of following my perfect game plan, I was now running up and down the side streets trying to find a way to sneak back in. Luckily I was able to do this, but now it was just a mad dash to make it past the checkpoint gates along the route that get closed after the bulls pass. Had all the pulls done what they were supposed to, I never would have made the stadium. Good thing ‘stubborn as a bull’ has some truth. One bull decided he was more concerned with trying to poke some of the runners instead of just running to the stadium. In the one video I posted, you can see a reply of this black bull on the big screen in the stadium. I was hoping to get myself on this video, since I was directly behind the bull at this time of the run. He even decided to give me some personal attention at one point. He turned back up the street to tell everyone behind him to back off. I had to jump up on the wooded fence that lined the street. He helped me up with a little nudge from his horn on my shoe.

But alas, I followed him all the way to the stadium and was able to squeeze in the doors just as they were being closed. There are thousands that start on the street, but only a few hundred are in the stadium. This is where they release one bull at a time to challenge the runners. They are slightly smaller bulls, and have the ends of their horns corked, but still plenty scary. Then it is just mayhem. Half the people running from the bulls, the other half running toward them. The goal is to get close enough to touch them. I touched them twice. Unfortunately, I feel like an ignorant foreigner because I didn’t find out until after that it is not correct to actually touch them with your hands. The locals all had little newspaper rolls they would touch them with. But all the outsiders would touch them with their hands.

But yes, I did survive. Which is why I waited until after I did it before I let anyone know I would actually run, and not just watch.

Sorry, Senorita Parrish

I guess I really should have paid attention to Senorita Parrish a little more in spanish class. Having moved from the Ireland and the UK into Spain proved to be a noticeable transition. It was the first time the language barrier became an issue. Well, if you don't count the drunk Scottish men and bus drivers that spoke with such a heavy accent I sometimes thought they were speaking a different language :-)

After the bull run in Pamplona, I went directly to San Sebastian, Spain. The first day was somewhat tough. Since everyone from Pamplona was coming there, all the lodging was long gone. There were thousands of travelers swarming the internet cafes trying to find someplace to stay. Seeing that I had not slept in well over 24 hours, and it was extremely hot outside, I was not the happiest of campers. But then ironically, that is exactly what I became...

I met an awesome Australian couple (Cat and Mike) and we all heading to a campground just outside the town. They had space. This made me happy and I was camping!

San Sebastian ended up being so relaxed that I stayed there for several days. Spent a day on the beach, walked around the beautiful city, hiked up to an old fort, and had great food (although I have had enough tapas to last a lifetime). Plus, Mike, Cat and I went to a bar to watch Spain win the World Cup. Viva Espana!

Next, to tackle France. At least I knew a little spanish. French, not a bit!

Pictures

I have been asked by a few people about when I am going to post pictures of my trip. They made me aware that I may need to clarify something to people that are view my blog. I have created public photo albums via Picasa. In my blog posts, if there is text that is highlighted and underlined, it means I have attached a link from that text to an album on Picasa that contains picture associated with the subject of the post.

Another thing I have realized, unrelated to pictures all together, is that I very much look forward to having comments posted on my blog by all of you. It makes me feel like I am more connected when I hear from you. So feel free to comment on anything (even about how crazy you think I am for doing some of the things I am doing).

Last thing on this miscellaneous post. Excuse any spelling and grammatical errors that I may be posting. I have discovered that my browser knows where I am connecting from, and therefore when I do a spell check, it does it in the local language of where I am. So it thinks I spell everything wrong.

Run Forest, Run !

Running of the Bulls !!
HOLY COW....'nough said.

Arrived in Pamplona at 9 pm on a bus from Barcelona. Several hundred thousand people more than the city can hold. Walk straight to a shop to buy my San Fermin clothing...because that is all that ANYONE wears for the whole week. Buy some Sangria and walk around the party for 9 hours. Sleeping is highly over-rated. Find a good spot on the bull course about 6:30 am.

Let the madness begin!!

London

I took an overnight sleeper train into London on Tuesday morning. I got off the train around 7:30 am, and felt like I was in the subway of Manhattan. The station was packed with corporate 'England' scrambling off to work. It was shell-shock after being in the totally relaxed atmosphere of Ireland and Scotland for over a week. Outside it still felt like a major U.S. city, just not as tall of buildings.

I did a free walking tour of the city Tuesday afternoon. It took me to all of the major attactions; Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the residences of past King's mistresses, etc. It was interesting and very informative.

I was going to stay in London for a few days, but to be perfectly honest, I didn't really like the vibe of the city very much. Most of the people I met (that were not travelers from other countries) were rather unpleasant. It is bad to say that the negative stereotype much of the world has about the English was confirmed to me. Which is too bad. Everyone I have known from England that are in the US have been great. But then again people that travel around and explore new places are usually more care-free, so maybe until now I had met all of the exceptions.

London was good to experience, for a day or two; but I wouldn't feel the need to go back unless it was for a needed purpose.

The beauty of Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, at least thus far. I only had about 7 hours to spend there before leaving on an overnight train to London at 11:40 pm. This is a ‘must see’ city in my opinion. The pictures will not do it justice. The medieval style architecture surrounds you everywhere. I walked the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle, had a salmon croissant and tea at a café that was the former workshop of William ‘Deacon’ Brodie, who is the real life basis for the character Jekyll and Hyde, then took a ghost tour into the underground depths of old Edinburgh. Overall, just an amazing day.

Monroe Bagger

The next stop was Aberdeen, on the coast of northeastern Scotland. Before I talk about the activities there, I have to thank my friend Clara’s sister Marianne for her outstanding hospitality while I was there. Marianne picked me up from the train station and let me stay in her flat, as well as tag along with her and her friends (Mary, Fiona, Morag, Mike and Steven) into the hills for a weekend outing as part of celebrating Mary’s birthday. The outing was awesome. We got up early Saturday morning, drove about an hour outside the city, then got onto mountain bikes to ride a few miles into the hills. It has been years since I have spent much time on a bike, so my but is still sore. Once we got to areas that we couldn’t ride anymore, we ditched the bikes and started hiking deeper into the hills. After dropping our camping stuff off at some old ruins, the real hiking began…and kept going, and going, and going. This is when I found out about the Scottish tradition of the Monroe Bagger. A “monroe” is any peak that is over 3000 ft. There are a little under 300 of them in Scotland. The challenge is to climb to the top of every one of them in your lifetime. On this trip I was inducted with my first two ‘bags’. I am officially a Monroe Bagger. Good luck to my gracious hosts in their journey to get them all.

After hiking all day (guessing over 20 miles when it was all said and done) we set up camp at ‘the secret howff’. I was honestly sworn to secrecy on when this it at…but since I had no idea where we were, I think the location is safe. It was quaint little stone hut built into the hills that been there for generations. Some eating, drinking, and general merriment followed through the night. Broke camp in the morning and then hiked and biked out in the typical Scottish summer rain.

Sunday night at Marianne’s again, then just enough time to get in some rock climbing along the coastal cliffs in the morning with Mike. Ironically, Mike knew the best option was to go to a regular spot nearby that was called Clash Rodney. It was a great opportunity to get some experience doing trad leading.

A quick drive to the train station early Monday afternoon just in time to catch a ride to Edinburgh.

Scotland

Scotland was a fantastic whirlwind of activity, so I am only now getting a chance to document it. Thursday morning I flew from Shannon, Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland. It was an okay city from what I saw of it. I was only there for a few hours, but don’t feel like a missed too much. It was friendly, but for the most part felt like a typical city.

In the afternoon I caught a train to Aviemore, in central Scotland. It is known for its abundance of outdoor activities. I can see why. It is a hub for hiking, biking, canoeing, kayaking, climbing, snow skiing, etc. I could definitely have spent several days there and not run out of things to do. I hiked to the top of a hill Thurs night that provided a great view of the city and valleys below. Very surreal. Went to a pub at night…surprise, surprise, and found out that the Titan Army was in town. They are a large group of formal supporters of the Scottish futbol team. They were a lot of fun. Then, on Friday morning, what must you do if you are in Scotland? Well golf, of course (no pun intended). I was able to get in a round at the championship course they had in town.

Then off to Aberdeen.

Moher Peace

Hiking the miles of coastline atop the Cliffs of Moher was the epitomy of why I decided to do this trip. It was the perfect surreal setting after a few days of hectic travel roadbumps.

"Moher Peace"

I am abraded by the deterioration of hopes and dreams;
You embrace deterioration to carve your magnificence.
I seek Moher peace.

My expectations crash down to pound on my morale;
You conduct the crashes into a soothing rhythm of tranquility.
I want Moher peace.

The winds cause turbulent howling in my soul;
You channel the winds so others may rise and soar in your presence.
I need Moher peace.

I fear my worthiness may get drown out by the emptiness;
You stare at the vast emptiness in front of you everyday
and know you wouldn’t be what you are without it.
I feel Moher peace

And even now as the final light is leaving us,
You remain the sturdiest of rocks; knowing tomorrow
WE will stand tall and strong to amaze them again.

Thank You. I have Moher Peace.

Ireland's west coast

Keeping this blog up to date has proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I had expected. First off, access to internet connections is not readily available in many places. When there is internet, it usually costs a small amount to connect for a limited amount of time. The second challenge is that I run around all day, and then only have time to try to post updates very late at night; when my mind is not too clear or articulate. I fear that with several days between postings, I will forget to write about some of the great things I am experiencing. But oh well, I will just do what I can.

So, I made my way to the western coast of Ireland; to a little city called Doolin. It is where the Cliffs of Moher are located. They are so amazing I will have to do an entire post just about them. But not tonight. Instead I will tell you about the people I met and the atmosphere. Doolin is a one street town that lives off the tourism of the cliffs. More than 50% of the houses are quint little B&Bs, hostels or cottages for rent. I hung out at O'Connell's Pub; which was packed on a Tuesday night. There was live traditional Irish music. And every once-in-a-while there would be an acappella folk song, causing everyone to stop their conversations and just listen in complete silence. It was also at this pub that I met the 'Baltimore ladies' (Geri, Annette, Clare and Ellie). When they get home and see this post, they better add the picture we all took together.

Speaking of live Irish music, on Wed. night I spend the evening in another small town called Ennis. It was here that I discovered what I think is very cool. When many pubs have live music night, it is not like in the US. It is not a set band that will play there specific session of songs, and they don't have a stage. There are a couple of people that will definitely show up and sit around a table or open area; but then it is open for others to just come and join in. The traditional Irish songs are so common to all musicians, they can all join together with whatever instrument they play, and start a band right there. At Moroney's in Ennis there ended up being about 10 musicians just sitting in a circle harmonizing together. It was great to experience...while having a few Irish Whiskey's with the locals.

Now off to Scotland.

Walking Dublin

Dublin is a great city to just walk around. Most of the cool things to see within the actual city (castles, cathedrals, churches and parks) are in a few mile radius of the city center. So I spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday exploring. The 10K Steps they say are what you should shoot for to be in shape will be no problem.

When I was at the airport I weighed my backpacks. When I am carrying both of them attached together, they weigh just under 60 pounds. It makes a two hour city stroll much more challenging. :-) So I think I will be finding places to store the main pack, whenever possible.

Finally on my way

After a day delay, I finally made it across the pond. The downfall was that my rescheduled flight to Dublin was to arrive at 5:15 am (which is 12:15 am EST). This not only made it even harder to adjust to the time difference, but got me to Ireland when there was absolutely nothing going on. However, it did provide the opportunity to experience something that is extremely unusual. I saw a sunrise, a sunset, and another sunrise all within an hour.
At nearly 40,000 ft in the plane you could see far enough east to see the sunrise earlier than normal. But then as we decended to sea level, the sun actually set again. It was pretty cool to watch. Then less than an later when I left the airport, the normal sunrise in Dublin happened. So hopefully there is a good side like this to ever unfavorable situation that may arise on this trip.

I also met my first friend at this way too early time. I rode the bus from the airport into the city center with a girl headed back from the Univ of Michigan to her home in London. She had a very long layover in Dublin, so was going to explore the city. We wandered around together looking for a coffee shop to pass the time until the city woke up. I even had a cafe latte. Seeing that I was in Europe, I thought I would embrass the true coffee shop experience.

Then, in order to truly kick of the trip on the right foot, what better to do in Ireland......tour the Guinness Brewery and have your first 'Perfectly Poured Pint' by 10 am. The pints continued to flow for the rest of the day.

False Start

Well, I had my first practice run to the airport..practiced the check-in procedures, met the TSA security folks, figured out where the terminal was, and tested some of the waiting seats. Then 5 1/2 hours later, I decided to go home and try it again tomorrow.

Obviously my scheduled departure for this evening did not happen. Thank you JFK airport for being backed up as normal, and JetBlue for being extremely incapable. While all other airlines had 1-2 hour delays, JetBlue couldn't figure out how to get a plane to Pittsburgh and therefore turned into nearly a 6 hour delay. Which made making my connection into Dublin impossible. And to put the icing on the cake, it took them over 2 hours to figure out how to re-book my flights from two different airlines for tomorrow.

So I am back at my place in Pittsburgh, with a new departure for tomorrow morning. Then close to a 6 hour layover in New York before finally heading to Ireland. Now normally this type of aggravation and incompetence would have driven me over the edge. Critics and sarcasms would have been the typical coping mechanism. However, knowing that this was only the first day of a flexible, 5-6 month open-ended adventure, made it very easy to not get upset and say 'so, I'll start tomorrow instead'. See, this trip is already having a profound affect on my outlook on life.

Maybe tomorrow will work out a little more like it was planned.

Committed

Well, I have officially untied the safety rope. I booked a one-way flight to Dublin, Ireland to begin my trip around the world. I leave the evening of June 24th, 2010. My plan is to be back by Thanksgiving...but who knows what the trip will really bring...