Air Treks

Monday, August 30, 2010

Athens and Trip Summary

Athens:

It is very interesting how different Athens feels after nine years.  I visited Athens as part of a Italy/Greece trip the summer before my senior year of high school.  It was the first time I had traveled outside of North America and the first time I had been in an airplane... At this point in my life, I did not like tomatoes, never ate salad and pretty much ate very limited foods.  I remember flying into Athens and being amazed at their brand new airport.  The Olympics were only a few years away and the city was preparing for the games.  However, my most vivid memory of the city was just how dirty it was.  There was so much construction.  Every single block.  This made for horrible traffic. I also have to say it was the first time I had really been in a "big city" exploring.  Luckily enough I was with a great group of friends and we had awesome tour guides.  I remember Athens for it being dirty, stray dogs every where, and not liking any of the food served (who likes warm milk for breakfast?). 

Wow, I think I have changed tremendously and maybe Athens changed too.  No more construction.  The city did not feel any dirtier than Chicago, New York, etc...  Compared to Cairo, Athens felt like it had just undergone spring cleaning.  Additionally, my taste buds are far more sophisticated to say the least.  I love Greek food now.  This time around I really enjoyed Athens.  It is funny thinking about my trip in high school, I always said, I would go back to Italy and the Greek Islands, but never Athens.  Well, I am glad that I did not hold true to this as Athens is much better than remembered.

We arrived in Athens via ferry. The port here is huge and definitely the biggest port that I have ever visited. We were excited to arrive, but sad to leave the Islands and sad that this was the last stop on our vacation.  We arrived in our hotel which we were intrigued to visit. The travel agent booked the hotel as part of our island tour.  Looking at their website the previous night, the actual hotel website ranked it as a C- but with great views.  The website was right on. We checked in and went straight to the roof top bar to admire the awesome view of the Acropolis and the surrounding area. After a milkshake (I was on a kick), we quickly realized that the hotel was in an awesome location.  We were within walking distance to everything.  We spent the evening exploring the Plaka and planning our Athens attack.



We spent the first day visiting the Acropolis which was cool to visit for the second time.  I remember visiting previously, but I did not remember any information regarding the Acropolis.  It was great learning about the columns and how they built the parthenon.  Obviously, the wow factor was not as high the second time around, but it was fun realizing how different it is to travel now as a  mature adult versus a high school kid (ok probably an immature high school kid). 



We spent our second full day in Athens visiting Ancient Agora, the Acropolis Museum, Temple of Zeus, and the Archeological Museum.  All that before 3:00!  It felt like we walked the most in Athens.  I am not sure if it is true or not, but my legs were jello after yesterday.  It was nice being able to walk to all of the sites and feel safe. 

Well the breakfast and beverage cart is approaching.  Maybe it will wake the snoring gentleman across the isle.  We have a 5 hour layover in Zurich before a 9 hour flight back home! Until then...

Final Greece pictures, including Athens

Trip summary:

North America: Canada-Toronto
Europe: Spain-Barcelona, Madrid
    Turkey-Istanbul, Izmir, Ephesus, Selcuk, Pammukale, Kusadasi
    Greece-Samos, Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Santorini, Athens
    Switzerland-Zurich
Asia:    Turkey-Istanbul
Africa: Egypt-Cairo, Aswan, Edfu, Luxor, Giza

Wonders of the World: Great Pyramids of Giza, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Hagia Sophia, CN Tower

TOTALS:
30 days: 13,000+ airline miles, 21 cities, 13 hotels, 10 flights, 7 ferries, 6 countries, 5 languages, 4 continents, 4 Wonders of the World, 3 train rides, 1 great trip

Wow, that was fun to create. We had a blast!!!

I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to travel for 30 days.  I loved everyday!  I am excited to be on my flight home.  30 days seems to be the most I want to travel from hotel to hotel.  I am ready for a more consistent living situation.  I am not sure I would have changed anything about the trip.  I would admit that by the time I got to Athens I was a bit bored by looking at ancient artifacts and ruins.  It is amazing to think about the history that we got to see on this trip.  We covered the Egyptian times, the Ottaman Empire, and the Roman Emprire.  The years and years of history we got to experience was amazing.  Kristen and I talk about how cool it would be to have seen the stuff we saw as we studied it in school.  We have some ideas on how we want to involve our kids into traveling along with their studies throughout school.  How cool would it be to learn about the Egyptians and get to see the Great Pyramid during the summer!

We laugh as the few weeks before our trip when we were in New York, we avoided falafel and humus saying, we are going to get tons of that on our trip.  We had no idea that Egyptians, Turks, and Greeks really do not eat much of either.  We in America label gyros, humus, falafel, etc... as Mediterranean food.  However, based on our experiences, not all Mediterranean countries eat them all. Humus and falafel must only be Middle Eastern.  With that all said, we feel fortunate to have eaten such great food the whole time.  I would say my favorites would include: gyros and greek salads in Greece and a humus topped with minced meat in Instanbul (we only had humus three times and ate it twice at this restaurant in Istanbul it was that good).  The dessert I had our last night in Istanbul was to die for.  How I have changed.  Nine years ago in high school, I would have never even tried any of those foods that I now enjoy so much. 

What I really enjoyed the most about our 30 day adventure was the time Kristen and I got to spend together.  We went from a long distant relationship to spending every minute together. Talk about extremes.  However, it was awesome to be able to get used to each other on such a day to day level.  Our long distant relationship feels like it was a long time ago.  We will be a better couple after being able to spend the past 30 days together.  Traveling is stressful enough for veteran marraige couples. We have more confidence than ever in our relationship after spending the past 30 days together.  Traveling this amount of time really brought us closer than we even thought was possible. 



The TV monitor on the plane says we have 5:00 more hours!  I definitely look forward to being able to read the US news, driving my car, breakfast (I am tired of eating pasterys and bread), drinking water out of the tap, the English language, going to the grocery store (we have eaten lunch and dinner out for the past 30 days!!), my iphone (it is crazy how many times we were like, I wonder... and have to remember to look it up back at the hotel vs plugging it into the iphone for an answer.  I love having information at my finger tips), excercise, and getting used to our new home and area!

I really enjoyed being able to blog about our trip and keep up with our pictures.  We ended up with over 2,000 photos, so to sort through the pictures as we traveled is a huge relief versus having to do it when we return.  I hope all who read found our journey interesting and inspiring!  Traveling definitely is such a gift and I was happy to be able to share it with everyone!!


All vacation photos here

Signing off from vacation 2010...Jake

Friday, August 27, 2010

Santorini

Well, we have finished our travels through the Greek Islands.  Santorini, our last island, was spectacular. The island itself was different than all other islands as a volcano erupted on the island many many years ago creating a caldera and a huge cliff surrounding the island.  Coming into port was amazing as we got to see the volcano island and the amazing landscape the island has. 
We highly anticipated our time here as it is probably the most famous island for its unique landscape.  It was crazy just trying to drive from the port up to the top of the island.  The steep incline almost brought buses to a standstill.  We stayed in the town of Fira which is about on the middle of island facing the caldera. Despite the town being on the western side of the mountain, we actually had a view of the western shoreline due to the town being on such an incline.  However, it was maybe a quarter mile walk to the edge of the cliff where we got to enjoy an amazing sunset.
We did not get to spend too much time wondering around the first day as we got into port about 5:00 pm.  The second day, we rented a car so we could explorer the beaches and different parts of the island.  It felt like there were more rental scooters, ATVs, and rental cars on the island than actually people, so it was easy to rent transportation.  We explored the red sand beach, which was a bit disappointing. It was like pieces of red lava rock that you can buy at the store for you landscape.  However, once we got to the water it turned into very smooth stones.  However, it still was not comfortable to walk around bare foot, at least for my non-tough feet.  It was cool seeing small red stone as sand.  We spent most of the day at the black sand beach lounging around.  The sand was much more fine, but of course hot as !@#$ without sandals.  The beach was beautiful and so was the water, so we made due. 

We spent the late afternoon and evening exploring the famous town of Oia.  This is the town that you probably see when you think of the Greek Islands and definitely Santorini.  The white painted houses with a blue domed church and maybe a white windmill.  A lot of these pictures are from Santorini, well, because it is beautiful.  The ocean view with the sun hitting the water and the white buildings make it fascinating.  We loved walking around the hilly streets checking out the different views the city had to offer.  And of course, enjoying another beautiful sunset. 



For all of the Greek Island pictures, click here


Overall, the Greek Islands were what I expected, amazing.  We really could have spent twice as much time exploring them.  Each island truly had a different feel and different things to offer.  I could definitely come back to enjoy the islands again and see other islands that we did not have time for.  We met a couple who had been to Rhodes and stayed at this hotel.  Each room has an infinity pool over looking the sea and the rooms are built into a cliff.  It would definitely be on our itinerary next time.   

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Greek Islands


Well we are headed to Santarini, our last Greek Island we are going to visit.  We have two days here before heading to Athens for a few days.  Then home!
Here is what we have been doing in the Greek Islands:
Samos: This was the first island we visited and I previously blogged about.  This island is right off the coast of Turkey.  We only got to spend one day here and we were ready for some much needed beach time.  Livadaki beach has thus far through four islands, been the best beach we have visited.  It was the perfect mix of sun, calm clear water, free lounge chairs and kayaks, great and inexpensive beach bar, and just beautiful scenery.  This is what I remember when I hear Samos.  The island overall was great.  I am not sure it is a must see island for visitors, depending on what other islands someone is seeing.

Mykonos: Mykonos is known as the party islands.  It was obvious that people stayed out very late in the town and the routine was for people to sleep in until 10-11ish, go to the beach, sleep some more and hang out all day in the sun.  Drink and eat lunch around 5 pm before napping to go out for dinner around 10-11. Some of the clubs we looked at advertised that the doors opened at 12:45 am!  We wanted to experience this, but it was very difficult to transition to this timeframe from the normal.  We go our feel of the atmosphere both nights, but definitely did not make it to the early morning clubs.  

We stayed at an amazing hotel with amazing views over looking Mykonos.  It was awesome overlooking the town.  The town itself was very windy and hard to navigate a direct plan. However, we never really had any place to go at a certain time, so it was not stressful that we rarely knew where we were headed.  The city had a great bus system, so we were able to see other parts of the island fairly easily.  This island is a must see for someone traveling to the islands.
Paros: Our itinerary did not include Paros, but we had to visit as our direct ferry from Mykonos to Naxos was cancelled due to high winds.  We had to connect through Paros, so we got to spend about 6 hours there.  That wasn’t really much time to see too much, so we pretty much ate lunch and walked around some of the shops.  There was one shop that I will always remember.  It sold olive tree wood products.  The wood was beautiful! 
Naxos: This was an awesome island.  It had the best town area thus far.  The harbor was lined with all sorts of good shops and places to eat.  It was more spacious and easier to walk around compared to Naxos.  I would not recommend a morning trip to Halki like we did, but there are supposed to be awesome beaches here.  We got to go to one and it was great.  The beach had rice like sand instead of the normal granules.  We stayed at the best hotel thus far on vacation.  Hotel Grotta overlooked the city and the water and was close enough to walk to.  The island prices also good which makes it a better experience.  Naxos is another must see island for someone who is visiting the area.  

Santorini:  to come.
One of the best things about traveling via boat is that when a trip gets cancelled or delayed it is much more enjoyable to be on an island waiting than in an airport.  We got an opportunity to see another island due to the incredible wind right now.  It seems as if it is getting better after two days of cancellations. 
We are really enjoying the food.  Kristen has eaten more moussaka in the past week than probably in the past five years.  I have eaten more gyros in the past week than the past 26 years.  We are a bit surprised as we really haven’t gotten to eat much humus on the trip.  The Greeks like their yogurt and tzakiki (msp?).  The weather has been great excluding some of the wind.  The beaches have all been sheltered from the wind, so it hasn’t affected any water time.  We enjoy the opportunity to celebrate the sunset each day.  We would really love to find a place one of these days to where we could have a view to watch the sunset.  It brings peace to the end of the day.
We are about to reach port in Santorini!
Bye for now.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Blogging from the Mediterranean Sea

We left Samos a few hours ago via ferry.  We have a five hour ferry ride to the island of Mykonos.  The ship is much much bigger than our ferry from Turkey to Samos, looks almost like a medium sized cruise ship.  Thankfully, the ship has free internet, so we can catch up on pictures, videos and blogs.  It has been nice having the computer with us. It is fun to look through all of our pictures a day or two later to reminisce about where we have been.  With the digital world and digital cameras, we are taking tons and tons of pictures in order to capture the "good ones."  Our picture count is up to 1,486.

Samos was beautiful.  The island has a population of 30,000 people and most of the island is uninhabited due to its terrain.  Thanks to Lonely Planet, we were able to find an amazing beach yesterday.  Here is how they described it
"Follow the north coast road out of town for 10km and look for a signposted dirt road left leading to Livadaki Beach.  Here, tropical azure waters lap against soft sand in a long sheltered cove with facing islets. Only Greeks in the know come to Livadaki, which has a beach bar with colourful and comfy soft chairs, and music day and night.  The water is warm and very shallow for a long way out,and Livadaki's hedonistic yet mellow summer beach parties easily spill into it.  Free kayaking and palm-frond umbrellas are available."
I don't need to describe any more.  Amazing! The dirt road was 2 km long and cabs would not go to the beach. We started to walk, but luckily were able to hitch hike a ride with a British couple.  They come to Samos for a month every year!

After 5 or 6 hours at the beach, we walked around down town and grabbed a well anticipated Greek salad.  We were spent after a day in the sun, so we read most of the night. Plus we anticipate later evenings in the more upbeat and "party" atmosphere of Mykonos for the next two nights.
Battery is running low, time to read more of "Bringing Down The House."  So far it is very intriguing how some MIT students won MILLIONS in Vegas counting cards playing blackjack.

Greece Pics

Updated Turkey Pics

Vacation Videos (Part 1)

Our thoughts on Spain


Kristen's thoughts on Egypt


My thoughts on Egypt


Our tour guide in action


Kristen learning to write her name in Ariabic

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Aegean Sea

We flew into Izmir, Turkey about 8 pm. The pictures of our hotel showed what we thought was a washing machine in our room, but we were not sure what we were going to get. Sure enough, we had a washing machine. I have never seen such. Our room was beautiful. Full of Ikea stuff. The timing was perfect as we both were in dire need for laundry. We hadn’t eaten yet and it was late. Being a Sunday, the only place open was a Dominos. Izmir is not as touristy, so there isn’t as much English. Luckily, the hotel had free wifi , so google translator helped me interpret the menu to order a medium mushroom/cheese pizza. Now that we had dinner on the way, we had to figure out this machine in our room. No English/Turkish translation on the machine, so once again, google translator was clutch, so we knew what settings to wash everything on. The machine did not have drying as an option, but we did find a function that just spun the clothes. After twenty minutes of spinning and an overnight air dry, we had clean clothes.


The next day we were all set to rent a car. This was an awesome experience. When we arranged a cab back to the airport to pick up our rental car, the receptionist looked at us like we were crazy. But after a cab ride and some broken English/Turkish communications, we had a Volkswagon Jetta and we hit the road. We did a lot better navigating Turkey that I expected. We drove to Ephesus to see the historical city.


We were both about at our max for ancient ruins, so we were not super excited to see Ephesus. However, it was a bit different than the others as you could see just how the city used to work. It was also cool to see the statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. My favorite part was visiting the House of the Virgin Mary where it is believed that she died. It was very surreal. The site was at the top of the mountain and beautiful. The other great thing was that we got to visit another one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Temple of Artemis. We kind of laughed as there is one lone column left. Not a lot to see, but hey, we saw it.
 
We headed back to our hotel. Kristen was very excited as we booked a room in a castle in Kusadasi for the night. The town of Kusadasi is a resort/beach town with a great feel. As for our hotel, Kristen was little bit disappointed as staying in our castle has its disadvantages along with the perks. It was a very beautiful set up with a great courtyard and they tried hard to preserve what it would be like to live in a castle with some of the modern luxuries. We had a typical shower and A/C, but there wasn’t a tight seal around the door and windows. The floors squeaked. I think she was glad we booked the room for one night, but I don’t think she would want to stay there again. An Ikea decorated room is more up our alley. The best part of staying in a resort area was that we finally had a chance to get in the water. We were over half way through our trip and we still hadn’t gotten wet. This is crazy to think about as the two of us love the water. I guess the Nile and the boat infested waters of Istanbul just didn’t entice us.

After the night in the castle, we made what we thought would be a two hour car ride to Pamukkale. We did not have a handy detailed map of the area. We had a very basic map, and we went with it. We made it in about three hours, not because we got lost, but because there wasn’t an “interstate” that ran the whole way like we thought. The road went through all of the small towns along the way. It is different traveling outside of Istanbul as fewer people know English. We eventually figured out where to park and how to get in. Pamukkale is known for its white cliffs made from travertine. It has thermal water that fills many of the travertine pools with water. Very beautiful. The tragedy is that many of the hotels are allowed to drain the thermal water, so the site isn’t what it used to be. However, despite being highly commercialized, it was still amazing to see. A shiny white cliff with water running over it! There was a small ancient town of Hieropolis which was believed to be a town of healing as it is thought that the thermal water has healing properties. There were signs and descriptions breaking down the water’s properties and how it had healing properties from GI issues to rheumatoid arthritis. I think the list contained about every known chronic problem. It also stated that the water had orthopedic healing properties. With both of us having some Achilles issues, the verdict will be out shortly regarding this. Nowhere did it state a timeline on the healing of ortho issues, so I am not sure when to expect results.

With all of the commercialization, we decided to support it and stay at a Thermal Hotel in the area. The hotel was gorgeous as it sat on the top of the hill overlooking kilometers and kilometers of land. We didn’t spend much time in the thermal pools as they closed before we got a chance. However, we were both glad to spend the entire afternoon at the pool. The pool was huge and we were able to swim a few laps which felt good to actually exercise.

I would say there is a huge difference between the west coastal area of Turkey and the Istanbul, Eurasia area. People in Istanbul were noticeably friendlier. I am not sure why this is, but there is a huge difference. You would expect a city of nearly 14 million people to be less friendly.
We spent our finally day in Turkey laying on the beach. We spent almost seven hours reading, sleeping, playing paddle ball, and wading in the Aegean. I finally got a chance to read one of my books I brought on the trip, Blink. I think my record was reading 22 pages before falling asleep. Reading just does that to me. But I finished and I would say that Blink was not one of Malcolm Gladwell’s best books. Tipping Point and Outliers were better. However, I would recommend the book to someone who has read those two and enjoyed them. The book talked about our unconscious and how it affects a lot of the decisions that we make.

Well we are about to pull into port of the island Samos in GREECE! We have finally left Turkey for our Greek Island cruise. We have four islands in eight days. Hopefully Greece will allow us to upload pictures through Picasa. I also have videos that I want to upload, so maybe by morning there will be more!
Goodbye Turkey, hello Greece!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Mehaba from Istanbul, Turkey:


We have spent two full days in Istanbul and we love the city.  We both agree that it is the best city that either of us have traveled to.  First, it is beautiful. The city sits off three waterways: the Halic, the Bosphorous, and the Marmara Sea.   There are restaurants lined up all along the different shorelines for amazing dinning experiences. Additionally, Istanbul is very hilly.  The terrain makes the area even more beautiful.  There are also many rooftop restaurants that take advantage of the beautiful seas that overlooks three bodies of water and two continents.  That is right, we get to look into Europe and Asia as Istanbul is in both.   The city is very easy to get around and we feel safe doing so.  The Turkish people are very friendly.  What is really cool is that there are very diverse people walking around.  Historically and still currently, Istanbul is predominately Muslim, but it doesn’t necessarily feel that way as there are a lot of “liberal” Muslims that are not as strict with their dress.  All is all, we love this city.


One of the most interesting and disappointing parts of Turkey thus far is seeing what happens in a country were you do not have freedom of speech.  The Turkish government has blocked all access to www.youtube.com and we are not allowed to upload pictures on picasa.  Here is a link
It makes me think about how lucky we are to live in a country were we have freedom of speech.  We can critique the President!  People in Turkey cannot even post a youtube video.  So I guess as awesome as it is to visit Istanbul, I definitely would not want to live here. 
Over the past few days we have seen the popular mosque, the palace, the Grand Bazaar and the waterways.  Pictures to come once we get into Greece where I have my freedom back.  However, my favorite part of Istanbul thus far has been the food.  We have eaten great food.  Most noticeably, we have had two amazing dinners on the rooftop of our hotel.  We had a humus dish with minced meat which was to die for.  Last night I had the best what I will call “non-traditional” dessert ever (calling it that, because I am not sure anything beats a cookie dough blizzard!).  It had the consistency of the filling of a great homemade Italian cannoli, but was in the form of a small piece of cake.  I wish Kristen would have gotten a picture before my last bite!  This restaurant over looked the water and was gorgeous.  

We are headed to the west coast of Turkey this evening to see what it has to offer!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Two days in Cairo


Wednesday Aug. 11th Great Pyramids:

Today we got to see the Great Pyramids, the only remaining of the 7 ancient wonders of the world.  Seeing the pyramids in person is numbing.  It is so hard to look at the pyramids and imagine people building this HUGE structure completed in 2750 BC which means it has been around for over 40 centuries.  The structure contained About 2.3 million limestone blocks with an average weight of 2.5 tons.  How in the world did they stacking these huge blocks almost 146 meters in the air without the use of modern technology.  The builders had to be pure geniuses.  To mathematically layout the pyramids to be built is amazing.  No computer guided programs.  What is also amazing was seeing the boat that they found almost 50 years ago.  This boat was use to bring the mummies to the pyramid.  To think about it being made almost 4,000 years ago is amazing.  The Egyptians who built these pyramids and many of the other structures that we have seen this week were pure genius.  It is hard to put into words just how amazing it is to stare at the Pyramids right now.  Our hotel has an amazing view of the Pyramids from the roof and after switching rooms to day, our hotel room.  It look and wonder how these were built is very hard to do.  The human brain struggles to logically figure it out. To bring these huge blocks to the site alone was amazing.  
After seeing the Pyramids, the boat, and the Sphinx, Kristen saw camels running in the desert outside the Pyramids.  Tourists were taking rides on the camels and checking out the views of the Pyramids. She got very excited to try.  We were able to talk the guy down from $30 per person to $10 per person.  We still over paid.  Kristen got on the camel first and after standing tall, it decided to go down on its front legs, she just about lost it. J  After it brought the back legs down, I jumped on.  We did not consider the fact that I had shorts on. HOLY COW, Burlap does not feel good on bare thighs.  We caught some great pictures though.  The camel took us for a “jog” on the way back, which I thought was better, because it meant that relief from the burlap would come faster.  Kristen decided it was more fun to watch the camels run than be on the camel while it was running.  All in all, another “experience.”
Today is the first day of Ramadan, so a lot of the restaurants were closed for lunch.  Supposedly it will be interesting to watch everyone come out to celebrate sunset tonight as everyone will be allowed to eat, drink, and most importantly smoke.   Our guides have said that most of the people try and lay low during the day to conserve energy if possible.  The one restaurant we tried to order lunch from would not serve us as they were preparing massive amounts of food for tonight. 
Tomorrow morning we are leaving Egypt to try out Turkey for a week.  It is nice to not have anything going on this afternoon, so we are just relaxing at our hotel, starring at the Pyramids, and making Istanbul plans. 
Tuesday Aug. 10th 1st full day in Cairo:
The overnight train again  was not a pleasant experience.  The electricity went on and off all night,  so the air conditioning was hit and miss.  The trains are not built like European railways as they are very bumpy.  The door kept rattling waking me up.  That being said, I am glad that our Egypt train experience is over.  I am glad to have tried it as it saved us a lot of money, but I highly recommend anyone traveling to Egypt to save an extra $200 before you leave and fly to and from Aswan/Luxor. 
Cairo is a city unlike anything else I have experienced.  The traffic and driving here is significantly worse than New York City.  I bet a driver here in Cairo pushes their horn at least once a minute.  I am dead serious.  We are on the four floor in the hotel and it is 10:20 pm right now and there is continuous honking and by continuous, I mean multiple horns honking at the same time non-stop.  I knew it was going to be bad, so I bought earplugs just for Cairo.  Wish I would have packed those.  It will be interesting how well we sleep tonight.

As for Cairo, we went to the Egyptian Museum first thing today.   This is one of the coolest yet unorganized museums in the world.  There is literally stuff everywhere and some stuff not labeled just on display.  However, they have the most amazing stuff on display.  We saw the treasures from King Tutankhaman.  I am not going to explain the treasures from his tumb, but google and it check it out if you are unfamiliar.  We got to see the coffins which are made from pure GOLD.  Something like 100kg of gold!  We also got to see his gold death mask (11kg) which is one of the most amazing things to see in person.  What is more impressive is this stuff is 3,000 years old!  Think about that.  Think about how things deteriorate after 20 years, 100 years.  The Egyptians were amazing at preservations.  We got to see the mummy room which was also breathe taking. They preserved these bodies, some with hair and nails from over 3,000 years.  It was fun to go to different temples and tombs on the cruise and finally get to see the actual kings’ bodies.    We had a guide who was great and able to show us the highlights and explain different things for us.  It is just amazing to see all of the artifacts that they found in King Tut’s tomb. He had the smallest tomb within the Valley of the Kings.  The other tombs were robbed, so the artifacts are lost. It is only imaginable what was in some of the other King’s tombs.


 After the museum, we got to visit the Khan al-Khalil which is huge market for shopping which has been around since the 14th century.  It was located in Islamic Cairo which is full of mosques.  It was not fun being in this area.  We strayed a few blocks and it definitely felt like we did not belong.  One kid told Kristen to “fuck off.”  We quickly got back to the “tourist” part of the market where the crowds were INSANE.  It was so insane that I did not even have a moment to pull out the camera.  People trying to bargain with you and others trying to run you over all while you are paranoid that someone will try and pick pocket you.  We got into foot traffic that took us to the “non-tourist” market where thousands of citizens were buying their normal goods.  It was so chaotic and scary as we could not really control where we were headed.  We eventually got back to the street and quickly took a cab home.  We definitely enjoy getting into culture of the town and away from some of the touristy spots, but I do not feel that Cairo is one of those towns to do this.  We will visit the Pyramids tomorrow and keep it pretty low key.
It has been interesting have Egyptian guides as we get to talk to them about the culture here.  They are pretty open in that Egypt is very corrupt. Many of the citizens complain about the government and its corruption.  Egypt is supposed to be a democratic country but the existing president has been in power for almost 30 years.  He wins by a landslide during all of the elections.  I do not know much more, but it definitely seem corrupt.  There are police check points all over the place.  There is a sense that they want to protect the tourists as it is a huge source of revenue for the country.  However, it feels like you could pay off any worker to do just about anything for $20 USD.  One quick example…at the Karnack Temple, there was a government worker who was supposed to be watching a certain part of the temple to make sure everyone stayed within the ropes and did not touch anything.  We walked into the section and there was no one there.  He waived us behind the ropes to take a few pictures just so he could ask for money.  We fell for the tactic but got a few good pictures, but of course we did not touch anything.  We then had to pay him ten Egyptian pounds which equates to about $2.  It was a prime example about how these workers are working jobs that are just “fluff” jobs for appearance. I felt that I could have paid the worker $10 USD and he would have let me climb on top of the temple.  That being said, it is hard to trust anyone here which is unfortunate.  Everyone wants a tip; a tip to take your picture, move your bags, give you directions…  That being said, today was awesome in the fact that we got to see amazing artifacts that date back over 3,000 years, simply amazing.  But today was also sad when we realized that we cannot truly immerse ourselves in the culture. 

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Friday Aug 6th: Aswan

Today we arrived in Aswan by train. Our Egyptologist picked us up at the train station and drove us to our cruise ship. And by cruise ship, I don’t mean Carnival cruise ship. The cruise ship has maybe 300 rooms on four totals floors. After waiting on the top deck of the four story boat, we met the other couple that would be with us during all of our excursions. Lucas and Sarah are from Australia and are stopping in Egypt for about three weeks in between their move to Ghana. Sarah works for the Australian Embassy and took a three year posts. Lucas is a lawyer who will find a job once they are there. How crazy would it be to move from a very civilized country and living to living in Ghana. I could not even imagine. I am sure it would pay great and the government would set everything up including free housing. But I just am not sure that would ever be for me. They are pretty much guaranteed to get malaria! Their travel physician actually told them that.

Anyways, we discussed our itinerary and got into our room. We were so excited to finally have a space to ourselves with a toilet and shower!! After two nights of no showering and living out of a suitcase, literally, only being able to open and close our suitcase, we had one of the best showers in months. What is weird is that we showered and got dressed to start our excursions for the day. It was somewhere between 100-120 degrees outside! We were sweating before we reached our air conditioned vehicle. This was the way to go. I could not imagine trying to find public transportation in the heat and with a huge language barrier.

It rained!!! We heard thundering in the distance and asked the Egyptologist about it. He said that it often thunders without raining. It is fairly common. Who knew? The wind picked up and it actually started to rain! Sprinkles of course. But he said that it rains 3-4 times during the whole dry season and we were here for one of those days! Kind of cool. The wind was so bad that it damaged some of the property in Nimbia (pictures in the link below). The downside to this was that there was so much sand in the air. It literally was all over us and I had to wear my sunglasses at some points. It made the sky look like a light brown color in the sky. The other upside was that it was much cooler as I guess sand is a pretty good sun barrier!

Pictures and descriptions of our excursions are posted: Vacation Pictures

Monday, August 9, 2010

Barcelona


Forget my last post, as the wireless password was found!  Below is my thoughts on the last night in Barcelona.  Since my previous post, we visited Barcelona for two days and this was the last day.  Sorry that I do not have the pictures ready.  I did just download Google's Picasa, so I can organize pictures without internet access.  So, hopefully, I will have pictures the next time I have internet access.  
Blog:
We woke up this morning with the goal of getting into the Familia Sangrada.  After standing in line for about 15 minutes, we realized that they would not accept a credit card and we were almost out of Euros and the line was barely moving and I predicted a two hour wait time.  We decided to head to the Gothic quarter and check out some of the old streets and buildings.  We ended up spending the rest of the day her until we had to catch the bus.  Pictures posted: to come!!
We caught the bus to Girona and I was excited to see the country side.  However, like majority of the time when I travel, I feel asleep through most of it.  I did get to see some of the country side before falling asleep.  We opted to take the bus to Girona and fly cheap through RyanAir back to Madrid.  However, a cheap RyanAir flight turned expensive when we realized that we had to pay for our baggage when we checked in online.  Who would have known.  We ended up paying a ton to get out baggage checked.  However, it was still cheaper than taking the fast train back to Madrid. 
We landed in Madrid at 10:30 pm and thought we could check our bags through and sleep in the terminal.  Wrong.  The ticket agents were closed for the night, so we couldn’t get our bags checked until the morning.  With our flight leaving at 6:30 am, we didn’t think it was smart to pay for a hotel as the closest one was 15 minutes away.  Message to Hilton Hotels, there is a huge opportunity in Madrid for a airport hotel.  There was probably 200 other people camping out for their morning flights along with us.  We tried to sleep next to an electrical outlet to charge our electronics, but it was too cold on the floor and there was a huge crowd being noisy.  We noticed a few people sleeping the baggage conveyer belts at the ticket counters.  So we joined in and made bed on an airport conveyer belt.  What a great nights sleep!  Yeah right, but not a bad option for being free.  I enjoyed the feeling of being homeless, at least for one night.
 Video on our Spain experience: (To come)

We then flew two hours to Frankfurt to then fly to Cairo.  Not the best way to fly, but the most economical for some reason.  Wish someone could explain that to me.  Good flight, slept some more and felt good arriving in Cairo.
Arriving in Cairo, I was a bit nervous.  It definitely felt like a third world country.  Check out the pictures and you will see what I mean.  We were dropped off at the Giza train station to wait three hours for our over night train.  We were both in shock.  It felt like we were way out of place.  A few moments after the Egpytologists left, a French man approached me and asked me about the train.  He, his wife, and four kids were on the same overnight train.  We were what seemed to be the only eight tourists at the stop.  We all set up at the back of the outdoor cafĂ© and played cards.  Separately that is as he was the only one who knew English.  Kind of fun watching a French family play Uno.  We drank bottled water and played cards to pass the time. 
The overnight train was not bad.  Not good either.  We both were able to sleep, so that is all we could ask.  Check out the video:

From Luxor

Well, Egypt is not very internet friendly thus far on our trip.  We finished our sail on the Nile and will be taking the overnight train to Cairo in two hours.  I was hoping to get wireless, so I could post some pictures, videos, and recent blogs, but the only worker who knows the password is home sleeping.  Hopefully, the hotel in Cairo will have wireless.

We have spent the past three nights on a boat sailing from Aswan to Luxor stopping along the way to look at certain Egyptian temples and tombs.  It has been a very interesting experience.  I do not have the time to write more and it will be better with pictures and video. 

Anyone know of a good website that sums up American news in a week or month?

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Excursion: Day 1 and 2

Well..It is kind of embarrassing to admit, but we went to the airport one day early.  When we were booking the trip a month ago, we were looking at departures on Saturday and Friday. I booked the Saturday, wrote Saturday on the itinerary, but we still went to the airport on Friday. All said, it was for the better as we got to finish some things before we left. 

We started our trip with a 9 hour lay over in Toronto.  What is weird was that it was cheaper to fly from Cleveland to Toronto to Spain vs flying from Toronto to Spain.  I still do not know why that is.  But we took a day trip into Toronto from the airport via subway.  They have a very residential feeling downtown.  We spent most of out time on a bus tour of downtown to get a quick low down on the city, its history and see its sites.

Our flight from Toronto left at 9:50 pm direct to Madrid.  At least half of the plane was filled with high school kids returning to Madrid from a summer trip.  Not a bad flight in all.  I did have to regulate three girls who were crammed into two seats a few rows behind us as I could not handle one more giggle. However, they were polite and calmed down.  I think we both got maybe 3 hours of sleep before arriving in Madrid.  Great flight as we had access to all sorts of movies.  We watched Date Night for the first couple hours while we ate dinner. Why in the world do they not have internet on flight yet?  There must be some FAA reason.  First class has access to telephones.  So why can't we get wi fi on board.  There is satellite TV and radio, so I know it can be done.  Speaking of first class, I really want to be a bollar and eventually fly first class. They had beds!!!

We finally got our luggage at the airport and made our way downtown via train.  We are navigating our vacation cities with a few Frommer's Day by Day books.

 Let me take a moment to let you know that my computer knows that I am in a spanish speaking country as my google search has turned into Spanish.  Kinda cool...kinda creepy.  I need to change this ASAP. 

Anyways, we spent the first day in Madrid doing a traditional Madrid walking tour. We are got what I think was an unusual experience as it was a Sunday in August.  They say that many business close down for the month of August to go on vacation.  Also, many stores were closed today. Therefore, it was not crowded at all.  Some tourists, some locals, but not too many of either.   Walking around Madrid, what sticks out to me is the amazing Spanish architecture.  You either like or hate it. I think that it is nice as long as it has been renovated.  The buildings range from being recently renovated, to no renovation in a LONG time, to current renovation.  The city seems to be fairly clean. I did not see any stray animals (Athens will be another story).   The roads were not crowded with cars either.  However, there were no places to park them, so I am not sure where people park around the city. 

We are thinking about heading to Barcelona for a few days as it is pretty hot here.  95 degrees tomorrow. Plus we kind of feel that we dont want to leave Spain without visiting Barcelona.  Not sure exactly what we will do.  It is currently 2:43 am and I have already woke up, so I am not sure if I can fall back asleep.  We went to bed at 9:00 pm as we were exhausted from the overnight flight. 

I am going to to post all of our pictures on facebook and provide the link to all non-facebook readers.

Click here to see pictures

Buenas noches!!!!