Shaun's Adventuring

Hello Seoul

2012-02-10T16:34:00.002-06:00

This post is very much time delayed, I have been super busy and haven't had reliable internet

Despite our hotel being right next to the train track the owner was really friendly and allowed us to stay in our room until 4:30pm when we caught a shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport. This was really great because it had been snowing all day and was really cold and we didn’t want to have to spend the afternoon in a kebap shop trying to stay warm and buying things periodically so that the owners wouldn’t kick us out.

When the shuttle bus driver showed up, he honked his horn and then banged on the door. I opened the door and he started motioning that we needed to hurry up. When we got in the bus it was empty but the driver quickly sped around to pick up other passengers and gave them all the same “hurry up” treatment. With all the snow on the ground you would think that the driver would take it easy, but he didn’t seem to care and floored it at every chance that he got.

Our flight from Istanbul to Seoul was delayed by over three hours because Istanbul only has one de-icer and there was a big queue in front of us. We had to wait on the plane and by the end of the flight my bum was really sore from all of the sitting around. From what I could tell Janelle and I were the only non Korean or Turkish people on the plane.

Once we landed in Seoul the airport was massive and nearly empty. There were a bunch of really friendly airport hired personal around to help and we found a bus to take us to our hotel.

I thought the room in Istanbul was small but the room in Seoul is TINY, there is room for a bed and to stand up.

For dinner we wandered the streets and found a restaurant with a bunch of people in front if it waiting to be seated so we decided that it must be good and joined the queue. When we got into the restaurant they had us sit on the floor and put a large partially cooked chicken into a pot of boiling water in front of us. We sat there while the chicken kept boiling and then a woman who worked there came to our table and cut up the chicken with giant scissors. In a bowl the woman who worked there mixed chilli paste, mustard, vinegar and something else in a bowl to add spice to the chicken. It all seemed so strange and simple and yet it was a really good meal and a great introduction to Seoul.

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Food Day is a Good Day

2012-02-02T16:33:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we went Hagia Sophia, a former basilica turned mosque that is now a museum, in the morning and went to a giant shopping mall in the afternoon. The shopping mall was enormous, with 7 floors of shops, a movie theatre and a food court.

Today started out terribly wrong when we woke up too late for our free hotel breakfast. I love eating and I love free, so missing out on that can’t ever be a good sign. The day quickly got better when we found a nice little corner restaurant that was making ham and cheese sandwiches and fresh squeezed orange juice. We were going to the old gates today to the Chora Church and as such were walking a long way across old Istanbul. We passed a candy shop and went inside to look around and bought some Turkish delights and chocolate covered chestnuts and were given a generous portion of this hazelnut fudge like stuff for free. All three were amazing.

A little further on we saw a shop selling honey coated churros and stopped to eat those also. Of all of the days in Istanbul today was the warmest, least windy and sunniest, and it felt really nice walking all over town.

The Chora Church was really beautiful inside with some of the most impressive mosaic work I’ve ever seen and then we made our way to the Süleymaniye Mosque where I was able to record a video of the evening call to prayer.

The last time I was in Istanbul, I stayed at a hostel with a really friendly owner that took me to a cool place for smoking Sheesha and so Janelle and I went there tonight and met a nice Turkish guy who had lived in the UK the last couple of years and we had a nice chat with him about Istanbul.

On the way out of the Sheesha place we bought some sesame seed bread that was warm and delicious and a nice appetiser before we went to get dinner. I love days that are filled with walking, sunshine and food.

Tonight the wind has really picked up and it has even started to flurry, hopefully it doesn’t snow too much as we are supposed to fly to Seoul tomorrow night and I doubt they have snowplows and de-icing machines at the Istanbul airport.

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The Swing of Things

2012-01-25T15:11:00.002-06:00

There is a quote from Samuel Johnson that says "Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." I love London and whole heartedly agree with the quote except for 2 things, one that London is expensive and secondly that London is cold. (BROOOOOOM) I’m looking forward to some cheaper living and lots more warm weather! It feel so good to be travelling again, I have missed it so much.

We are staying in the old town of Istanbul, right near most of the major tourist attractions and have spent the yesterday and today walking around everywhere. (BROOOOOOM). We had our first rip off experience today at lunch, where they tried to pull two things off at once. Firstly when we had finished our lunch, I asked for the bill and was told it would come in a minute and instead we were brought two apple teas, which were actually quite good but when the bill came they had been added to the bill and then when I added the bill up, they had made a terrible math error in their favour. (BROOOOOOM) I left the exact amount it should have been, and handed it to the waiter to count, which he did and then made an angry face as we walked out of the restaurant. Don’t mess with an accountant!

Istanbul sits in both Asia and Europe and I found out today that for the last 2 years I have been unknowingly lying about my last trip here. (BROOOOOOM) I was certain that I had been to both the European and Asian sides, when in fact I have only been to the European side! I hope to rectify that this week by taking the ferry over to the Asian side.

So far we have been to the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, Basilica Cistern, the Archaeology Museum and the Galata Tower. If you were wondering what all the BROOOOOOM’s were about, that’s just the train passing outside our window. Apparently it’s in 60 of the 70 reviews and we missed that, oops. Luckily we have now been able to move to the front side of the hotel where the train noise isn’t as noticeable.

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On The Road Again

2012-01-23T14:55:00.001-06:00

After spending the last 20 months in London, and working the last 15 of those, I have decided it’s time to move on to other pastures. All of my stuff is packed up and has been sent off to New Zealand where it will hopefully meet me in a couple of weeks assuming of course that the slow boat it is aboard doesn’t run into any rocks and throw my stuff all over the ocean.

I had an absolutely amazing time while living in London. I made countless friends many of whom I know I will be friends with forever. London was a great place for getting to Europe easily and was overall just amazing in itself. For the rest of my life whenever I see a photo of the London Eye and Big Ben, I will point to the bottom left hand corner of the photo and proclaim “that is where I used to work!”. Enough of the sappy sadness though, I have quit my job and sold my stuff; its time to get back out there on the road for some more travelling adventures!

My new adventures start in a familiar place, Istanbul, but I’m joined by a new face, my beautiful girlfriend, Janelle. Off we go! More to come of our Adventures in the next few days.

2011-12-19T05:11:00.003-06:00

Countdown to the start of my 2012 Adventures

Italy and Spain

2010-07-22T05:02:00.003-05:00

Last week I went to Bologna, Florence, Lucca and Pisa in Italy and Benidorm in Spain. I started to write things up but then I got lazy. I posted some pictures on Facebook, so if you aren't my friend on there, here is a link to the pictures from last week that you can access:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2124296&id=36103121&l=a3a40bde83

Unbelievable

2010-07-09T04:34:00.001-05:00

I spent my last day in Portugal in Faro, where I couldn’t find much to do besides walk around the small town and look into some shops. There is a beach in Faro but that required getting on a bus across town and I wasn’t really feeling like making the journey.

My flight back to London was leaving at 9:30am and I asked the night clerk at my hostel the easiest way to get to the airport in the morning. The clerk was trying very hard to explain to me that I should take a bus across the street from the but he was struggling to find his words. At first I thought that he was just trying really hard to find the right words in English but after several minutes of him trying to explain it to me I discovered that he had a stammer. I have to give him a lot of credit for taking a job where he has to explain to people how to get places with a speech impediment in a language that he was unsure of.

After a week in Portugal without doing any laundry and only bringing a small carryon bag I was ready to do some laundry. First thing back in my room in London I dumped everything from my suitcase onto the floor and then I stripped down to nothing but my underwear. I was getting ready to put all of this in the washing machine and hop into the shower when I noticed that there was cat hair all over my bed. I had closed my door while I was away but one of my flatmates must have opened the door and the two cats looked like they had had a shedding party on my bed. Everything was covered in cat hair. First I grabbed the two pillows and walked out to the back steps and beat them together to get the hair off. Then I did the same thing with my two sheets and finally went back to get my duvet and shake that out. While shaking out the duvet a gust of wind came up and the back door slammed behind me. I tried to open the door but it was locked!

I was standing on my back stairs wearing nothing but my boxers and holding a duvet at two in the afternoon. Neither of my flatmates usually get home until 6 or 7 at night. I tried the windows without luck. I banged on the window above my flat but the guy who lives there wasn’t home either. I walked around to my front door and tried that door but it was also locked. A woman came walking down the street and saw me and laughed. I was stuck, no keys, no cell phone, with no idea what my flat mates phone numbers were.

On the first floor of my building is a convenience store, so I wrapped my duvet around my waist and walked into the store as a final act of desperation. There was a woman shopping who gave me a once over with her eyes, and shook her head. I went up to the counter where the owner and her son were working and they gave me a look of “What is this guy doing?” I explained that I lived upstairs and had locked myself out and asked if they had a key to the main entrance to my flat. Luckily they did and I was able to get back into my flat without sitting on the street nearly naked for 5 hours. If it had happened in a movie, I wouldn’t have believed that it was possible but apparently it is!

Surprises

2010-07-08T04:20:00.002-05:00

While in hostels I sleep with an eye mask on and earplugs in my ears, to keep the distraction of other people’s activities to a minimum. I was woken up last night by the Aussie guy sleeping in the bunk above me. He was violently shaking the bed and I removed my mask to look at him and see what was going on. He was obviously very drunk and was trying to climb up the side of the bed instead of using the ladder and then fell from the bed onto the floor. I laughed to myself and shook my head and went back to sleep. In the morning I noticed that my shorts and shoes, that had been with all of my other stuff on the floor under my bed, were wet. I slowly moved the stuff close to my nose and tried to smell anything but all they smelled like was dirty water. I woke the Aussie guy up that was now snoring loudly in the bunk above me and asked him what he had spilt on the my stuff. In his hungover sleepy state of mind he said he hadn’t spilt anything. I told him I hoped it was only water and then went and washed my shoes and shorts just to be safe.

I headed out to explore more of the cove beaches. I was walking along a path on a cliff top and followed a path down to a beach in the middle of nowhere. I looked from above and the beach looked nearly deserted and I got excited. The idea of no one near me smoking cigarettes or little kids running around screaming sounded perfect. When I got down to the beach I discovered that it was a naked beach, mostly with old sun burnt overweight naked men. There was one couple that wasn’t naked and I figured after the long climb down I would just sit and read my book for a while. After several minutes an old naked man came and stood about 10 feet behind me. I noticed him in my peripheral vision and kept reading. After he had been there for a few minutes I turned my head slowly keeping my eyes towards the sky to see what he was looking at and he was looking at me. I turned my head back around and read some more, thinking that now that he knew that I knew he was there he would leave, but he continued to stand there naked and stare at me. After another minute of the staring I decided I had enough energy to climb out and find another beach, even if that meant cigarette smoke or little children.

Luckily, I was able to find another beach not far away that was much more family oriented and while this beach was much noisier there weren’t any naked old men staring at me.

Back at my hostel while getting ready for bed another Aussie guy from my room who was friends with the guy who was sleeping above me confessed to me that he had in fact accidentally peed on the floor and gotten my stuff wet. He was very apologetic and offered to buy me a drink and have my stuff cleaned for me. Score one for Aussie class.

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2010_06_29 Lagos

Lounging in Lagos

2010-07-07T08:03:00.002-05:00

I arrived by bus in Lagos today to have a couple of days of relaxing by the beach. At my hostel I was given the most through explanation at check in that I have ever had. The guy showed me every part of the hostel, the terrace, kitchen, showers, bathrooms, lounge and my bed. Then he showed me the lockers that use an electronic lock and showed me how to enter my code and then hid his eyes while I entered my code. He then gave me a map of the town and spent 20 minutes (not an exaggeration, I checked my clock before and after because I was starving from not yet having had lunch) explaining the town and the beaches to me. Despite the excessive explanation he is a really nice guy and a welcome change to some hostels who act as if you are an inconvenience.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around and the coves and hanging out at the beach, it’s beautiful here.

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2010_06_28 Lagos

Belem

2010-07-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

This morning I hopped on a tram (I do a lot of hopping in my blog and I don’t even talk about how I like to hop over things late at night as I walk the streets of towns. Hopping over trash cans, signs, ledges and whatever else I can find) to a nearby town called Belem.

There is a large statue in tribute to the maritime actives of the country, a fort and a monastery. It was really hot today and the sun is a lot fiercer(I didn’t even know that was a word, Word suggested that I use it though) on my skin than in London, so I spent a lot of the day trying to hide in the shade and covering myself in layer after layer of sunscreen.

Back in Lisbon, my hostel was serving fish for dinner tonight and I decided that I would make myself some pasta instead. I used spaghetti noodles and tomato paste, but it tasted really bland, so I looked through the spices that people had left for something to add to the sauce. All the labels were in Portuguese or missing so I didn’t know what was in any of the bottles, so I just started pouring things into the sauce. I think I must have added nutmeg by accident, which in case you are thinking of replicating my masterful cooking is a terrible idea. Nutmeg tastes terrible in pasta sauce.

I met a guy from Canada and another from Germany and we headed out to Barrio Alto for a couple drinks and on our way came across a park that had “Bio Benches”. They were made of recycled plastic and had a tree for shade in the back and a bush on the side. The benches also had wheels for rotating the tree around to be in the shade. Instead of rotating them we decided that we would race them and all grabbed one to push. They are really large and heavy benches. I ended up in second place and then hopped over a really tall trash can to show that my manhood was still intact after not winning the race.

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2010_06_27 Lisbon

Lisbon

2010-07-03T13:45:00.002-05:00

I woke up early this morning to catch a train to Lisbon. I got to the train station about 30 minutes before my train was supposed to leave and lined up to buy a ticket. The line was moving really slowly and I worried that I was going to miss my train while standing in line. Finally I made it to the front of the line only to find out the train wasn’t leaving from the station I was at but another one and I wouldn’t be able to make my train and I would have to wait two and a half more hours. The other station was five minutes away by train and I had only seven minutes to make it so I quickly jumped on the next train to the other station and then ran to get on the train to Lisbon. I got on the train just as the doors were closing and took a seat. I hadn’t had time to purchase a ticket and hoped that Portugal wasn’t one of the countries where you have to prepay for a ticket.

As the train employee came around collecting tickets I became increasingly nervous that I was supposed to have a ticket because no one was buying tickets, only showing him their tickets they already had. When he got to me I smiled and pulled my wallet out and motioned like I was going to pay him for my ticket. He explained that in Portugal you MUST prepay for your ticket and that I would have to get off and buy a ticket at the next station and then wait for the next train before I could get back on. I tried my best “dumb tourist” routine and smiled a lot and he finally agreed to let me stay on the train and that he would work something out. The train employee came back and gave me an assigned seat and a receipt and I gave him the train fare, I had lucked out.

Once in Lisbon I checked into my hostel and set out to explore the city. As with Porto, Lisbon is a very hilly city. I went into a large church and explored a castle high up in a mountain overlooking the city. There was a concert going on inside of the castle, which was nice to have music as I walked around, made me feel like I was in a movie.

My hostel is very nice and for 8 Euro they will cook you dinner with three drinks included. I had soup for a starter, meat with bacon and cheese with rice as a main and rice pudding for dessert, it was very delicious. There is an area in Lisbon called Barrio Alto and it is a series of streets that are lined with small bars. The bars are so small that there isn’t enough room for everyone; so instead of being in the bars everyone stands in the streets talking and drinking together. It’s a fun and different atmosphere.

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2010_06_26 Lisbon

Portugal vs Brazil

2010-07-02T08:33:00.005-05:00

I spent the morning wandering around Porto checking out their famous church and the accompanying catacombs. Then I went to the city center to watch the World Cup game between Brazil and Portugal. Since Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese there are a lot of Brazilian people in Portugal and one half of the square was filled with Brazilian fans while the other half were Portuguese fans. Everyone had flags or banners and a lot of people had horns. Both the Portuguese and the Brazilian fans have songs they sing and things they chant as their team does well or to try and encourage their team to do better. The game ended in a draw with both Portugal and Brazil advancing out of their pool. I head to Lisbon in the morning.

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2010_06_25 Porto

Port Wine

2010-07-02T08:07:00.003-05:00

With 2 more days in Porto I decided to do my usual wandering around the city. Porto has a river run through the town with giant hills overlooking the river and lower parts of the city. This makes for spectacular views but a lot of work climbing hills to get anywhere.

Porto is famous for Port wine and most of the large producers of Port wine are located in the city and have wine tastings. I was wandering around and came across a really nice looking port winery and went in to check it out. They had a sign posted, “Tastings 6 Euro”. Of course I am too cheap to pay that and just wandered around looking at things that were free. A woman who worked there came up to me and told me that if I wanted I could have two ports for free and I quickly jumped on the opportunity. The winery was high up in the hill overlooking the river below, I sat there reading and looking at the view it was really beautiful.

I found my way to several other wineries that offered a tour and sampling. I couldn’t really tell the difference between the ports at the different places but I liked the free samples.

Back at the hostel along with some other people we were able to convince the hostel owner that he wanted to make up dinner if we bought the ingredients and we had pasta with chicken, sausage, beans and veggies it was really good.

It has been so long since I walked all day long and I was exhausted. Be sure to check out the pictures thought because Porto is really pretty.

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2010_06_24 Porto

Sao Joao Festival

2010-06-30T11:51:00.003-05:00

Ouch!

Guess what’s back,
Back again,
My blog is back,
Tell your friends,
Tell your friends,
Tell your friends…

Well at least for the next week while I am in Portugal taking a mini vacation from my already vacation of a life I will blog about the happenings. While in London I went to the library one day and looked through a book that described the best festivals and celebrations across the world. I focused on Europe over the summer and read about a festival called Sao Joao (Saint John) Festival in Porto, Portugal. Last year I never made it to Portugal and figured if I was going to be there for the festival I might as well check out the rest of the country as well.

I read that the festival was on the 24th and booked my hostel for the nights of the 23rd, 24th and 25th to give me time to prepare for and recover from the festival. I arrived on the evening of the 23rd only to discover that the festival was that night NOT the 24th and quickly went to my hostel to check in. I didn’t know much about the festival before I got there other than it was supposed to be a fun party in the streets. While going to my hostel I encountered hundreds of people walking the streets with large plastic hammers that they were using to whack each other and me with on top of my head. People were also walking around carrying flowering garlic and sticking the smelly flower part in people’s faces.

I asked the guy at my hostel where I should go to enjoy the best of the festival and he proceeded to circle over 10 places on my map and told me those would be good places. I decided I would just wander the streets and follow the crowds and see where I ended up, since the party was spread out all over the town.

Everyone seemed to have hammers, the funniest were the old ladies who could barely walk but hit every single person that they could and you could see the pure joy in their faces as they smacked person after person. The streets were packed with families and stands selling sardines, hot dogs and beer. I found a good spot high on a cliff overlooking the river and watched the firework show at midnight shot off from barges on the river. After the firework show people unfolded tissue paper blimps that had a candle at the bottom and when lit, filled with hot air and soared into the night sky like ghosts.

All of the squares in town had a different band playing and I found one near my hostel and listened to a mixture of American pop and classic Portuguese music. It was a good first night in Portugal.

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2010_06_23 Porto

Stamford

2010-05-11T03:47:00.004-05:00

Sheep don't like to be petted

Burghley House

In Cambridge

Tulips

Burghley House

A TON of deer

Downtown Stamford

Stamford Church

An owl at the worst craft show ever.

Wood carving at the craft show

More yellow flowers

Horses in a new paddock and fresh grass for the first time this year

I'm in London

2010-05-04T06:48:00.011-05:00

Views from Parliament Hill

I broke my sunglasses

Views from Parliament Hill

Views from Parliament Hill

Flowers blooming on a London street

As the weather gets warmer, the horse coats get thinner

Janelle's horse Mina

English countryside

Overpass in the London suburbs

Janelle grooming Mina

Classic countryside in my mind. A man with two dogs and a horse.

I'm such a good photographer!

Riding Mina

New Plan

2010-05-04T06:15:00.001-05:00

I've decided to change up my blog and have it be more pictures and less words for now. I'll just post some pictures of my adventures and have some captions on them instead of writing paragraphs for now.

Traveling

2010-04-25T06:09:00.001-05:00

I have begun traveling again. I will provide the full update on what has transpired, where I am and what I plan to be doing later this week.

Hiatus

2010-02-27T09:47:00.001-06:00

It never gets old

The end of a great trip always makes me think about my own mortality. Before starting the two week trip to Egypt it seemed like a long time and then before I knew it, it was over. It just reaffirms to me that I am doing the right thing, living my life the way that I want and doing the things that are most important to me.

I recently read a related short article on a Travel Blog of one of the few people who can support his travel by blogging. The article is called “Beware of Life” which acknowledges that there are risks in life but if you don’t take them what is the point of living anyway. Here is the link if you are interested:

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/beware-of-life/

Since coming back from Egypt I spent two days in California with friends and family and then drove back to Saint Louis. I still have my condo and I have been trying and hoping ever so much that I can sell it and not have that financial burden over my head. I have been looking for jobs anywhere that I can find them but as of yet have been unable to find anything that pays inversely to my level of desperation. However currently my desperation point is increasing making the amount of money I would be willing to accept decrease. I would love to be able to get a job in Europe somewhere to earn the Euro instead of the Dollar so I could save up money faster and travel while working on weekends but I have had no luck with anyone wanting to sponsor me for a visa. I have also applied for my Canadian citizenship because that makes it easier to get a work visa in some places but that process is taking forever. I spent the past week in New York which was lots of fun, but I won’t be blogging about that.

I’ve been spending my time looking for work, trying to sell my condo and catching up with friends that I haven’t seen since I first left last April. That’s all for now, I’ll post more as I know more.

Leaving Cairo (only a month and a half late)

2010-02-23T23:48:00.002-06:00

Good Hair Day

I’m leaving Cairo tonight (Jan 5th) and I went to the reception of my hotel to ask about the best way to get to the airport. They told me they have a shuttle that would take me for 75 Egyptian Pounds and I told them my flight was at 10:15 pm and they told me to be in reception by 7:15pm.

I headed out for another day of exploring and came upon a street shoe market. It seems like it is maybe a monthly or quarterly thing because all of the businesses along the sides were hardware stores and there were impromptu street vendors on the street selling shoes on top of cardboard boxes. It was another good day of exploring similar to yesterday yet unique and still very interesting.

I arrived back at the hostel with my bags ready to go by 7pm and went to the front desk of the hostel to head for the airport. The guys I had talked to in the morning were gone and the new receptionist didn’t know anything about a shuttle to the airport. The receptionist tried calling a couple drivers but none could make it to the hostel in time to take me to the airport for my flight. I asked the receptionist what was the best way to get to the airport and he told me to take a white cab with a black stripe. Since I was expecting the shuttle for 75 I only had 85 Egyptian Pounds. I asked the receptionist how much a cab would cost expecting it to be more than 75 and to need to go to the ATM. “It shouldn’t cost any more than 50 Egyptian Pounds” he told me. It took me a while to find a metered cab but then I hopped in and headed off to the airport. As the driver drove I kept looking at street signs to make sure he was taking me the right way and he was always in the lanes going towards the airport. Despite his direct route I watched the meter climb to 50 then 60 and up to 70 Egyptian pounds and we weren’t even to the airport yet. I started to panic in my head. What was I going to do if the cab arrived and the fare was more than I had? Finally we pulled onto the airport property and the cab was up to 75. By the time we got to my terminal the total came to 85 Egyptian Pounds, all of my cash. I showed the driver that I had nothing left and tried to explain that I was sorry I couldn’t tip him.

Once in the airport there was security to go through before I could even get to the ticket counter to check my bag and the line was enormous with hundreds of people in front of me. I lined up behind two men in suits and one of them signaled to a security guard and the men were then waived around to the front of the line. The men in the suits asked me where I was going and I told them Jordan and then New York and finally to San Francisco. The men in the suits asked me to join them and we walked around the 100’s of people waiting to the get to the front and got right through security. The men in suits slipped the security guards some money and I pretended like I was going to pay (I had no Egyptian Pounds left) but the men in suits told me to put my money away, they had paid enough for me also. Once through security I thanked the men for their kindness and we parted ways as we had different destinations.

After I checked in I needed to go through regular security and when I went through the metal detector it beeped. The security guard asked me if I had any metal on me and I searched my pockets and discovered I had left my camera in my pocket. “Yes sir, I have my camera here.” I turned to go back through the metal detector but the security guard motioned me forward and allowed me through without further inspection.

Once I landed in Jordan I had a 10 hour overnight layover and the airline checked me into their nearby hotel. I had to wait for everyone on my flight to get their luggage and then a later flight before the bus arrived to take us to the hotel. I gave the front desk of the hotel my boarding pass and passport and they had a room already reserved for me and I went straight to it. The room only had 1 light bulb, none in the bathroom and there weren’t any towels. The front desk told me I would have a wakeup call 3 hours before my flight and that I should be down in the lobby 30 minutes later to catch the shuttle back to the airport. I set the alarm on my watch just in case and it is a good thing that I did because I never got a wakeup call. I checked the phone to make sure it was working and discovered that it didn’t work either. I made the shuttle bus back to the airport and checked back in for my flight. This time through security to New York they had all of the same security signs as in America like that all fluids must be less than 3 ounces and must be in a clear plastic bag together. I didn’t have my fluids together and in the main part of my bag I had two large bottles of water for the plane. Security didn’t mention a thing and I was allowed through security and on to the plane with these. It’s a good thing that in American I have to take off my shoes when planes that fly into America from other places only pretend to care.

Although I had a 10 hour layover and a room to sleep in by the time I got to the hotel and before I had to catch the shuttle was only about 4 hours and I was feeling pretty tired. Unfortunately this was a morning flight full of well rested people from Yemen flying to New York who had no intention of sleeping. I somehow managed to get myself a seat in the child section. I was in the middle section of the plane with an aisle seat. In front of me were two women each with a toddler. Across the aisle to my left was a man with a toddler. Behind me was a woman with a toddler and an infant and in the seat next to me was a toddler and next to her was her mother who had a baby on her lap. Shortly after the plane took off the toddler next to me somehow managed to remove the arm rest cover and threw it somewhere that I couldn’t locate, so I couldn’t put my arm on that arm rest. I put in my ear plugs and reclined my seat as much as I could and tried to sleep. I think the babies around me were all competing to see who could scream the loudest. After I got used to the sound of the crying children I started to drift off to sleep and the little girl to my right started to jump in her seat and then kept touching me. I removed my sleep mask and gave both the little girl and her oblivious mother evil stares but to no avail. If this scene would have been in a movie, I would have been laughing hilariously but unfortunately it was happening to me in real life and I was less than pleased.

My tray table was also broken and when I put my fresh hot coffee on the table it slid backwards and onto my lap soaking and burning me at the same time.

Once in New York I had a short two hour layover and then made it quickly to San Francisco where my checked luggage was lost. It was a long and frustrating 36 hours of travel.

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Wandering Around Cairo

2010-02-05T13:39:00.003-06:00

Ice Delivery

January 4th I slept in a little since I had been so exhausted from all of the constant travel of the tour group. Would I do a tour again? Maybe as half of my trip and spend the other half of my time both before and after the tour just relaxing. The tour definitely enabled me to experience many things that I would never have had if I were on my own. I’m also still sick and all of the treatments I am taking aren’t really working I need to go and look for some antibiotics to get rid of the cause instead of treating the symptoms.

I love to just walk the streets with no destination in mind and to get away from all of the tourist places. It makes me feel like an explorer when I walk down back streets and see the life people really live instead of the lives they try to portray in the tourist areas. In the tourist areas if a stranger talks to you they want to try and sell you something. In the places I walked today people that talk to you want to try out their English and learn about you. I met a young man who was with two of his friends and was very nervous to try and speak English to me but I think he was trying to impress his friends. He asked me where I was from and I told him I was an American. In Every country that I have been to when I tell people I am an American, they are always excited. All of the people that I have met love America, or at least pretend to. The little girls wear Miley Cyrus tee shirts and the boys wear WWE (formerly WWF) ones. I know a couple of words in Arabic such as “hello”, “thank you”, “no thank you” and “goodbye” and I try to use them whenever I can. I had this really cute little girl come up to me and say “hello” in Arabic and I said “hello” in Arabic back to her and then she said something I didn’t know and I told her I didn’t speak Arabic and she just smiled at me and waved goodbye.

As I walked through the streets I saw people working at their crafts, repairing cars, building chairs, repairing glasses, making leather belts and woodworking. All of this is done in streets and alleyways during the day because it doesn’t rain here very often this time of year and the light from the sun is free and the space in the alleys is also free, so it dramatically reduces the expense needed to own a business. At least that is my thinking, maybe they just like to be social.

I came across a vegetable market with fresh delicious looking vegetables. Potatoes had just been dug out of the ground and were still covered with dirt. There were cages of animals available to take home to slaughter, chickens, ducks and even bunnies. There was a small Egyptian girl that followed me around the market as intrigued with me as I was with her and the market.

I saw men sitting outside smoking sheesha in shops similar to the men in Morocco drinking mint tea. There were lots of small mosques all over in unmarked buildings without tall spires and with no speaker for a call to prayer. It was a really great day, with nice weather and friendly people.
As the sun started to set I decided that it was time to head back to my hostel but I literally had no idea where I was since I had just been wandering around and at every intersection I would look for what I thought might be more interesting and headed that way. As usual I had a terrible map that only had major streets on it and was only for the tourist areas. I was starting to worry that I would have to spend money and hire a cab to get me back to my hostel when I had a great idea. If I could find the Nile, I could find the Egyptian Museum and then in turn my hostel. I started looking for major roads and looking down them for the river. Finally I saw a road sign indicating which direction the Nile was and was able to follow that road back to the Nile and find my hostel.

For dinner I had a feast of kebab meat, rice, bread and vegetables from the same place I ate at last night. There is a primary cashier that you pay at and then you are given a ticket for every item that you buy and then you have to take the tickets to the appropriate counter to pick up your dinner. There is a counter for meat, one for fried foods, another for cold foods and a couple others. It makes it really easy because I can order at the picture board in the front and then I just take the tickets to a window and they take the one they need and then point to the next window I need to go to get the rest of my food. The meal was amazing, I love kebab meat! Tomorrow will be more wandering and then back to the airport for lots of long flights.

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Back in Cairo

2010-01-27T15:44:00.002-06:00

On a Bridge

Now I am ridiculously far behind on my blog. I apologize for this, I think it’s because my travels have come to an end and I subconsciously think that if I don’t write to the end of my travels I will still be traveling.

January 3rd we had to be on the bus to head to Cairo by 6am. After an exhausting night of partying we all slept really well and since only half of the group was going back to Cairo the bus was half empty and I was able to stretch out and sleep pretty well. In Cairo we checked into our hotel and then went to the Cairo museum. This is where the actual mummies are as well as everything that was found in King Tut’s tomb. Inside of King Tut’s tomb was a giant gold plated box, inside that box were three progressively smaller golden boxes. Inside the smallest box was a gold plated tomb that had three smaller tombs inside of it until the final one was made completely of gold. When the tomb was opened King Tut was found inside wearing a solid gold mask, necklaces, gloves, shoes and more. The amount of gold was beyond extensive. Again pictures were not allowed and so I don’t have any to show you.

At dinner my stomach started to act up. The plan was to go to the Cairo markets, some of the oldest in the world. I don’t want to be too graphic but I decided that it would be best not to go some place that was too far away from a toilet and instead I went back to the hotel to relax for the rest of the night.

The next morning everyone else on the trip was heading home. My flight was tremendously cheaper to stay for a couple of days and get out of the Holiday Travel Season, so I stuck around for two extra nights. I checked out of the fancy hotel and put my stuff in storage to hang out with Janelle until her flight left. We walked around town for a little while but didn’t have a lot of time to see much anything. When Janelle left I was really sad, we had an amazing time together and I am so grateful to her for inviting me to join her and her friends on this wonderful adventure. I look forward to seeing Janelle and all of my new friends again soon (hopefully).

As part of the tour they take you to the airport but since I was going to be in town for a few more days they drove me to my hostel instead. My hostel was in downtown Cairo, right next to a mosque and just down the street from the Cairo museum. Checking back into a hostel for the first time in over a month it was the first time in all of that time that I felt like I was at home. It was a really weird feeling, why would staying in a room with strangers make me feel at home? It is hard to explain, but it is how I felt.

The whole time that I traveled as part of the tour group they would take us to restaurants that were nice and as such the price of meals was close to that of American prices. Egypt is a poor country and the only reason that prices should be that high is to cater to foreigners. Being back on my own meant that I could eat at restaurants along the streets that the locals frequented and I was able to get a kebab, fries, rice pudding and a drink all for less than $2.50.

In my room a Korean woman started to speak to me and asked me questions about where I was from and where I had been. I thought to myself, this woman has really good English. After I had answered her questions I started to ask her questions back and she replied that she didn’t speak English. I think she had just memorized how to say several logical questions and then nodded politely as I responded.

Tomorrow (January 4th) I’m going to wander the city streets aimlessly as usual to see what I can find, I’m excited.

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The Blue Hole

2010-01-19T12:07:00.002-06:00

Thumbs Up!

This part of the world is famous for its snorkeling and diving. There is a place close to the hotel that is called the Blue Hole and as a group we climbed into jeeps and headed there. At the Blue Hole we gathered at a restaurant where we could leave our stuff and got fins, masks and snorkels. The Blue Hole is basically a giant drop off just feet from the shore that goes down supposedly thousands of feet. Janelle has an underwater camera and the pictures today are definitely worth checking out!

This was also the last night together as a group because some people are continuing on to Jordan for four more days while the rest of us were heading back to Cairo to end the tour. At dinner we went to another restaurant along the beach, but they are all basically the same. The little girl with the big attitude from the night before came back but the restaurant didn’t want her bothering its patrons and quickly ran her off. We had another cake but this time there wasn’t a dancing midget.

Tomorrow we have to be on the bus to head back to Cairo by 6am so instead of an early night and lots of sleep we decided to head out to a local bar and sleep on the bus instead. There was this guy at the bar who wasn’t from our group and he was dressed in bright blue plaid shorts and a t-shirt and Janelle said to me “Look there’s another American”. I laughed and told her there was no way she could know that. We weren’t close enough for her to hear his accent, she was basing her opinion solely on his attire. I approached the guy and started to talk to him only to discover that in fact he was an American. Apparently we stand out really well in our wacky clothes and our tennis shoes.

I don’t have much else to add besides that it was a late night and be sure to check out the underwater pictures below.

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2010-01 (Jan)

Great Start

2010-01-15T18:25:00.001-06:00

Wheelin' four fun

It is officially 2010 in my blog writing and I am only fifteen days behind schedule. We planned to go four wheeling the day after new years and asked for the latest time slot that we could get so that we could sleep in. Since the sun goes down so early in winter (it’s 70 degrees in the winter here) time Sam suggested that we go no later than 2pm and we setup our quad riding for that time.

Sam is a hilarious tour guide. I am in Group A and when he wants to get us together he says “Aye” and then everyone in the group chirps back at him “Aye, Aye, Aye”. I’m sure to others we look like a momma duck with her ducks walking in a haphazard line behind her “Aye, Aye, Aye”. Sam also says “All for one” and then before anyone in the group can reply “One for all” he says it himself like it is a single phrase “All for one and one for all” which cracks me up every time he says it. Sam also likes to have surprises for us all the time but they are usually convenient for him, like rather than giving us time for lunch he will buy us lunch and get us to eat it on the bus. Not that I would ever complain about free food.

We were given a lesson on how to drive the four wheelers and told that if we mess around we will be taken off of the bikes and have to find our own way home. There were 13 of us in the group and we all got our own four wheelers and headed out into town and then out on some dirt roads. We first stopped by the red sea, then at a Bedouin village and again at another spot along the beach. Driving the four wheelers was fun and there was a time that I got mine to fishtail pretty hard which made my heart race but most of the time it was pretty calm driving in a line. It would have been cooler to have a smaller group or more freedom in where we went so that we could drive over things and go really fast, it was still a lot of fun though. When we stopped at the Bedouin village we were sold tea and little girls were selling the string bracelets they made. One of the little girls came up to the Kiwis in the group of Asian descent and put her fingers to her eyes and pulled outwards. It was really funny because it was being done by a little girl who didn’t know any better and we all reacted by laughing. This only encouraged her and she continued to make the action over and over again. I have a picture of her doing it in my pictures below.

For dinner we went as a group to another restaurant that Sam took us to. A couple of members of the group got there before the rest of us and talked with the owners and told them another restaurant was giving us all 20% off and told the restaurant they needed to top it or we would eat elsewhere and the restaurant agreed to give us 25% off (There wasn’t actually another restaurant offering us any discount). I sat at a table with a guy named Sandal and a preteen girl that was selling bracelets came up to him. Earlier in the night this same girl had approached Sandal and asked him to buy a bracelet and he didn’t buy one. The girl recognized Sandal and saw that he had a bracelet on his arm and the girl became irate. The girl started to insist that Sandal needed to also buy a bracelet from her now and he tried to tell her he didn’t want one but he isn’t a very forceful guy and she was a very persistent that he buy one. After the girl had hassled him for a while it looked like he was going to cave in and then Janelle spoke up and told the girl he didn’t want one and that she should go away. The little girl flipped out on Janelle yelling at her and telling her to mind her own business. At this point we called over someone from the restaurant and had the girl removed.

January 1st is also Sandal’s birthday and after dinner the restaurant brought him out a cake. Then the restaurant staff moved the glass covering the table to one side leaving a portion of the table not covered by glass and then out came a midget who was lifted on to the table. Music started pumping through some nearby speakers and the midget started dancing on the table shaking ever inch of himself. It was hilarious and as usual the dancing ended in a conga line.

Today I laid by the pool, rode four wheelers in the desert and saw a midget dancing, off to an amazing 2010!

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Happy New Year

2010-01-14T23:41:00.002-06:00

If only I were an octopus

After the bus ride and Mount Sinai I was exhausted and laid out by the pool for a while and then took a nap in preparation for New Years Eve. Our hotel had a compulsory additional charge on New Years for the party they were throwing and we got ready and headed down to the party. There was a schedule for the party which consisted of several lengthy ethnic dance routines with a DJ playing just before midnight and shortly after before the party was to end.

The party was in a large tent outside and everyone was given a party bag which consisted of an Easter bunny or Santa mask, a hat and a bag of paper balls. I asked Sam what the paper balls were for and he told me they were for throwing at people so we all tore into our bags and launched paper balls at each other. It was really silly and made me feel like a kid, I loved it! For dinner we had a really big, delicious buffet while an unintentional Snoop Dogg impersonator in a white suit danced around on stage. After we had gotten everything that we could get that was free, everyone that had been on my felucca decided that we were going to get some taxi’s and head into town to celebrate New Years.

While we were waiting for our cabs to come Sam and a bunch of other people from our tour group came into the lobby and decided they also wanted to go into town for the rest of the night and cancelled our cabs and called the tour bus to come and get us instead. It sounded like a good idea except the tour bus seemed to take forever to get there and then we waited for more people to come and fill up the bus. We had scouted out a couple of bars in town during the day that were having new years parties but they were all had cover charges. Sam called a friend of his who owned a bar and asked if we could all come in for free and he said we could so the whole bus went there. When we arrived we were pretty much the only people in the place. The bar was selling alcohol by the bottle at a price comparable to three drinks so as a group we got a couple bottles and shared them.

We celebrated several countdowns to midnight and spent the rest of the night at this bar until we returned home. It was a fun new years spent with lots of new friends.

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