More falafel, please.

Wow, how time flies!  We have been traveling for four weeks and our amazing trip is about one third over!  Not that I'm complaining, though, as we have had some positively wonderful experiences and have a great deal more to look forward to.  I'm just surprised to find myself in Greece already!  :)

I never told you about Israel, though, so I'll post a few pictures from our time there.  We crossed over from Aqaba, Jordan, into Eilat, Israel, on Sunday morning.  It's interesting to cross a border by foot... it's like going through airport security without ever getting on a plane.  Instant gratification, if you will.  :)  The Israelis are quite safety-conscious and although walking between the countries went very smoothly for us, the security personnel were all business and the guns, watchtowers, barbed wire, and signs warning of land mines signaled that they take this seriously.  We rented a car for our travel up to Jerusalem because it wasn't too expensive and allowed us to go at our own pace.  Our first stop was at Masada, the site of the mass suicide of the Jewish zealots who held out as long as they could against the Roman army but in the end preferred death to living under Roman rule.  The high tabletop plateau with its sheer cliffs in the midst of a barren desert seemed an appropriately stark site for such a dramatic occurrence of history.

There are some really neat ruins there, including one of Herod's palaces, situated for both a nice breeze and a good view of the distant Dead Sea.

We drove on to the Dead Sea, which is truly and astonishingly dead.  The salt collects on the shore and under the water in crystalline hunks the size of small boulders and the high saline concentration truly makes one very buoyant - even someone like Jim with zero body fat!

Me, hanging out with the salt.

From the Dead Sea we continued up past Ein Gedi, a valley oasis, and Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, but didn't stay long at either.  It was a neat drive through the Israeli desert, where almost the only green we passed was in the form of date palm farms or the occasional kibbutz.  

We drove to Jerusalem, arriving in the evening.  Since we were passing by, we decided to stop at Hebrew University where Jim took a summer class more than a decade ago.  We wandered through his old school so Jim could re-live a few memories and so I could see the Mount Scopus campus, including some lovely botanical gardens and a neat view of Jerusalem at night.  It was pretty wild for Jim to be back there after 11 years!

We ended up spending the night nearby the college and decided to breakfast there in the morning, as well.  After that, we headed into Jerusalem proper to see the sights.  Our hostel was in the Old City, which is still walled and has a labyrinth of narrow cobblestone streets unfit for vehicles - a really neat place to stay!  As I mentioned in my last post, we stayed on the roof of our hostel and had a fabulous view of the city from right in the midst of it.  The surrounding streets are full of small booths selling touristy trinkets, clothes, and food.  We found a tiny falafel cave (I hesitate to call it a restaurant) near our hostel and became immediate devotees.  We walked all around the Old City and visited the Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall, where the devoted go to pray.  Men and women must go to separate sides, and unlike Muslim countries, it is the men whose heads must be covered in this instance.

Jim at the wall - in the middle in the black shirt and white yarmulke. 

After the Western Wall, we visited the stations of the cross as we walked the Via Dolorosa, which traces Christ's path as He carried His cross through the streets of Jerusalem.  Having been so well established through history, many of the sites have ornate churches at or nearby them.  The path ends at the impressive, yet rather florid, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the reputed site of Christ's crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection, and therefore a spot heavily frequented by pilgrims from all over the world.  I say "reputed" because it appears to be Orthodox and Catholics who believe that that is *the* spot, whereas many Protestants believe that the Garden Tomb is the more accurate spot.  Either way, it was quite something to be at the exact religious center of the world's holiest city.

The monument over Christ's tomb inside the church.

After another visit to our favorite falafel shop, we retired to our rooftop nest for the night.  The next morning, after writing my previous post, we headed to the Garden Tomb.  It's a much less ornamented place and is, as the name suggests, in the midst of a garden - a simple spot that is full of meaning.  The tomb itself is simply a small rock chamber with a groove on the outside where the stone would have rolled across to close the opening.

After touring the garden and the tomb, we hopped on a bus to Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem to see the site of Christ's birth.  It was quite easy to cross into Palestine; we merely walked through yards and yards of metal enclosures and gates and walls and turnstiles.  The wall around Bethlehem is quite imposing - it's very high, topped with barbed wire and covered in graffiti that gives words and images to the turmoil that the barricade causes.

We made our way to the Church of the Nativity (also called St. Catherine's Church) where Christ was born.  Again, heavily ornate decoration covered the coordinates said to be *the* place of Christ's birth and devoted pilgrims lined up to kneel and touch the spot, and sometimes even kiss it.

Having traced in reverse the timeline of Christ's life, we left Palestinian Bethlehem to return to Israel proper.  The mess between Israel and Palestine is really quite muddled, and it was interesting to get a taste of the confusion and angst up close.  Returning to Israel was not as easy as leaving it, however.  We had to wait in line for a while, have our belongings scanned, and show our passports before we could reenter Israel.  Like I said, Israel is quite fastidious when it comes to security.  But we made it back to the Old City in time to feed, literally, our falafel addiction and head off to our mattresses under the stars before our early flight to Athens the next morning.

Jim and I at the very gate that Mary and Joseph (supposedly) passed under on their way to the Bethlehem census and the birth of the Son of God.

Petra-fied!

Hello from the Holy Land!  I am currently writing this from a rooftop in the old city of Jerusalem, where Jim and I just passed the night at a hostel who makes the best use possible of their roof - covering it with mattresses and blankets in order to sleep under the stars and overlook the entire city at night time.  What a great idea!  So we woke this morning to a church bells ringing and the sun rising over the Dome of the Rock.  

But I am quite ahead of myself.  I haven’t had good/any internet for the last several nights, so please excuse the delay in updating you all on our journey.  The last post was written in a drowsy haze upon our arrival in Petra after a rather long day of traveling... sorry about that.  I was exhausted and needed to get some sleep for our next big landmark... Petra!

Petra, an ancient hewn-rock city, is probably most famously known for the Treasury that appears in Indiana Jones with the wonderful Harrison Ford.  

However, there is a lot more to it than the Treasury, amazing though it is.  There is the monastery, a Roman amphitheater, a high place with altars (complete with carved channels for the spilled blood of the sacrifices to flow through), a Byzantine church, several impressive temples, and lots of amazing carved stone facades in the sheer cliff faces that follow the windings of the valley.  The color patterns in the sandstone tend to be the normal sandy tan to deep red that you might expect, but sometimes the striations of the stone also reveal bright whites and deep purples and blues.  And boy, that Nabatean society really knew how to carve!  We probably walked at least ten miles that day, including the long hike up to the monastery and the other hike up to the sacrificial high places.  What a truly amazing place.  Jim is of the opinion that Petra beats the pants off of anything to be seen in Egypt.  I’m not quite sure I can fully agree, as I really loved seeing the fabulous remains of ancient Egypt, but it’s true Petra would certainly give any of them a run for their baksheesh!

Me in front of some of the city's "apartments."

Jim thinks he's so funny pretending to be a sacrifice on the altar.  :)

We spent a full day meandering through the wonders of Petra and then returned to our hostel rooftop overlooking the city of Wadi Mousa for a dinner consisting of pita, hummus, falafel, rice, shawarma, and french fries.  

So delicious.

We had had the same meal the night before, and shared the meal and the evening with a fellow traveler from Japan, Sho.  The meal was so great we had it again after Petra.  Actually, all of the food we had in Jordan was great.  And if the food was great, the hospitality has been ten times better.  I’m sure our experience was thrown into much greater relief by the contrast of our experience in Egypt with our experience in Jordan, but Jim and I are fully convinced that Jordanian hospitality and friendliness are second to none.  Let me relate several experiences that led us to believe so.  First of all, Jordanians will politely ask you if you want their products and services and when you decline, they respectfully withdraw, while most Egyptians would shove something in your face and yell louder.  To be fair, I am sure that there are plenty of wonderful Egyptian people out there, but we had the limited pleasure of meeting only 2 or 3 of them during our stay.  Egyptians are very focused on what you can provide for them (in the form of money), but Jordanians are extraordinarily friendly and seek to be helpful for the sake of being helpful.  The owner of our hostel graciously provided a more private room for us when he learned that we were married.  We met a new friend, Rafat, at the bus station who gave us the direction we needed and then gave up his seat on the bus for us (as there were too many people) and said he’d wait for the next one, even though he had been waiting longer than us!  While in Petra, we met several Jordanian men, Khalid and Mahmoud, who were bringing their sons/nephews to Petra.  We struck up a nice chat with them and by the end of our conversation, they had invited us to their homes in the north of Jordan to stay with them for a few days.  Jim was invited to speak at a youth camp one of them was leading in a few days and one of the men said his wife was pregnant and that he hoped to name his daughter Sarah after me.  All of this happened within the space of about 45 minutes.  I know it sounds far-fetched, but I don’t believe that they were merely flattering us.  If we had had the time to accept their hospitality, I think they actually would have whisked us away to their homes and laid out the proverbial red carpet for us.  Such gracious and agreeable fellows!  Even after we declined their generous offer due to our own time schedule, they took us in their bus and drove all over Wadi Mousa until they could drop us off at the door of our hostel and bid us a kind farewell, with Jim getting the manly three cheek-kisses from the men.  :)  Jim and I could not stop saying “I love Jordanians!”

Speaking of helpful, our hostel owner drove us down to Aqaba the next day, which is a resort town right on the Red Sea.  It borders the city of Eilat in Israel, and it’s where we were to cross from Jordan into Israel.  But due to Shabbat closing down Israel on Saturdays, we opted to stay in Aqaba for the night.  That afternoon, we took a bus to a beach, rented snorkel equipment, and went for a swim.

It’s really very pretty there and the richness of the underwater life belies the almost lifeless rocky desert just above it.  I did have some difficulty, as the water was full of purple jellyfish.  They are kind of pretty creatures and their movement can be rather mesmerizing, but I have had a jellyfish-phobia since I had a nasty run-in with some long stinging tentacles a few years ago.  So, my attention was a bit distracted from the beautiful corals and vibrant fish as I steered my course for the least nematocystic path.  It was still a really neat experience, and we saw both a shipwreck and some really neat sea creatures (including two moray eels and some hefty sea cucumbers).

We were very sad to leave Jordan!!

I’ll fill you in about our time in Israel so far, but we are going to Bethlehem, so I’ll have to do that later!  More soon!

Keeping up with the Indiana Joneses...

Salaam aleikum from Wadi Mousa, just outside Petra, Jordan!  We have done a fair amount of traveling the past few days to get from Luxor all the way to Petra.  In fact, I woke up at 3am this morning to commence said travel and am quite tired, so forgive me if I keep this a bit short.

But let me start where we left off, which was in Luxor.  On Tuesday morning, we had a very early start to the morning in order to catch our balloon.  Ha, I've never been able to say that before!  We went up in a hot air balloon at sunrise in order to view the sites from above.  Hot air balloon rides are, we found out, much cheaper in Egypt than they would be at home in the US, so we took advantage of that fact and really enjoyed it.  And for anyone wondering, I did not fear for our safety.  There was a large crew of Egyptian men who appear to do this quite regularly and have a good system set up.  It was pretty impressive to see them work, actually, and there were several other balloons going up at the same time, too.  Plus, our balloon captain (is that a real title?) looked a ton like President Obama, which provided us some harmless mirth, and for "breakfast," if you can call it that, they provided hot tea and twinkies.  Twinkies on the Nile... classic.  :)  Anyway, during our ride, we had a fabulous bird's-eye view of the sunrise over the Nile (lovely!) and some of the sites, especially the temple of Hapshetsut, which we had walked through the day prior.  This temple is carved out of the cliff face at the end of a valley, and is quite stunning both in person and from the air!  Also in the area were some archaeological digs/restoration around some neat temples.  I have some nifty pictures, but the internet here in Wadi Mousa is not so great, so I'll have to upload them all later... sorry for the lack of illustration!  Pictures are always more fun.  :)

We went back to the hotel for a bit and snatched a hour or two more of sleep, then set out to see the rest of what we had come to see in Luxor.  We went to Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple.  Luxor Temple was really neat, as it had been built up a bit during Roman times and had some Roman looking paintings right next to the purely Egyptian carvings... quite interesting.  What really impressed us, though, was the temple at Karnak.  First of all, the place is really expansive.  For whatever reason, none of the pharaohs ever declared it "done" so it was added to over decades and dynasties by something like 30 pharaohs.  Secondly, it had the coolest pillared courtyard ever.  I think the number of pillars was 134. They were immense and imposing and created the feel of an ancient airy matrix where you might see some other tourists or you might see a shaven-headed priestess to the cat-goddess Bastet wandering through with an offering.  So, so cool.  Also, Jim also developed another technique to shoo away pesky would-be guides... he pretended to be the re-incarnation of a long-dead pharaoh and droned on about being one with the sun-god and how he remembered this temple from long ago, etc.  Again, it was quite hilarious and totally weirded out the guy pursuing us, so he left.  Success!

And that was the last of our official sight-seeing activities for a while as we traveled to the next place.  That night, we took the overnight sleeper train back to Cairo.  Once back in Cairo the next morning, we bought some more train tickets to get up to Alexandria.  During that process, we met some fellow travelers - Alex and Caroline from Canada - who were wrapping up a year-long trip around the world.  We had a very nice time with them discussing travels and adventures with them over tea/coffee in a cafe as we waited for the train we were all taking.  We got up to Alexandria rather late due to train delays, so unfortunately we had to skip the catacombs we had planned on visiting.  We did, however, wander along the shore of the Mediterranean as well as by the current Alexandria Library.  I'm quite sure it looks nothing like the original, but it was fun to have gone by a place that is continuing the historical tradition of the ancient biblioteca.

That account brings us to today, when I got up at 3am so we could leave at 4am for an hour-long taxi ride to the airport.  Our flight left just after 7am, so we arrived the requisite 2 hours early.  If I may say so, though, the security at the airport was by far the easiest-going process that I have ever passed through for air travel (beside the balloon, of course :)) and most certainly did not require the full two hours.  But we didn't mind... we like easy!  We flew to Amman, arrived at the Queen Alia Airport, then took an airport bus into Amman, where we picked up a taxi to go to the main bus station, where we got on a small bus headed towards Wadi Mousa.  Lots of traveling!  The ride was probably 3-4 hours long across Jordan's vast desert.  There is really nothing but empty desert in most of this country, as far as I have seen!  It's really wild to drive through... kind of unreal.  Also unreal was the sand storm that hit us!  This was unlike anything I've experienced before.  The wind was fiercely blowing so much sand and dust that at points I could not see cars in the opposite lane and the light from the sun was literally darkened in front of our eyes.  Even with the window closed, dust was seeping into the bus and tinting our skin and clothes a sandy brown color.  Sadly, the sand storm caused a huge and serious accident that we drove by.  I'm not sure if they simply couldn't see due to the sand or if someone lost control, but there were 2 big busses, several cars, and what looked like a gas truck all smashed up in the middle of the road.  I wouldn't be surprised if the crash was fatal for a driver or two, given the state of things.  I was very grateful that we were protected from such a thing, but felt awful for those who had experienced it!

We finally arrived in Wadi Mousa to our hostel after 12-14 hours of travel.  We rested for a little while, then had a fabulous dinner on the roof-top overlooking the mountains and valleys that lead to Petra, which we will see in only a matter of hours from now... how exciting!  I can't wait to follow in "Junior's" footprints as we visit the Treasury and pretend to be Indiana Jones for a short while.  :)

Again, I'm sorry for the lack of pictures.  I'll try to post some when the internet works well so that you may better enjoy some of our trip with us!  Thanks for reading!

I'm a Howard Carter wanna-be...

Greetings from luxurious Luxor!  I missed my every-2-days blog post that I’ve been trying to keep up due to being on an internet-less train last night, but let me fill you in on what we’ve been up to.  On Saturday, I had my first encounter with those mammoth stone polyhedrons called the Pyramids of Giza.  This is actually Jim’s second time in Egypt, so he had see the pyramids before, but we had a really great time discovering/re-visiting the ancient tomb markers.  I remember studying the Egyptian civilization when my mother was home-schooling my sisters and me and feeling such fascination for the rich culture and way of life of ancient Egypt, and that feeling came back upon going the pyramids and the Sphinx.  It’s just so cool to see it all in person!  Given my enthusiasm for the place and my desire to ride a camel in such an apropos place, I convinced Jim to give in to the tourist-trap and we rode up to the pyramids in full dromedary style.  

It was lots of fun, albeit somewhat stinky, to ride the camels up to the pyramids, and close up, you can see why camels are desert animals, with their lazy gait, big flat feet, and their long eyelashes.  Speaking of the desert, it is amazing in its vast emptiness, sand, and heat.  Of course, that is pretty much the definition of what a desert is, but to experience that sort of arid desolation makes one much more grateful for an ample supply of water and some air-conditioned shelter to retreat to.  We have been downing water at an incredible rate, too, which you have to do to keep at all hydrated in such a dry, dusty heat.  Jim's shirt has salt stains from the sweat!  However, hydrated or not, we decided that Jim would not have made a good slave if he couldn’t even pick up a several ton rock to haul it up the pyramid.  I guess he’ll have to try another career.

We visited the Sphinx, too...  he was very nice, but not too talkative.  Here’s the three of us:

Since the desert is so formidable, you can see why the Egyptians built their civilization around the one large dependable source of water - the Nile.  There’s a very marked difference between dry areas and watered areas, and if you’re in the right spot, Egypt can look positively lush!

After the pyramids at Giza, our driver took us to a museum built around one enormous statue of a pharaoh (Ramses, I think) and also to Sakkara at Memphis, where there are some even more ancient step pyramids (one of which we went inside), as well as some crumbling buildings and most of an impressive colonnade.  

While driving back to our hostel, Jim was seized with the urge to purchase an enormous 20-lb. watermelon from a street vendor, which he did.  We brought it back to our hostel, where we fortunately found some fellow travelers from Taiwan to share it with.  Delicious!

The next day, we walked to the train station to buy tickets for the overnight sleeper train from Cairo to Luxor.  It’s always a bit of an adventure to work within the local transportation system, but we were successful and left with tickets.  After that, we went to the Egypt Museum.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Talk about artifacts!  That museum is so chock-full of amazing pieces of history that after a while, the vast display overwhelms your brain.  However, some of the things that stuck out from the myriad statues, mummies, sarcophagi, chariots, furniture, beads, tools, and papyri were the 18-foot-long mummified Nile crocodile and the layers of King Tut’s coffins, including his death mask, which were unbelievably costly and intricate!  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take the camera into the museum, so I don’t really have many pictures for you, but suffice it to say that the Egypt Museum in Cairo boggles the mind.

We stayed at the museum most of the day, then went back to the hostel, Paris Hotel, to collect our bags and took the metro from Tahrir Square to the Giza train station.  The overnight train was very nice.  We had our own cabin with the pull-down beds and dinner and breakfast were included.  We arrived here in Luxor fairly early, and spent the day touring the west bank attractions, including the Colossus of Memnon, the Valley of the Queens, the Temple of Hapshetsut (Deir el Bahari), and the Valley of the Kings.  Cameras weren’t allowed at either of the valleys (I assume for the preservation of the paint inside the tombs), so again, I don’t have much in the way of pictures, but they were incredible!  (If you want to get an idea, just search Google images for the names of these places.)  It is amazing the amount of detail that the Egyptians put into memorializing their deceased kings.  We also got to see King Tut in the (blackened and desiccated) flesh!  The body is on display in his tomb, unwrapped from his mummy bandages, but inside a temperature- and moisture-controlled environment and mostly covered in a cloth - still, though, we saw the face of one of ancient Egypt’s most famous kings!

The rather desolate scenery just outside the Valley of the Kings.

Okay, I know this post is getting long, but I just have to share one of the funniest moments of the trip thus far.  So, obviously, given the political state of Egypt at the moment, tourism is sharply down.  In fact, the presidential elections were happening Saturday and Sunday while we were in Cairo!  Hearing about the different views on the candidates has been fascinating given what Egypt has been through in the past year or so.  One of the candidates, Mohammed Morsi, is from the Muslim Brotherhood and the other, Ahmed Shafik, is the previous chief of the Egyptian Air Force who was in Mubarak’s administration.  Surprisingly, most of the people we talked to supported Shafik, despite his role in Mubarak’s government, but I got the sense that that was because they consider the Muslim Brotherhood too much of a risk.  However, it appears that Morsi may have enough support to come out ahead and win the presidency.  We shall see...

A billboard with posters for the two competing candidates.

But I digress!  Back to the funny moment...  so, since tourism is down, any and every gringo has now become a prime target for the hawkers of fine Egyptian junk.  Some will hound you relentlessly with their postcards and figurines as you try to enjoy the sites or others will try to strike up a conversation to become your “guide” and thereby get a tip for their services, and it really does get irritating.  We tried being firm with them, but you almost have to yell at them to get them to leave you alone, which just makes everybody grumpy, so we began experimenting with different, nicer strategies to get rid of them.  We tried speaking to them in Russian (since both Jim and I minored in it) and convinced a few people that we weren’t too skilled in English, but it didn’t fully help, so we went further.  We started conversing with random words that were utterly meaningless to the situation so they couldn’t follow our pointless speech.  Then *we* tried to sell things that we had, such as a used water bottle or the like, to *them* instead of the other way around, which they found quite confusing.  Then Jim started singing at people as they tried to talk to us, either imitating classical music or singing silly falsetto songs that he made up on the spot, which utterly baffled them and threw them off of their planned marketing strategy.  It was hilarious!  Possibly the most creative one was when we were in the Valley of the Queens and a wanna-be guide was stalking us through a tomb.  (And I was wondering why I kept thinking of tomb-robbers!)  Jim used his best Gollum voice (from Lord of the Rings) and every few seconds would hiss “tricksy hobbitses” in that creepy voice.  The guy did not know what to make of this and did not bother us!  As we left, we heard him say to his friend “He is...” and then whistle to indicate that Jim is a crazy man...  we laughed so hard!  I bet no one’s ever dissuaded him like that before!  Watching their reactions was a very fun way to turn an irritation into a game.  :)

Birthday breakfast on the Bosphorus - a Turkish delight!

Istanbul has some truly magnificent and historic buildings.  On Wednesday, we went to Topkapi Palace, which was home to the sultans hundreds of years ago.  The palace complex is amazing, with an open-air garden courtyard leading to a throne dais, behind which are many opulent buildings where the sultan mixed business with pleasure as he conducted the affairs of his country in luxurious quarters, surrounded by his stunning treasures and his beautiful women.  Well, I can’t personally vouch for the beauty of the women since I didn’t meet any, but I did see some of the sultans’ treasures, which are truly incredible.  There were solid gold vessels, fine glass boxes studded with jade and rubies, bejeweled swords, mother-of-pearl furniture, a golden baby cradle, and ornaments such as turban pins and brooches that are covered with enormous, costly, several-carat diamonds.  However, you don’t notice the diamonds that much because they are simply ornamentation for the main event, so to speak, which were rubies, emeralds, and diamonds the diameter of golf balls.  Some of these pieces were literally jaw-dropping.  

Also stunning were the sultan’s quarters, where he lived in the harem with all of his ladies.

The sultan made sure that his rooms reflected his royal status, and the intricate tile work and the extensive warren of rooms for the wives, consorts, concubines, slaves, and subsequent offspring certainly were fit for a king!  It was really cool to see such a different piece of history than I’m used to.  This is not the small-scale (yet important) colonial New England history with which I’m familiar; this is a glimpse of a chapter from some of history’s most decadent chapters.

Here is part of the queen's rooms with some manikins dressed in period-style clothing to help your imagination along, although I think it's impossible to imagine an entire palace based on such a limited snapshot.

The palace was amazing, and we spent most of the day there trying to absorb a sense of a what life was like for the residents of the palace that we were wandering.  After the palace, we stopped by the Blue Mosque, which is another feat of Ottoman architecture.  It’s perhaps not quite as impressive as the imposing Hagia Sophia, but what it lacks in architectural brilliance, it makes up by bursting with color, as opposed to the somewhat more drab Hagia Sophia.

By the way, I’m wearing that blue piece of fabric as a shawl since, despite the fact that Kim and I were both wearing pretty modest clothing, we had to cover our bare arms inside the mosque.  We also had to take off our shoes to walk through, and anyone (including men!) whose shorts were too short had to wrap a piece of fabric around their waist as a skirt in order to not expose too much skin.

Wednesday night, we got a head start on celebrating Jim's birthday by going out to a special Turkish dinner.  This involved several courses of food, including stuffed grape leaves, Bulgarian couscous, eggplant (they call it aubergine) puree with bread, as well as "koftë" (Turkish meatballs) and sea bass, which came out as a whole fish.  Jim ate the fish's eyeball, which grossed me out.  We also tried the traditional licorice-flavored Turkish alcohol called "raki," as well as Turkish coffee and tea.

Jim really liked his fish. :)

On Thursday the 14th, my dear husband’s actual birthday, we had another fabulous day.  We started with a late breakfast (another lovely meal... warm bread, cream and honey, fried cheese, seasoned tomatoes, olives, etc) at a restaurant overlooking the Bosphorus.  It was such a gorgeous day!  The sun was warm and the water was lovely, and we even saw several groups of dolphins playing in the current!  After breakfast, we wandered around an old fort strategically placed to guard the waterway.  It’s a tourist attraction now, and is great fun to climb around and take in the awesome views.

During the afternoon, we also had some Turkish delight, which I did find quite delightful!  I had tried some in the US at one point and was not very impressed, but the Turkish delight freshly made by the delightful Turks was delicious.  I felt I understood a little better why Edmund is lured away by the White Witch’s Turkish delight in C.S. Lewis's book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  :)

We had fun wandering around that part of the city, seeing all the boats that make their way up the Bosphorus, taking pictures, people-watching, and eventually meandering our way to a really fun dance show.  The cast is a dance troupe who perform the various folk dances of different parts of Turkey.  This of course includes belly-dancing, which is really quite something, but what I didn’t expect was to see a male belly dancer performing by himself.  Who knew?!

This morning our time in Istanbul and hanging out with Kim came to an end, and we flew to Cairo, Egypt, this afternoon.  The flight was simple and easy, and we are so impressed (and grateful!) at how smoothly our trip is progressing so far.

Cairo is really incredible, too.  First of all, the city is in the middle of a desert and the color palette of the city matches the sand that stretches out around it.  Secondly, I can't believe I'm here in the land of pharaohs, pyramids, and hieroglyphs!  I loved studying Egyptian history during home-schooling, and I am so excited to spend the next few days touring the country that sparked my intrigue.  Thirdly, and most mind-blowingly, we arrived on the eve of the presidential elections, which start tomorrow, and our hostel/hotel is about a two-minute walk from Tahrir Square, a name which by now is familiar to the world as the home base of last year's Egyptian revolution.  We left the hotel to go find some dinner and walked right through Tahrir Square.  There were people protesting in the street, just like we've all seen on TV, and we were right there!  It was not violent, and women and children were walking through the square as well, but there is certainly tension and expectancy in the air, so we didn't stick around too long.  Egypt is still trying to figure out where it's headed as a country, and the physical remnants of last year's revolution are still here to remind them where they've been so far.  We passed right by a row of graves that were in the middle of the square... very sobering.  The people are not done yet, though.  Jim posted the video we took on YouTube if you want to see what we saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lffGtckrtE&feature=youtu.be  

This is all totally blowing my mind... we are witnessing history right here in person!  It's amazing!

Duck, Duck, Turkey!

We have finally arrived somewhere warm!  :)  We left London yesterday and arrived in Istanbul in the evening.  I don't actually have a heck of a lot to write about yesterday since the entirety of the day was spent traveling.  The travel time does add up, that's for sure!  We left our lodging at Harrison's B&B mid-morning for Stansted Airport (no Heathrow craziness for us), dropped off the rental car, and made our way through the airport.  Airport security did not like my toiletries case, so I got to hang out with the British version of TSA for a while, but a very nice officer sorted me out and let me pass.  Phew!  I was surprised at how strict they were, actually, and it made the US airport policies on liquids seem rather unenforced.  Anyway, our flight was quiet, and we arrived into Istanbul at around 8pm local time.  Our good friend Kim met us at the airport.  Kim is a friend of ours who graduated with Jim from Dartmouth, and she is currently in medical school here in Turkey.  First and foremost, it's wonderful to see her, but we're also very grateful for a Turkish-speaking tour guide who lets us stay with her in her apartment!  Quite a nice combination, actually, as we've already experienced in the UK, minus the Turkish, of course.  The trip wasn't over though.  Istanbul is a huge city (1 Istanbul = 42 Icelands!) so we had a bit of traveling left to do to get to Kim's apartment.  We got on a bus and drove for a while, passing under a Roman aqueduct on the way!  I know I wrote that London has a lot of history, but I'm going to venture out on a limb and say that Istanbul has even more.  :)  They seem to have managed to combine the ancient and the modern pretty well, though, as far as I have seen.  The modern paved road goes right under the millennia-old aqueduct, which I find pretty amazing.  We then drove over a bridge to cross from Europe to Asia, simple as that.  What?  Yes, it really is that simple to switch continents.

Today we ventured out to see what is possibly Istanbul's most famous attraction and landmark, Hagia Sophia.  Hagia Sophia was built in the 500s and is really beautiful and amazing.  It has been both an Orthodox church as well as a mosque (but not at the same time!), and it is now a museum.  I cannot even fathom how they built such an enormous building with such a huge dome in the 500s.  They had no engineering software and no power tools.  They relied only on their precise calculations and massive manpower, and the result is quite impressive!

The interior of the building is grand and expansive, and has a history almost as arching as it ceiling, about which Kim provided several useful lectures for us.

The mosaics in Hagia Sophia are quite detailed and many of them have survived admirably.  It's interesting that in a few of the mosaics, most of which are of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, they put in the emperor and the empress, as well!  Here's the Emperor Constantine IX and Empress Zoe hanging out with Jesus:

While we truly enjoyed touring this piece of ancient history, we also got caught up in a bit of a treasure hunt.  Apparently, according to legend (or maybe just Kim's book on Istanbul), some ancient someone got pretty bored during a lengthy Orthodox sermon and scratched a medieval galleon (a type of ship) in full sail onto one of the marble panels.  We scoured the walls of the Hagia Sofia for a long time to find that small snippet of aged graffiti, and Jim finally located it on the upper level balcony, hardly distinguishable, but there!  I think we probably looked rather silly peering at small nicks in the marble while almost ignoring the grandeur around us, but for whatever reason it was great fun to discover evidence that bored people *will* doodle, no matter the setting or century.  :)

After that, we had lunch and then wandered the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.  (I know that seems strange, but it's not as bizarre as you'd think... get it?  Bazaar?  Sorry.)  The bazaar is actually not bizarre in the least.  It's a clean and orderly labyrinth of small stores selling oodles of jewelry, scarves, and carpets, etc.  Very fun to wander through, but not recommended for people with a bad sense of direction or a penchant for impulse shopping.  Most of it was indoors, but it also continued outdoors, spilling down the street much further.  In fact, the section we exited through seemed more aimed at Turks than tourists and sold outfits for Turkish life's big events, including engagement ceremonies and circumcision parties, neither of which I knew about before today.

And everybody needs some spices... I love the mix of colors!

We're really enjoying our time here so far, and we'll even get to celebrate Jim's birthday here on Thursday before we go to Cairo on Friday!  More soon.

A whale of a tale from Wales

Wales... home of the Welsh, who eat krill and are full of blubber.  Oh, wait.  I’m getting confused.  We did go to a Welsh home, but there was no krill and only moderate blubber involved.  :)

Anyway, before we actually got to a Welsh home, we had to drive from Manchester, England, down to Aberystwyth, Wales.  Along the way, we made a bit of a detour in order to visit a place from a beloved movie - Pride and Prejudice.  I am a loyal fan of the 1995 Firth/Ehle version (none of this 2005 McFadyen/Knightley stuff) so we went to the true home of Mr. Darcy, the real Pemberley.  The filming location of Pemberley was at an estate called Lyme Park (although all the interior shots were filmed at another nearby mansion in Sudbury).  Unfortunately, the house and the gardens are closed on Thursdays for cleaning and landscaping, so we couldn’t go inside, but we wandered around the outer grounds a bit and finally found a lovely view of the front of the enormous house.  So pretty!  I can't wait to watch the movie again, too!  :)

After Pemberley, we made our way to Aberystwyth, Wales, and stayed two nights with our good friends Kellie and J-D, along with their four little boys: Caleb, Benjamin, Joseph, and Nathanael.  There is soon to be another addition to the family, too, but he or she is still safely tucked away and did not want to come out and visit with us.  However, we had a great time with the rest of the family... for the most part...  :)

(Jim with our godson Joseph, who is NOT happy with Jim's storytelling!)

Their relationship improved substantially a bit later on, and we had a lovely time in Wales, playing with the boys, drinking tea with our friends, and wandering around Aberystwyth during a huge rainstorm.  We went to the National Library of Wales, which was part library and part museum, for lunch and an exhibit on the Olympics.  Later on, Jim, Caleb, and I tried to go by tram up to the top of a hill for a neat attraction called the Camera Obscura, but halfway up, they brought the train back down and told us that the extreme wind at the top of the hill (70 mph!) was starting to rip the roof off the building and we couldn't go up right then.  It was a really big storm!  (We later heard on the radio that dozens and dozens of people within or very near to the city had to be evacuated due to the rain, which was the same amount (3 inches) in 24 hours that the area normally gets in a month!)  It's probably just as well that we didn't go to the Camera Obscura, because by that time, we were soaked through.  We returned back home to for an evening of chess, tea, and conversation.  It was so nice to get to see their life and home in Wales, and we had a great visit with the entire family!

After we left Wales on Saturday morning, we took the long route to London.  Our first stop was at Lyme Regis, on the southern coast of England.  This is part of the area known as the Jurassic Coast due to the huge number of fossils that have been found in the area.  The elements are ganging up on the coastal cliffs to erode them and slowly force them to divulge their stone-encrusted secrets.  We walked along the beach under the cliffs and found multiple fossils of our own.  It's really incredible there!  You're just scrambling over rocks and you spot the whorl of some ancient shell creature or the tiny sparkle of half of a geode opened up to reveal the bits of crystal inside... amazing!  Here's Jim making an earth-shattering discovery (literally!) after he cleaved apart a hunk of hard clay:

Lyme Regis was really pretty darn nifty, but we need to continue on our route so that we could see our next stop, Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is an interesting thing.  As an attraction, it's really just some huge rocks in circle.  :)  However, I think it's mostly the backstory (or rather, the conjecture/theorizing thereof) that really gets people interested.  If Stonehenge were made today, nobody would go to it.  But the mystery surrounding the rocks, including their placement, how they were stacked, where they come from, and who put them there and why, is intriguing to people.  I think what might be most striking upon first look is their setting.  The stone slabs are in the middle of acres and acres of very flat land... no rocks or quarries to be seen!  It's not a mystery I'm ever likely to solve, but it was neat to see such an iconic sight.  

After Stonehenge, we set course for London.  I had hoped to see some chalk cliffs, but time did not allow, so we went on to the city.  We reached the bustling city in the evening, ate falafel for dinner, and stayed at an overpriced and not-underrated hostel (i.e., not that great... read "not much bang for your buck" or "not much punch for your pence"), although I suppose staying in central London is bound to be expensive!  Today was our day to tour London.  What a fascinating and historic city!  I suppose everywhere has history, but London has highly concentrated history.  Around every couple corners is a famous name or landmark.  In a matter of hours walking around London, we passed by Buckingham Palace (which is having a "construction hangover" as they take down all the structures and decoration from the queen's diamond jubilee - happy 60 years, your majesty!), Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret's Church, Downing Street, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Harrod's, the Thames River, and the Tower of London.  We didn't go inside most of these places since we had limited time, but it was so neat to walk all around and see the actual sites of places I've read, heard, and studied about!  We avoided London Bridge, though, because I've heard the construction of that particular crossing is not too sturdy.

Me, Jim, and Ben

We also made time for a quick stop at Greenwich, so when we listen to the BBC and they tell the time according to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), we'll know... what Greenwich looks like, I guess?  I wish I could say that, having been there, I would automatically know GMT time equivalents.  However, knowing what Greenwich looks like is not actually at all relevant to figuring out what time it is in GMT and unfortunately does not aid one in doing so, which is sad because I often have trouble with GMT.  But hey, at least I can say I've been to the world's prime meridian with my prime meridian!

Off to Istanbul tomorrow!

Haggis, anyone?

We have now been in three different lands... Ice, Scot, and Eng.  :)  As I write this blog post, we are currently in Manchester, England, at a hostel called Hatters.  We have already left Scotland, but let me fill you in on what our brief but enjoyable time in the venerable northern UK held.  We got up early yesterday for our flight from Reykjavik to Glasgow, which was only about 2 hours.  My dear husband, who is ever so skilled, managed to make the transition from an automatic rental car in which he sat on the left and drove on the right in Iceland to a rental car in the UK, which was manual and in which the drivers seat is on the right while you drive on the left (and the gear-shifter is in the other hand, too).  He had to switch his brain all around in a matter of just a few hours, and he didn’t even crash any cars doing so!  :)  Very impressive, but confusing enough to get my heart racing a few times as cars go zipping and veering in all the wrong directions.  Jim is doing great on these narrow winding roads, but it still just feels backwards.  I have several times walked up to the passenger door and been legitimately confused as to why there is a steering wheel in my seat!

Anyway, driving from Glasgow, aside from bending my brain a little bit, was a fine ride.  We drove up to St. Andrews, where my old college suite-mate Justine is living while she works on her PhD thesis in Medieval History.  It was so great to see her again after not seeing her for years!  

We met her at her “flat” (which is actually more three-dimensional that it sounds) and, after a quick tour around the lovely and historic St. Andrews, set off for the Scottish highlands.  We contemplated going to Loch Ness to visit everyone’s favorite imaginary Scottish lake monster, but instead decided to visit Nessie’s less famous imaginary lake monster cousin, Taylor, at Loch Tay, which was a shorter drive and made sense given our time constrictions.  The Scottish highlands are lovely - the rolling green hills populated with sheep get steeper and craggier as you travel farther north.  The gorse (a thorny shrub) on the slopes has beautiful bright yellow flowers that contrast nicely with the rich green of the scenery, and clumps of deep dark dense forest give the region a certain mystique.  

This morning we had a full English breakfast and then wandered around St. Andrews.  It’s a really pretty town, and one of the highlights is the ruins of a gorgeous cathedral built hundreds of years ago.  At least, it was gorgeous until the Protestants decided to blast it to bits because they didn’t feel that the Catholics should have such a nice church, so they turned their cannons on it.  However, judging by the ruins, it was a heck of a cathedral!

It was lovely to drive around the highlands.  We had dinner a delightful countryside inn, where the brogues were thick and the venison was tried for the first time (by me).  And we got to make a quick stop at a castle where the environs inspired Jim to strike a James Bond-esque pose.

Jim and I got to see Justine’s office area in the university, complete with Latin dictionaries, old old manuscripts, and nerf guns, as any PhD candidate’s work space should be.  Then we said goodbye and continued on our way.

We drove through Lockerbie and went to the memorial for the victims of the bombing in 1988.  It was touching.  It’s such a pretty area and so sad to imagine it filled with the aftermath of a plane bombing.

After that solemn memorial, we went to a more whimsical town: Gretna Green.  It’s apparently well known apart from our source of knowledge, but we went there to see the town that we know from Pride and Prejudice as the “shotgun wedding” town.  It was just over the border from England and had fewer restrictions on who could marry and how, and so it was a common destination for weddings that were hurried for any reason.  It seems like it was the Las Vegas of Olde England.  :)  

And that’s it for now!  We’re off to see more of England and some old friends tomorrow.