Top 5 Things...

While I’ve been away I’ve had a lot of time to think. I think about lots of things – what I’m going to do in the future, the country that I’m currently in or experiences from my past. I also think a lot about things and people from back home. I thought I’d put together a list of some of the things I’ve been thinking about!

Top 5 foods I miss

2.    Buffalo wings from BW3, honey BBQ flavor

3.    Sushi

4.    Grilled cheese sandwiches

5.    Mom’s enchiladas, Mom’s spaghetti, Mom’s everything!

Top 5 things I miss from home

1.     My bed - too many nights on beds that are too hard/too soft/smelly!

2.    Talking to my friends and family – emails just aren’t the same

3.    Choosing a restaurant of any type of food I’m in the mood for

4.    Wearing heels and choosing clothes – I only have 10 days worth of clothes and 3 pairs of shoes and I am so tired of seeing them already! What I would give for a whole closet…

5.    Hugs – you just don’t get very many good hugs when you’re traveling

Top 5 things I DON’T miss from home

1.     Work!

2.    My phone

3.    Driving

4.    Paying bills

5.    TV

Top 5 things I’m sad that I will miss this year

1.     Gabe’s first day of school (see adorable picture below!)

2.    Christmas

3.    Seeing my Grandma

4.    Easter egg hunt

5.    Jameson’s birthday – who will help Jenn make the cake this year?

Top 5 moments of the trip so far

1.     Diving with Dena and Martina in Central America

2.    Sitting at the top of a mountain by myself after hiking up it, looking down at Petra and imagining being there 2500 years ago

3.    Chatting with Ana, Ceri and Diane in Eastern Europe – I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!

4.    Jumping straight from my bed into the Adriatic Sea while cruising in Croatia

5.    Seeing Auschwitz – not a happy memory, but one that will remain with me forever

1.     Any food not covered in bees or flies

Petra, Jordan: 5th Wonder of the World

I will admit it – the week before I arrived in Jordan, I had started to dread coming here. I was sitting safely on a beach in Greece without a care in the world, thinking about coming to the Middle East (especially since I would be here on Sept 11). I wasn’t sure about the people, the food or the heat. I am so at ease in Europe, it was scary to think about coming to a place where I would again be out of my comfort zone. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong about Jordan. The people here are wonderful. There was not one time that I felt uncomfortable being here. I didn’t feel different if I wasn’t covered head to toe, no men came up an tried to touch me and everyone was so helpful, the people are really amazing. I think this is the most progressive of any of the Islamic countries I have visited yet, definitely not what I was expecting from the Middle East.

I came to Jordan to see Petra. A couple of years ago (on 7/7/07, to be exact) they conducted a poll for the “7 New Wonders of the World” and Petra was one of the wonders on the list. When I was planning my trip, I realized that I was seeing all of the Wonders of the World except for Petra. Now obviously, that just wouldn’t do, so I changed my itinerary one final time and here we are. This is the 5^th wonder of the world I’ve seen and I can’t wait to see the others.  Petra was built starting in the 6^th Century BC and is so much larger than I ever thought it was. I thought it was just the Monastery (above) and the Treasury (below), but it was actually a city large enough for 25,000 people. The whole city is a series of caves and tombs carved in the pink sandstone and is just stunning. We spent the day hiking up the mountains and having fabulous views of this city that is over 2500 years old. I loved just sitting on the edge of a cliff, hearing only silence and imagining what it would have been like to live here thousands of years ago. Wow, just wow.

Besides Petra, the site I was so excited to visit in Jordan was the Dead Sea. I’ve been swimming in a lot of salty sea water recently, but that had nothing on the Dead Sea!

You don’t have to put in any effort at all – all your limbs just pop to the surface of the water and is nearly impossible to bring them back down. It is such an odd sensation. I made the mistake of tasting a tiny bit of it and it was the worst decision of my life – I’ve never tasted anything so horrible in my life! I will not complain the next time someone tells me to swish around salt water, it will be a piece of cake for me. I did manage to get a couple pictures of me floating though – you can’t go to the Dead Sea and miss those pictures!

The itinerary for Jordan also included visiting Wadi Rum, which is a large desert set in a valley. We had a great afternoon driving around in a 4x4, hiking around and just being kids playing in the sand. We spent the night in a desert camp, where I was able to look up and see 2 shooting stars. I would tell you what I wished for, but then it would never come true!

The next day we woke up in the desert and by noon we were out on a boat, scuba diving in the Red Sea. What an amazing day of contrasts and contradictions! Not the best dive I’ve ever had, but since the Red Sea was the first place I ever scuba dived, it will always have a special place in my heart.

Now I’m off to Nepal to hike to Everest Base Camp. Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while!

Sunsets and Doors

Doors and Sunsets. Sunsets and Doors. I think I can sum up Greece in those two words! I guess there are maybe a few more – white and wind and churches and stairs. For those of you who didn’t know, my mom came out to Greece to spend about 10 days with me. It was so wonderful to see her – it made me a little homesick when she left, especially when I was thinking about all the things I am missing at home. I knew I would be missing my family, but still seeing her was so great, just what I needed! When I was planning my trip, I asked her where in the world she wanted to join me. Without even pausing, she shouted out Greece. I think for at least the last 10 years, every Christmas day, there is a calendar of the Greek Islands sitting under the tree for my mom. I shouldn’t have been surprised at all that this was where she wanted to visit! We visited Santorini, Crete and Athens, then I went to Mykonos on my own. To get you started, here is a wonderful door picture from Mykonos:

Santorini
This wasn’t my first time to Santorini – I went when I was in Europe 2 years ago. To be perfectly honest, I was pretty unimpressed by Santorini. Yes, the sunset in Oia was pretty, but it was really overcrowded and kind of far away from everything. Other than that, I didn’t see why people raved about it so much. When I went this time, I realized we missed some of the best views and beaches on the island! This visit, I was able to see all of the best views of the island and now I understand why people love Santorini.

We got pretty lucky on the first night, because apparently there was a festival that day where they celebrate the volcano by setting off fireworks above it. Mom and I got a great seat in a café in Fira, where we watched the sunset, then had dinner, then watched the fireworks over the volcano. The fireworks were great – they simulated lava on the volcano, both flowing down the hills and exploding into the air – so cool!

Our second night we did the required sunset over Oia – we sat at a really nice restaurant with the perfect view of the water. We got so lucky, as we were the last people to get a table in the restaurant! Our third night in Santorini, we went on a cruise that went to the volcano, some hot springs and then watched the sunset. It was quite relaxing and nice to see the sunset from a different perspective. Our final night in Santorini we moved to a different resort, one that was quite expensive and had been hyped up quite a bit – even Angelina Jolie had stayed there before. We got there and I was SO unimpressed. Yes, it had nice rooms, but the pool was tiny, it was in the middle of nowhere and there was no sunset in sight. Wonder if Angelina Jolie was as unimpressed as I was, LOL. When I think of Santorini in the future, I will definitely think of all the beautiful sunsets!

Crete
We took the ferry across from Santorini to Crete since that is the easiest way to move from island to island. We met a sweet girl named Jenny who is my age and her mom, both from California, who were going to the same hotel we were. They offered to give us a ride from the ferry and thank goodness they did, because the hotel was over an hour away – imagine how much that cab ride would have been! While in Crete we stayed in an amazing hotel, the Blue Palace. It is set on a hill and the hotel is built in a number of buildings that sort of flow down the hill and many of the rooms had their own pools. It makes for beautiful scenery. Our building was the newest one and we had been upgraded to a junior suite, which was amazingly beautiful. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t have our own pool, until we realized that there was only one other family staying in our whole building. Outside of our room there was a library and a huge sitting room where nobody ever was – it made me think that this is what the mansions of some of the rich and famous are like. Also, in front of our building was one of the 4 pools on the property, but nobody was ever using it. We used it every afternoon and never saw anyone else, so we called that our own private pool – we were so lucky!

Our "Private" Pool

 "Our" Library

In addition to reading in our library and lounging at our own private pool, we spent part of each day at the beach. The water was great, but like most beaches in Greece, it was all rocks and no sand. There was a dock you could jump off of and we spent lots of time in the water. I know I love the water and could spend hours floating around, but my mom puts me to shame. I think if she had it her way she would jump into the water at sunrise and finally climb out at sunset! We spent our days in Crete jumping from pool to beach to pool and getting a fair bit of reading in too – it was so relaxing. At night we would go to one of the local towns for dinner, where we had some fantastic seafood and surprisingly good pizza. We were definitely beach bums in Crete and loved every second of it.

Athens
Everyone had warned me that Athens was not a very nice city and that there was nothing to do there, so we decided to only spend one day there. We were able to see quite a bit on that day but I have to say that I disagree with people – I think it’s a really pretty city and would have loved to spend an extra day there. I dragged my mom all around town and we saw the stadium used in the original Olympics, the Acropolis, the national park and a few of the hundreds of old historical ruins that are set around town.

Through all of that though, I have to say that my favorite part was just sitting down for desert and wine. We sat right at the base of the Acropolis and you could just glance next to you and see it lit up and towering over you – where else in the world can you see that sight? It is a huge piece of history and we were able to just sit and marvel at it – I loved it!

Mykonos
After I said a sad goodbye to my mom I took the ferry over to Mykonos on my own. All I can say about Mykonos is holy doors. When you look at pictures and calendars of Greece and they have the colored door pictures in them, I swear they were all taken in Mykonos. The city is one maze of white buildings and doors of every color – blue, green, yellow, grey, red, you name it. I would just walk through, taking turns at random and get lost, snapping away of course. Here are a few of my favorites.

The other thing I will say about Mykonos is that is the gay mecca of Greece! I knew when I booked my hotel that I was staying across the street from a hotel that was strictly a gay hotel. What I didn’t realize was that 90% of the people in my hotel would be as well. There was only one other girl at my hotel and the rest were men – some of them were so sweet! Our hotel didn’t have a pool so I went across the road with them and we had drinks and lounged at the pool – definitely met some interesting and wonderful characters J I don’t know if that’s how it is all over Mykonos, but James and Rob definitely made the island for me – thanks guys!

After a wonderful 2 weeks, it was time to leave Greece. It was a great time to relax and recharge my batteries, which I definitely needed after being on the go for so long. Hopefully between relaxing in Croatia and Greece I am ready for what’s ahead – namely Jordan and Everest. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

Amazing Croatia!

Croatia. Oh Croatia. I was so excited for this part of the trip! After Morocco and Eastern Europe, which were so fast paced and tiring, I thought it would be nice to have some time of complete relaxation. What better way to accomplish this than to spend a week sailing around Croatia. I boarded a boat with my 35 new best friends and off we sailed. Our boat was called the Labrador and it looked a bit like an old pirate ship. There were 3 levels of cabins and lots of places for lying down and getting some sun or just relaxing with your book. Here is a shot of our beautiful boat.

Every morning started with a breakfast, which I generally skipped in order to sleep more. I finally woke up when we had our first swimming stop at 10:30 – I know, tough life! Each day we had one or two swimming stops, where we would jump off the side of the boat and just float around for a while. The water was so salty that you didn’t really have to do anything to float – maybe kick your legs once in a while, but otherwise it was the most relaxing time of the day. It was also the only way to cool down sometimes – of course Croatia was having the biggest heat wave of the summer, so it was impossible to beat the heat in any other way. I would just float for hours, it was so nice!

Each afternoon we would dock at a port city and go in for a quick wander. Some of the cities were tiny and consisted of nothing more than a couple shops and a winery, while others like Dubrovnik where large with lots of things to do. I really enjoyed our day in Dubrovnik – we kayaked out to an island and went snorkeling. The kayaking was really hard work, but at least my friend CJ and I succeeded, unlike some of the other pairs! We also spent the afternoon walking around the city walls. They encompass the entire old city and you can walk around the whole city like that. It was absolutely beautiful and I took so many pictures, I would be embarrassed to post them all!

In the evenings we would generally have a nice dinner then we had the option to go to a cool bar or club. I was a bit surprised by the food there – it’s all Italian! Pizza, pasta, gelato, you name it! I guess the Italy is just across the water and the ruled Croatia for hundreds of years, but it still surprised me. Croatia had some of the coolest bars I’ve ever been to – one of them was on its own island, where you had to take a boat out to the island and there was absolutely nothing else out there. You could wander down to the beach or sit in the trees, it was so cool! In Dubrovnik we went to a bar that was built between the city walls. It was really narrow, but felt very old and unique. On our final night we went to a club that was inside a cave! It was built back into the mountain and it was really loud and the music bounced off the walls – so fun! I was quite impressed with the nightlife in Croatia.

All in all, I really loved Croatia. I think going by boat is the best way to see the country, because you can see many islands in a short period of time without spending a lot of time traveling. Even though I’ve never been so hot for so long, a long dip in the water seemed to be the cure for everything. I would highly recommend that everyone visit the beautiful, historical country of Croatia!

You know it's going to be a bad day when....

I posted a blog entry before about some interesting things that have happened, and I decided it was about time for another of those posts. Hope you enjoy!

My camera
When I was in Morocco, we spent a day visiting the Sahara Desert. Our guide told us to be careful and not drop our cameras in the sand. What he didn’t tell us that we might be caught in a sand storm! Seriously, there was sand whipping everywhere and we had to cover our nose and mouth with our scarves to be able to breathe without taking in a huge mouthful of sand. I’ve never been in anything like that.

When we got back to camp the 11 of us pulled out our cameras and about 8 of them sounded horrible. There was grinding when you zoomed in or out, and some wouldn’t even turn on. After 20 minutes of hitting the side of the camera and trying to blow the sand out with puffs of air, my camera was back in action. I thought I had gotten away with a lucky warning. My camera was working great, minus the grinding when I zoomed. Imagine my surprise when 2 full weeks later, an error message was displayed on my screen. It wouldn't focus, I couldn't take any pictures, it had completely given up. Shoot, guess I didn’t get lucky after all. At least my awesome mom has promised to bring me a new camera when she arrives next week!

The roommate
I know, I posted about a roommate before. However, it seems like there is a large supply of oddball roommates out there! This is the story of my friend Ceri from Scotland and her crazy roommate from New Zealand (we’ll call her the Kiwi). So one night early in the trip Ceri is relaxing in her room before dinner. She starts hearing sounds coming from the bathroom, It’s not what you would normally expect – she hears talking. She hears “Should I wear this shirt tonight?” “No, I think you should wear the purple one. It makes your eyes look better.” “But this green one looks really cute with my jeans.” “Well, I guess do what you want to, but the purple one really is the best choice.” Who on earth is in the bathroom together? Why are there multiple people in her bathroom? Imagine her surprise when just the Kiwi walks out. Now I know we all talk to ourselves from time to time, but usually it’s inside your head and it’s not usually two different voices!

A couple days later we were heading to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Obviously it was going to be a very sad and somber day so everyone was pretty quiet all morning. Ceri was chatting with her roommate and asked how she was feeling. The Kiwi responds with “I’m fine. I don’t see why everyone is making such a big deal out of this. I don’t think the Holocaust even happened, it is all a big lie.” Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I don’t understand how there are still people who believe things like this. Can you imagine sharing a room with someone who is so crazy and ignorant for 2 weeks? Poor Ceri.

Breakfast and my feet
When I was in Casablanca, I stayed in a super fancy American hotel. I felt safe in a city that is really big and loud and fast paced. When I’m with a tour group I’m fine staying in the middle of a big city in a shady area, but when I’m on my own I like to be in a safer, more anonymous place where I can have all my meals if I’m feeling uncomfortable. My first day there I went up to the club room to have breakfast. It was near the end of breakfast time and a couple of business men where there. I grabbed some food and sat down. The guy who worked there came over a minute later and asked if I wanted any coffee. He complimented the Columbine tattoo on my foot and walked off.

He was back in a minute with my coffee and he asked to see my tattoo again. I showed it to him and suddenly he’s taking his towel and rubbing my toes, like he’s trying to get the dirt off! Unfortunately it’s not dirt, it’s just a super sweet tan line. I was starting to get a little embarrassed by my feet….I mean, how hot is this flip flop tan line?

He gets a frown on his face and asks to see the bottom of my foot. I turn it over, but realize this is starting to get a little weird. He sees the bottom, then leans in to sniff them! WTF!!!! Why is this dude sniffing my foot! He works here, he’s supposed to be safe! After the odd sniff, he walks away.

At this point I start looking around the room and realize everyone else has left. It’s just me and the hotel employee/creepster. I’m starting to think it’s time to head out so I start to fold my newspaper and finish my coffee. 15 seconds later, he’s back again. One of my feet was up on the coffee table so he bends over and touches the toes. Then he asks in his broken English/French combination if he can kiss them. Excuse me, WHAT? I must have heard this wrong, so I ask him to repeat in my broken French/English combination. Oh no, clearly he is asking if he can kiss my feet!! There was a lot of fumbling around as I threw the newspaper down, muttered something about meeting my mom, gestured towards my watch and RAN! Needless to say, I didn’t eat breakfast the next day!