All the Monkeys

Dan's first post here. It's a long one, so if you just want to skip it and get to the good stuff, head here: http://picasaweb.google.com/round.the.globe.in.100.days there should be a bunch new pics in a half an hour or so.

After a dull flight to London, I spent almost 10 hours waiting around in the LHR airport. The highlights were:

1. A family (mom, dad, young child) who were trying to get into Russia or Tajikistan on Aeroflot (russian airlines). They wouldn't let them board the plane because the mother didn't have a valid visa. The father was arguing for the better part of 4 hours; he had supposedly pre-contacted the consulates and because he had a valid visa, his wife didn't need one. I left before seeing the the resolution of this problem.

2. A midget wasn't allowed on the plane with his 'excessive' luggage. So in the 10 minutes before his flight left, the midget was busy running around, jumping up and down, and yelling at the baggage guy, while clothes flew in an aggressive fountain into a large plastic bag (his makeshift suitcase). It was as funny as I've described, and I'm not kidding, LHR has some ridiculous policy of one carry-on per person that they enforce like England's God-given right to hard-boil or deep-fry the very vitamins out of all its food.

I met an old South African guy on my flight to Athens. He had been robbed at gunpoint in his home one night. Crime is definitely a problem in SA like no other. His friends told him he was very lucky because he wasn't murdered or raped. He couldn't understand how you could call someone LUCKY who had just been robbed, regardless of the outcome. Anyway, onto more light notes:

We met up with Karen, Amber's mom at the airport, and we've been drinking ever since!

I think I speak for us all when I say Greece rules (of course, neither me nor Karen were in Turkey). The people here all speak English and are very friendly. They have incredible amounts of awesomely tasty food, and cheap Ouzo. So far we've tried two different types of Ouzo, and a mouth-wash like substance called Kitron, made of citrus leaves and alochol and sugar (it's pretty damn good, if only it didn't look like green mouth-wash), three types of beer, and have yet to try three more bottles of wine (two of which were a gift). ALFA beer and Mythos (both Greek beers) are good, much better than Canadian or Kokanee. Amstel is OK, but nothing special.

There was an entertaining event that led to the naming of this post. We left our dismally sketchy hotel (room 41 had fleas, according to Amber and Eric), and headed for the exciting Parthenon, Acropolis, etc. After a nice promenade, full of colorful Greek graffiti, we arrived in the midst of a touristic spectacle. Amber seemed a little agitated with the throngs of photo-snapping gapping tourists and made the LOUD proclamation "Let's get away from all the Monkeys". Sometimes inner monologues should stay inner.

They wanted to charge 12 Euros per person ($18/person) to see all these old sites, so we figure we'll probably hit this up in the early morning before our flight to Palermo when the Monkeys are still at bay.

There was an entertaining 70 year old Swiss guy on the ferry over to Naxos (the island we're staying on) who spoke French. He was an ex-geotech surveyor for dams and water-related stuff who had worked in Greece for years, and he told us about all sorts of highlights on our island, and some of the other ones. He suggested, in French, that Eric and I should ditch the girls (Amber and Karen) and rent a place on the island. "The 'mamas' are the ones who rent the places, and once you have a place, the 'dames' will flock to you" [rough translation]. He was also somewhat crazy, but very entertaining, with other comments such as "You're from Canada, are you Quebecois? No? Well, hmm, you should be."

Naxos is awesome, and I know at least some of you at home will be jealous at our predicament. We've spent a number of meals and hours of drinking and siestas trying to come up with the solution to our life-stopping quandary: Should we walk around the island clockwise, or counter-clockwise? Please make us a suggestion, we may have to spend another few meals and Ouzos on this life-altering decision, with healthy breaks in the sun and crystal clear turquoise Mediterranean sea.

(BTW, Karin, we have stumbled across an entire BAY FULL OF UNI!!! Those are sea urchins for the rest of you, the tastiest of all of the sea creatures. And lucky us, but it just happens to be a full moon, when their eggs are the fullest and most succulent! Hope you are enjoying day old fish in Ottawa. Love, Dan!)

Our plan for the next few days will be to rent scooters (or maybe a car) and bomb around the island, including the natural springs (that the Swiss guy told us about) and its' olive groves and beaches.

There's lots more to write about, but I'd rather spent more time acquiring stories than writing about them.

Hope you all are enjoying your cold summers and long hours of work. Hahaha!

Dan.

Rhodes...Touristy, but so worth it!

Or "Rhodos", as the locals call it. Here are some pictures of this awesome island. Every day brings a medieval castle adventure for Eric and I. We are staying in the "Old Town", or the area of Rhodos that is in the original area of fortification. I can't believe that people still live here. Every walk we go on is like something out of the movie "Labyrinth", only without David Bowie's crotch stealing the show.

There are a tonne of tourists, however, and that is the one aspect that takes some getting used to after Turkey. The strategy that has been working for us, involves exploring the touristy areas at less-busy times (i.e. early evening), and stick to ghetto areas during peak daytime hours (these areas tend to have the REALLy interesting bits anyway).

Anyway, I'm finished my glass of wine (Cheap Greek wine tends to be quite murkey and grapejuice-like, yet so tasty!), and internet is expensive, so that is all.

Tomorrow= ATHENS, then Dan and Mom will be here! We are SO stoked to share this experience with them. I can't wait.

Thanks for the comments everyone, it's so nice to hear from friends and family when we are so far away!

Safe and Sound in Greece

Yasas!

As some of you may have heard, there was a bombing in Ankara a couple of days ago. We are alive and well away from Ankara!

In fact, we are now in Greece. After a not-so-glorious day in the "backpacker's" hangout that is Olympos, and an absolutely GLORIOUS 2 days in Patara, we took a quick hydrofoil ferry from Fethiye (Turkey) to Rhodes (Greece) this morning. See pictures for more details!

In a nutshell, lessons learned for future trips to Turkey:- Turkish Breakfasts are truely the most complete meal: Cheese, tomato, cucumber, black olive, bread, an egg, jam (rose jam is preferable), yogurt, and nutella.
- Never pay more for things in Turkey, always pay less (more money= more ripped off!)
- No matter how sketchy it seems, things always tend to work out in the end.
- Never underestimate the genuine kindness of people in small towns.
- If you want to actually get a feel for Turkish culture (and make some lifelong friends in the process), small towns are WAY better than big cities.
- Anything described/marketed as a "backpacker's _______" basically means "here you will get drunk with other travellers and experience no Turkish culture in the meantime!"
- Stick a 20 minute walk in front of anything (even if it is as gorgeous as Patara, Turkey), and you cut out 95% of the crowds found at equally beautiful destinations. (I think this is true to all countries, not just Turkey!)

Well, it's bedtime in Rhodes soon, and we have many a medieval fortress to explore tomorrow (Rhodes, in case you didn't know, is supposedly the best surviving example of medieval fortifications in the world. it really is cool so far!)

Love from Eric and Amber, full of souvlaki and Ouzo :)

More pictures uploaded!

Unfortunately, blogger is in Turkish when you access the webpage in Turkey (makes sense, I suppose), so I can't figure out how to put a permalink to the pictures. Here's the address again:

http://picasaweb.google.com/round.the.globe.in.100.days

Our cave-house is still wonderful (I have found my calling as a troglodyte), but Sunday we go to Olympos where we will live in a tree-house (what's next?). Cappadocia (where we are now) is incredible...our pictures don't do it justice. We aren't able to upload our latest pictures, but we went to one of the many underground cities here and it was very impressive. Although they were inhabited by Christians fleeing from people who wanted them dead during the first couple centuries A.D., the underground cities were originally built long before that by an unknown people (it is believed that they may have been the Hittites or the Sumerians around 3000 or 4000 years ago). The amazing thing is that some of these underground cities once housed as many as 60,000 people on up to 7 different stories, and had ventilation shafts, kitchens, stables (these were near the ground level), churches, sleeping quarters, etc. They are still around today and you can visit them...truly a marvel of engineering. If you are claustrophobic at all, I would avoid them...Amber was a real trooper and just barely made it through (think dark tunnels 20 meters underground that you have to crawl through). Pictures of them will be posted soon.

Enjoy our pictures so far (by the time you view them, they should all be captioned!)

-Eric

When in Uçhisar...

All I can say is: Thank goodness we are out of Istanbul! Although Eric and I had a wonderful final day there (with a cruise up the Bosphorus, a hike, and the most delicious dinner EVER at Saray), the pick-pocketing and general sneakiness of people was souring our spirits!

So we hopped on our flight to Kayseri, followed by a 1hour mini-van ride to Uçhisar in the unique Cappodocia region of Turkey. And Man o' man we feel like we just got off of a spaceship, it is so different here... we are in LOVE. I am in love with the people here first and foremost (e.g. curious locals who approach us as we wander the streets, just wanting to invite us for teas and chat, etc.). Eric is loving living in a cave here (Uçhisar is primarily a troglodyte town), and waking up to delicious breaskfast feasts of Cheese, meats, tomatos, cucumbers, olives, yogurt and breads. The scenery is spectacular and made up of strange rock formations called "fairy chimneys" (they look like gargantuan penises!). Our cute cave dwelling is carved into one of these penises, and is the perfect cool escape from the hot hot sun. We have been hiking everyday too, which is one of our favourite activities besides eating things.

Anyway, I won't go off TOO much about our state of bliss- internet is expensive and slow here. I tried to post our pics, but no dice. Maybe when we get somewhere more inhabited. BUT, if these trogodytes continue to feed our Kebap and Turkish delight additions, we may never leave!!

Love from happy and healthy Eric and Amber

Pictures from Istanbul!

Just spent over an hour uploading these, so I really don't feel like writing any more...I've included captions, so have a look!

http://picasaweb.google.com/round.the.globe.in.100.days

Safe and Sound in Istanbul!

Hey everyone! No good pictures yet (but some great ones forthcoming), so I'll make this short and sweet. Amber and I are safe and sound in Istanbul, there is not a cloud anywhere in sight, and it's warm but with a nice cool breeze. The hostel that we are staying at is right in the middle of the Sultanahmet district, mere blocks away from the Ayasofya (or Hagia Sophia in Greek), the Blue Mosque, Topkapi palace, and the other big tourist sights of Istanbul. The city is ancient, very beautiful (or "çok güzel" as they would say in Turkey), and has a surprisingly western feel to it thus far. We explored the Sultanahmet district briefly last night, but we were pretty jet-lagged so we didn't do anything in detail. Today we are going out to see the sights and take some pictures!

We'll write again once we've actually gone out and experienced the city a bit. I'm very excited!

Eric

A "Formal" Introduction by Eric

Hey everyone! Eric here to give you guys a "formal" introduction to our blog.

For those of you who are not familiar with what we have been up to recently, I'll fill you all in. I just recently graduated from the Materials Engineering program at UBC, and got a job offer in Calgary that starts at the end of August. My girlfriend Amber has been graduated for the past year and is currently working in Calgary. My brother Dan is still in Vancouver working and living at the Hepler Hotel. His latest project that is consuming all of his time is that he is starting up a brewery with Andrew.

Since my job doesn't start until the end of August, I decided that it was time to set myself free and do some serious travelling before becoming a corporate slave. Not wanting to be apart for any longer, Amber decided that it was high time to leave her job behind and come join me in my adventures. We started making a list of all of the places that we wanted to go, and quickly realized that we couldn't possibly see them all in the mere 100 days that we have alloted for this adventure. After making some very difficult cuts from our list, we decided upon a travel plan unlike anything either of us had ever experienced before. Hearing our plan, Dan knew that he could not sit idly by as we travelled the world, and decided to take an extended leave of absence from his work to come on most of the trip. He was far from alone in wanting to join us on our adventures, and we expect to be joined by Amber's mom, my father, Karin, Galvin, Sabrina and others. If you are reading this blog and find yourself gripped by a sudden urge to join us, or will find yourselves in the same countries as us at the same time, we would love to meet up with you...please send any of us (Amber, Dan or myself) an E-mail or leave a comment here.

Those among you who are not yet familiar with the details of our trip are probably getting curious as to what sort of trip could possibly lead to 2 people leaving their jobs behind in order to join. So without further ado, here is an outline of our proposed travels:

1. Turkey: Amber and I will fly from Calgary across Canada, over the Atlantic ocean and across Western Europe, touching down in Frankfurt, Germany before continuing on to Istanbul (was Constantinople...) in Turkey. We will spend a romantic couple of weeks seeing the hustle and bustle of Istanbul, the weird and phallic rock formations of Cappadocia (pretty much in the centre of Turkey), and relaxing on beaches along the beautiful Turquoise coast (so named because of the colour of the water) located in the south west of Turkey.
2. Greece: From the turquoise coast, we will take a ferry to the Medieval fortress on the island of Rhodes, and get on a flight to Athens. It is in Athens that we will meet up with Dan, and Amber's mom Karen will also join us. After a brief visit in Athens, we will take a ferry to one of the picturesque Greek islands (possibly Naxos or Santorini) to soak up the sun, the delicious food, and the ouzo.
3. Italy: Before we decide that we will never work again, and settle down to live in Greece for good, we will take a flight from Athens to Palermo, the main city on the Italian isle of Sicily. After a few days of eating, drinking, and dodging Mafia hitmen, we will slowly make our way up the west coast of Italy to Rome. Once in Rome we will drag Karen, kicking and screaming because she wants to stay in Italy for ever, to the airport to catch a plane bound for Canada. After our tearful goodbyes, we will continue up the western coast of Italy towards France. At some point here (probably in Rome) we will meet up with Galvin for some delicious Italian feasting.
   
4. France: After a healthy dose of Bouillabaisse and sun in Marseilles and the French Riviera, we will probably head north to Paris and party with Sanaée. The plans for France, Italy, and subsequently Denmark and Germany are not set in stone and may change during our voyage depending on who we meet along the way.
5. Denmark: Dan would like to visit some friends of his in Denmark, but Amber and I will probably stay in France or Germany instead.
   
6. Germany: Ahh, the ancestral homeland at last! My father Bill will probably join us for our adventures in Germany, which will have to include a visit to the Hammerstein castle (the castle of my mother's side of the family, who was German nobility). Our visit to Germany will not be strictly pleasure, and will likely include a detour to Munich, where we will conduct very important research into the local breweries to assist Dan in starting his. Berlin will be our final stop in western Europe, after which things begin to get quite interesting.
7. Russia: From St. Petersburg, Dan, Amber and I begin a 9,000 km train voyage across Asia. We are doing this portion of the trip with Vodkatrain (http://www.vodkatrain.com/), and will travel in a group of 15 people across Russia, Mongolia and China, with locals in each of the major stops to keep us out of trouble. In Russia, we will have stops in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Irkutsk, and Lake Baikal, before entering Mongolia.
8. Mongolia: We continue our train journey to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. From here, we set out to spend several days in a mongolian Ger, living with Mongolian nomads, riding horses and camels and drinking airag (mare's milk that has been fermented until it contains alcohol). We will then return to Ulaanbaatar and continue on the train to China.
9. China: The final destination of our trip is the Chinese metropolis of Beijing (formerly Peking, of Peking duck fame!). Here we will see the great wall, the forbidden city, and eat everything from duck to scorpion to dog. When we have had our fill on the 100th day, Amber and I will fly back to Calgary across the Pacific ocean, thus completing our circumnavigation of the globe. Dan may remain in China for a bit longer.

Amber and I will be leaving on May 11th from Calgary, meeting up with Dan on May 28th, and returning on August 17. No idea when Dan will return...he might stay for awhile. Stay tuned to our blog for stories and pictures from our trip. We will try to update as often as we can. Feel free to leave comments here or send any of us E-mails...we would be happy to hear from you!

Can't wait until 3 days from now!

Eric

Blogs about Food and Buildings

Well, someone had to break our blog's seal and since I am feeling rather blah in my cubicle of grey, I figured I am the perfect candidate today.

It's funny how many people have this sketchy, war-torn picture of Turkey engraved in their brains.
For example, old engineer at work today: "You're goin' to TURKEY? " [shakes his head in disapproval] "You couldn't catch me anywhere near it- too dangerous, especially for a young lady."
Perhaps I shouldn't have taken offense to this, but I couldn't resist a friendly rebuttal of "Well, would you visit New York if there were a war in Cuba?", to which he laughed, shook his head and wandered out of my office. Such a silly question from a silly little girl!

Anyway, Eric and I are excited to determine how much I am worth in goats and camels . (In Istanbul, a man offered Eric's friend a camel and two goats for his girlfriend; we think we can beat this offer). Eric's Uncle Charley posed an interesting question, "Is 2 goats and 1 camel a competitive offer for a woman in Turkey?"

Anyway, we will be updating soon with the odd short story or picture to confirm that we are alive and that I have not been traded for livestock.

Until Istanbul (8 days),
Amber