Yesterday, woke up, breakfast, which included some sort of cake thing with chocolate chips that just seemed ridiculously decadent. Class, mostly biomes, lunch break, and then it was off to see Schloss Charlottenburg, this old summer palace. Beautiful place, it was shelled really badly in WWII but they've done an astounding amount of restoration work. Everything you think of when it comes to 18th and 19th century royalty, gold-plated everything, beautiful oak furniture, more porcelain than you'd think possible, mirrored walls, huge portraits everywhere, you get the idea. We had audioguides and it was mostly pretty interesting, actually. There was a whole room dedicated to Alexander von Humboldt at one point, which almost seemed rigged for our trip. After we spent some time in there and in the New Wing, we went out back to the garden, which exemplified the absolute worst in English gardens. Everything extremely controlled, no actual nature, bah. In the back it got more natural, we saw lots of ducks, a dog chasing some of them (the owners had no control of the dog, or of their daughter for that matter, it was funny), trees that looked less heavily manipulated. We couldn't go into the building out back, though we did see a field just COVERED in signs of moles, which apparently means that they're eating invertebrates in the soil which means that the field doesn't have insecticides or herbicides in it.
We headed back to the hotel and I went out to a haircut. The guy was from Paris but has apparently worked in Australia, Canada, Germany, I don't remember all the places he mentioned. He spoke German and a little Italian, as well as English and French. A little fancier than I'm used to, but it was a good haircut. Towards the end a woman who also worked there came in and when he told her I wasn't German, she guessed Russian. One more on the list of nationalities, eh? I could ALMOST understand her German but she just spoke too fast for me to pick up much of it, unfortunately. I'm really missing how good I was four years ago. That was 15 euros, tipped him 3, back to the hotel.
Thursday, March 18th, roughly 11:25-11:35 PM local time
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Breakfast was pretty good, I had bread/meat/cheese and LOTS of fruit. Oh, and some yogurt, which I hadn't had in ages. Not because we haven't been in countries with great yogurt, more because I'm a little wary of what people call “good” yogurt versus what I actually like. I've tried lots of new food, I figure I'm allowed one or two.
Took a nap after that, then class, which was mostly a discussion of Berlin and Berlin history, along with a little more on this theme of “who owns art?” that we've had going on constantly since Egypt. We got our week passes for the public transit and got some time off for lunch. Swaffie and I wandered, amused at how we're polar opposites in appearance. We saw lots of cool little stores, a big church with a nice playground, Berlin is just a really cool city to walk around in. Some old guy who was probably crazy swore at us, I only caught “die Scheisse Deutschland,” but it was clearly directed at us, especially since he kept watching us after we passed. That was odd. Eventually we went to a little grocer's nearby called Kaiser's, picked up some sandwich stuff, orange juice and an apple, came back to the hotel and had lunch. There was a little bit of snow on the way back, which we certainly haven't seen in a long time.
After lunch we waited around for a bit and then headed on the buses to the museum. Somewhere between class and here, I lost my pass. NO IDEA. I had put it straight into my wallet. I tried to tell Denny after the first short stop and he laughed, saying “you had me there for a second.” He honestly thought I was messing with him. So I spent the rest of the bus rides in horror of ending up having to pay some enormous fine (they had told us all about it this morning), but I got away with it. We went to the Pergamon Museum, the lady selling us tickets told Denny that “this is better, because we have the real thing” when he told her we had been to Pergamon.
Yeah, sometimes people are like that.
The museum itself was truly impressive. The ancient gates were incorporated into the doors so that when you walked through a doorway, you were going through one of these gates. Upstairs they had a bunch of statues, amphoras, and other things only recently recovered from Russia that had been taken in WWII. Truly beautiful stuff, and even a little bit of mythology mixed in. We had been hearing all about this in our art discussions, so it was cool to see it. Maybe the coolest part for me was a small Babylonian section, seeing as I know so little about Babylon. The art style reminded me a little bit of Aztec art, which was surprising, but it was definitely there in some pieces.
After that we tried to go to the Egypt Museum but were probably 30 seconds late, they have very specific entry times and the group before us got in. Meh, whatever. John, Clay, Allen, Swaffie, Nate, Brenna and I wandered a bit, briefly went into a Catholic church being renovated. Some idiot had drawn a pentagram with 6s and “Satanus de Angelus” near the door. Inside it was beautiful despite the work, lots of paintings, though definitely in that sort of creepy old Catholic style of everything being pain and suffering. There were a couple that weren't, but the majority were. No offense to Catholicism, I'm just saying. We saw a GORGEOUS fountain with Poseidon and a bunch of other creatures around him, absolutely beautiful work though it wasn't flowing just then. Eventually we passed some stalls with some guys selling Soviet-themed stuff, hats, flasks, pins. John got a flask, Swaffie and I both got hats. WARM and comfortable. Wow. I probably got ripped off at 15 euro, but that's life, and it's actually practical. I took the pin out and now I can wear it here and in Norway, not to mention back home (pin in, obviously).
Eventually we were done and headed into the subway (called the U) to come back. We got these delicious chicken kebabs, 2.5 euro and huge and oh so tasty. I had to buy a ticket, which was... intimidating. I walked into this little room and of the two women running the counter, one is in this huge argument with a woman trying to do... something. I'm not sure what. That went on for several minutes, and when it eventually became my turn, I got the woman who was arguing. I was afraid she was going to be pissy with me, ignorant tourist, but I just said I'm a tourist and I need to get here and she told me the route (we had already figured out the route) and yes, I could buy one ticket for the whole thing and it was 2.10.
So we got that taken care of, got the first part of the route down fine, heard a guy play guitar and sing in an Irish accent on the train (he switched to British when he spoke, though). We got to the transfer JUST as a train was pulling out, and Nate DASHED us onto the train, holding the door long after it had meant to be closed. Here two guys were performing, one playing guitar and singing, another playing soprano sax. This was actually pretty awesome, the sax guy was really good and we all liked the song. I gave them 70 euro cents, and then Nate figured out we were on the wrong train. Well, yeah, when you hardly pay attention to what you're boarding. So we got off and got on the train going the right direction, headed back, walked back to the hotel, and here I am. Other than the whole losing my pass thing, definitely a good day.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:40-7:55 PM local time
Took a nap after that, then class, which was mostly a discussion of Berlin and Berlin history, along with a little more on this theme of “who owns art?” that we've had going on constantly since Egypt. We got our week passes for the public transit and got some time off for lunch. Swaffie and I wandered, amused at how we're polar opposites in appearance. We saw lots of cool little stores, a big church with a nice playground, Berlin is just a really cool city to walk around in. Some old guy who was probably crazy swore at us, I only caught “die Scheisse Deutschland,” but it was clearly directed at us, especially since he kept watching us after we passed. That was odd. Eventually we went to a little grocer's nearby called Kaiser's, picked up some sandwich stuff, orange juice and an apple, came back to the hotel and had lunch. There was a little bit of snow on the way back, which we certainly haven't seen in a long time.
After lunch we waited around for a bit and then headed on the buses to the museum. Somewhere between class and here, I lost my pass. NO IDEA. I had put it straight into my wallet. I tried to tell Denny after the first short stop and he laughed, saying “you had me there for a second.” He honestly thought I was messing with him. So I spent the rest of the bus rides in horror of ending up having to pay some enormous fine (they had told us all about it this morning), but I got away with it. We went to the Pergamon Museum, the lady selling us tickets told Denny that “this is better, because we have the real thing” when he told her we had been to Pergamon.
Yeah, sometimes people are like that.
The museum itself was truly impressive. The ancient gates were incorporated into the doors so that when you walked through a doorway, you were going through one of these gates. Upstairs they had a bunch of statues, amphoras, and other things only recently recovered from Russia that had been taken in WWII. Truly beautiful stuff, and even a little bit of mythology mixed in. We had been hearing all about this in our art discussions, so it was cool to see it. Maybe the coolest part for me was a small Babylonian section, seeing as I know so little about Babylon. The art style reminded me a little bit of Aztec art, which was surprising, but it was definitely there in some pieces.
After that we tried to go to the Egypt Museum but were probably 30 seconds late, they have very specific entry times and the group before us got in. Meh, whatever. John, Clay, Allen, Swaffie, Nate, Brenna and I wandered a bit, briefly went into a Catholic church being renovated. Some idiot had drawn a pentagram with 6s and “Satanus de Angelus” near the door. Inside it was beautiful despite the work, lots of paintings, though definitely in that sort of creepy old Catholic style of everything being pain and suffering. There were a couple that weren't, but the majority were. No offense to Catholicism, I'm just saying. We saw a GORGEOUS fountain with Poseidon and a bunch of other creatures around him, absolutely beautiful work though it wasn't flowing just then. Eventually we passed some stalls with some guys selling Soviet-themed stuff, hats, flasks, pins. John got a flask, Swaffie and I both got hats. WARM and comfortable. Wow. I probably got ripped off at 15 euro, but that's life, and it's actually practical. I took the pin out and now I can wear it here and in Norway, not to mention back home (pin in, obviously).
Eventually we were done and headed into the subway (called the U) to come back. We got these delicious chicken kebabs, 2.5 euro and huge and oh so tasty. I had to buy a ticket, which was... intimidating. I walked into this little room and of the two women running the counter, one is in this huge argument with a woman trying to do... something. I'm not sure what. That went on for several minutes, and when it eventually became my turn, I got the woman who was arguing. I was afraid she was going to be pissy with me, ignorant tourist, but I just said I'm a tourist and I need to get here and she told me the route (we had already figured out the route) and yes, I could buy one ticket for the whole thing and it was 2.10.
So we got that taken care of, got the first part of the route down fine, heard a guy play guitar and sing in an Irish accent on the train (he switched to British when he spoke, though). We got to the transfer JUST as a train was pulling out, and Nate DASHED us onto the train, holding the door long after it had meant to be closed. Here two guys were performing, one playing guitar and singing, another playing soprano sax. This was actually pretty awesome, the sax guy was really good and we all liked the song. I gave them 70 euro cents, and then Nate figured out we were on the wrong train. Well, yeah, when you hardly pay attention to what you're boarding. So we got off and got on the train going the right direction, headed back, walked back to the hotel, and here I am. Other than the whole losing my pass thing, definitely a good day.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:40-7:55 PM local time
BERLIN!
Now, to back up a bit.
Got up yesterday, ate, sat around a bit, went out to try to find some ziploc bags or something for the olive oil. Well, it turns out ziploc hasn't made its way to Turkey yet, so I ended up buying trash bags for 75 kuruks, which isn't so bad. On the way back got confused for an Australian by a man trying to sell me carpets, so I can add that one to the list. (English, German, Scandanavian, and Australian so far). I ended up popping my head into some random small place for lunch and saying “I need something quick,” the guy said only chicken was ready, I said that was perfect. So I had a chicken wrap and some really, really good lemonade for lunch while watching Apocalypto with both English and Turkish subtitles. At least, I think it was Apocalypto. That was only 7 liira, which was awesome, went back to the hotel, sat downstairs for a bit watching football with Nate because John had our roomkey (I had earlier left a key in the room, Nate got another key made, lent it to John, then John left with it and the original key was still in the room... yeah). John came back, I packed, taping the olive oil's cork down, wrapping it in a trash bag, wrapped in another trash bag, and then taping the hell out of that.
Bus to the airport, sign in, have to redistribute some of Becky's stuff because she's about 5 kilos over and cheated Egypt Air, go through one of the longer passport control lines we've seen, though it wasn't bad. The Azerbaijan wrestling team was there with a trophy, we congratulated them. Our gate changed from 202 to 206 to 211 but eventually we got on the plane. I slept almost that entire flight, 4 hours. Arrive in Riga, we're supposed to only have half an hour to get to the next plane so we really want to rush.
Move move move, passport control which seemed odd for a transfer, the woman was actually trying to make polite conversation (“what will you be doing in Berlin?”) but I was a little too frazzled for it, get to the gate... our plane's been delayed. Awesome, we don't have to panic. They didn't feed us on the flight over (don't fly Air Baltic, EVERYTHING costs money, even water), so Denny bought us all some sandwiches and water. Then our flight seemed to disappear altogether, which was a worrisome period. Then we heard it departed, then we heard no, it's still there... anyway, eventually after another flight left the one gate, we were able to get on. The plane had very few people on it, we probably could have spread out but we pretty much stuck to our seats, though I did switch with Sigrid (which was good, because I had an aisle and she had a window, and I was afraid in aisle some steward would notice my backpack being, well, my enormous freaking backpack). Got a little nerd work done on that plane, land, get our stuff off the carousel, and into Berlin!
We took the bus, the group of us sitting in the back speaking horrible horrible German to each other. Got off at Uhland Strasse and started walking to the Pension Funk. (Not pronounced how you think it is.) I warned David about the horrible German, he said be prepared for 8 days of being corrected constantly, I told him it wasn't just me.
Our hotel's pretty nice. It used to be the apartments of... let me check the brochure. “In the former residence of Asta Nielsen, star of the silent film.” Clay, Swaffie and I are in a very comfortable triple, our own bathroom and shower and all. After we settled in and got some food money from Denny, it was out to find dinner and beer (Bier!).
We walked towards the train station, having been told that was a good way to find food. Met some Belgian kids at least 4 years younger than us who were trying way too hard to smoke, they were clearly inexperienced and coughing regularly. Yeah, I don't smoke myself, but I still know how to recognize people who are new to it. They were outside a bar with 4 euro beers, we decided to keep walking. Eventually we found a pizza place and somehow ended up all eating together, which wasn't really a bad thing. I had a pizza margarita and a hefeweizen dunkel (dark). The krystalweizen was okay, the hefeweizen hell (light) was actually really good, and my dunkel was pretty good, we all swapped tastes as usual. The pizza was a pretty standard cheese pizza. But hey, all for something like 7 euro, I'm not complaining.
Some people stayed out longer but I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I had trouble falling asleep for whatever reason, but once I was out I stayed out, so that was good. Woke up some time around 6:45, if I had to guess, showered, got dressed, did my best not to disturb Swaffie and Clay but this building is not a quiet one. Breakfast starts in 10 minutes.
I'm SO excited to be in Berlin. Germany's the only country of the whole trip I've visited before, and I didn't get to Berlin last time. I mean... it's BERLIN. Capital city of one of my favorite countries of the world, and I had a great time in Heidelberg and Munich, so it follows that I'll have a great time in Berlin. I've been wanting to come here for a long time (probably after about my first year of German or so), so it's great to actually be here. And unlike the last two months of move move move, we get a full 8 days here. 3 of those days free (Thursday, specially requested as the day after St. Patty's, and Saturday and Sunday.) It's going to be fantastic.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:05-7:20 AM local time
Now, to back up a bit.
Got up yesterday, ate, sat around a bit, went out to try to find some ziploc bags or something for the olive oil. Well, it turns out ziploc hasn't made its way to Turkey yet, so I ended up buying trash bags for 75 kuruks, which isn't so bad. On the way back got confused for an Australian by a man trying to sell me carpets, so I can add that one to the list. (English, German, Scandanavian, and Australian so far). I ended up popping my head into some random small place for lunch and saying “I need something quick,” the guy said only chicken was ready, I said that was perfect. So I had a chicken wrap and some really, really good lemonade for lunch while watching Apocalypto with both English and Turkish subtitles. At least, I think it was Apocalypto. That was only 7 liira, which was awesome, went back to the hotel, sat downstairs for a bit watching football with Nate because John had our roomkey (I had earlier left a key in the room, Nate got another key made, lent it to John, then John left with it and the original key was still in the room... yeah). John came back, I packed, taping the olive oil's cork down, wrapping it in a trash bag, wrapped in another trash bag, and then taping the hell out of that.
Bus to the airport, sign in, have to redistribute some of Becky's stuff because she's about 5 kilos over and cheated Egypt Air, go through one of the longer passport control lines we've seen, though it wasn't bad. The Azerbaijan wrestling team was there with a trophy, we congratulated them. Our gate changed from 202 to 206 to 211 but eventually we got on the plane. I slept almost that entire flight, 4 hours. Arrive in Riga, we're supposed to only have half an hour to get to the next plane so we really want to rush.
Move move move, passport control which seemed odd for a transfer, the woman was actually trying to make polite conversation (“what will you be doing in Berlin?”) but I was a little too frazzled for it, get to the gate... our plane's been delayed. Awesome, we don't have to panic. They didn't feed us on the flight over (don't fly Air Baltic, EVERYTHING costs money, even water), so Denny bought us all some sandwiches and water. Then our flight seemed to disappear altogether, which was a worrisome period. Then we heard it departed, then we heard no, it's still there... anyway, eventually after another flight left the one gate, we were able to get on. The plane had very few people on it, we probably could have spread out but we pretty much stuck to our seats, though I did switch with Sigrid (which was good, because I had an aisle and she had a window, and I was afraid in aisle some steward would notice my backpack being, well, my enormous freaking backpack). Got a little nerd work done on that plane, land, get our stuff off the carousel, and into Berlin!
We took the bus, the group of us sitting in the back speaking horrible horrible German to each other. Got off at Uhland Strasse and started walking to the Pension Funk. (Not pronounced how you think it is.) I warned David about the horrible German, he said be prepared for 8 days of being corrected constantly, I told him it wasn't just me.
Our hotel's pretty nice. It used to be the apartments of... let me check the brochure. “In the former residence of Asta Nielsen, star of the silent film.” Clay, Swaffie and I are in a very comfortable triple, our own bathroom and shower and all. After we settled in and got some food money from Denny, it was out to find dinner and beer (Bier!).
We walked towards the train station, having been told that was a good way to find food. Met some Belgian kids at least 4 years younger than us who were trying way too hard to smoke, they were clearly inexperienced and coughing regularly. Yeah, I don't smoke myself, but I still know how to recognize people who are new to it. They were outside a bar with 4 euro beers, we decided to keep walking. Eventually we found a pizza place and somehow ended up all eating together, which wasn't really a bad thing. I had a pizza margarita and a hefeweizen dunkel (dark). The krystalweizen was okay, the hefeweizen hell (light) was actually really good, and my dunkel was pretty good, we all swapped tastes as usual. The pizza was a pretty standard cheese pizza. But hey, all for something like 7 euro, I'm not complaining.
Some people stayed out longer but I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I had trouble falling asleep for whatever reason, but once I was out I stayed out, so that was good. Woke up some time around 6:45, if I had to guess, showered, got dressed, did my best not to disturb Swaffie and Clay but this building is not a quiet one. Breakfast starts in 10 minutes.
I'm SO excited to be in Berlin. Germany's the only country of the whole trip I've visited before, and I didn't get to Berlin last time. I mean... it's BERLIN. Capital city of one of my favorite countries of the world, and I had a great time in Heidelberg and Munich, so it follows that I'll have a great time in Berlin. I've been wanting to come here for a long time (probably after about my first year of German or so), so it's great to actually be here. And unlike the last two months of move move move, we get a full 8 days here. 3 of those days free (Thursday, specially requested as the day after St. Patty's, and Saturday and Sunday.) It's going to be fantastic.
Tuesday, March 16th, roughly 7:05-7:20 AM local time
The Hagia Sophia was... wow. Just fantastic. Also, HUGE. Like, I almost felt agoraphobic, it was that big. Beautiful architecture, huge mosaics, wonderful stained glass, and just wow. Also? Big. Very impressive, though unfortunately I can't put many details here. Anh did this thing called the sweating column, you stick your thumb in and if it comes out wet your wish will come true. Kind of goofy. I waited outside for a long time, people-watched, the group didn't know I was outside (I told Anh and Brenna), eventually they found me and we moved on.
The Blue Mosque was closed for prayers, we waited about 15 minutes and then it opened. Very impressive as well, though the chains hanging from the ceiling make photos difficult. The center chain has some ostrich eggs on a triangle near the top, which is kind of neat. They have a little Islam information center near the back which seemed remarkably welcoming, “there is no compulsion to religion,” though I didn't end up going in. Seemed alright though.
Pizza for lunch. Had a sausage and green pepper deal, gave all my olives to others, ate some of Anh's margherita and some of Kanako's mushroom too. From there we got some time to wander the city. I came back to the hotel trying to drop my camera off, but the guy thought he didn't have the key. (He did). I'm glad though, because when I went to the park I actually got some cool pictures. There's a NICE park en route to the Hagia Sophia, free and open. I walked a bit, semi-stalked this couple near my age trying to figure out their nationality, definitely American or English but not sure which. I was going to let them be but the guy was finding all the cool birds, so I was following him to get pictures of the birds. Lots of stuff here, not just crows and little seed-eaters but also big herons and... of all things, bright green parakeets. They seem really out of place but there they are, in great numbers. Also a fair number of cats, of course, lots of museums I couldn't afford to go into, and a pretty globe with just a small piece of map outside of the museum of Science and Technology in Islam.
Nate eventually caught up with me, we walked a bit, left the park, went down towards the docks, walked some more, ended up back by the milestone and this big Egyptian obelisk near the Hagia Sophia. He bought this candy thing, kind of like taffy-texture rock candy, Anh Kanako and I had had them earlier. They take a stick and roll it so the candy wraps around it, and it's five different flavors all rolled one after the other. It's DELICIOUS. I want it in the states almost about as I want tuktuks/auto rickshaws. So we had that, walked some more, ended up back at the hotel, chilled a bit. Had an Efes with John, Swaffie, Matt and Caitlin, listened to some music, dinner. Good dinner, so many courses, so many desserts, so good.
The Blue Mosque was closed for prayers, we waited about 15 minutes and then it opened. Very impressive as well, though the chains hanging from the ceiling make photos difficult. The center chain has some ostrich eggs on a triangle near the top, which is kind of neat. They have a little Islam information center near the back which seemed remarkably welcoming, “there is no compulsion to religion,” though I didn't end up going in. Seemed alright though.
Pizza for lunch. Had a sausage and green pepper deal, gave all my olives to others, ate some of Anh's margherita and some of Kanako's mushroom too. From there we got some time to wander the city. I came back to the hotel trying to drop my camera off, but the guy thought he didn't have the key. (He did). I'm glad though, because when I went to the park I actually got some cool pictures. There's a NICE park en route to the Hagia Sophia, free and open. I walked a bit, semi-stalked this couple near my age trying to figure out their nationality, definitely American or English but not sure which. I was going to let them be but the guy was finding all the cool birds, so I was following him to get pictures of the birds. Lots of stuff here, not just crows and little seed-eaters but also big herons and... of all things, bright green parakeets. They seem really out of place but there they are, in great numbers. Also a fair number of cats, of course, lots of museums I couldn't afford to go into, and a pretty globe with just a small piece of map outside of the museum of Science and Technology in Islam.
Nate eventually caught up with me, we walked a bit, left the park, went down towards the docks, walked some more, ended up back by the milestone and this big Egyptian obelisk near the Hagia Sophia. He bought this candy thing, kind of like taffy-texture rock candy, Anh Kanako and I had had them earlier. They take a stick and roll it so the candy wraps around it, and it's five different flavors all rolled one after the other. It's DELICIOUS. I want it in the states almost about as I want tuktuks/auto rickshaws. So we had that, walked some more, ended up back at the hotel, chilled a bit. Had an Efes with John, Swaffie, Matt and Caitlin, listened to some music, dinner. Good dinner, so many courses, so many desserts, so good.
So we stayed in a 5-star hotel that night. It was uh, impressive. I felt out of place as all hell in the restaurant. Next morning, woke up, swam a bit, sauna, into a COLD pool, sauna, COLD pool, steam room (“Finn Bath), COLD pool, breakfast. The best way to wake up, ever. Period.
After that we drove a bit, I feel like we stopped to see something but I completely forget. Anyway there was a ferry across the sea which was kind of fun, met a Turkish kid who offered us cigarettes and may or may not have offered us whiskey, I'm not really sure. He spoke very little English and Nate and I, of course, spoke no Turkish. Also had fun throwing bread to the gulls, there were huge flocks of them around the boat. Back onto the bus, see the Tomb of Mehmet and the Green Mosque, I forgot my camera which was obnoxious. Both very impressive structures, apparently the color of the tiles in the Green Mosque has never been recreated, they're not sure what the composition was to get that exact color. Picked up an Evil Eye bracelet for myself outside the Green Mosque for 1 liira.
Get into Istanbul, go to the Grand Bazaar for two hours. One hour probably would have been enough, but wow. The place is IMPRESSIVE. There for centuries, Marco Polo was there, all very cool. I got a couple gifts for others, John picked up some awesome pipes. I really wanted to get some apple tea but decided against it. I'd love to go back there some day with a bunch of money and just blow it all, much as I normally don't like shopping. Nate bought a pair of sunglasses, which ended in a whole lot of hassling. A big guy came over to talk to me at one point, asked me where I was from, apparently he has two stores in Texas. I didn't see a store anywhere nearby which was why he seemed safe to talk to, but he whisked Nate and I around a few corner to his store. En route a guy asked me “is this guy your friend?” and I just shrugged, he laughed at that. Turned out that guy worked at the same store, a carpet store. As soon as I realized it was carpets I just went “oh no no no,” and they actually let us go pretty easily. It was kind of nice. This one guy selling chess sets said he'd give Nate one for free if Nate beat him, after his first move he said “wait 6 months” for the next one. Supposedly he tricked Kazmarov or whoever the famous Russian guy is the same way. Funny old man, if a bit obnoxious. Fortunately both of the guys who sold to me were alright. I've learned that the best way to barter is to ACTUALLY not have enough money with you.
Had a pretty good dinner, kofte, salad, bread, various things. Ate a whole bunch of raw onion because Brenna didn't want it, which was interesting. We had a great variety of conversations, the most amusing of which to me was assigning animals to each person there. Brenna's a dikdik, Liz is a slow lorence, Nate's a river otter (all smiley), and I'm apparently a red panda? Not sure how that happened. Zypy's a fish because she claims she doesn't sleep. I don't remember anyone else, though Becky might have ended up a lion, we never got that confirmed.
After dinner I just came back to the hotel and sat around, pretty much. Just finished up breakfast and off we go to the Hagia Sophia today
Sunday, March 14th, roughly 9:40-9:50 AM local time
After that we drove a bit, I feel like we stopped to see something but I completely forget. Anyway there was a ferry across the sea which was kind of fun, met a Turkish kid who offered us cigarettes and may or may not have offered us whiskey, I'm not really sure. He spoke very little English and Nate and I, of course, spoke no Turkish. Also had fun throwing bread to the gulls, there were huge flocks of them around the boat. Back onto the bus, see the Tomb of Mehmet and the Green Mosque, I forgot my camera which was obnoxious. Both very impressive structures, apparently the color of the tiles in the Green Mosque has never been recreated, they're not sure what the composition was to get that exact color. Picked up an Evil Eye bracelet for myself outside the Green Mosque for 1 liira.
Get into Istanbul, go to the Grand Bazaar for two hours. One hour probably would have been enough, but wow. The place is IMPRESSIVE. There for centuries, Marco Polo was there, all very cool. I got a couple gifts for others, John picked up some awesome pipes. I really wanted to get some apple tea but decided against it. I'd love to go back there some day with a bunch of money and just blow it all, much as I normally don't like shopping. Nate bought a pair of sunglasses, which ended in a whole lot of hassling. A big guy came over to talk to me at one point, asked me where I was from, apparently he has two stores in Texas. I didn't see a store anywhere nearby which was why he seemed safe to talk to, but he whisked Nate and I around a few corner to his store. En route a guy asked me “is this guy your friend?” and I just shrugged, he laughed at that. Turned out that guy worked at the same store, a carpet store. As soon as I realized it was carpets I just went “oh no no no,” and they actually let us go pretty easily. It was kind of nice. This one guy selling chess sets said he'd give Nate one for free if Nate beat him, after his first move he said “wait 6 months” for the next one. Supposedly he tricked Kazmarov or whoever the famous Russian guy is the same way. Funny old man, if a bit obnoxious. Fortunately both of the guys who sold to me were alright. I've learned that the best way to barter is to ACTUALLY not have enough money with you.
Had a pretty good dinner, kofte, salad, bread, various things. Ate a whole bunch of raw onion because Brenna didn't want it, which was interesting. We had a great variety of conversations, the most amusing of which to me was assigning animals to each person there. Brenna's a dikdik, Liz is a slow lorence, Nate's a river otter (all smiley), and I'm apparently a red panda? Not sure how that happened. Zypy's a fish because she claims she doesn't sleep. I don't remember anyone else, though Becky might have ended up a lion, we never got that confirmed.
After dinner I just came back to the hotel and sat around, pretty much. Just finished up breakfast and off we go to the Hagia Sophia today
Sunday, March 14th, roughly 9:40-9:50 AM local time
Good day. Woke up early, breakfast, little bit of time online, out we go. I slept almost the entire drive and then we came to a farm/winery that a former Hiram student lived on. Spent some time with horses, which I hadn't done in a long time. They produce an absurd amount of body heat. Some were skittish, but most were really friendly, there's some great pictures of them getting really close to people (Swaffy). One tried to eat the strap on my camera case. After that they showed us their wine facility, which they're just getting started. Mosaic, keep an eye out for it in the states in 5 years if we're lucky. We had a taste of Survivor, which was a wine they made of the leftovers at the highest pressing, which should just be crap but actually turned out pretty good. We have a bunch of other wines in water bottles to taste later.
From there we drove into town and ate on the Aegean sea. As Matt put it, it was like home, we were on the water and the meal consisted of only one thing. These fried egg/vegetable/meat/doughy things that were delicious. There was also a sour yogurt drink that very few of us liked, and at the end sage tea that was really good, though Jake's got destroyed by people putting 30 or so sugar cubes into it. I had 4 in mine originally, it went up from there due to others but never got too bad.
We walked a bit, bought some cookies, and then ran into these two guys making a sweet fried dough thing on the street, with a woman standing there. Aysen explained that the woman's father died 40 days earlier, and on the 40th day it's a tradition to give out this sweet bread as a good deed for the family member's soul. So we had some with cinnamon, it was delicious, and thanke them. I like that tradition, I think I'll instate it in the US.
The attitude towards animals on the street seems very different here. People feed them regularly, they look healthy, apparently the gov't sometimes even vaccinates and fixes them, tags them, and then puts them back on the street. The woman, the former Hiram student, I was talking to said it is still viewed as a problem, not so different from the US, but it still looked very different to me.
We walked back and here we are on the bus, ready for a looooong ride to Istanbul.
Friday, March 12th, roughly 2:45-2:50 PM local time
From there we drove into town and ate on the Aegean sea. As Matt put it, it was like home, we were on the water and the meal consisted of only one thing. These fried egg/vegetable/meat/doughy things that were delicious. There was also a sour yogurt drink that very few of us liked, and at the end sage tea that was really good, though Jake's got destroyed by people putting 30 or so sugar cubes into it. I had 4 in mine originally, it went up from there due to others but never got too bad.
We walked a bit, bought some cookies, and then ran into these two guys making a sweet fried dough thing on the street, with a woman standing there. Aysen explained that the woman's father died 40 days earlier, and on the 40th day it's a tradition to give out this sweet bread as a good deed for the family member's soul. So we had some with cinnamon, it was delicious, and thanke them. I like that tradition, I think I'll instate it in the US.
The attitude towards animals on the street seems very different here. People feed them regularly, they look healthy, apparently the gov't sometimes even vaccinates and fixes them, tags them, and then puts them back on the street. The woman, the former Hiram student, I was talking to said it is still viewed as a problem, not so different from the US, but it still looked very different to me.
We walked back and here we are on the bus, ready for a looooong ride to Istanbul.
Friday, March 12th, roughly 2:45-2:50 PM local time
Thursday, March 11, 2010
So I was supposed to be at dinner at 7. Woops. The chicken and fries were absolutely DELICIOUS, though, as well as the massive salad and other things I enjoyed. Good rice too. Chilled in the lobby on the internet most of the evening, met a guy named Meherretam, or something close to that. He's from Eritrea originally, but lives in Germany with his wife Lenna, who's Russian but lives in Germany. He was pretty talkative, thought I was German at first actually (he spoke it too fast for me to recognize even the basic stuff), but also good English. Nice guy, I had fun talking to him. We leave here tomorrow, short post I know, but I wanted to get the guy down before I forgot.
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 9:35 PM local time
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 9:35 PM local time
Woke up, brekkers, waited a bit, nothing exciting there. Today we visited Ephesus, or Efes. That's somewhat more exciting.
We had been told beforehand that this would be the best of the ancient cities we visited, the most intact/preserved, the most impressive. All true. We saw baths, toilets (great group photo there), a remarkably intact facade of the library there, and a huge ampitheatre. Now, I told Swaffie he had dibs on the netbook, so more to come later.
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 5:10 PM local time
So yeah, saw all those awesome things. 5 of our people sang “Amazing Grace” in the ampitheatre to give us an idea of the acoustics, it was pretty awesome. Liz, Michelle, Becky, Nate, Allen. Saw some more things, also Ephesus is FULL of cats and at the end there was a momma dog with puppies and it was adorable. From there we ate and went to a Basilica, lots of beautiful old architecture, prickly pines with names carved into them, and a millipede. So that was all pretty cool. Also saw a column way off in the distance with two storks nesting on top of it. The last stop of the day was a house that supposedly the Virgin Mary stayed in at the end of her life, which was in very pretty surroundings. Walked in, which was about all I did, not being Catholic and all. Nice little shrine though.
We came back to the hotel and I sat around for a little bit before Nate suggested we go to the pool. This turned out to be a very good decision. We swam a bit, Zypy joined us, Nate helped teacher her to swim a little bit, I got my breathing better (still needs work), and then Nate said he wanted to try the sauna. Well first we sat in the Turkish bath for a little bit, watching two people get slapped and then rubbed with these glove things. That was uh, interesting. Nate had some trouble figuring out the paying for it, but wow. It was HOT in there, but nice. You literally feel the heat when you breathe. We had a good talk, deep stuff and all that, came out for a break and were a bit confused about what to do next. A guy working there told us to go into the pool, so we tried it.... wow. FANTASTIC feeling. Utterly amazing how refreshing it was. A few laps, back into the sauna, fantastic. A bit, back into the pool, few laps, back to the sauna, back to the pool, one last bit of sauna with Swaffie joining, and that was it. I never really got sauna before, now I understand. Awesome. Maybe we can do it in Norway?
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 6:45-6:50 PM local time
We had been told beforehand that this would be the best of the ancient cities we visited, the most intact/preserved, the most impressive. All true. We saw baths, toilets (great group photo there), a remarkably intact facade of the library there, and a huge ampitheatre. Now, I told Swaffie he had dibs on the netbook, so more to come later.
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 5:10 PM local time
So yeah, saw all those awesome things. 5 of our people sang “Amazing Grace” in the ampitheatre to give us an idea of the acoustics, it was pretty awesome. Liz, Michelle, Becky, Nate, Allen. Saw some more things, also Ephesus is FULL of cats and at the end there was a momma dog with puppies and it was adorable. From there we ate and went to a Basilica, lots of beautiful old architecture, prickly pines with names carved into them, and a millipede. So that was all pretty cool. Also saw a column way off in the distance with two storks nesting on top of it. The last stop of the day was a house that supposedly the Virgin Mary stayed in at the end of her life, which was in very pretty surroundings. Walked in, which was about all I did, not being Catholic and all. Nice little shrine though.
We came back to the hotel and I sat around for a little bit before Nate suggested we go to the pool. This turned out to be a very good decision. We swam a bit, Zypy joined us, Nate helped teacher her to swim a little bit, I got my breathing better (still needs work), and then Nate said he wanted to try the sauna. Well first we sat in the Turkish bath for a little bit, watching two people get slapped and then rubbed with these glove things. That was uh, interesting. Nate had some trouble figuring out the paying for it, but wow. It was HOT in there, but nice. You literally feel the heat when you breathe. We had a good talk, deep stuff and all that, came out for a break and were a bit confused about what to do next. A guy working there told us to go into the pool, so we tried it.... wow. FANTASTIC feeling. Utterly amazing how refreshing it was. A few laps, back into the sauna, fantastic. A bit, back into the pool, few laps, back to the sauna, back to the pool, one last bit of sauna with Swaffie joining, and that was it. I never really got sauna before, now I understand. Awesome. Maybe we can do it in Norway?
Thursday, March 11th, roughly 6:45-6:50 PM local time
Our current hotel is alright, though the Helen and Berk set high standards. The place has free wireless only in the lobby, the restaurant is just okay, and the other guests are... well, there was a group of Germans that was WAY too into the mediocre guitar player near the bar. His version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was painful. So I chilled in the lobby and used the interwubs for a while, came upstairs, watched music videos on this Italian radio channel on TV until an absolutely horrid one came on, some Italian song that was trying way too hard to be an old Western video with two guys hitchhiking... almost Poison-esque, but so much worse. So I headed downstairs to try and find Nate, failed but did talk to Anh and John for a bit, got a drunk guy off Anh (he was really just drunk, I think, less hitting on her) by talking to him in German a bit, he was actually the guide for the obnoxious Germans (and considered them a bit “weird,” I think because two of them were pretty clearly lesbians). My German was very... rudimentary, but I got to talk to him a bit anyway. Anyway, came back upstairs, more music videos, showered, Nate's back, and we're talking about female singers as sex symbols in the music industry. Good times.
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 11:50 PM-12:05 AM local time
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 11:50 PM-12:05 AM local time
On the bus en route to somewhere or other.
Dinner last night involved a great quantity of courses, of course. A tasty salad, a green bean and yogurt dish that... took some effort, some meat and rice, some more things I don't remember, a tasty apple.
Woke up this morning, spent some time online and packing, had breakfast of cereal and bread with meat and cheese. I have to thank Brenna for yesterday morning when she suggested I pour the milk into my glass so I could acceptably drink the milk from my cereal. Sat around a bit more and onto the bus. We went to Bergama, ancient Pergamon, and picked up a tour guide who started almost every sentence with “my dear guests.” It was amusing, and certainly better than “my friend, my friend.” We saw an ancient temple that had become a church that had become a mosque, the acropolis here which had a nice theatre, many temples, and chambers (now underground) that were used as dormitories, animal storage, prison and general storage, a famous altar of Zeus which is now in Berlin, all pretty cool stuff. There was a great story about an emperor wanting to see a bear fight a gorilla, the arenamaster forced an actor to wear a gorilla suit and fight a bear. In the arena the actor whispered “please don't attack me, I'm not a gorilla, I'm just an actor,” and heard the bear say back “don't attack me, I'm an actor in a bearskin.” From there we had a buffet lunch which was pretty good, and then on to the Asklepion, one of the first hospitals of the world.
Apparently they had psychological treatment, including music and drama therapy, and physical therapy all the way back then? It was interesting. Granted, one of the psych treatments, walking down a tunnel while psychotherapists pretended to the be the gods above you and whispered down through windows, sounded like it would make me go crazy before it cured me, but hey. The hospital had a theatre, as I mentioned, they apparently used that as part of treatment too. We also heard a funny story here, of an emperor who was questioned by a madman, and upon telling the madman who he was, got the response “how sad, I got here because I said that too.”
By the by, our tour guide also sang in Turkish for us twice on the bus. That was pretty cool. Driving through miles of olives again, having just munched on a handful of hazelnuts, and uploading my pictures.
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 4:20-4:30 PM local time
Dinner last night involved a great quantity of courses, of course. A tasty salad, a green bean and yogurt dish that... took some effort, some meat and rice, some more things I don't remember, a tasty apple.
Woke up this morning, spent some time online and packing, had breakfast of cereal and bread with meat and cheese. I have to thank Brenna for yesterday morning when she suggested I pour the milk into my glass so I could acceptably drink the milk from my cereal. Sat around a bit more and onto the bus. We went to Bergama, ancient Pergamon, and picked up a tour guide who started almost every sentence with “my dear guests.” It was amusing, and certainly better than “my friend, my friend.” We saw an ancient temple that had become a church that had become a mosque, the acropolis here which had a nice theatre, many temples, and chambers (now underground) that were used as dormitories, animal storage, prison and general storage, a famous altar of Zeus which is now in Berlin, all pretty cool stuff. There was a great story about an emperor wanting to see a bear fight a gorilla, the arenamaster forced an actor to wear a gorilla suit and fight a bear. In the arena the actor whispered “please don't attack me, I'm not a gorilla, I'm just an actor,” and heard the bear say back “don't attack me, I'm an actor in a bearskin.” From there we had a buffet lunch which was pretty good, and then on to the Asklepion, one of the first hospitals of the world.
Apparently they had psychological treatment, including music and drama therapy, and physical therapy all the way back then? It was interesting. Granted, one of the psych treatments, walking down a tunnel while psychotherapists pretended to the be the gods above you and whispered down through windows, sounded like it would make me go crazy before it cured me, but hey. The hospital had a theatre, as I mentioned, they apparently used that as part of treatment too. We also heard a funny story here, of an emperor who was questioned by a madman, and upon telling the madman who he was, got the response “how sad, I got here because I said that too.”
By the by, our tour guide also sang in Turkish for us twice on the bus. That was pretty cool. Driving through miles of olives again, having just munched on a handful of hazelnuts, and uploading my pictures.
Wednesday, March 10th, roughly 4:20-4:30 PM local time
Went to an olive factory, got shown the old way of doing things and how it developed over time, which was interesting, and then the new factory. Tasting olive oil is like tasting wine: the process isn't the same, but they both seem overly complicated to me. You have to sniff, wait, sniff again (supposedly it's different), take a sip, swish it, hiss and draw it back into your mouth to the back of your tongue to taste it... yeah. I didn't get a whole lot of olive oil so I'm pretty sure I didn't get a good taste, Anh was confused about the whole thing, I guess she doesn't get dipping bread in olive oil. Cultural differences in cooking and all that. Moved on...
Had a fantastic lunch of salad, little meat things whose name I can't spell, chicken, bread, olive oil, fruit, and probably some more courses I forget. I had a mixed fanta/coke which turned out to be pretty good, we guilted Becky for putting food on her plate before everyone was even settled in and then again later for asking for another piece of orange (the humor there being that none of us really cared), talked about video games and sniper rifles and all sorts of things. We being Swaffie, John, Becky and I. It was fun. From there we headed out in a four-wheeler which we really didn't properly fit into properly to a valley which, honest to God, reminded me of Ohio more than anything else. I felt more home there than I probably have this whole trip. Home isn't hot showers and wireless, it's not the stores around me, home is the trees I recognize and a rocky creek to play in. There was a GORGEOUS waterfall and then we headed down to the creek itself, took some photos, clambered around on rocks...
and then I see Swaffie and Nate in boxers in the water.
You can all guess what happened next.
It was COLD at first, though I did my best to accept and roll with it. When I went entirely in and tried to swim against the strong current, though, I was surprised. My whole body in, it was far less cold than when only part of me was in. It felt absolutely fantastic. Got out, got mostly dressed (underwear came off, soaked as it was) and headed back up the hill, the last one to move out. I felt absolutely invigorated and told Denny I'd love to replace my morning shower with that, I'd never fall asleep in class again.
Back up the hill, sitting in the four-wheeler, making a good dig at Becky (she said “I'm really, really hot” because she wanted the window open, I said “I'd debate that”) that got me a slow clap (the only one of the trip? Not sure). Got back down, put our stuff over a furnace to dry, had some tea, took some group photos. One of the guys leading us, by the by, had what he called “cat eyes.” The bottom part of his iris was missing so it looked like a vertical slit, but it didn't go all the way through. Really odd, but cool. So these people were wonderful, on our way out they gave us a couple plates of these delicious little cheese rolls, yeah MORE food, which we did our best to eat. I told Denny that Turkish culture seems to consist entirely of feeding people and he said feeding people, moving slowly, and kissing people. I said I hadn't experienced the last yet. On the bus, by the way, our guide Isen bought us Kit-Kats, so MORE food... yeah. Between that and Denny giving us biscuits, cookies and Turkish delights constantly, we're hardly starving. Now I'm driving past miles and miles of olives on the way back to the hotel.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 5:25-5:35 PM
Had a fantastic lunch of salad, little meat things whose name I can't spell, chicken, bread, olive oil, fruit, and probably some more courses I forget. I had a mixed fanta/coke which turned out to be pretty good, we guilted Becky for putting food on her plate before everyone was even settled in and then again later for asking for another piece of orange (the humor there being that none of us really cared), talked about video games and sniper rifles and all sorts of things. We being Swaffie, John, Becky and I. It was fun. From there we headed out in a four-wheeler which we really didn't properly fit into properly to a valley which, honest to God, reminded me of Ohio more than anything else. I felt more home there than I probably have this whole trip. Home isn't hot showers and wireless, it's not the stores around me, home is the trees I recognize and a rocky creek to play in. There was a GORGEOUS waterfall and then we headed down to the creek itself, took some photos, clambered around on rocks...
and then I see Swaffie and Nate in boxers in the water.
You can all guess what happened next.
It was COLD at first, though I did my best to accept and roll with it. When I went entirely in and tried to swim against the strong current, though, I was surprised. My whole body in, it was far less cold than when only part of me was in. It felt absolutely fantastic. Got out, got mostly dressed (underwear came off, soaked as it was) and headed back up the hill, the last one to move out. I felt absolutely invigorated and told Denny I'd love to replace my morning shower with that, I'd never fall asleep in class again.
Back up the hill, sitting in the four-wheeler, making a good dig at Becky (she said “I'm really, really hot” because she wanted the window open, I said “I'd debate that”) that got me a slow clap (the only one of the trip? Not sure). Got back down, put our stuff over a furnace to dry, had some tea, took some group photos. One of the guys leading us, by the by, had what he called “cat eyes.” The bottom part of his iris was missing so it looked like a vertical slit, but it didn't go all the way through. Really odd, but cool. So these people were wonderful, on our way out they gave us a couple plates of these delicious little cheese rolls, yeah MORE food, which we did our best to eat. I told Denny that Turkish culture seems to consist entirely of feeding people and he said feeding people, moving slowly, and kissing people. I said I hadn't experienced the last yet. On the bus, by the way, our guide Isen bought us Kit-Kats, so MORE food... yeah. Between that and Denny giving us biscuits, cookies and Turkish delights constantly, we're hardly starving. Now I'm driving past miles and miles of olives on the way back to the hotel.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 5:25-5:35 PM
Well, I was a little off. Yesterday was all travel, the coolest stop we made was a BP with an astonishingly clean bathroom, for a BP. Our bus had some mechanical issues but they got taken care of. We got to the Berk Hotel, settled in, and had a HUGE freaking dinner. The best tomato soup of my life, two salads, beef and potatoes, chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles, an apple, and THEN cake. It being International Woman's Day, the idea was for the men to cut and serve the women, but Sigrid wanted to cut, so she cut and then the men served. Liz was very amused when I did a mock bow as I presented the cake. The cake, also, was DELICIOUS We also got a gift bag from the local Chamber of Commerce, which was both nice and astoundingly unexpected. The rest of the night was chilling in the room, not counting me trying to find my way around the hotel to find Swaffie's adapter, which was an adventure in itself. The place is fairly maze-like and the numbers don't strictly follow floors. I was up fairly late, woke up a little before 8:30, had a breakfast of bread, meat, cheese, and cereal (om nom nom junk chocolate cereal! First time in a long time), onto the bus.
We went into town, walked a bit, saw a dog threatening a cat and the cat mostly not reacting, though the cat lashed out once and the dog nearly ran. There were lots of dogs here, with collars which is new for us, but even more notably SO MANY CATS. Wow. We saw probably dozens in a short walk in the rain. Also saw an old Greek Orthodox church in need of restoration, but the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't want to let the Turkish Government fix it up, sadly. A bit more of walking through the rain and wet streets, and back onto the bus. Not sure where we're headed next.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 11:30-11:40 AM
We went into town, walked a bit, saw a dog threatening a cat and the cat mostly not reacting, though the cat lashed out once and the dog nearly ran. There were lots of dogs here, with collars which is new for us, but even more notably SO MANY CATS. Wow. We saw probably dozens in a short walk in the rain. Also saw an old Greek Orthodox church in need of restoration, but the Greek Orthodox Church doesn't want to let the Turkish Government fix it up, sadly. A bit more of walking through the rain and wet streets, and back onto the bus. Not sure where we're headed next.
Tuesday, March 9th, roughly 11:30-11:40 AM
The university was pretty cool. Saw some labs including fish, analysis and phytoplankton, a small museum, and a movie of mostly underwater photos and a few videos. Talked to a lot of the professors there, learned a fair bit. I got the feeling that one or two of them were trying a little too hard to impress us, but that's life. We even talked to the head of the department, one of the faculty who had been to University of Oregon worked as a translator.
Also, the badger in the room that was otherwise all aquatic animals seemed somewhat out of place.
After that we went to lunch, had burgers and fries, played Checkers with Nate, watched some idiotic Funniest Home Videos-style show. I got to playing the old paper football game with Nate, using a water bottle cap, but when we weren't paying attention a guy took it away when he was clearing our table. A minute or two later, another waiter brought it back to us. That was pretty cool. I won 9-6, by the way.
I'm not really sure where we're headed now. Mostly I wanted to get the bottlecap story down before I forgot. I'm sure we'll see something cool this afternoon.
Monday, March 8th, roughly 2:35-2:40 PM local time
Also, the badger in the room that was otherwise all aquatic animals seemed somewhat out of place.
After that we went to lunch, had burgers and fries, played Checkers with Nate, watched some idiotic Funniest Home Videos-style show. I got to playing the old paper football game with Nate, using a water bottle cap, but when we weren't paying attention a guy took it away when he was clearing our table. A minute or two later, another waiter brought it back to us. That was pretty cool. I won 9-6, by the way.
I'm not really sure where we're headed now. Mostly I wanted to get the bottlecap story down before I forgot. I'm sure we'll see something cool this afternoon.
Monday, March 8th, roughly 2:35-2:40 PM local time
Sunday, March 7, 2010
So we had a short class, then Kanako, Jake, Vince, Allen, Swaffie and I went out to the town. We wandered a bit, there's pastry shops EVERYWHERE, Kanako and Swaffie looked at some clothes, we saw the horse from the movie Troy which was pretty cool, the guys other than tried to hit the backboard of a basketball hoop, and Jake got a jersey from a local team. Came back, did nothing for a while, slept. Woke up today, breakfast, I just had lots of bread products, and that's about it. Off to meet some university people today, and maybe Ephesus?
Monday, March 8th, roughly 8:40 AM
Monday, March 8th, roughly 8:40 AM
Had a good breakfast, some cherries, delicious bread, some sausage, and then onto the bus. Slept a bit, sat a bit, looked out the window, had to correct Nate and David on Greek Mythology about how the Trojan War started (I later asked David if I was going to have to do Norse Mythology in Germany), chatted a bit, we stopped at a store somewhere in all that mess. I was conked out but semi-woke up, then David told me they had pencils.
PENCILS.
I went into the store, asked Swaffie, got a pack of 8 pencils, 5 pens, and a fanta. PENCILS. AND PENS. OMGWTFBBQ. So exciting.
See, I knew I was going to lose pencils on this trip. I didn't know that they were impossible to find in most of the world. I had decided no country outside of the US even sold pencils ever. But they were here! It was exciting.
Onward, used a car/bus ferry and the wind was COLD but it was cool, stopped at a little store, had some tea, and then into Troy. Yeah, Troy. That Troy.
We had a good guide who showed us a few things outside first, some displays explaining the levels of the city and the history of its excavation, a big replica wooden horse, and then into the city itself. It's not very big, but it's pretty impressive. They do a really good job of showing the different levels/eras of construction, often right next to each other. Some very cool stuff, and we learned about the ongoing work there, there's still something like 90% of the site not yet excavated. Well worth the long ride.
We went back to the little store, had delicious delicious apple tea. We talked with an older man who was somewhat hard to understand, but he talked about the contributions of the Turkish military in various conflicts from Korea to Serbia to Afghanistan (the army, he claimed, is the second strongest in the world), I think some things about Armenia but I'm not sure (if I understood him correctly Armenian illegal immigrants are like Mexican illegal immigrants in the states, but maybe not), and a lot about politics. Talked about how terrorists sell hashish to make money, and the quote I liked the best, “terrorists have no religion.” Seemed a knowledgeable guy, albeit opinionated in the “very proud of his country” way. That was cool.
We headed to our hotel, which is pretty nice, had a brief break, explored the TV options (not many, though some music, some sports, and CNN). dinner which had salad, bread, soup, chicken/mushroom dish and rice (Matt and I got Brenna's meat, hoorah!), the waiter mistook Liz being vegetarian to mean to bring her ONLY meat which was funny, and a delicious chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles to round it out. Short class in 5 minutes, then... in here? out on the town? Not sure yet.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:45-6:55 PM
PENCILS.
I went into the store, asked Swaffie, got a pack of 8 pencils, 5 pens, and a fanta. PENCILS. AND PENS. OMGWTFBBQ. So exciting.
See, I knew I was going to lose pencils on this trip. I didn't know that they were impossible to find in most of the world. I had decided no country outside of the US even sold pencils ever. But they were here! It was exciting.
Onward, used a car/bus ferry and the wind was COLD but it was cool, stopped at a little store, had some tea, and then into Troy. Yeah, Troy. That Troy.
We had a good guide who showed us a few things outside first, some displays explaining the levels of the city and the history of its excavation, a big replica wooden horse, and then into the city itself. It's not very big, but it's pretty impressive. They do a really good job of showing the different levels/eras of construction, often right next to each other. Some very cool stuff, and we learned about the ongoing work there, there's still something like 90% of the site not yet excavated. Well worth the long ride.
We went back to the little store, had delicious delicious apple tea. We talked with an older man who was somewhat hard to understand, but he talked about the contributions of the Turkish military in various conflicts from Korea to Serbia to Afghanistan (the army, he claimed, is the second strongest in the world), I think some things about Armenia but I'm not sure (if I understood him correctly Armenian illegal immigrants are like Mexican illegal immigrants in the states, but maybe not), and a lot about politics. Talked about how terrorists sell hashish to make money, and the quote I liked the best, “terrorists have no religion.” Seemed a knowledgeable guy, albeit opinionated in the “very proud of his country” way. That was cool.
We headed to our hotel, which is pretty nice, had a brief break, explored the TV options (not many, though some music, some sports, and CNN). dinner which had salad, bread, soup, chicken/mushroom dish and rice (Matt and I got Brenna's meat, hoorah!), the waiter mistook Liz being vegetarian to mean to bring her ONLY meat which was funny, and a delicious chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles to round it out. Short class in 5 minutes, then... in here? out on the town? Not sure yet.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:45-6:55 PM
Die Turkei!
Cairo that night was interesting. We had to ask three or four different people for directions to find pencils, finally a guy from a perfume store showed us a shop that, unfortunately, we already knew about and were about to go to, Swaffie ended up going to the guy's store briefly because he showed us the way. Then I tried to track down a specific gift for a friend or two back home, ended up in a guy's shop, he called his brother, had to buy something from him (though it was nice), waited a while for his brother, chatted with him a bit, brother showed up, led to me another shop where I FINALLY found what I was looking for, and then finally got back to the hotel. Wake up, breakfast, quick housekeeping meeting, eat at Hardee's which was a mistake for a number of reasons. Turns out we all hate eating food fast now, we've gotten so used to non-American ways of eating. It really just felt... gross and unenjoyable. I showed Swaffy the last store I went into, he tried the museum store too, guy was looking for a bracelet and had no luck. One of the door guys showed me a Batista video and a Jean Claude Van Damme video, which was amusing, bus showed up, I was pretty sure I lost my coat (it ended up in Caitlin's bag, probably because I tossed it on the bag pile) and off to the airport. Tickets passports security, nap in the airport, play around with these silly table games like rolling a marble through a labyrinth or matching all the little balls in their color cup, on the plane, read The Physicists, sleep, wake up, watch Dexter's Lab, miss the food and drinks due to sleep but oh well. Get into Turkey, onto a bus, quickly drop our stuff off at a NICE hotel, off to dinner.
By the way, Turkey? Far colder than expected.
Have dinner at a nice place right on the water, we had bread, salad, meat with delicious pepper, spaghetti, fries, and some amazing fruit as dessert. We all got a sip of Denny's Efes Dark beer, which was a tasty tasty beer, though I didn't order one. Back to the hotel, fool around with trying to figure out my classes and internet, to bed. Wake up half an hour before the wake-up call, shower, and I think we're going to Troy today.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:40-6:50 AM
By the way, Turkey? Far colder than expected.
Have dinner at a nice place right on the water, we had bread, salad, meat with delicious pepper, spaghetti, fries, and some amazing fruit as dessert. We all got a sip of Denny's Efes Dark beer, which was a tasty tasty beer, though I didn't order one. Back to the hotel, fool around with trying to figure out my classes and internet, to bed. Wake up half an hour before the wake-up call, shower, and I think we're going to Troy today.
Sunday, March 7th, roughly 6:40-6:50 AM
Desert!
On the bus back to Cairo.
Woke up, had a decent breakfast, had a class about deserts, and got into the land rovers. It wasn't far to the black desert, an area that was volcanic ages and ages ago. The “black” comes from basalt thrusting up through the earth left over from the volcanoes. Really stark pillars and mountains, though it's covered by sand some places. We also saw a few attempts at cultivation, some more successful than others.
We got to see a sand dune, what they call a “whale dune” here because it's so big. We also got to climb up it, an adventure in itself, and get a group photo at the top. Wow, the view was beautiful. Sliding down it, well, sliding worked less well than expected, though rolling was fun. Seeing scarab beetle tracks in the sand was really, really cool.
The White Desert has a lot of calcium carbonate on the ground, limestone, hence the white. We started at a Crystal Mountain of mica and quartz, as well as a dog's head of stone, but it was near our campsite that the place really got impressive. There are these mounds and pillars of stone all over the place, carved by wind erosion (and the sand the wind carries). Because the sand doesn't fly very high, the bottoms are affected more than the tops, and it makes all kinds of weird shapes. A lot of mushroom shapes, some that look like various heads, it's awesome. We set up camp, used the toiletrocks (one for men, one for women), sat around the fire. A lot of stargazing, some idiotic conversation (mostly Matt and I). Everyone kept seeing shooting stars, I had no such luck, though I did make out Orion (he's been there everywhere we go), the Milky Way, and the Big Dipper. Dinner was soup, chicken, rice and potatoes, with oranges for dessert. After dinner our guide and the drivers played some drums and sang, lots of call-and-response stuff. We did... okay with the responses. Then they got people dancing, Anh was freaking amazing (we joked that she might have agreed to marry one guy via dance), it was pretty fun. They asked us to sing an American song and we took so long to decide they eventually gave up, though if someone had mentioned Fresh Prince of Bel-air sooner it would have worked great. (“All-star” was later suggested as something that would have worked too.) I got a couple pictures of the sky, nothing too impressive but eh. The moon came out REALLY late, but it was absolutely beautiful. As I was lying down, I finally saw a shooting star, thankfully. No sleeping bag, but the blanket they provided was pretty good, even if it was freaking cold out.
Woke up, had a breakfast of bread, honey, delicious cake. We packed up, saw some more of the white desert including a rabbit stone, a “fossil whale,” a mushroom with a chicken next to it (seriously, it looks exactly like a chicken, even if Allen didn't get why it was the chicken stone and told us he couldn't see it at all until he realized he was looking at the wrong rock the whole time), very cool. Got a beautiful panorama view of the area on top of a hill. Drove back to Bahariiya, I slept almost the entire way, and here we are. Lunch has been whatever Denny bought in the store, biscuits, bananas, oranges, chips, that sort of thing. Dates with almonds in them are pretty good. Back in Cairo tonight, hopefully a little more shopping, turning in a paper or two, and off to Turkey tomorrow afternoon.
Friday, March 5th, roughly 12:40-12:50 PM local time
Woke up, had a decent breakfast, had a class about deserts, and got into the land rovers. It wasn't far to the black desert, an area that was volcanic ages and ages ago. The “black” comes from basalt thrusting up through the earth left over from the volcanoes. Really stark pillars and mountains, though it's covered by sand some places. We also saw a few attempts at cultivation, some more successful than others.
We got to see a sand dune, what they call a “whale dune” here because it's so big. We also got to climb up it, an adventure in itself, and get a group photo at the top. Wow, the view was beautiful. Sliding down it, well, sliding worked less well than expected, though rolling was fun. Seeing scarab beetle tracks in the sand was really, really cool.
The White Desert has a lot of calcium carbonate on the ground, limestone, hence the white. We started at a Crystal Mountain of mica and quartz, as well as a dog's head of stone, but it was near our campsite that the place really got impressive. There are these mounds and pillars of stone all over the place, carved by wind erosion (and the sand the wind carries). Because the sand doesn't fly very high, the bottoms are affected more than the tops, and it makes all kinds of weird shapes. A lot of mushroom shapes, some that look like various heads, it's awesome. We set up camp, used the toiletrocks (one for men, one for women), sat around the fire. A lot of stargazing, some idiotic conversation (mostly Matt and I). Everyone kept seeing shooting stars, I had no such luck, though I did make out Orion (he's been there everywhere we go), the Milky Way, and the Big Dipper. Dinner was soup, chicken, rice and potatoes, with oranges for dessert. After dinner our guide and the drivers played some drums and sang, lots of call-and-response stuff. We did... okay with the responses. Then they got people dancing, Anh was freaking amazing (we joked that she might have agreed to marry one guy via dance), it was pretty fun. They asked us to sing an American song and we took so long to decide they eventually gave up, though if someone had mentioned Fresh Prince of Bel-air sooner it would have worked great. (“All-star” was later suggested as something that would have worked too.) I got a couple pictures of the sky, nothing too impressive but eh. The moon came out REALLY late, but it was absolutely beautiful. As I was lying down, I finally saw a shooting star, thankfully. No sleeping bag, but the blanket they provided was pretty good, even if it was freaking cold out.
Woke up, had a breakfast of bread, honey, delicious cake. We packed up, saw some more of the white desert including a rabbit stone, a “fossil whale,” a mushroom with a chicken next to it (seriously, it looks exactly like a chicken, even if Allen didn't get why it was the chicken stone and told us he couldn't see it at all until he realized he was looking at the wrong rock the whole time), very cool. Got a beautiful panorama view of the area on top of a hill. Drove back to Bahariiya, I slept almost the entire way, and here we are. Lunch has been whatever Denny bought in the store, biscuits, bananas, oranges, chips, that sort of thing. Dates with almonds in them are pretty good. Back in Cairo tonight, hopefully a little more shopping, turning in a paper or two, and off to Turkey tomorrow afternoon.
Friday, March 5th, roughly 12:40-12:50 PM local time
Oasis!
Bus ride was longer than expected. We watched 2012, unfortunately, and started a de Niro movie called Ronin that looked really good, but we didn't get to finish. The first rest stop defined middle of nowhere, it was insane. Hard to believe they could even run a business there. I could have made $1000 by diving face-first into the most disgusting water I've seen in my life, but, well. (Lucky for John I chose not to.) Lunch was a tasty Egyptian buffet. We got to the hotel, dropped stuff off, met our guide and into rovers to explore the nearby area. He showed us a hill he played on growing up, which had a decent view and some mantid egg cases on a bush, we saw lots of the desert, a salt lake which apparently has some small fish in it, and then there was this naturally eroded cone/pyramid-shaped hill.
Yeah, we climbed it.
Not all of us, but a handful. It was taller than expected, and while I love climbing stuff, sand is definitely different. Tricky. One step forward, sink two back. It was easier to climb the stone, usually, when you could find it. Finally I got up there, one of the last of the group that had headed up, we took a couple group shots and back down again. Beautiful view of the surrounding area from the top.
Stone is harder going down than sand is. Reverse.
So the top part was mostly stone, so that was hard, but when we got to the sand I took a page out of John's book, sat on my butt with one leg out and one leg bent, and slid. I lost control a few times but it was great fun and a lot faster. Partway down I found a dessicated stick or reed or something which I used as a ski pole. Eventually walked towards the bottom, talked with some German tourists for about 45 seconds, and “galloped” the last bit down. At least that's how the people at the bottom described it. Then we had to wait for a couple people who had gone up later than the original group, then we finally headed out.
They stopped to show us how they pump water up, but Nate, Allen and I went to play soccer for maybe two minutes with some guys there. My team scored, I learned that “tamal” means goal, and then we had to go. That was fun. One great thing about soccer, it's easy to join a pick-up game, even in the middle.
The last stop was a hill with a ruined house, really just parts of walls. It was built by the British in WWII, and natural erosion had done all the damage. Beautiful sunset, photos, some guys played hackeysack and I got a few good pictures of that, and back down again.
Came back to the hotel, had a good dinner, great chicken and bananas as well as some vegetables and rice. Then we went swimming. The pool here is a little... questionable, rather brown, but nice and warm being from a warm spring. I was a little late getting in, but it was great to be in water again, and I got out last of all. Played around with people, sat, did lengths (small pool) holding my breath the whole way, sat at the bottom, lay at the bottom which was an odd experience. Yeah, it really did feel great. Then a shower and here I am. Bed soon, breakfast, class, Black and White Deserts in the morning.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 9:25 PM local time
Yeah, we climbed it.
Not all of us, but a handful. It was taller than expected, and while I love climbing stuff, sand is definitely different. Tricky. One step forward, sink two back. It was easier to climb the stone, usually, when you could find it. Finally I got up there, one of the last of the group that had headed up, we took a couple group shots and back down again. Beautiful view of the surrounding area from the top.
Stone is harder going down than sand is. Reverse.
So the top part was mostly stone, so that was hard, but when we got to the sand I took a page out of John's book, sat on my butt with one leg out and one leg bent, and slid. I lost control a few times but it was great fun and a lot faster. Partway down I found a dessicated stick or reed or something which I used as a ski pole. Eventually walked towards the bottom, talked with some German tourists for about 45 seconds, and “galloped” the last bit down. At least that's how the people at the bottom described it. Then we had to wait for a couple people who had gone up later than the original group, then we finally headed out.
They stopped to show us how they pump water up, but Nate, Allen and I went to play soccer for maybe two minutes with some guys there. My team scored, I learned that “tamal” means goal, and then we had to go. That was fun. One great thing about soccer, it's easy to join a pick-up game, even in the middle.
The last stop was a hill with a ruined house, really just parts of walls. It was built by the British in WWII, and natural erosion had done all the damage. Beautiful sunset, photos, some guys played hackeysack and I got a few good pictures of that, and back down again.
Came back to the hotel, had a good dinner, great chicken and bananas as well as some vegetables and rice. Then we went swimming. The pool here is a little... questionable, rather brown, but nice and warm being from a warm spring. I was a little late getting in, but it was great to be in water again, and I got out last of all. Played around with people, sat, did lengths (small pool) holding my breath the whole way, sat at the bottom, lay at the bottom which was an odd experience. Yeah, it really did feel great. Then a shower and here I am. Bed soon, breakfast, class, Black and White Deserts in the morning.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 9:25 PM local time
So, yesterday. We were woken up basically when we had to leave, woops, quickly got ready and onto the bus. A couple people grabbed us bread to eat, which was nice of them. We met our guide and went out first to a museum of Memphis, fairly small, had a big statue of Ramses II inside and a fair bit of stuff open-air. Pretty cool, some nice statues, our guide did a good job teaching us various things.
From there we went to Sakkarah, a place known for carpet schools and the step pyramid designed by Imhotep, who may or may not have been the biblical Joseph. (Old Testament, with the coat and the brothers, not New Testament). Nice little Imhotep museum there as well as some cool architecture that wasn't reproduced any other type in ancient Egypt. After that we had a buffet, good food and.... well, the atmosphere was okay. “Semi-authentic,” not as hokey as I expected, honestly, but still a little hokey so I can't give it full credit. Better than expected, though, honestly.
From there to Giza itself, which is a growing city, by the way. Denny's been here enough times he told us about how far away the city used to be from the pyramids compared to how it is now. They are quite impressive, even if it did have the most aggressive vendors we've seen in Egypt. (The guy who grabbed my sleeve was not appreciated). Obviously still more than worth it though, Giza was fantastic, so amazing to climb up the one pyramid, take some great pictures of all six, see the Sphinx. On the way down to the Sphinx a lot of people tried to sell us stuff, the best two being one kid who knew he wasn't going to sell to us, so he just whipped out a bunch of postcards and said “one million dollars!” and a guy talking to David, whom David joked with that he'd sell the guy postcards in the next life, and they actually legitimately talked for a minute. David pointed out that some of them are real people, I pointed out that the problem is that so many aren't you never know. See: Arusha. Another one was telling us prices in English Pounds, so I was amused by that too.
After the Sphinx it was fairly late, but we had one more stop to make, the Egypt Papyrus Museum, the only official government papyrus store in the country. It really is more a store than a museum, they start you out with a demonstration showing how it's made, teach you the myth of the Judgment, and then try to sell you stuff. Granted, the demonstration was pretty interesting. I really impressed the guy by knowing cartouche (which I learned the other night from Allen's book on hieroglyphs), a little bit about the Judgment scene and the weighing of the heart, and the myth of Set killing Osiris. I didn't mean to impress him, but, well. He grabbed me and pulled me aside to show me a slightly smaller one of the Judgment that he really wanted me to have. I mean, it may have just been a hard sell, but considering how he kept sweetening the deal (giving me my name on it in Arabic and hieroglyphs for free for starters, and it just kept adding on after that) I honestly think he liked that I knew some mythology and thought I should have it. At least I'm going to convince myself that or else I REALLY got conned. He was actually a nice guy, I got his name and e-mail address as well. The other kids were talking to guy who apparently spoke 14 languages including Gaelic, so that was cool, they gave us a brief demonstration of how to see fake papyrus made from banana leaves or sugar cane, we got free bookmarks with the hieroglyph alphabet, and we headed back to the hotel.
Our guide was very good, by the way. He kept it academic, not shoppy, like Denny wanted, was very friendly, “my heart is open to you” was his way of saying we could ask questions, and he warned us excellently about how much we should haggle people down to, what cons to avoid (“free gifts” being the most insidious, I thought, they actually wait until after you come back out later to get you). Props to him.
Had dinner at the hotel, a delicious cheese sandwich and fries which came out to $2 with water, which was awesome. Chilled, walked with John, Jacob and Swaffie, back to the hotel, bed.
Woke up before the alarm this morning, about 6:15, showered, all that. Had a good breakfast, met an Australian named Ben that was working on a PhD in pathology and about to go on a tour of Egypt. He had some really cool stories about safari in South Africa. Got on the bus, and here I am, oasis in 3+ hours.
I'll be back at our hotel for one night before we leave, but I want to say this here before I forget. The City View has been really good to us. The staff is helpful well behind what we're paying them for, insisting on carrying our bags, always getting the elevator for us (they're a bit baffled by us using the stairs, actually, they've asked us why we do it so much), but even beyond that, the number of times they've helped us find a business or store we wanted is truly astounding. You ask a guy where you can get a coke or where the ATM is, and he walks you all the way there to take care of it, not just pointing the direction. So a huge thank you to the City View Hotel in Cairo, which has been absolutely one of the best places I've stayed on the trip so far. I wanted to give credit where credit was due.
For anyone looking to visit Egypt, by the way, the fact that the City View is across the street from the Egyptian Museum doesn't hurt either.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 8:25-8:45 AM local time
From there we went to Sakkarah, a place known for carpet schools and the step pyramid designed by Imhotep, who may or may not have been the biblical Joseph. (Old Testament, with the coat and the brothers, not New Testament). Nice little Imhotep museum there as well as some cool architecture that wasn't reproduced any other type in ancient Egypt. After that we had a buffet, good food and.... well, the atmosphere was okay. “Semi-authentic,” not as hokey as I expected, honestly, but still a little hokey so I can't give it full credit. Better than expected, though, honestly.
From there to Giza itself, which is a growing city, by the way. Denny's been here enough times he told us about how far away the city used to be from the pyramids compared to how it is now. They are quite impressive, even if it did have the most aggressive vendors we've seen in Egypt. (The guy who grabbed my sleeve was not appreciated). Obviously still more than worth it though, Giza was fantastic, so amazing to climb up the one pyramid, take some great pictures of all six, see the Sphinx. On the way down to the Sphinx a lot of people tried to sell us stuff, the best two being one kid who knew he wasn't going to sell to us, so he just whipped out a bunch of postcards and said “one million dollars!” and a guy talking to David, whom David joked with that he'd sell the guy postcards in the next life, and they actually legitimately talked for a minute. David pointed out that some of them are real people, I pointed out that the problem is that so many aren't you never know. See: Arusha. Another one was telling us prices in English Pounds, so I was amused by that too.
After the Sphinx it was fairly late, but we had one more stop to make, the Egypt Papyrus Museum, the only official government papyrus store in the country. It really is more a store than a museum, they start you out with a demonstration showing how it's made, teach you the myth of the Judgment, and then try to sell you stuff. Granted, the demonstration was pretty interesting. I really impressed the guy by knowing cartouche (which I learned the other night from Allen's book on hieroglyphs), a little bit about the Judgment scene and the weighing of the heart, and the myth of Set killing Osiris. I didn't mean to impress him, but, well. He grabbed me and pulled me aside to show me a slightly smaller one of the Judgment that he really wanted me to have. I mean, it may have just been a hard sell, but considering how he kept sweetening the deal (giving me my name on it in Arabic and hieroglyphs for free for starters, and it just kept adding on after that) I honestly think he liked that I knew some mythology and thought I should have it. At least I'm going to convince myself that or else I REALLY got conned. He was actually a nice guy, I got his name and e-mail address as well. The other kids were talking to guy who apparently spoke 14 languages including Gaelic, so that was cool, they gave us a brief demonstration of how to see fake papyrus made from banana leaves or sugar cane, we got free bookmarks with the hieroglyph alphabet, and we headed back to the hotel.
Our guide was very good, by the way. He kept it academic, not shoppy, like Denny wanted, was very friendly, “my heart is open to you” was his way of saying we could ask questions, and he warned us excellently about how much we should haggle people down to, what cons to avoid (“free gifts” being the most insidious, I thought, they actually wait until after you come back out later to get you). Props to him.
Had dinner at the hotel, a delicious cheese sandwich and fries which came out to $2 with water, which was awesome. Chilled, walked with John, Jacob and Swaffie, back to the hotel, bed.
Woke up before the alarm this morning, about 6:15, showered, all that. Had a good breakfast, met an Australian named Ben that was working on a PhD in pathology and about to go on a tour of Egypt. He had some really cool stories about safari in South Africa. Got on the bus, and here I am, oasis in 3+ hours.
I'll be back at our hotel for one night before we leave, but I want to say this here before I forget. The City View has been really good to us. The staff is helpful well behind what we're paying them for, insisting on carrying our bags, always getting the elevator for us (they're a bit baffled by us using the stairs, actually, they've asked us why we do it so much), but even beyond that, the number of times they've helped us find a business or store we wanted is truly astounding. You ask a guy where you can get a coke or where the ATM is, and he walks you all the way there to take care of it, not just pointing the direction. So a huge thank you to the City View Hotel in Cairo, which has been absolutely one of the best places I've stayed on the trip so far. I wanted to give credit where credit was due.
For anyone looking to visit Egypt, by the way, the fact that the City View is across the street from the Egyptian Museum doesn't hurt either.
Wednesday, March 3rd, roughly 8:25-8:45 AM local time
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
So we met this guy whose name I never caught at the first place we tried, which had drinks but no food. He said he'd tell us where a few restaurants are and point them out to us, he ended up walking with us and even sitting with us at one. Turns out he's a professor, PhD and all, a curator at the Egyptian Museum specifically in animal mummies. He mostly talked to Denny, but I picked up a bit of it – he's Nubian, from further south, getting married soon. Very cool, very helpful, turned down money from Denny, Denny finally argued him into paying for his coffee. Unfortunately the restaurant we were at was really a restaurant, not a snack place, so quick food didn't mean quick. However, I had some absolutely delicious fried calamari, and considered it worth the lost time at the museum to meet this guy. After that we headed back to the museum, Becky and I shopped a bit, I got a few gifts out of the way, spent a little more time in the museum upstairs and then had to head back to the hotel.
From there it was time for a river cruise and dinner on the Nile. The boats were... interesting. Small, smoky engine at first, but nice and comfortable nonetheless. We went up a ways, seeing the city, some cool architecture, the other boat had music and the guy running it was sort of goofy, clapping and all. Their engine eventually cut out, though our boat didn't realize it right away and wasn't sure what was going on as they tied on to another boat. Eventually we got the two boats tied together, had a tasty dinner of some noodle/onion dice and a pepsi. There was music, and people dancing, including with a couple guys from the hotel who seemed to be having a great time. I made a joke to David about them faking it for the tourists or actually enjoying it, adding that I couldn't ever trust what I see anymore. He agreed with me that they probably were really having fun. So there was ridiculous dancing, we got back, thanked them, hung out a bit, and then Denny wanted to take a group to this historic Windsor Hotel.
It was a bit of a walk, but we got to see a lot of the town. Very few people hassled us, none really. Saw a lot of cool shops, including this one famous pastry shop. After a meandering pleasant walk, we finally got there. Classy joint, nice seats and tables, my chair was made out of a barrel. We hung out there, talked a lot, varying topics ranging from Koh Tao to wind and solar power. Great waiter, very helpful, nice guy. Good night.
Tuesday, March 2nd, roughly 12:30-1:15 AM local time
From there it was time for a river cruise and dinner on the Nile. The boats were... interesting. Small, smoky engine at first, but nice and comfortable nonetheless. We went up a ways, seeing the city, some cool architecture, the other boat had music and the guy running it was sort of goofy, clapping and all. Their engine eventually cut out, though our boat didn't realize it right away and wasn't sure what was going on as they tied on to another boat. Eventually we got the two boats tied together, had a tasty dinner of some noodle/onion dice and a pepsi. There was music, and people dancing, including with a couple guys from the hotel who seemed to be having a great time. I made a joke to David about them faking it for the tourists or actually enjoying it, adding that I couldn't ever trust what I see anymore. He agreed with me that they probably were really having fun. So there was ridiculous dancing, we got back, thanked them, hung out a bit, and then Denny wanted to take a group to this historic Windsor Hotel.
It was a bit of a walk, but we got to see a lot of the town. Very few people hassled us, none really. Saw a lot of cool shops, including this one famous pastry shop. After a meandering pleasant walk, we finally got there. Classy joint, nice seats and tables, my chair was made out of a barrel. We hung out there, talked a lot, varying topics ranging from Koh Tao to wind and solar power. Great waiter, very helpful, nice guy. Good night.
Tuesday, March 2nd, roughly 12:30-1:15 AM local time
Today was pretty fantastic.
First, last night. We got in late last night, a man from the hotel met us in the airport, did a great job getting us through, comfortable bus ride over, into one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in the whole time. Separate beds, shower, wonderful.
Stayed up late last night taking advantage of the free wireless, woke up early thanks to Allen not fixing his watch for the time zone, but that's life. Ate a decent breakfast at the hotel. Then off to the Egyptian Museum.
Holy cow.
We saw SO much. Nate, Becky and I stuck together most of the time, I really liked how it was set up chronologically. You started in Old Kingdom and moved through. I recognized some, but by no means all, learned a lot. Really really cool. We didn't have much time upstairs, unfortunately, but we still saw a fair bit of the King Tut stuff. Some absolutely beautiful jewelry, amazing sculptures and hieroglyphs, amazing carvings. Just awesome all around. Wish I could have taken my camera in. Some people had sketchbooks, which are awesome.
We took a break to try to find some quick food. The restaurant there was way too expensive, so we tried to go out to find a place. There... well, we're about to go out, I'll wrap this up later.
Monday, March 1st, roughly 7:50-8:10 PM local time
First, last night. We got in late last night, a man from the hotel met us in the airport, did a great job getting us through, comfortable bus ride over, into one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in the whole time. Separate beds, shower, wonderful.
Stayed up late last night taking advantage of the free wireless, woke up early thanks to Allen not fixing his watch for the time zone, but that's life. Ate a decent breakfast at the hotel. Then off to the Egyptian Museum.
Holy cow.
We saw SO much. Nate, Becky and I stuck together most of the time, I really liked how it was set up chronologically. You started in Old Kingdom and moved through. I recognized some, but by no means all, learned a lot. Really really cool. We didn't have much time upstairs, unfortunately, but we still saw a fair bit of the King Tut stuff. Some absolutely beautiful jewelry, amazing sculptures and hieroglyphs, amazing carvings. Just awesome all around. Wish I could have taken my camera in. Some people had sketchbooks, which are awesome.
We took a break to try to find some quick food. The restaurant there was way too expensive, so we tried to go out to find a place. There... well, we're about to go out, I'll wrap this up later.
Monday, March 1st, roughly 7:50-8:10 PM local time
Alright, well, clubbing didn't happen. We just sat around, hung out, talked, had a bit of Serious Chat which was probably good for all involved. There was a heavy rain in the middle, which was short of amusing in that no one could hear each other. Slept in this morning, was relaxing when someone told me we had to get our baggage out half an hour ago. So we dashed to do that, then a handful of us went with Denny to pick up lunch: calzones and pizza from Pepe One. Pepe One is apparently a restaurant, a hotel, AND a church. I kid you not, there was a service going on there, though it was actually just a bunch of people watching a TV service, which made me feel somewhat less reverent. We also saw slugs mating, which was pretty cool.. Picked up the food, headed back, Nikki and Kanako had picked up mangos as well, so lunch for me was half a calzone, some mango, a little more calzone that Sigrid didn't want, and then another half a calzone that no one else wanted. Delicious. Our bus showed up not long after that, I got pictures of Sister Rose and Philemon, which OpenOffice believes is a word which surprises me, and we headed to the airport.
The security check there was amusingly lax, they just asked me what I had in each bag and which one was which. As for the carry-on, “No liquids? Nothing sharp?” was as carefully inspected as it got at first. To actually get to the gate it had to go through a real scanner, in fairness. Looked in the store a bit, which was... eh, okay. I would have bought one of the African folklore/myth books if I was just traveling to Africa alone, besides that nothing was too exciting. Waited around the gate, couldn't get the internet for some reason, worked on my biomes prompt and showed David my travel essay, and onto the plane. For the flight to Mombosa I had a set of three seats to myself, which was nice, I slept the whole 45 minutes or so. At Mombosa this well-to-do East African family got on, mom, dad and two kids, so I moved over to the window to let them be together. Hey, I'm not complaining about a window seat. Listening to “Black Magic Woman” now, Addis Ababa in about an hour, then a layover and on to Cairo.
Alright, I meant to write this about 5 days ago but forgot. A little bit of homesickness finally hit me around when we first got to Tanzania. I think it's because it's the mid-point of the trip, we're just past 45 days now of the total 90. Not missing things or places, really, just some people I wouldn't mind seeing. Well, missing Hiram in the sense that Hiram the place is Hiram the people. Nothing too bad, still having a fantastic time, but yeah.
Which is not to say I didn't miss anyone earlier in the trip, of course. Before anyone gets horribly offended.
Looking forward to Cairo. Egyptian Museum tomorrow, then off to the desert and an oasis, then back to Cairo to shop for gifts.
Sunday, February 28th, roughly 5:35-5:45 PM local time
The security check there was amusingly lax, they just asked me what I had in each bag and which one was which. As for the carry-on, “No liquids? Nothing sharp?” was as carefully inspected as it got at first. To actually get to the gate it had to go through a real scanner, in fairness. Looked in the store a bit, which was... eh, okay. I would have bought one of the African folklore/myth books if I was just traveling to Africa alone, besides that nothing was too exciting. Waited around the gate, couldn't get the internet for some reason, worked on my biomes prompt and showed David my travel essay, and onto the plane. For the flight to Mombosa I had a set of three seats to myself, which was nice, I slept the whole 45 minutes or so. At Mombosa this well-to-do East African family got on, mom, dad and two kids, so I moved over to the window to let them be together. Hey, I'm not complaining about a window seat. Listening to “Black Magic Woman” now, Addis Ababa in about an hour, then a layover and on to Cairo.
Alright, I meant to write this about 5 days ago but forgot. A little bit of homesickness finally hit me around when we first got to Tanzania. I think it's because it's the mid-point of the trip, we're just past 45 days now of the total 90. Not missing things or places, really, just some people I wouldn't mind seeing. Well, missing Hiram in the sense that Hiram the place is Hiram the people. Nothing too bad, still having a fantastic time, but yeah.
Which is not to say I didn't miss anyone earlier in the trip, of course. Before anyone gets horribly offended.
Looking forward to Cairo. Egyptian Museum tomorrow, then off to the desert and an oasis, then back to Cairo to shop for gifts.
Sunday, February 28th, roughly 5:35-5:45 PM local time
Woke up around 10:30. Glorious. Went with Nate, Vince, Jacob and Allen to get lunch at McMoody's, an African chain, and yes, a knock-off. I wasn't five minutes into Arusha before two or three guys recognized me, “hakuna matata, kishibe!” So excited to see me again. I had to tell them in no uncertain times that no, I really didn't have money, I really did only have cash for food. Even with that, the one guy followed me for a lengthy time. It was obnoxious, but that's life.
Got to McMoody's, had a blackcurrant mirinda (like a fanta) which was absolutely DELICIOUS and a pizza sandwich which was pretty good, with good coleslaw. From there Nate and I went to the coffee shop we had briefly been in yesterday, did some internets, and headed back out. A couple guys bugged us again, but I just ignored them and they left me alone. Finally.
Spent most of the afternoon relaxing, worked with Brenna and Nate a little bit on our group blog. We're going to have to change groups for the next one, not sure how that'll work out. We ate at Pepe's again, including delicious calzones, pizza, pasta, and a little bit of salad (I really just had the onions). Had a Castle Lager, which wasn't as good as the Castle Milk Stout Brenna had at the Ethiopian place, but was pretty good. We came back from that, chilled a bit, grabbed an Ndovu at the corner store, again, pretty good, and here we are, just chilling. Clubbing tonight is the plan.
Saturday, February 27th, roughly 8:50-9 PM
Got to McMoody's, had a blackcurrant mirinda (like a fanta) which was absolutely DELICIOUS and a pizza sandwich which was pretty good, with good coleslaw. From there Nate and I went to the coffee shop we had briefly been in yesterday, did some internets, and headed back out. A couple guys bugged us again, but I just ignored them and they left me alone. Finally.
Spent most of the afternoon relaxing, worked with Brenna and Nate a little bit on our group blog. We're going to have to change groups for the next one, not sure how that'll work out. We ate at Pepe's again, including delicious calzones, pizza, pasta, and a little bit of salad (I really just had the onions). Had a Castle Lager, which wasn't as good as the Castle Milk Stout Brenna had at the Ethiopian place, but was pretty good. We came back from that, chilled a bit, grabbed an Ndovu at the corner store, again, pretty good, and here we are, just chilling. Clubbing tonight is the plan.
Saturday, February 27th, roughly 8:50-9 PM
Few Extra Thoughts
I forgot to mention the chameleon in our room the first night. It attacked Stanley and was very very determined to keep hold of Stanley's arm. Swaffie had to struggle to get him off.
I napped this afternoon, got up for dinner, we went to an Ethiopian place. Some sort of sour rice bread, lamb with delicious sauce, potatoes with spicy sauce, chicken, lentils, some veggies, and holy crap amazing vegetarian lasagna. That was so so good. Also had a sip of Brenna's Castle Milk Stout, which was delicious. Memo to self: dark beer good. We walked back and I'm chilling here. I feel like I have a couple other things to mention...
Oh yeah! So on our third safari, at lunch, there was this monkey. It apparently fought both Michelle and Becky for food before I arrived, but I saw it attack this woman one table over. The family wasn't paying attention, their own fault really. The woman slapped at the monkey, attacked it with the box, the monkey scratched at her. Two tables over some guy was laughing HYSTERICALLY, he was clearly more than a little amused. We were pretty entertained as well, though less loud about it. The woman got away, but the monkey came back ten minutes later and ate something she had dropped, so I guess it won. We carried rocks just in case it came near us to throw at it.
Speaking of throwing rocks, at the campsite some of our group invented a new form of skeet shooting. One person would throw a rock into the air, underhand lob, and the other would try to hit it in the air with another rock. I didn't partake, and I think one person hit once, maybe two people got it, but it was pretty entertaining to watch. They also balanced a board on a rock, had a person stand on either side and try to rotate it 360, which was quite unsuccessful, but again, entertaining. We make our own fun, I suppose.
Friday, February 26th, roughly 9:10 PM
I napped this afternoon, got up for dinner, we went to an Ethiopian place. Some sort of sour rice bread, lamb with delicious sauce, potatoes with spicy sauce, chicken, lentils, some veggies, and holy crap amazing vegetarian lasagna. That was so so good. Also had a sip of Brenna's Castle Milk Stout, which was delicious. Memo to self: dark beer good. We walked back and I'm chilling here. I feel like I have a couple other things to mention...
Oh yeah! So on our third safari, at lunch, there was this monkey. It apparently fought both Michelle and Becky for food before I arrived, but I saw it attack this woman one table over. The family wasn't paying attention, their own fault really. The woman slapped at the monkey, attacked it with the box, the monkey scratched at her. Two tables over some guy was laughing HYSTERICALLY, he was clearly more than a little amused. We were pretty entertained as well, though less loud about it. The woman got away, but the monkey came back ten minutes later and ate something she had dropped, so I guess it won. We carried rocks just in case it came near us to throw at it.
Speaking of throwing rocks, at the campsite some of our group invented a new form of skeet shooting. One person would throw a rock into the air, underhand lob, and the other would try to hit it in the air with another rock. I didn't partake, and I think one person hit once, maybe two people got it, but it was pretty entertaining to watch. They also balanced a board on a rock, had a person stand on either side and try to rotate it 360, which was quite unsuccessful, but again, entertaining. We make our own fun, I suppose.
Friday, February 26th, roughly 9:10 PM
HUGE BLOCK PARAGRAPHS BWAH
Woke up, ate eggs and bread and butter, literature class, mostly on Narwhal, biomes class, on various things, break, head into town. Eat at this hotel buffet, Indian food, it was alright. Very little chicken on my chicken. Watched the beginning of 1408 while we were sitting there. Headed out, fiddled around with various ATMs (not me, but I waited with people), and then Clay started talking to some guy, just various small talk.
This guy proceeded to jerk us around the city for probably over an hour. We wanted to go to the market, so he led us there, pretty legitimately. It turned out to be mostly a food market, which was kind of cool to walk through, but not really what we were looking for. He led us further to a small hole in the wall that was full of music, mostly tapes. Now, it was cool to see a local music store, but not really anything I could reasonably buy, between the rarity of CDs and me not knowing what any of it was. Clay and I were in there for a bit, people wanted to keep moving so we did. Anh by this point was getting tired of this guy, so she started to lead, taking us back towards the main street instead of letting him take us wherever he wanted us to go. He really wanted us to go to his mom's shop. We passed various stalls, ignored most of them, bought a few necklaces at one, probably got ripped off. Kept moving, the girls wanted to get postcards, Clay and I split off to appease the guy by seeing where his store was while Anh, Nate, Brenna and Liz looked at an ice cream place, we came back, they had decided against ice cream, all of us went to his mom's store.
By the one, I miswrote all that, I made it sound like there was just one guy. There were probably about four guys constantly walking with us, as well as ones that would come up, try to sell us something, give up and leave. But these four or so were with us the whole way, leading us to specific routes or whatever. It was like India, but worse, since they stayed with us the whole way instead of just bothering us near their shop.
So we finally go into this store, which does legitimately have some nice stuff, not to mention postcards. (I am the worst friend/family member ever, having not sent any or bought any yet. Sorry folks.) We looked around in there for a while, it was odd, there were probably half a dozen or more guys in there, all trying to sell you their specific stuff within the store, and all assuring you they would give you the good price, don't trust the other guys, they would rip you off. The guy we came with kept telling us that since it was his mom's store, we should talk to him about any price. Whatever. So I looked at a few things, actually didn't have ANY money (1000 tanzanian shillings is less than a dollar, and what was in my pocket), but I did see a few things I liked as gifts. Well, I tried telling this guy I didn't have any, even showed him my wallet, told him I'd come back tomorrow, he was persistent as hell, kept talking about “support,” kept lowering his price, kept lowering his price... finally I walked to an ATM with him and got it for a fifth of the original price. Probably a good deal, at least I hope so. That done we sat around a bread shop for a bit, I talked to the shopkeeper who was an Indian, but born and raised near Arusha. His family came here 200 years ago as traders, settled down, and they'd been here ever since, but they preserved the Indian culture. I thought it was pretty interesting. I had a mirinda, basically an orange fanta, and we headed out and back, having to ignore a few more street merchants on the way.
Don't get me wrong, the stuff they're selling IS beautiful, it's just tiring dealing with, even for only 3 hours. I have to do a fair bit of shopping in Egypt, after that it settles down, thankfully.
Friday, February 26th, roughly 3:50 PM
This guy proceeded to jerk us around the city for probably over an hour. We wanted to go to the market, so he led us there, pretty legitimately. It turned out to be mostly a food market, which was kind of cool to walk through, but not really what we were looking for. He led us further to a small hole in the wall that was full of music, mostly tapes. Now, it was cool to see a local music store, but not really anything I could reasonably buy, between the rarity of CDs and me not knowing what any of it was. Clay and I were in there for a bit, people wanted to keep moving so we did. Anh by this point was getting tired of this guy, so she started to lead, taking us back towards the main street instead of letting him take us wherever he wanted us to go. He really wanted us to go to his mom's shop. We passed various stalls, ignored most of them, bought a few necklaces at one, probably got ripped off. Kept moving, the girls wanted to get postcards, Clay and I split off to appease the guy by seeing where his store was while Anh, Nate, Brenna and Liz looked at an ice cream place, we came back, they had decided against ice cream, all of us went to his mom's store.
By the one, I miswrote all that, I made it sound like there was just one guy. There were probably about four guys constantly walking with us, as well as ones that would come up, try to sell us something, give up and leave. But these four or so were with us the whole way, leading us to specific routes or whatever. It was like India, but worse, since they stayed with us the whole way instead of just bothering us near their shop.
So we finally go into this store, which does legitimately have some nice stuff, not to mention postcards. (I am the worst friend/family member ever, having not sent any or bought any yet. Sorry folks.) We looked around in there for a while, it was odd, there were probably half a dozen or more guys in there, all trying to sell you their specific stuff within the store, and all assuring you they would give you the good price, don't trust the other guys, they would rip you off. The guy we came with kept telling us that since it was his mom's store, we should talk to him about any price. Whatever. So I looked at a few things, actually didn't have ANY money (1000 tanzanian shillings is less than a dollar, and what was in my pocket), but I did see a few things I liked as gifts. Well, I tried telling this guy I didn't have any, even showed him my wallet, told him I'd come back tomorrow, he was persistent as hell, kept talking about “support,” kept lowering his price, kept lowering his price... finally I walked to an ATM with him and got it for a fifth of the original price. Probably a good deal, at least I hope so. That done we sat around a bread shop for a bit, I talked to the shopkeeper who was an Indian, but born and raised near Arusha. His family came here 200 years ago as traders, settled down, and they'd been here ever since, but they preserved the Indian culture. I thought it was pretty interesting. I had a mirinda, basically an orange fanta, and we headed out and back, having to ignore a few more street merchants on the way.
Don't get me wrong, the stuff they're selling IS beautiful, it's just tiring dealing with, even for only 3 hours. I have to do a fair bit of shopping in Egypt, after that it settles down, thankfully.
Friday, February 26th, roughly 3:50 PM
Went to dinner at Pepe One again, had pizza, delicious pasta, and some vegetable rice. After that we came back, sat around, talked a bit, I went for a walk with John and Swaffy, we came back and talked to our neighbor James and his wife Ivy. Clay, Nate and the above two went off with James to try to exchange money while I was in the bathroom, so I had to wait for them to return to do anything. (We ahd been attempting to go to a club,it never quite panned out though.) So I sat and talked to Ivy for a while about the trip, about Africa and Kenya specifically, about her job as a pilot, about college in the states. She let me check e-mail on her phone, which was nice, even if I didn't really have anything important to read. They came back eventually, and here I am lying in bed.
Friday, February 26th, roughly 12:10-12:20 AM
Friday, February 26th, roughly 12:10-12:20 AM
SO MANY ELEPHANTS.
But that's skipping a bit.
We ate pumpkin soup, french fries, rice, chicken, a hot salad, a cold salad, and probably a few other things. Had a class. There was another group staying at the campsite and by sheer weird coincidence, a kid Swaffy knew from school was with that group, they were doing wildlife conservation work. So after I talked to David for a bit about my essay and whatnot, I joined a group talking to this friend of Swaffy's, Evan. From Montana originally, decent enough guy, we exchanged e-mails and all that business at the end. I was up until after 11 trying to get my batteries fully charged, but they didn't finish, so meh.
Woke up, had breakfast, and headed out for Tangirie National Park. It was a more typical savannah than our last two sites. The first had this constant alternation business going on, Ngorongoro was more of a grassland than a savannah due to the lack of the trees in the middle, though there were more trees along the edges. Tangirie DEFINITELY had trees, but still not a forest, so definitely a savannah. Huge baobabs were just everywhere. The wildlife was slow at first, though we got a great view of a warthog and a few birds, including the absolutely beautiful superb starling, but it was by no means a slow day. We saw giraffes eating, antelopes (impalas?) locking horns and wrestling, baboons, more and more warthogs including a mother with two babies, lots of birds including a gorgeous lilac-chested roller and a hornbill (both of which we saw eating, by the way), and a freakish number of elephants. At first we saw elephants far away in a herd, they were absolutely enormous, and we saw some eating, some dust bathing. Later on though, on the way back, we saw one that was close. I mean, when it sprayed mud and water on itself, we could hear it, it was that close. It only had one tusk, interestingly. Honestly, it was so close it was almost intimidating. We watched it bathe for a long time, watched it sit under a tree, scratching itself maybe? Not sure, and eventually it walked off and we left it alone. It was a truly awesome experience though, to be that close to such a large animal.
And we saw some more elephants besides that, too.
We drove out, I slept most of the ride back to Center House, and here we are now. Dinner at's 6:30, and we'll see what happens from there.
Thursday, February 25th, roughly 5:30 PM local time
But that's skipping a bit.
We ate pumpkin soup, french fries, rice, chicken, a hot salad, a cold salad, and probably a few other things. Had a class. There was another group staying at the campsite and by sheer weird coincidence, a kid Swaffy knew from school was with that group, they were doing wildlife conservation work. So after I talked to David for a bit about my essay and whatnot, I joined a group talking to this friend of Swaffy's, Evan. From Montana originally, decent enough guy, we exchanged e-mails and all that business at the end. I was up until after 11 trying to get my batteries fully charged, but they didn't finish, so meh.
Woke up, had breakfast, and headed out for Tangirie National Park. It was a more typical savannah than our last two sites. The first had this constant alternation business going on, Ngorongoro was more of a grassland than a savannah due to the lack of the trees in the middle, though there were more trees along the edges. Tangirie DEFINITELY had trees, but still not a forest, so definitely a savannah. Huge baobabs were just everywhere. The wildlife was slow at first, though we got a great view of a warthog and a few birds, including the absolutely beautiful superb starling, but it was by no means a slow day. We saw giraffes eating, antelopes (impalas?) locking horns and wrestling, baboons, more and more warthogs including a mother with two babies, lots of birds including a gorgeous lilac-chested roller and a hornbill (both of which we saw eating, by the way), and a freakish number of elephants. At first we saw elephants far away in a herd, they were absolutely enormous, and we saw some eating, some dust bathing. Later on though, on the way back, we saw one that was close. I mean, when it sprayed mud and water on itself, we could hear it, it was that close. It only had one tusk, interestingly. Honestly, it was so close it was almost intimidating. We watched it bathe for a long time, watched it sit under a tree, scratching itself maybe? Not sure, and eventually it walked off and we left it alone. It was a truly awesome experience though, to be that close to such a large animal.
And we saw some more elephants besides that, too.
We drove out, I slept most of the ride back to Center House, and here we are now. Dinner at's 6:30, and we'll see what happens from there.
Thursday, February 25th, roughly 5:30 PM local time
Safaris 1 and 2
Got behind again. Lots to report, which is always the problem.
It took a while to leave for the safari, issues getting money and with the third vehicle being a bit late. We talked to Sister Rose a bit and headed out. Our driver's name is David, our cook's name is Samwell. Driving driving driving, beautiful countryside, beautiful mountains, beautiful vegetation. Also: mountains. And hills, too, but mostly mountains. We stopped for lunch, Nate and I kicked a ball around briefly with some older folks from Oregon who had just climbed Kilimanjaro, we also met two Swiss girls who were going on safari and, later, three Indian guys who had just climbed Kilimanjaro and were going on safari. We dropped Samwell off and kept going to Manyara, our first safari. One of the cars' tires blew out, so we had to stop. Saw the Swiss girls again here, as well as two Maori who stopped to watch and briefly exchange words (David loved the integration of a cell phone pouch into the traditional, centuries-old leather belt, right next to the knife) though mostly our group just walked out to the side of the road. We found an ENORMOUS baobab tree with a hole one could fit inside with room to spare, and yes, there are pictures of exactly that. Also some massive hornets, which we fortunately avoided. Eventually the tire got fixed and we got to Manyara. (Note: sequence of events may be off, as it was yesterday. I think we dropped off Samwell after the tire blew. Maybe.)
Tanzania has done for land what the Maldives did for water. That is, everything is astoundingly beautiful, and I take as many photos of the landscape as I do of actual wildlife or specific features.
We saw lots of zebras, a few giraffe (including a few that got REALLY close, we saw the Swiss girls again here), more elephants than I can count (never expected to say that) including some calves, lots of gorgeous impalas, baboons, blue monkeys, black-faced monkeys. I like the visitor center there, it's all outside along a path, so you're walking in nature as you're reading about it – saw a couple blue monkeys there, too. The land inside the park itself is interesting, it goes from grassland to small wooded areas to grassland to wooded areas, back and forth over and over depending mostly on where the streams are. We saw elephants in both, but most of the other animals stuck to the grassy spots, excluding the monkeys. We also saw a few mongoose crossing the road, honestly, I'm having trouble remembering it all because of today's safari. Oh yeah, there was a hippo bond with lots of hippos. We got out 10 minutes late by accident (sorry park staff), came back, dinner was massive and included popcorn, vegetable soup, sausage, salad, potatoes, and a couple dishes I don't remember.
Got up this morning about 6:30, breakfast had eggs, bread and butter and pancakes, and off we went to Ngorongoro Crater. En route, Nate and I discussed how biblical in a way the area was, underscored by a view of a mountain with 5 or 6 beams of light cutting through the clouds in front of it. We were told that Ngorongoro would make yesterday look like a bad safari.
Yeah, pretty much true.
First you go way way up and get a gorgeous view of the whole crater, great photos. I also found a beautiful dead butterfly on the ground there by sheer luck. Talked to a couple guys from Florida, one of whom asked me if we were all getting along and if there were any romances on the trip yet (“I know how college is,” he said with a laugh and a slap of my chest.) After that you head down into the crater, seeing baboons and birds aplenty. We saw a serval, David said he's only seen 4 in the 6 years he's been here. We also saw several lions, mostly female with two young males, a truly astounding number of zebras, wildebeest, antelopes and water buffalo, often intermixed, various interesting birds including purple heron, kori bustard (probably spelled wrong), white stork, another stork whose name I don't remember, and late in the day, a lake absolutely COATED in flamingos. There were elephants, mostly off in the distance, and oh yeah, of the 20 rhinos in the park, we saw 4 of them. Two at one point, two at another point. Wow. (Also, baby zebras are brown and white, not black and white, and adorable.) There were some hippos where we stopped for lunch, as well as eagles and smaller birds that forced you to eat inside your vehicle or else they'd attack you for food, as Allen learned. Again, trouble remembering all the amazing sights we saw, because there was just SO MUCH. We saw lions a couple more times, including one female lying down in a small ravine to rest. Unfortunately I'm blanking... you'll just have to ask me about the pictures when I get home.
Wednesday, February 24th, roughly 4:50-5:20 PM local time
It took a while to leave for the safari, issues getting money and with the third vehicle being a bit late. We talked to Sister Rose a bit and headed out. Our driver's name is David, our cook's name is Samwell. Driving driving driving, beautiful countryside, beautiful mountains, beautiful vegetation. Also: mountains. And hills, too, but mostly mountains. We stopped for lunch, Nate and I kicked a ball around briefly with some older folks from Oregon who had just climbed Kilimanjaro, we also met two Swiss girls who were going on safari and, later, three Indian guys who had just climbed Kilimanjaro and were going on safari. We dropped Samwell off and kept going to Manyara, our first safari. One of the cars' tires blew out, so we had to stop. Saw the Swiss girls again here, as well as two Maori who stopped to watch and briefly exchange words (David loved the integration of a cell phone pouch into the traditional, centuries-old leather belt, right next to the knife) though mostly our group just walked out to the side of the road. We found an ENORMOUS baobab tree with a hole one could fit inside with room to spare, and yes, there are pictures of exactly that. Also some massive hornets, which we fortunately avoided. Eventually the tire got fixed and we got to Manyara. (Note: sequence of events may be off, as it was yesterday. I think we dropped off Samwell after the tire blew. Maybe.)
Tanzania has done for land what the Maldives did for water. That is, everything is astoundingly beautiful, and I take as many photos of the landscape as I do of actual wildlife or specific features.
We saw lots of zebras, a few giraffe (including a few that got REALLY close, we saw the Swiss girls again here), more elephants than I can count (never expected to say that) including some calves, lots of gorgeous impalas, baboons, blue monkeys, black-faced monkeys. I like the visitor center there, it's all outside along a path, so you're walking in nature as you're reading about it – saw a couple blue monkeys there, too. The land inside the park itself is interesting, it goes from grassland to small wooded areas to grassland to wooded areas, back and forth over and over depending mostly on where the streams are. We saw elephants in both, but most of the other animals stuck to the grassy spots, excluding the monkeys. We also saw a few mongoose crossing the road, honestly, I'm having trouble remembering it all because of today's safari. Oh yeah, there was a hippo bond with lots of hippos. We got out 10 minutes late by accident (sorry park staff), came back, dinner was massive and included popcorn, vegetable soup, sausage, salad, potatoes, and a couple dishes I don't remember.
Got up this morning about 6:30, breakfast had eggs, bread and butter and pancakes, and off we went to Ngorongoro Crater. En route, Nate and I discussed how biblical in a way the area was, underscored by a view of a mountain with 5 or 6 beams of light cutting through the clouds in front of it. We were told that Ngorongoro would make yesterday look like a bad safari.
Yeah, pretty much true.
First you go way way up and get a gorgeous view of the whole crater, great photos. I also found a beautiful dead butterfly on the ground there by sheer luck. Talked to a couple guys from Florida, one of whom asked me if we were all getting along and if there were any romances on the trip yet (“I know how college is,” he said with a laugh and a slap of my chest.) After that you head down into the crater, seeing baboons and birds aplenty. We saw a serval, David said he's only seen 4 in the 6 years he's been here. We also saw several lions, mostly female with two young males, a truly astounding number of zebras, wildebeest, antelopes and water buffalo, often intermixed, various interesting birds including purple heron, kori bustard (probably spelled wrong), white stork, another stork whose name I don't remember, and late in the day, a lake absolutely COATED in flamingos. There were elephants, mostly off in the distance, and oh yeah, of the 20 rhinos in the park, we saw 4 of them. Two at one point, two at another point. Wow. (Also, baby zebras are brown and white, not black and white, and adorable.) There were some hippos where we stopped for lunch, as well as eagles and smaller birds that forced you to eat inside your vehicle or else they'd attack you for food, as Allen learned. Again, trouble remembering all the amazing sights we saw, because there was just SO MUCH. We saw lions a couple more times, including one female lying down in a small ravine to rest. Unfortunately I'm blanking... you'll just have to ask me about the pictures when I get home.
Wednesday, February 24th, roughly 4:50-5:20 PM local time
Missed yesterday. Woops.
I napped maybe 10-20 minutes that night, woke up, got the taxis all set, Harish gave us one last goodbye, and off to the airport. We had a little bit of trouble with immigration about our stamps, but we got through. I slept almost the entire flight to Addis Ababa, woken up only when my neighbors needed to use the restroom or briefly for food, most of which I didn't eat. I think it was in part because I was so tired, but it did NOT look appetizing. Sat in the airport for a little bit, and then off to Kilimanjaro. Much shorter flight. We got out, had to fill out some medical forms, show our yellow fever vaccination cards, Brenna never got one and they paid a guy $25 for one, the passport guy was pretty friendly (and for some reason excited about my passport, I think), got our baggage, thought we would have to go through customs declaration because “nothing to declare” was closed and then discovered that customs was walking through a door, and met our guy from the tour company. It started raining lightly, we got into the bus, less crammed than the minibus from Sariska, sat in the back, Clay hilariously said “sometimes when I listen to you, I wish I had a choice” (yeah, I deserved it), short ride to Arusha but a long ride through Arusha, and then Center House, a hotel run by the Catholic Church here. We got settled in, my bed was lacking a mosquito net but that got taken care of thanks to Stella and a man whose name I didn't catch, met a very kind, matronly woman named Mother Rose, Denny had some issues with the money again, apparently the sixth time this trip, he's about to kill someone back at Hiram, and time for dinner. We ate at a place called Pepe One with Italian and Indian food. The tables split a handful of pizzas, pastas and fish, all very good, the pizza especially so. Partway through our meal some performers came out and did a show, some acrobatics, some tumbling, a little bit of juggling. A flaming limbo bar, which we all tried to get Allen to go do. They weren't absolutely amazing, but they were perfectly good, although I was impressed by the guy who not only supported his whole body upright with hands on a bench, but switched to supporting himself with only one hand to place bricks under his hands. He later had the bricks vertical and when they fell, caught himself. Some people felt awkward about it, some people just thought it wasn't a very good show, I enjoyed it decently well. After dinner we headed back, Swaffy, Zypy, Brenna, Jacob, Clay and I went to a store and got some water, only 700 each (keep in mind it's 1335 to the dollar). The guy still owed us 100 in change after he gave us most of it and gave us a pack of gum because he ran out, which amused me. We walked back, I had some trouble falling asleep but it wasn't too bad, and here I am now. We leave for the safari this morning, two days out, then we come back and have some time in Arusha.
Tuesday, February 23rd, roughly 8:10-8:20 AM local time
I napped maybe 10-20 minutes that night, woke up, got the taxis all set, Harish gave us one last goodbye, and off to the airport. We had a little bit of trouble with immigration about our stamps, but we got through. I slept almost the entire flight to Addis Ababa, woken up only when my neighbors needed to use the restroom or briefly for food, most of which I didn't eat. I think it was in part because I was so tired, but it did NOT look appetizing. Sat in the airport for a little bit, and then off to Kilimanjaro. Much shorter flight. We got out, had to fill out some medical forms, show our yellow fever vaccination cards, Brenna never got one and they paid a guy $25 for one, the passport guy was pretty friendly (and for some reason excited about my passport, I think), got our baggage, thought we would have to go through customs declaration because “nothing to declare” was closed and then discovered that customs was walking through a door, and met our guy from the tour company. It started raining lightly, we got into the bus, less crammed than the minibus from Sariska, sat in the back, Clay hilariously said “sometimes when I listen to you, I wish I had a choice” (yeah, I deserved it), short ride to Arusha but a long ride through Arusha, and then Center House, a hotel run by the Catholic Church here. We got settled in, my bed was lacking a mosquito net but that got taken care of thanks to Stella and a man whose name I didn't catch, met a very kind, matronly woman named Mother Rose, Denny had some issues with the money again, apparently the sixth time this trip, he's about to kill someone back at Hiram, and time for dinner. We ate at a place called Pepe One with Italian and Indian food. The tables split a handful of pizzas, pastas and fish, all very good, the pizza especially so. Partway through our meal some performers came out and did a show, some acrobatics, some tumbling, a little bit of juggling. A flaming limbo bar, which we all tried to get Allen to go do. They weren't absolutely amazing, but they were perfectly good, although I was impressed by the guy who not only supported his whole body upright with hands on a bench, but switched to supporting himself with only one hand to place bricks under his hands. He later had the bricks vertical and when they fell, caught himself. Some people felt awkward about it, some people just thought it wasn't a very good show, I enjoyed it decently well. After dinner we headed back, Swaffy, Zypy, Brenna, Jacob, Clay and I went to a store and got some water, only 700 each (keep in mind it's 1335 to the dollar). The guy still owed us 100 in change after he gave us most of it and gave us a pack of gum because he ran out, which amused me. We walked back, I had some trouble falling asleep but it wasn't too bad, and here I am now. We leave for the safari this morning, two days out, then we come back and have some time in Arusha.
Tuesday, February 23rd, roughly 8:10-8:20 AM local time
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)