Getting to Prague

My flight out of Istanbul left at 3:30am. I'm not sure who thought that was going to be convenient for anyone, but I think he should be fired.

I hung out in Istanbul all day, ate dinner on the Asian side, and then returned to the hostel around 10 to read some Moby Dick and wait for the shuttle that, at 12:30 in the morning, took me and a bunch of other tourists, packed into a van like Ecuadorian chickens, an hour or so away to the airport (not the main airport, mind you).

I waited there for hours after checking in, listening to my iPod and falling in and out of sleep, and finally boarded the EasyJet plane around 3:15am. The flight to Basel, Switzerland couldn't have gone slowly enough as I sat in sweet unconsciousness on the right-hand side of the plane.

It's interesting, as much as I loved Turkey, arriving in Switzerland brought with it a feeling that can best only be described as relief.

In Basel, I had to wait like 6 hours for my flight to Prague, so I walked around and found a nice bench where I slept for like 3 hours before I was able to check in. Then I got on the plane around 1pm and slept all the way to Prague.

Well rested now, I arrived at the Prague airport and caught a bus, then metro to the A & O Hostel. It had a high satisfactory rating on hostels.com - a rating that could not be further from reality. This was THE WORST hostel of the trip. The smaller rooms might have been ok, but the dorm was ridiculous. At 1am, backpackers sat with the light on (in this 20 some-odd-bed dorm) drinking and talking. When I arrived there were only two open beds. I opted for one that was a top bunk right up against the sloped ceiling. The bed was the furthest from the door and seemed like a good idea at the time I chose it. However, when I came back at night to go to bed, I discovered that my body was too big to fit under the sloped ceiling. I had to manipulate my body in ways certain to cause life-long back problems if I intended to fit under the ceiling.

And so, I got up and took the one other free bed in the room - a bottom bunk two beds over toward the door. It became readily apparent why this bed, too, was open. It was broken in half. The bed consisted of a thin mattress resting on a piece of plywood. The plywood was completely cracked in half. It managed to work ok as long as I maintained a precise equilibrium of weight on the foot end and the head end. If the equilibrium was disrupted due to any shifting on my part, the bed collapsed. Good times. As I lay there trying to sleep, I determined two things: to write a stinging review of the hostel on hostels.com and to switch hostels the next day.

In spite of the hostel, however, Prague was a beautiful city and wonderful experience. Unscathed from either world war, the central buildings are all very old - and not only are the original buildings intact, but there is also a noticeable absence of modern buildings in most of central Prague. The result is a feeling of stepping back into medieval times. Indeed modern Prague is a hermit crab, scurrying about in the shell of an earlier civilization.

First on my list of things to do, was to see the site of the Prague scenes from Mission Impossible I. I walked down to the river and found a building and bridge that looked like (and indeed were) the scenes from the plot-laying of the film. I snapped some pictures and then moved toward the side of the museum/concert hall that served as the party scene from MI. A relatively long line had formed and, having no idea what it was for, I, like any good sheep, got in it.

After twenty minutes or so, I was ushered into the building and handed a brochure which explained that tonight was Prague's annual Museum Night, in which, from 6pm to 1am, almost every museum in Prague was free. I happened in upon a free orchestra concert in this modern art museum. It was pretty cool. I stayed a few minutes and then crossed the Charles Bridge (where people in medieval dress were dancing to medieval music) and headed up to Prague Castle, where I walked around a bit and then went into the museum of the ancient Prague Castle.

Here, a long-unanswered question from my childhood was finally answered. You know the Burger King crown? Where did they get that design? I've seen lots of crowns from throughout Western Europe and none looked so plain and simple as the Burger King Crown, which looked like it was made of a sheet of gold wrapped around a head and adorned with chunks of jewels. Well, that is EXACTLY what the crown in the Prague Castle looks like. Case closed.

After the castle, I wandered down a really cool quaint street that served as home to a bunch of medieval alchemists. The houses were cozy and low, rising only a few feet above my head. It looked almost like a hobbit town. I would have loved to wander around more, but it was approaching midnight and the metro closes around then and I had found out that church in the Prague Branch starts bright and early at 9am.

And so, I caught a metro back to the main square, where I grabbed a quick bite at McDonald's before rushing on to my hostel.

It is worth noting that during my feeding at McDonald's, I must have eaten something that disagreed with me. And the manner in which it disagreed with me was not like that of a disgruntled Swede, who crosses to the other side of the room, ceases to look you in the eye and remains in quiet sulking until you can gently coax out the nature of his discontent. No, this food disagreed with me like a nationalistic terrorist, launching rockets and mortars with reckless abandon at the slightest provocation.

And so, we add to the discomfort of the hostel bed a ferocious stomach ache.

The Turkish Bath (Hammam)

My second to last night in Istanbul, I headed a couple kilometers out of Sultanahmet to a very authentic Turkish bath I'd stumbled upon a few days prior. (By the way, I ate a small overpriced pizza with spicy peppers on it on the way.)

My hammam, or Turkish bath, of choice was constructed in the 1400s. I was greeted by a couple big Turks who spoke virtually no English and I paid my twenty or so dollars for a bath and massage. I was first shown to my room, a small place in the entrance where I stripped, put on the little loin cloth-esque towel they'd given me and locked my stuff up. The room is yours for the duration of your stay and there's even a bed for taking a nap should you feel so inclined.

From there, I was escorted to the back of the building where the bulk of the bath-related activities take place. It's a giant marble room with a giant heated marble slab in the middle and washing stations, wash rooms and a sauna forming a ring around it. The ceiling is a dome and has a few holes in it, which I think opened to the outside. Luckily, at this point a Turkish immigrant living in England came in and, seeing that I was clearly out-of-place, helped me decipher the process and translated.

First, I laid on the (really hot) marble slap, front and back, for about 20 minutes. This relaxes the body and gets the sweat flowing. Then, a big hairy Turkish man, clad in the same loincloth-esque fashion as the bather, comes in to wash you. The first thing he did was chiropractor-esque. He pulled my arm over my chest and popped my back (first left, then right). Then he popped my neck.

Next, he put on a glove made of something like a mix between sandpaper and steel wool, with which he scrubbed me from head to toe. This is intended to scrub off the dead skin. Then I sat up and he dumped a couple buckets of colder, very refreshing water over me (remember, it's really warm in this room and the slab is hot). Then I laid down again and he got a big tub of soapy water into which he dunked a big sock-like cloth made of a permeable fabric that looked similar to cheesecloth. He filled it with bubbles and then wrung it out over my body several times, covering me with bubble bath-like suds.

Then came the washing and massage. He proceeded to scrub my whole body clean and massaged it for around 20 minutes. To the best of my recollection, this marked my first real massage. After this, he rinsed me again with the semi-cold water and led to me a washing station where he washed and rinsed me again. Then he gave me a fresh towel, dry loincloth and bar of soap and told me I was free to continue bathing, sleeping, relaxing - whatever I wanted - for as long as I wanted.

I returned to the marble slab for a bit, then went into the pool room, where I relaxed in the cool water of the chest deep pool. After that I returned to the marble slab, then rinsed myself in cool water, then showered off, got dressed and left.

The much-anticipated Turkish bath, long expected to be a highlight of the trip, lived up to its expectations fully. It is definitely an experience!

Istanbul Stew

If you read the preceding entry then you already know what we're going to do here. We're going to take all the notable chunks of my week in Istanbul and throw them into this entry...hence the title, "stew."

So, I had a lot of time in Istanbul. I took it easy. I relaxed. I slept in. I ate good food. And there's lots to do, so I really didn't get bored. And if there's one thing I've learned on this trip, it's that I get bored easily.

The day after my adventures in the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, I slept in and visited the enormous cathedral-turned Mosque-turned museum, Aya Sofia (Hagia Sofia). It's interesting because the cathedral (the largest building in the world at the time of completion) started as an enormous cathedral covered in Christian tile mosaics. When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, however, they plastered over the mosaics, hoisted up some giant Islamic ornaments and shifted the altar a few feet so that it faced Mecca. Today, much of the plaster has either been removed or fallen off and beautiful Christian mosaics reside peacefully under the giant domed roof along with Arabic writings from the Koran; perhaps a lesson to us all.

I like the Egyptian Spice Market. It sits down near the port and has the cheapest fresh Turkish Delight in central Istanbul. It also has...you guessed it...spices. I didn't buy any of those, though. I believe they are abundantly available in American supermarkets...a tragedy indeed of globalization and the modernization of the old spice trade route.

Topkapi Palace, home to the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, was a really cool place. I paid the extra $7 to get into the Harem and see the Sultan's, his mother's and his women's living quarters. The entire palace was covered in impressive tile work. In one of the buildings which houses a bunch of artifacts, I came across the mummified arm of John the Baptist, along with a large chunk of his skull; spoils of war from the Byzentine Empire. That was interesting. I also saw a bunch of jewels and crowns and swords and stuff.

The Basilica Cistern was pretty cool - an ancient underground water cistern built by the Romans underground in Sultanahment. I saw that my last day.

On the Asian side of Istanbul, there is a super busy shopping street and a bunch of restaurants. I ate here my second-to-last night. It was a frustrating experience because it's not a very touristy area at all and I couldn't understand the words on the menu. I had something with lamb and rice. Noticeably absent was my favorite mealtime companion, yogurt.

Since I had a lot of time in Istanbul, I also took two boat rides: one up the bosphorous - essentially a water tour of Istanbul as seen from the strip of water that runs between the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea. That wasn't as impressive as I'd anticipated. Let's face it: most cities that incorporate water into their charm really have nothing on Europe's most beautiful city, Stockholm.

The other boat ride I took was out into the Marmara Sea to the Prince Islands (no, I don't know why they're called that - although I could venture a guess). I got off the boat at the last island (even though in hindsight the first looked coolest). There was only one car that I could find - a very loud garbage truck - and everybody got around by foot, bike and horse-drawn carriage. It was a pretty cool atmosphere. I now carry a spoon in my backpack for impromptu yogurt eating sessions and I enjoyed one such in a little fisherman's port not far from the center of town. Owing, however, to the fact that, for all my efforts I couldn't find anything to do on that island, I took the next boat back to Istanbul, after buying a little cheeseburger from a kebab shop (I'm a rebel, I know).

Stay tuned for the next blog entry: the infamous and much-anticipated Turkish Bath.

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

Yes, I'm taking a long time to update the blog. Without any further ado, here's Istanbul:

I rolled into the sweeping metropolis that once served as capital to several of the world's largest empires around 7am. I was incredibly tired. I took my time getting to Sultanahmet where I intended to find a hostel, because it's hard to check in so early in the morning. So I stopped by a cafe for a breakfast of...you guessed it...yogurt (and orange juice - the combination of which, by the way, does weird, somewhat painful things in one's stomach).

After breakfast, I jumped on the tram and headed for the center of all things touristy: Sultanahmet. This neighborhood on the tip of the Golden Horn on the European side of Istanbul is home to Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace (the Sultan's Palace), the New Mosque, the ancient Roman underground Basilica Cistern, the Egyptian Spice Market, the Grand Bazaar and a TON of hostels. I chose the Sultan Hostel, a nice little place that stands in the shadows of the Blue Mosque.

I arrived around 9am and was luckily able to check in that early, whereupon I immediately jumped onto a top bunk and slipped into a much-needed several hours' slumber.

When I woke up, I decided to head out to check out the sites. It was Monday, and since Hagia Sofia is a museum, I wasn't able to go there, so I went to the Blue Mosque. It is an ENORMOUS building that was built by the Ottomans as an answer to the Christian Hagia Sofia which, at the time of construction, was the largest building in the world. This was my first time inside a mosque and it was very beautiful. I was also impressed that Turkish Muslims have chosen to allow non-Muslims to see the mosques, whereas Moroccans vehemently prohibit it. The mosque was, as I said, enormous and was filled with Turkish carpets and lights hanging from the ceiling.

After the Blue Mosque, (which by the way is called Sultanahmet and is the building from which the Sultanahment neighborhood derives its name) I headed up the street to the Grand Bazaar, which is the world's largest covered market (they seem to have an affinity in Turkey for all things "the world's largest"). I wandered around the bazaar a while taking in the atmosphere and seeing if anything perked my interests. The objects that did surprised me: pillows. And so, for the next couple hours, I wandered the bazaar examining a wide array of Arabic pillows before settling on the four which will likely adorn my bed in Boston.

Pillows? you say. Middle Eastern pillows are cool. They have cool Arabic/Middle Eastern patterns on them and are all over the place in this part of the world. Instead of couches, most people have assorted sized and shaped pillows to sit on. Even the Sultan's throne in Topkapi Palace is essentially a giant pillow covered with other pillows which were in turn covered with beautiful women who existed for the sole pleasure of the Sultan.

Enough of pillows. After that, I headed out for some food. In the interest of retaining the reader's attention, I will condense all of my Istanbul food experiences (well, most of them) into this paragraph:

Turkish food is good. I've already made clear my affinity for yogurt. Now let's talk about Turkish Delight. That stuff is amazing. And for those of you reading this who are my friends and didn't just find this blog while browsing Technorati or Blogger (although I'm glad you're here), you will get to try some of this precious succulence upon my return in early July. Turkish Delight is much light a giant "inside of a jellybean" covered in powdered sugar. It's good eatin'. Turkey is of course also famous for its kebabs. In fact, after 8 days in Turkey I am currently boycotting kebabs. A restaurant menu is essentially a list of every conceivable way of preparing a kebab. My favorite is the infamous Iskender Kebab (named for Alexander the Great - ya, I think they had trouble pronouncing his name). It is a plate covered with traditional döner kebab pita bread upon which the lamb meat is spread and then topped with two heaping scoops of fresh yogurt. Good stuff. Another common sight in Istanbul is corn sellers. They stand with little stands throughout the city and sell corn on the cob. Döner kebab stands abound (those are the ones, similar to a Greek gyro that have the kebab meat inside a pita with lettuce, onions and tomato and either a white yoghurt or red sauce). Down by the port (water taxi and ferry are common forms of public transport in Istanbul) they sell fish sandwiches - a fillet of fish stuffed into a roll with lemon juice and lettuce. Finally, I should mention the mussels. There are mussel street vendors all over. They take mussels, stuff them with rice, cook them and then sell them for pennies from street carts. They're super good too. Oh ya, and don't forget the fruit salesman that provided me my self-determined daily recommended value of cherries.

Well, now that I've departed from the chronological format that has hereto served as the foundation for this blog, and because it's been a couple weeks since I left Istanbul anyway, I think I'll just throw in all the other notable events of my 7 and a half or so days in Istanbul into the remainder of this blog entry. No wait, better yet, I'll start a new one - and I'll call it Istanbul Stew.

A Day in Izmir

I left Selcuk at around 10am and took a minibus an hour north to Izmir, one of four cities in Turkey that have an LDS Church. Armed with the address, attained from www.mormon.org, I first asked the staff at my hotel if they knew where it was. They told me that with that address alone it would be very difficult to find. Apparently all I had was a street number and name and the address lacked the crucial part of the enormous city in which the street was located. Essentially I was looking for a street in New York City without knowing if I should go to Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, etc. Still, I thought I'd give it a shot.

I arrived at the Izmir bus station and asked a travel agent at one of the many booking booths. Upon showing him the address, he replied "Problem. Big Problem." And then he reiterated the same message I got at the hotel. I asked another travel agent. "Big problem." They basically said it was impossible to find it.

I kept walking around and finally ran into a police officer who spoke virtually no English. I showed him the address and gave my best "Do you know how to get here?" look. He seemed to understand and pulled out a cell phone. He spoke for a few minutes with someone very helpful on the other end of the line and then flashed me a triumphant smile. After hanging up the phone he wrote the section of the city the church was in inside the book I had written the address in and then he led me to the local bus pick-up point and told me to catch a bus from there.

I asked around for which bus to take to my desired section of the city and finally got on the right one. Of course, I had NO IDEA where to get off this bus. I conveyed to the driver that I didn't know where to get off (again, using my best body language), and he made some sounds that I interpreted to mean he would tell me when to get off. I sat close to the front and sure enough, after meandering through some sketchy looking neighborhoods, we emerged in a nicer looking part of the city and he told me to get off and pointed ahead. And so I walked ahead.

It was at around this point that I became familiar enough with my surroundings that I thought I might be able to decipher the street system enough to get to the apartment building named in the church's address. Wrong. As I would later learn, there is no rhyme or reason behind the ordering of the numerized streets in Izmir. It's a crap shoot. And so I wandered for another hour and a half or so, occasionally asking people in uniforms how to get there and getting rough directions as I walked. Finally someone told me to ask a cab driver. I'd been avoiding this cause I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a taxi if I could avoid it. As the time drew late, however, I decided I was going to have to bite the bullet. I approached a cabby. He asked another cabby, they conversed for a while over the address I'd handed them, and he returned a gave me rough directions in Turkish heavily accentuated with body language. Just then, a woman walked up who did speak English and she translated for me and sent me off in the right direction. The fact that the cabby didn't just tell me to get in and drive me a very short distance and then overcharge me for the journey is characteristic of the genuine friendliness of the Turkish people.

After wandering a while in the right direction, I saw a Domino's. Now, if anyone would know how to navigate the chaotic streets of Izmir, it was the delivery guy standing near his motorcycle not 5 feet from me. I greeted him and...he spoke English...and...knew exactly where the building was. He even drew me a little map inside my book. And so, with about 4 minutes to go until church started, I headed down the right street.

I arrived at the apartment building and rang the buzzer. A muffled buzz greeted me through the intercom and the door clicked open. I went in and, thanks to my hotel friend's help in deciphering what of the address I did have, I knew to go to the fifth floor. There, to my surprise, I was greeted in English by a senior missionary, Elder Richardson.

I walked in the door, looked around, confirmed my suspicions that church was in fact held in a home, took of my backpack and shoes, pulled a tie out of my pack and put it on.

Sacrament meeting (and Sunday School and Relief Society) was held in the living room of the senior couple's apartment. Priesthood (for all three of us) was held in the kitchen. Church was attended that day by myself, the Richardsons and three Turks: the branch president (a fluent English speaker who spent 19 years in Coppenhagen and translated the entire service), a middle-aged convert woman, and a younger investigator woman.

Church was abbreviated to two hours with all three meetings being condensed and a 10-minute break. (A 10-minute break when you only have 6 people to start with is an interesting concept.)

Different as it was, it was remarkably the same and felt like home. It had been weeks since I'd been to church, owing to the absence of the church in most of the places I was traveling.

After church, I stuck around and had dinner with the Richardson's before catching a bus back to the bus depot and there buying what may well have been the last bus ticket to Istanbul available that night. I ate a late snack of yoghurt before jumping on the bus and trying to sleep as the bus careened toward Istanbul for the next 7 or 8 hours.

Turkey: The Early Days

The boat rıde across the Aegean was only an hour and a half or so long (and not in a particularly speedy vessel). We docked at Çeşme (I think I spelled that right) where I walked around briefly before catching a bus to İzmir, the third largest city in Turkey. İzmir was only about an hour and a half by bus and from there I caught a minibus south to Selçuk, the small town nearest the Ephesian ruins.

Selçuk was great. I stayed in my own room in a pretty nice hotel near the center (for around $10 a night). Not long after situating myself in town and the hotel, grabbing a kebab and a few scoops of yoghurt for lunch, I set off for Ephesus, a 3 or 4 kilometer walk from the town. Along the way, I met a guy about my age who'd been trying to call hıs 'girlfriend' in Korea but didn't speak enough English to understand the message indicating the number had been temporarily suspended (I helped him out with that). Closer to the entrance to the ruins, I bought a few ancient looking but likely replica Ephesian coins off a farmer.

The ruins of Ephesus were amazing. The well-preserved 2000 year-old commerce center rivaled any ruins I've seen anywhere in the world. Marble wears well and the details and magnitude of this town, which boasted John and Mary as residents and Paul as prisoner, were awe-inspiring.

I took the long way home. I'm sorry, did I say long way? I meant wrong way. That's okay, a little exercise never hurt anyone. Once I got back to town I bought a little Turkish Delight and some more yoghurt and something else for dinner (only the yoghurt seems to ever stand out in my mind).

The next day, I took it easy. I could have left earlier, but I stuck around because I wanted to go to church in İzmir (an hour north) the next day. So, on this day - being Saturday - I wandered around the weekly market, bought a shirt to add some color to my well-used travel wardrobe, bought some more turkish delight, and bought some more yoghurt from a guy off the street (I pack spoons in my backpack). The market was a really cool experience - 12 or so hours of bustling people and the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of an authentic Turkish bazaar.

After the market, I went up to St. John's Basilica, the ruins of the hill where John resided before and after his exhile to Patmos. It was pretty cool to walk around where he walked.

Then I headed a kilometer or so out of town to what remains of the Temple or Artemis, one of the ancient seven wonders of the world. I took a couple pictures of the sole remaining column and then headed back to the hotel and layed down on the couch in the lobby. A girl from Hong Kong, sitting in a chair across from me says I slept for quite a while. I'm on vacation.

After my nap, some strawberries and my daily recommended dose of turkish delight, I went out on the town for a meal of kebab, stuffed tomatoes, peppers and some other as yet unidentifiable delicacies.

Getting to Turkey

So, initially I thought I was going to have to take a 20 or so hour bus ride from Athens to Istanbul in order to get to Turkey. I was dreading that. Beyond the bus ride itself (I really have developed some strong feelings toward buses on this trip), I was lamenting the probability that I would not be able to visit a Greek island given my timetable for getting to Turkey.

However, as I failed to mention in my last post, my first full day in Athens, I headed up to the Pireaus Port to look into ferries to Turkey. They said there were none, but there are three Greek isles from which one can then ferry across to the Turkish coast. The three islands are: Lesbos, Samos and Chios.

Lesbos has recently become a mecca-esque destination for lesbian tourists (not exactly my cup of tea), Samos was an overnight and awefully long ferry ride with many stops along the way, and Chios (pronounced Hios) was a quick 6-hour hop across the Aegean...just right. And so, I decided to go to Hios.

The next day, I slept in (I started feeling a little under the weather and was up late the night before) and caught the metro to the port in time to buy my ticket and catch the 12:30 ferry to Chios.

The ferry was a lot of fun actually. And upon experiencing life on the deck without a reserved seat, I became hugely glad that I had opted for the shorter ferry ride. In Chios it didn't take long for me to realize to realize this wasn't a hot backpacker destination. No hostels on the entire (very large) island and no backpackers anywhere in sight. I found a 20 euro room in a nice hotel run by a New Zealander and then set off to get to know the area around the harbor.

It is actually a pretty charming little port. As hunger set in, I walked up along the beach away from town and after a couple kilometers, I found a nice looking beachview outdoor garden restaurant. I went in and sat alone in the sea of tables (Greeks don't start eating until around 9:30 or 10pm and this was around 8 or 8:30.

The meal that followed quickly landed itself in the top three of my trip. I had shrimp sauteed with onions, a greek salad on the side and homemade potato fries along with a litre of water and turkish delight for dessert (I didn't know it was Turkish Delight until I got to Turkey, however). Oh, and for 6 euros, it was one of my least expensive western European restaurant meals.

I had initially planned on spending a whole day on the island, but when I discovered that:
a) I was the only young person traveling on the island and had nobody to hang out with on said island;
b) Prices on the island were more than double the prices in Turkey, which was so close I could see the buildings on the opposite shore;
c) The beaches looked to be identical on both sides of this little stretch of water separating the continents; and
d) I could just as well sit alone for 1/3 the price on the far side of the water as the side I was on.

And so, the next morning at 8:30am, after only 14 hours or so hours on Chios, I boarded a little ferry bound for the Aegean Coast of Turkey.

Greece (a few millenia of history in two days)

My journey to Greece began at 9pm in the Belgrade train station where I boarded a night train for Thessaloníki. I opted to spend an extra 6 or so Euros to get a bed in a three-person cabin as opposed to the 6-bed couchette. I ended up with a Serb and a Greek guy who were about my age and pretty cool. The ride went really quick as I lay mostly unconscious on the top bunk. My sleep was really only interrupted for border control at the exit to Serbia, entrance and exit to Macedonia and entrance to Greece. The total ride to Thessaloníki was around 15 hours. I expected to stop there and spend the night (I arrived around 1pm with the time change) but it was raining pretty hard and there's not a ton of unique stuff to see there anyway (at least that's my impression - no offense to any Thessalonians out there).

So, I hung out in the train station there for a couple hours, bought a feta and tomato sandwich and then busted out my old Eurail pass for the 6-hour trip down to Athens. That train ride was ok, except that the designer of the seats must have had a crazy-shaped anatomy which he referenced strictly and accurately in designing the ergonomics of the seats.

I got into Athens and caught the subway to a hostel recommended by my guide book. I was very much looking forward to re-establishing my interhuman ties with other travelers in the hostel. This, however proved a vain desire as there was no common space in the hostel and my roommate in the half-empty (or full) four-bed dorm was a middle-aged woman from Palo Alto who slept solidly for virtually the entire time I knew her.

At night, I walked around Plaka (the area immediately below the Acropolis) and grabbed a (you guessed it) gyro for dinner. Oh, but it should be noted that the drink at this particular gyro joint came in a large paper cup with a lid and was...filled with ice! My reunification with my old friend "ice" was perhaps as fulfilling as I'd hoped my reunification with backpackers would be.

After enduring the sounds emanating from my roommate all night, I awoke the next morning and had a breakfast of cherries before heading up to the Acropolis. The Parthenon was very cool in spite of the scaffolding that enjoys prominence throughout the Acropolis. Perhaps even more interesting to me, however, was the ancient Agora (marketplace) that sits just below the Acropolis. This was the common area which was frequented by Plato, Socrates and Paul as they engaged in casual and spontaneous philosophical discussions with the Athenians of their day. It was really cool to walk where they walked. I also took a few minutes to sit on the hill where Paul taught his first Athenian convert who later became Greece's patron saint.

I spent hours wandering the Acropolis and Agora and then headed back to the hostel to plot my next move (there really isn't a ton to do in Athens aside from the Acropolis). There, I met to American ex-pat girls who were in Greece on day one of their senior trip. We talked for a while and ended up going out for drinks with a couple from Madrid. After a few expensive Cokes I decided to turn in so I could catch a ferry the next morning to Chios in the Aegean Sea near Turkey...my next destination.

Belgrade, Serbia

Its difficult to overstate how relieved I was to leave Bosnia. Maybe it was just the extremely low level of comfort I felt staying in that apartment, but for whatever reason, the first roll of the bus tires was highly anticipated. It didn't take long for me to pull out my iPod and inflatable pillow and spend the next couple hours taking in the scenery through intermittent bouts of unconsciousness. After a short passport check at the Bosnian side of the border, and then again on the Serbian side, we worked our way through the noticably nicer towns of Serbia to the capital, Belgrade.

Belgrade is a big city, and much more modern than I expected (but don't get me wrong, this is no Dubai). There is an old part of town, similar to any old European city but topped off with a giant citadel that stands as a testament to Serbia's turbulent history. Across the Danube is Novo Beograd with aging high rises and a few more modern buildings. The roads leading to the citadel are known locally as "Silicon Valley" and are a congregating point for artificially enhanced Serbian girls in search of a mate.

In the park leading to the citadel, I bought a genuine candied apple. I was probably a little more excited about it than was justified - and I have pictures to prove it. I also enjoyed my first popcorn in over a month (I know, its been torture). I bought a bag of it from a gipsy woman in the park. There are lots of gipsies here. A small group of them was playing traditional music in the park. I had pizza again for dinner. I had aimed to find some traditional Serbian food, but the task proved too taxing and I caved to the prospects of immediate gratification. The pizza here is good though...I might even say its better than the pizza in Rome and Tuscany.

After dinner, I began my lengthy and indescribably frustrating trek back to the hostel. There are three things every traveler should know about Belgrade: First, there are almost no street signs; second, all the maps are in the latin alphabet; third, what few street signs that do exist are exclusively in the cryllic alphabet. Working one's way through the maze that is Belgrade is a lengthy and arduous guessing game made easier only by a few landmarks and the occasional two-word street name (two words in the latin alphabet is also, apparently, two words in the cryllic alphabet). And thank heaven for the street named after the 29th of November. Numbers are apparently the same, too.

I arrived back at the hostel later than I'd hoped, but thankfully, its in the embassy part of town, so there were no shortage of security guards in the buildings lining my dark walk home. Back at the hostel I used a washing machine for the first time in over a month. Before you get grossed out, recognize that I have done laundry in sinks throughout Europe. Still, having almost all of my clothes clean simultaneously is a feeling that won't be soon forgotten.

I stayed up for an hour or so talking to the night staffer, a 38 year-old man from Kosovo who spent the war biking frantically throughout town in search of diapers and baby food for his young son while NATO bombs rained down on the city. His perspectives on the war were very interesting. And the Serbian take on the war is hugely different from that of the Bosnians. Just down the street, two huge military buildings rise as a bombed out testament to the damage rendered by NATO during the war. Its interesting to look at those buildings and know that it was American and British munitions that did the damage. Its also interesting to know that all the young people I meet retain in vivid memory those years. Its one thing to see on CNN at home that bombs are being dropped on some faraway country. Its another to come here and hang out with the people we were dropping them on. Poignant.

Sarajevo, Bosnia

After my all-night train ride from Ljubljana through Zagreb, I rolled into Sarajevo at 6:11am. I had looked online beforehand and knew there were two hostels in town (both pretty sketchy according to the reviews); however, I was also interested in staying in someone's home (a common accomodation in Sarajevo) to get the authentic experience. Knowing it was too early to head to the hostels, I walked around the train station for a couple minutes. Then, a middle-aged woman approached me and in broken English asked if I was looking for a room. I decided (perhaps against my better judgement) to go for it, in the name of the "authentic experience."

We caught a taxi to her place which was only a block or so away from downtown. I had expected to be staying in a small room in her home. Nope - her home was a small room. There was one bed, one couch, a small stove, small table, bookshelf, a few stuffed animals as decorations, and a window overlooking the bullet-ridden building across the street. In the place of what would have been a light fixture was a black burn mark. I have to say it was pretty depressing. And my host was a little disconcerting as well. Needless to say, I didn't feel 100% comfortable.

After a couple-hour nap on the couch, I headed out to see the sights, making a mental note that, rather than two nights, I would only spend one in this woman's home. First, I went to the suburbs around the airport where I walked along a dirt road to the remains of the "Sarajevo Tunnel." The Tunnel was built in the 1990s as a means of smugging food, electricity, gas, military personnel and munitions into the under-seige city of Sarajevo. The city was under seige for almost four years as Serbian snipers and paramilitaries camped out in the surrounding hills with sights ever locked on Sarajevo as they picked of pedestrians and launched mortars incessantly into the buildings. Locals attribute their survival to the Tunnel, which ran 800 meters under the UN-occupied airport into the still Bosnian-controlled stretch of land leading up to Croatia. Interesting stuff.

From there I headed back into the city, passing bullet-ridden and bombed out structures all the way. There were a few streets in the heart of the city that have been renovated pretty well. These present an optimistic face of a city still on a very slow road to reconstruction and recovery. The sidewalks are covered with "Sarajevo Roses" - craters left from mortar fire - some of which are filled in with red cement, but most of which remain holes.

Also in the center of Sarajevo is the Latin Bridge where the event precipitating World War I occured when a Serb assasinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

There is also a very nice Turkish quarter where many of the mosques are centered (Bosnia is heavily Muslim). The streets are polished stone, the buildings low and full of character, and the mosque spires enchanting. I had a turkish meal with wonderful yoghurt.

I then walked back toward the bus station to see how soon I would be able to leave Sarajevo. On the way, I was amazed at the evidences of death and destruction that accompanied every step. Museums were still bombed out with bulled-ridden facades. As I neared Sniper's Alley (by the Holiday Inn that served as home to the international journalist community during the war) I was surprised to see angled bullet holes throughout the sidewalk, left from the Serbian snipers who sat perched in high-rised killing pedestrians below. Earlier I had seen pictures of bodies laying all over this street. It was a poignant experience. As if the history of death alone wasn't enough, on the sidewalk I saw a worm frantically squirming. I looked down to see ants eating it alive. Then, as I arrived at the bus station, a crow swooped down and attacked a sparrow, carrying the squawking bird away in its beak. Yes, it was a pretty depressing walk.

At the trainstation I was met enthusiastically by my host who was stalking out the train and bus stations for other turists to try to get to stay in her place (how they would have fit, I have no idea). There were no tourists, though. And, similarly, no night buses to Belgrade. I would have to wait until morning. Oh well, at least the bus left at 6am so I would only have to sleep in her apartment for a few hours.

The woman and I then walked back into town together to determine a meeting place for the night so we could get back to her apartment. After determining the meeting place (a church) and time (11pm), I headed to the nicer street where cafes and bars had assembled masses of chairs, tables and tv's to watch the Bosnia-Turkey national teams football match. It was a great game and a much-appreciated reprieve from the sights of the city and the gloom it eminated. Bosnia scored in the 89th minute to take a 3-2 lead. A few minutes later, the game was over, and the drinking began. I think any excuse to celebrate is welcome here.

I still had around 30 minutes before I met up with the woman to go home, so I subdued my hunger with a couple slices of pizza at a small joint that was still open. Then I walked up to the Turkish Quarter to see it lit up at night, walked around the main mosque, and then headed back to the pre-determined meeting point to go home and get some sleep. I got to bed around 11:15 and, since there was no shower, was able to sleep in until 5am and still make it to the bus station in time for the 6am bus to Belgrade, Serbia.

Slovenia, Croatia and 'Getting to Know Kevin'

A few days ago (it's tough to keep track), I left Budapest by train and traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia via Zagreb, Croatia. Zagreb wasn't all that impressive. It was an interesting marriage of shining buildings and run-down side streets, surrounded by depressing suburbs. I ran into the missionaries as they were leaving Zone Conference. It's always fun to see them.

Up in Ljubljana I stayed in a converted prison-turned hostel. It's in this crazy part of Ljubljana that was taken over by hippies. A very interesting place. The city was beautiful and the cherries were awesome. Plus it was really great to see mountains again.

It's interesting: A lot of people travel to 'find themselves.' I had no such direct intention, but several moments of self-discovery have accompanied my Epic Adventure thus far.

The first epiphany came in Florence in the Uffizzi museum: I am not a huge fan of art museums and I don't like Renaissance art.

The second self discovery was the dramatic solidification of an already suspect character trait: I do not like it hot. That confirmation hit my like a ton of hot, soggy bricks in Rome and drove me north to Budapest and ultimately the Slovenian Alps.

The third realization came just today: I am a cherry guy. I know, I know, I always thought I was a berry guy. Well, there are two things you should know about the Balkans: there are lots of strawberries and there are lots of cherries. Last night (on my all-night train journey from Croatia to Sarajevo) I enjoyed a box of Croatian strawberries. And this morning, in the outdoor market of Sarajevo, when faced with the choice of either, I found myself unhesitatingly electing cherries for my tastebuds' morning soujourn. Plus, cherries keep better than strawberries. I can keep them in my backpack without fear of smashing them. Heck, I can keep them in my pockets! I love cherries.

Anyway, back to the trip. After a night and morning in Slovenia's beautiful riverside capital, I hopped a bus alp-bound. I went past the somewhat touristy Bled into the farming Bohinj Valley in the Julian Alps (named for Julius Caesar). I stayed in a bed and breakfast (minus the breakfast...I stayed in a bed?) in the first of a series of small farming towns that adorn the valley. In the evening, I walked through them all, stopping in the last for a meal of ground beef and potatoes with red pepper sauce (sweet pepper, mind you). The next day I hiked all the way around Lake Bohinj enjoying wild strawberries along the way (nope, the cherries weren't ripe there).

After a day or so of refuge in the mountain cold, I mustered the will power to again move south, toward Istanbul and the Mediterranian sun (granted I'm taking my sweet time getting there).

First I rode the bus back to Ljubljana and then caught a train to Zagreb, Croatia. From there, I left on the 8:49 train bound for Sarajevo that arrived at 6:11 this morning. There were no beds or anything on our two-car train, but a nice Croatian couple let me lay down across three seats in our coach and get some sleep. They got off just past the Bosnian border and I enjoyed (minus the incessant ticket-checking along the way) the coach peacefully to myself for the rest of the journey.

A quick update from former Yugoslavia

I loved Hungary. Eastern Europe is soooo cool. Plus its affordable. My first night in Budapest I dropped $8 on dinner and had a bottle of water, rice, fries, salad, goulash, roast duck, steak, a pork chop and chicken breast wrapped in bacon.

Last night I went to the Hungarian National Opera in Budapest. I had a great seat for Puccini's Tosca that I bought for $2. Yep, two dollars. It was really cool. The Opera House was beautiful and the music was so loud and the atmoshpere so intimate that it was really impressive.

Anyway, my falling in love with Budapest and subsequent desire to see more of Eastern Europe was accentuated by the fact that tons of people in my hostel were just doing Eastern Europe and were saying that Serbia and Bosnia are incredible. So I decided to bag Venice and Greece and just stick to former Yugoslavia and the Balkans and work my way down to Istanbul where I need to be by June 16th to catch my flight to Prague (its ironic...I was so close to Prague in Budapest but find myself traveling thousands of miles and a continent away to get to Prague).

So, this morning I left Budapest and rode a train to Zagreb, Croatia. It was a pretty cool city. I ran into a bunch of missionaries leaving Zone Conference and they showed me the chapel, which was really cool (havent been for a couple weeks cause the Church hasn't been in the cities I've been in). After lunch with some kids from DC, I went up to Slovenia, riding the train with a couple girls from Boulder. Got into Ljubljana around 8:30pm and came to the hostel which is a converted prison - its really cool. We actually sleep in the cells.

Tomorrow, I'm headed up to the mountains to a small farm town on a lake where word on the street (and my guidebook) has it I can stay with a family on an alpine farm (near an alpine lake) for cheap. Ill be up there for a night or two and then head to Sarajevo (I talked to several people who have been before I decided to go and they all said its very safe, and said its an incredible experience to see the scars of war and a society in healing). So, I decided Greece has been there for thousands of years and will therefore probably be around for many to come, the opportunity to see Bosnia healing from the conflict is a unique one.

Ill be in Sarajevo for probably two days and then go to Serbia (probably Belgrade) before moving on to Transylvania in Romania and then Bulgaria where I believe I will successfuly culminate my quest for the world's greatest yoghurt.

I'm hoping to get into Istanbul on the 12th or so. I'll keep everyone posted as the journey progresses.

p.s. Slovenia is really cool...its so nice to see mountains again. And the temperature!...its a PERFECT 68 or so degrees:)

Maybe I'm not a "Museum Person" afterall

The train ride into Florence was quick as the allergens of Tusacn olive trees filled my nostrils and attacked my sanity.

My hostel was pretty cool...a big place with large, generic doorms, slippery marbel floors and bathrooms with trough-like sinks. On the recommendation of everyone I talked to, I headed to the Uffizi to wait in the requisite two-hour line for the privelege of paying $10 to see the masterpieces of the Renaissance's poster boys.

Having successfully avoided museums thus far in my journey, I was actually pretty excited to see a musem - especially one often considered to be the place for Renaissance art in the city many consider to be the capital of the Renaissance itself. And I had a slice of pizza and can of San Pellegrino to get me through the long wait.

So much for illusions of grandeur. What I, somehow in the 20 or so years of education I have endured somehow failed to learn, is that Renaissance art - at least that which is housed in the infamous Uffizzi is essentially five or six guys (Raphael, Michaelangelo, Donatello, Leanordo and a couple more) who painted strikingly similar portraits of Madonna e il Bambino (Mary and the baby Jesus). On top of these paintings, the rest of the museum is essentially filled with the works of these guys' students' paintings of essentially the same thing. Summarized: the Uffizzi has some cool statues; Kevin is not a fan of Renaissance paintings.

After the Uffizzi, I walked through the streets of Florence, taking in the sights of the Renaissance and then hit up a pizza place with two guys from DC I met five minutes earlier. I enjoyed the mushroom pizza immensely.

Siena

After sleeping in my garden shack my 2nd night in Cinque Terre, I got up, grabbed some breakfast and headed to the train station to catch the 11:00 to Pisa.

At Pisa, I wanted to find an Internet cafe to book a hostel in Florence, but Italy on Sunday is like Provo on Sunday...except NOTHING is open in Italy.

After walking for a while I decided I was close enough to the leaning tour to keep walking. So I walked and walked (carrying my pack), got there, took a few pictures of myself and walked back to the train station.

While I was waiting for my train to Florence, I pulled out my travel guide to read up on things to do there. EVERYONE says you have to go to the Ufizzi museum, so I read up on that. Turns out its closed on Monday (the day I was gonna be in Florence). So I left the platform and went to the ticket office to see if I could go to Siena instead, with the intention of going to Florence in a day or two. It was super easy to change my ticket and so I was off to Siena.

I had a connection in Empoli and the combined effects of Sunday and a railway strike (apparently common in Italy) delayed me and some Canadians there for a couple hours.

When I got to Siena, I set out to find what as best as I could tell was the only hostel in Siena...a 20 minute bus ride out of town. I waited for the bus to town, but as I went to step onto the bus, the driver hurried and shut the door and sped away (this happened twice in Siena).

I finally got on a bus with the ill-conceived notion that any bus would take me to the center of town. After a scenic and time-consuming ride through suburban Tuscany I jumped off the bus at a random stop and decided to get on the first bus heading back where I came from. While I waited I called the hostel and booked a bed. To my pleasant surprise I also saw while waiting that my guidebook told me which bus number to take to the hostel - and I was waiting at the stop for that bus number. I boarded the bus a half hour or so later and after winding back through the suburbs I arrived at...you guessed it...the train station. Apparently the guide book I bought in April is out-of-date.

To make a long and frustrating story short, I finally made it to the hostel which was an interesting conglomoration of the feelings elicited from hospitals and elementary schools. I was stoked to see that the rooms were small - only three people - and I only had one other guy in mine. I went across the street to get some (very good) pizza and headed up to my room to discover that my roommate was a 50 or so year-old Romanian who was chain smoking in his underwear on the bed in the room.

I switched rooms.

The next morning, I headed into Siena and took in the sights, sounds, and tastes of Tuscany. It was a lot of fun. In the early evening, I ran into some people I met in Cinque Terre and got some food with them. Then I used my phone card I bought from the canadians in the Empoli train station to call home, talked with mom and dad and then caught the late bus back to the hostel. Good times in Siena.

Cinque Terre (continued)

Since it didn't look promising to find accomodations for the next night, I got up pretty early to hike the Cinque Terre so that I could leave in the evening and head to Florence. On the way to the trail, though, I decided to stop in at the one hostel in town to see if they had any availability for that night (Saturday night). Surprisingly they did. Although it was kind of an annex as opposed to the hostel itself. It was a 5-minute walk away and was a free-standing little building in the yard of a bigger building. I'll stop short of calling it a shack-it was made out of concrete.

I ditched my backpack there, grabbed some pizza for breakfast (I'm pretty sure that's ok since I am in Italy) and headed to the trail. My legs were still hurting from the sunburn so I wore long pants. It was REALLY hot. The first ascent was steep, long and hot, but a guy was selling lemons at the top in the shade. Unfortunately, when this guy gave me a lemon, I couldn't make lemonade. I just had a lemon. But I ate that lemon and it was surprisingly refreshing. "Energy!" he said. Fair enough. The descent to the first town hugging the Italian Riviera was stunning (as were all the subsequent towns). I started my hike in the first town and walked through the remaining four (around 12km) eating gelatto and pannini along the way. I am a huge fan of Cinque Terre.

When I got to the last town I bought a train ticket for the 6:10pm train back to Monterosso (the first town). However, apparently you have to timestamp your ticket before you get on the train or some Italian tough guy will yell at you, threaten to call the polizia and demand 5 euro on the spot (even though the ticket was only one euro and 20 cents. Oh well; lessons learned.

Back in Monterosso, I went back to my garden shed, showered, changed and went to dinner with a couple I met from Colorado. We had awesome pizza and for the first time in a long while, I ate till I was full.

I walked Lover's Lane alone

After a couple hours in Monaco (plenty of time to see virtually the entire country), I headed back to the train station to catch a train to Genova, Italy. On the train I ran into Amy and Erica again...apparently things didn't work out with crashing on that guy's couch.

The trip to Genova was nice. I had a good conversatin with a Bolivian immigrant trying to make a new life in Northern Italy. He hadn't been able to find ANY work for 6 months in Italy and was an accountant back home in Cuchabamba. Sounded like he spoke decent Italian, too (at least he answered his phone "pronto.")

At Genova, I took a few steps out of the train station to buy a new book (I read Angels and Demons too fast and needed a new read). I picked up a cheap copy of Moby Dick and headed back in to catch the train to Monterosso, the first town in the Cinque Terre.

Upon exiting the train station, the girls and I had no idea where to find a hostel and Cinque Terre occupied all of a page or so in our guide books. We wandered around for a while optimistically checking buildings labeled "hotel" but were ultimately deterred by the price tags.

We heard that there was one hostel in town and got directions to it from a hotel. It was getting late and we were getting desperate. As we were working our way up the street to the hostel (which was full) a woman called out from behind us in Italian. I turned and she said only "room?" "Si" I said as she led us to here little house and offered us a room with a double and a single bed for 25 euros each. We were thrilled to not have to sleep on the beach and bit the bullet on the price.

My hand is starting to hurt. I'll write more later.

Ferraris and Security Cameras

My sunburned legs felt a little better in the morning and Amy, Erica and I caught a train to Monaco. They were gonna stay a night with someone they met through couchsurfing.com so we split up when we arrived and I spent a couple hours hiking the hills of the world's wealthiest (per capita) country generating odd if not cold looks with every turn.

I got a ham and brie sandwich from the one grocery store I could find and then went to the Monte Carlo to eat it.

Monaco was pretty cool...they were setting up for the Grand Prix this week so they'd constructed bleachers and barricades throughout all the streets. Lots of nice cars and security cameras.

The French Riviera (and my mustache)

I got up pretty early in Barcelona and John and Sarah (the couple from Chicago) and I walked over to the train station and boarded a train for Nice (they got off at another town, though).

I had a two-hour layover in Montpellier so I walked into town, found a grocery store and got some blue cheese, bread and a carton of grape juice (yes, unfermented grape juice - which costs more than wine).

I rolled into Nice in the early evening and was able to get a bed in the hostel recommended by both of my guide books and right next to the train station.

My bed was in a room with two Korean girls and a Canadian couple. Across the hall, I heard American voices and went over to say hi. It was two girls from Oregon (Amy and Erica) and a girl (Amanda) from London.

We went out to dinner (along with Omer? from Israel) Pricey and not very good food.

That night I shaved my beard but left the mustache. Ya, mustaches are super cool.

The next morning we went to the beach and laid out for a few hours. The French Riviera is seriously beautiful. The azure water looks so cool. And it was nice to get in and swim for a while.

In the late afternoon, we caught a train to Cannes to check out the film festival. It was en route that I was hit with the cruel realization that I'd forgotten to sunscrean my legs, which were now painted bright salmon.

We went to a grocery store to buy wine (for the girls) and another box of grape juice (for me) for the 40-minute ride to Cannes.

When we got to Cannes, we headed toward the Palais de Festival and saw a caravan of black cars labeled "Zodiac" en route to the premier. When we got to the Palais, we were able to squeeze in 30 or so yards from the red carpet and saw the stars head into the theater for the premier.

Then we went and hung out on the beach for a while.

On our way back to the train station, we walked past the Palais again and the paparazzi was getting ready for the premier to end and the people to walk down the red carpet.

Security let a few people into the area right by the red carpet and we got in. We were a few feet from Jake Gyllenhaal as he left the Palais (based on my experience with the three girls I was with, I gather that that was a pretty big deal).

We caught the train back to Nice right as my legs were about to burst with pain and I rushed to my room to put on some aloe as soon as we got back to the hostel.

Barcelona

I rolled into Barcelona on a half-hour late train and arrived at the Metro at 12:01 am. It closes at midnight. Luckily there were three other American guys there trying to get to town and we were able to split a cab for 3 euros each.

I had actually booked a hostel in Barca, since it's so popular with tourists and I had no trouble finding the place (with a little help from an American hippie who I think lives in Barcelona).

I shared a three-bed room with a nice young couple from Chicago and the next day we went out to check out the Gaudi sites together (I also ran into them in Cinque Terre - small world).

The Gaudi stuff was pretty cool. We went up to the top of Sagrada Familia and then had a nice lunch in town. I had Paella cause it seemed like the thing to do in Barcelona.

The rest of the day I just went and got lost in the Gothic area and enjoyed the atmosphere of the city.

Back in Europe

I made it back to Europe. I spent only around a day in Fes...it was a fascinating city, but I had to get back to Spain. I shared the copartment in the train with a very nice Moroccan family who shared some snacks with me and tried to communicate in Arabic and French.

I was really surprised to see how different - and green - northern Morocco was from the South. Tangier was a pretty cool city, but nothing like Marrakech and Fes. It was very modern. I caught a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar around 9pm which took 35 minutes to get to Spain. Spain is two hours ahead of Morocco, so all of a sudden it was 11:35pm and I had nowhere to stay.

I took the free ferry company bus from Tarifa to Algeciras and headed toward the street my guidebook said had cheap hostels and hotels. I instantly found one that didn´t look too disturbing and for 15 euros decided to just do it and get some sleep before my early morning train to the North.

In the morning, I put all my valuables in my pocket, locked my door and went to take a shower. When I got back from my shower, my door was wide open. Nothing was missing, cause it was all in my pockets. Which is good for everyone, because I would have hated to start the day with a Spanish butt-kicking.

The train ride to Madrid was beautiful but unfortunately I had to wait like 7 hours to connect to Barcelona.

Also unfortunate is the fact that my Internet time is up.

Until next time...ciao.

The Sahara, Marrakech and Fes.

We left on Wednesday morning at 7am and boarded a van for a 3-day over the Atlas mountains and into the Sahara. I traveled in a van with Katie (the girl from Scotland), Vicky (from England, the French Canadians (Gabrielle and Maiti) and a 60-ish couple from Bologne, Italy. We traveled over the Atlas the first day, stopping at a dozen or so ancient Kasbahs along the way. Then we spen the night in a hotel near the Atlas gorges (a lot like the Narrows in Zion National Park). After hiking a ways up the gorge, we got back in the van and trecked across hundreds of kilometers of nothing until we got to the sand dunes of the Sahara on the Algerian border. Here, we boarded camels and made our way over the dunes for an hour or so during sunset.

We arrived at our Berber camp (a circle of tents made from Berber carpets) just as a sand storm blew in. I quickly came to understand why they recommended I wear a turbin. The sand storm was really rough so we went into a tent and talked with other travelers while the Berbers made our Tagine dinner.

After dinner, the Berbers played their drums and other instrument (kind of like a maraca) for us. Later, a few of us stayed up singing Beatles songs while the Berbers played the beat on their instruments. Then I busted out my harmonica and played Amazing Grace and a few other songs while the Berbers played along on their drums. We stayed up until around 1 am, then my four wives and I headed to our tent for four hours of sleep before getting up at sunrise.

At sunrise, we hiked to the top of a huge dune and watched the sun climb over the Sahara, casting brilliant red light over the already vividly red sand.

We then got back on our camels and worked our way back to a hotel at the foot of the dunes where we had a pathetic breakfast and boarded the buses for a very long, very hot journey home. The drive back to Marrakech took around 9 or 10 hours. The sun was very hot and they had installed aftermarket locks on all but the front windows of the van - and those were only 'allowed' to be opened half way. No air conditioning and Ahmed (the drive with, as one guy put it, "as much charisma as a wet rug," refused even to use the vents). Oh well; we survived (barely) the ride back and then my wives and I hit up our favorite food stand in Marrakech's main square for a wonderful meal of shish kebabs, olives, orange juice and mint tea.

We then said goodbye to the French Canadians and the Brits and I spent the night in the Hotel Ali. Our room was approximately as hot as an Industrial Revolution-aged furnace, and I was awakened by the very loud call to prayer at 4 am and then again by the incessant "melodies" of snake charmers that began around 7 am.

The bottom line: Southern Morocco was a wonderful, magical place. It was culturally fascinating and I had great company.
I arrived 10 minutes late for the 10-minute late train headed for Fes and arrived here around 11pm last night. I spent the night in the Hotel Cascade and spent the morning getting lost in the crazy labrynth of thousands of narrow, winding and often dead-ending roads that make up the Medina of this Medival city.

Now I have to run catch a train 5 hours north to Tangier and work my way back across Gibraltar into Spain.

Shukran.

They call me Ali Baba

Morocco has been awesome. I met four girls in the Madrid airport - one from Denmark, one from Germany, one from England and one from Scotland. I traveled with them for a few days and then the Dane and German left and the Brits and I headed out for the Sahara. There were two French Canadian girls in our van, so I almost immediately replaced my two lost 'wives.' Since for the last 6 days or so I've been traveling with 4 girls and I have a beard, all the locals call me Ali Baba.

Snake charmers, casbahs and mint tea

Yesterday I wrapped up my day in Madrid with a walk through the Parque del buen Retiro, botanical gardens and central Madrid. Then I went to the airport to catch my flight to Morocco.

Point of information: it is widely understood among travelers that women traveling without a man can be hassled in Morocco.

So, at the airport, there were only 4 other backpackers...all girls; which worked out well. They were two pairs: one from England and Scotland and one from Denmark and Germany. We decided to travel together, thereby providing me with company and them with a man (and a man with a beard at that).

Another point of information: typing here is slow going. The Arabic keyboard really is a struggle.

The Danish girl called the other day to make a reservation at a hotel in Marrakesh, so we all decided to share a cab and stay the same place. Apparently the guy she spoke with didn't write it down though and they were full. So, he arranged for us to stay at another place - more a family home than a hotel, but it is incredible - and around 9 dollars a night. It has an amazing courtyard, roof deck and beautiful tyle decor throughout. I slept great except for the unexpected call to prayer from the city-wide loud speakers at 4am.

Tomorrow the English and Scottish girls and I are headed out for a three-day excursion in the Sahara and Atlas Mountains. I need to meet everyone soon for dinner in the main square (cous cous tonight), so I need to go now. I'll end by saying that Morocco is everything I imagined and definitely the most foreign place I have ever been.

Madrid

Hola,

Last night I left Lisbon on a bus headed for Madrid. We left at 9pm Lisbon time. The bus driver conducted the 8-hour operation as if ours was a one-way bus trip to Auschwitz. After steering clear of him at every possible instant and cuddling with a big Portuguese guy next to me who struggled to understand the concept of fitting in one´s own seat, I arrived bright and early in Madrid: just before 6am (Spain time).

The metro wasnt´t even running that early so I hung out in the station reading up on Madrid in my travel book and then, when the metro opened, headed to a recommended hostel. I got there and rang the doorbell but no one answered. I waited a while and a guy left the building. So I went in after him and climbed the stairs to the 3rd floor of the building where the hostel was. I rang the doorbell there and after a few minutes, an older Spanish man shuffled to the door in his robe, looking like he´d just been awakened from the dead. I´d forgotten the Spanish reputation for being ¨night people.¨ He told me he didn´t have room right then but to come back at 10am. I suspect he just wanted to go back to bed, but anyway, I left my backpack there and made my way through the surprisingly cold morning air to the Prada museum. Didn´t open until 9am. So I sat and shivered while I read Angels and Demons, then tried to find my options for church on a map of Madrid, then made my way back to the hostel.

The Spanish dueño was awake and cheerful now and led me to a private room. I jumped in the shower (first warm shower in a week), put on my crumpled white shirt and tie, and headed to church.

Church was great. There were 12 missionaries, so I got to speak some English. In spite of being intensely tired, I stayed awake through most of the meetings, spoke briefly with a woman from Sweden, and headed to the bull fighting stadium to buy a ticket to tonight´s bull fight. After that, I went to the Madrid temple and made myself what is becoming my usual lunch of bread and cheese (although this time I topped it off with a little sausage and chocolate pudding for dessert).

Then I made my way back to the hostel for an hour and a half nap before the big fight. At around 6:40pm I worked my way on the metro back to the bull fighting stadium and took my seat on the 15th row. The atmosphere was captivating. Then a matador and bull entered the ring. The first fight (if you can call it that) was a little disconcerting, but once I acclimated myself to the violence, it was a fascinating cultural experience. Now its late, my Internet time is expiring, and I need to go to bed so I can try to go to the Prada again in the morning.

Obrigado

Having been to Paris several times before, I got my fill of it pretty quick this time. I spent the evening of May 2nd hanging out with Tim from Australia and Mendes from Zurich (his family's from Argentina). We met in our hostel in the Latin Quarter near Notre Dame (it was really cool to be so central). We walked all over the city, had crepes on Champs Elysees, got kicked out of the cafe chairs at the cafe we BOUGHT food from because we didn't buy drinks and then we headed up the Eiffel Tower. It was like 11pm so the price was way cheaper than normal (11.50 Euros), so even though two of us had already done it, we decided to go up again. I don't think I'll need to do it again for at least 20 years.

Yesterday morning (May 3rd), the three of us headed over to the train station so Mendes and I could book tickets out of town (Mendes to Bordeaux and me to Madrid). As it turns out, in spite of my having a Eurail pass, they wanted almost 50 euros to take the train to Madrid. So I just booked a trip to the French/Spanish border (Irun) and decided to work it out when I got there.

I did head up to Monte Marte (or however it's spelled) and Sacre Coere for the first time before I left Paris and I really liked it up there. Very cool, quaint atmosphere with artists everywhere.

In the afternoon (yesterday) I jumped on my train to Irun and arrived at 10 or 11 at night. It took me all of 5 seconds to decide I didn't want to spend the night there, so I jumped on another train headed for Lisbon. As an extension of my original trip, the distance to the Portuguese border was free and then I had to pay 20 euros to get to Lisbon. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to Lisbon or Porto, but after VERY little sleep on account of roudy Portuguese drunks, I decided to just stay on the same train since it was already heading to Lisbon and we were already in the middle of Portugal.

On the train, I spent the first bit in a cabin (or whatever they're called) with two kids from Torino, Italy. They were way nice and hooked me up with some bread and ham for dinner. Then I got kicked out of that cabin, because apparently we had assigned seats (you'd never had known it). So, I went to my assigned seat in a cabin shared with three drunk Portuguese guys and a very friendly older guy from Southern England. Had it not been between the hours of 2 and 7am that we enjoyed each others' company I probably would have enjoyed it more. Alas, I was super tired. We rolled into Lisbon around 11 or 11:45 this morning. Maybe 10 or 10:45 (there was a time change). I caught the Metro to the Rossio stop in the heart of Lisbon (a very cool atmosphere) and got my own room with a balcony in a hostel run by a friendly family for 15 euros. Way better than the 28 euros I spent two nights ago to be jammed into a Parisian hostel with who knows how many 15 year-old French kids.

I just took a quick nap and walked around Lisbon for a bit. I'm in the midevil part right now about to head up to the castle. I'm trying to decide if I should spend more time here or Madrid, but I'll probaly spend another day or two here. I like the pace of things here.

I cant figure out the French keyboard

Well I made it to Paris with no trouble at all. There was plenty of room on the SLC - Cincinnati flight and I got to fly business class to Paris (my first time). I took the metro from the airport into the city and got off at Notre Dame cause I recognized the name. Sure enough, there was Notre Dame. I'm actually getting really tired now and don't have a place to stay so I think I'll go work on that. If anyone needs some Internet time in Paris let me know. I have a half-hour credit at Milk by the Bastille Metro stop. Adios (insert French equivalent here).

The Epic Adventure of a Lifetime!!!

On Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 I will embark on the trip which I am humbly calling "The Epic Adventure of a Lifetime!!! (yes that's three exclamation points, no I don't think I'm over exclamating).

The planned journey has me flying standby out of Salt Lake City with a layover in Cincinnati and then on to Paris. I'll spend a few days in Paris and then head to Madrid, Morocco, Barcelona, Monaco, Tuscany, Rome, Pompeii, Sicily, Tunisia, Athens, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Basel, Prague, Berlin, Frankfurt and Stockholm.

We'll see how closely I follow my planned itinerary. I have scheduled exactly two months for the trip, but that may evolve as things go.