Out of curiosity, which countries (or states) have you travelled to in recent times? Any particular experiences to remember?
Mine below in comments…
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December 4, 2004
Travelling Thread
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I have been to Portugal, Spain, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Azerbaijan in the past year.
Sadly, the only places I have had to time to really visit and/or enjoy are Portugal and Switzerland; the rest being work-related and quite often day trips. I know the highway between the airport and my lawyers’ offices in Madrid really well…
In the past 5 years or son I have also been to Iran, Turmenistan, Kazakhstan, Syria, Lebanon , NY, Texas and US Virgin Islands (nice beaches), Venezuela, Dubai, and several more European countries.
I have the enjoyment of an old passport without any empty page on it and loads of airmiles… (yes, De, I get rewarded personally for all the negative externalities I help create by flying so much…)
Syria and Lebanon have amazing antique ruins, which you can visit literally on your own, but the countries are not very welcoming otherwise (the infrastructure is in bad shape and the people, at least in Syria, are clearly terrorised by their regime and not really ready to open up to foreigners).
Posted by: Jérôme | Dec 4 2004 7:48 utc | 1
Over Thanksgiving we all went to my wifes sisters house in Portland Oregon. Well so what if it was just across the river from where we live in Washington, I did get to, for the first time, watch Fox news, CNN, and Howard Stern on the TV set. Then I took the kids out to see “The Polar Express” at the local theater.
While this hardly merits a” full media immersion”, I can say that even this small amount of exposure was something of a glass of icewater in the face of what I would generally think, to be what passes as normal here in America. I was , I guess braced for the cable TV stuff, although found it odd that O’Reilley guy still on after that telephone sex scandal stuff, do’nt they report on their own laundry? And Stern, with topless porno stars, drinking gallons of water to see who had to pee in a plastic pool first? I do’nt know what that was about. Any way, I thought the “holiday” kids movie would somehow deliver a spot of something light and, well, conventional. But alas, in modern America even a fucking Christmas movie, for some unknown reason, just has to be completely deranged and turned into some surrealistic action movie filled with negation, fear, and technological machination all bound up and tied tightly to word belief. Belief in what?
It seems that these days, in the good old USA, you dont have to travel very far, to get that feeling of” being a stranger in a strange land”
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 4 2004 10:53 utc | 3
As far as something to remember, all my travels were when I was a young man,full of optimism and joie de vivre. I use to hitchhike across the country and back,trusting in some sort of god or providence to keep me safe. I remember once being picked up in Kentucky, and the person who
picked me up started driving like a madman, swerving across lanes of traffic while affixing me with a sideways glance ala Jack Nicholson, and asked me “Are you scared yet?” My response was low key out of neccessity.
Once I was hitchhiking from Ohio to Texas and had been sleepless on the road for two days. A stationwagon full of young kids stopped and picked me up, and as soon as I got in the vehicle I promptly fell asleep. When I awoke, I was cheerfully informed by the group that they had just robbed a gas station across the state border, and were making a run for Mexico. Needless to say, when they stopped for beer and gas and donuts, I was more than happy to part company and take my own chances.
Once in 1976, it was a Labor day weekend (IIRC) and I was missing my girlfriend Alice in northern Ohio who had gone to Boston for the summer,
so I girded up my loins, grabbed my wine skin bota bag and bedroll and guitar, and took off on the road,hitch-hiking to Boston. I lived in a city called Lorain, which was due west of Cleveland by 25 miles, all hugging the shores of Lake Erie.
I Left at 9:30 in the the morning which was most fortunate, as I walked the entire 25 miles to Cleveland because nobody would stop and pick me up.
As I neared the outskirts of the city, a red volkswagon stopped to pick me up. It was being driven by a man by the name of Milan Vuchmanovich, an old bearded hippy.
After he commiserated with me on the length of my walk, he advised me to “ride the rails”.
Given the load that I was carrying, I was skeptical of my ability to run and jump onto a moving freight train. But Milan was true to the job that he had chosen.
“I work for the railroad. All you have to do is ask the Engineer for a ride when they stop at this portion of the tracks before they hit the main rail.”
By the way,this is all true, and that is his real name. I say this now so that he is remembered.
I passed the time waiting in a shack with a man who professed to be a sunni muslim, and he drank his tea as he told me that the train would be by directly. And so it was. It lumbered up, chuffing in a slow voice, with three engines all pulling the load of cars, and all controls run to the front engine which had a fireman,a brakeman, and an engineer, all who told me that I could ride in one of the back engines.
Myself,all of 21 years old, was thrilled at the prospect of playing star trek with the controls of the empty locomotive.
I rode through the mountains of upstate New York, waving at the motorists stopped at the crossroads we passed,they never dreaming that I had no right to be
in that luxurious air cushioned seat with the attendant flip up arm rest on the windowsill.
I could see in their fleeting eyes that the child in them wished that they could be in my seat, just as I as a child wished to be in that same train, the train that you didn’t know where it was going, just that it WAS!
And so I rode that train through the early fall foilage in the mountains, seeing country that I never would have seen from the road, and losing my pen in the toilet in the nose of the train,putting an abrupt halt to my entries in the journal that I was keeping.
I rode that train to Springfield, Massachusetts, and got off in a huge grey and filthy trainyard that made an extrordinary contrast
to the country I had viewed on my way there.
I was greeted by belligerent workers, all who wondered what my business was being there in the first place, but soon made my way to the main road, and still on to Boston.
Did I ever meet my Alice in Boston?
Yes,but that is another story.
Posted by: possum | Dec 4 2004 12:16 utc | 4
I have not done any traveling recently, but in the past have done a lot of the “budget traveler” thing in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Of the many wonderful memories from these journeys, I want to share one from Indonesia in 1992. I was doing some exploring in Sumatra and spent a while in a town called Bukitingi, up in the mountains in central Sumatra right on the equator. One day while scoping out a quiet street in town, a group of young adults in a little courtyard waved to me to come over to them. They were educated young men and women studying English and were on a break from their class. I answered their questions about who I was and what I was doing; their teacher came out to see what was going on and, upon discovering I was a former employee of the U.S. government, invited me to come in and address the class. I gave a brief summary of how the federal government works (in theory, anyway) and took questions. These young people in this small provincial mountain town were amazingly well-informed on current events and pelted me with questions, politely but insistently, about why the United States did not intervene in the tragedy then underway in Bosnia. (This was before the U.S. got engaged in the Balkans.) I lamely attempted to explain and defend my country’s position…arguing that the U.S. simply could not be the righter of all wrongs in the world or send in the military to solve every problem. It was a wonderful, free, open exchange on a topic these students felt passionately about – they were very conscious of the muslim identity of many of those in the Bosnia conflict and identified with them. It was eye-opening for me to realize that even though they were so culturally different and thousands of miles apart, there was a huge feeling of solidarity with fellow followers of the muslim faith. Touching too, that they looked to the United States at that time as an agent for good that could intervene in a constructive way if it chose.
I’ve often reflected on that encounter in recent years as the U.S. has blundered in so many ways in its relations with the muslim nations and communities of the world, and wondered how those charming people I met that day view us now.
Posted by: maxcrat | Dec 4 2004 14:06 utc | 5
The world would be a much more interesting place if people didn’t travel so much in it.
From the Tao:
Let your community be small, with only a few people;
Keep tools in abundance, but do not depend upon them;
Appreciate your life and be content with your home;
Sail boats and ride horses, but don’t go too far;
Keep weapons and armour, but do not employ them;
Let everyone read and write,
Eat well and make beautiful things.
Live peacefully and delight in your own society;
Dwell within cock-crow of your neighbours,
But maintain your independence from them.
Posted by: slothrop | Dec 4 2004 17:53 utc | 7
& the most peace i have ever enjoyed was on the greek isle of hydra
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 4 2004 19:03 utc | 8
Cassis Provence Summer 2004. I want to go back. Didn’t buy enough yardage for my slipcovers when I was in Aix. Sigh.
Had a nice holiday in Kinsale also. Beautiful.
But this summer installing our back patio is the priority, so maybe 2006.
Posted by: gylangirl | Dec 4 2004 19:36 utc | 9
Recently, the only foreign land I’ve traveled to was Texas, but I was in Austin, so the culture shock was minimal.
But most of my travel has been in Europe…more so than in the U.S., even. I’ve spent the most time in Belgium (and lived there) and I’ve been to somewhere in every region in that country.
Other places I’ve visited, most recent to least, are Rome, Aachen, Germany, various places in The Netherlands, Paris, Denmark (and Malmo, Sweden), Austria (Vienna and countryside), England (but not greater G.B.) Kiev and Moscow.
Strangely, I’ve never been to Canada, but would love to spend an extended time there… at the other extreme, I would also like to go to Belize…rain forest, Mayan ruins and beaches…and a currency pegged to the dollar, so actually conceivable to do, given enough greenbacks in the first place.
This thread does not help assauge my wanderlust. It’s like porn. No fun just to watch.
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 4 2004 19:45 utc | 10
But hey! The Euro might be worth, what, 2 bucks by then, right? We may vacation right here in 2006. Have enjoyed visiting beach 2 at Newport Rhode Island, looks kinda like County Cork, if you squint.
Posted by: gylangirl | Dec 4 2004 19:58 utc | 11
Philipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, London, Moscow and Naples in the last 12 months.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 4 2004 20:06 utc | 12
& i realise now i will never have that peace as long as the criminal, the immoral, the unjust & illegal wars against the people are carried out by the most criminal administration in american history – – bar none
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 4 2004 20:11 utc | 13
& let me be clear. u s imperialism has made the idea of travelling for me – just another form of commodification or at best an escape from a world that is close to not worth living
as the poet maiakovskî sd “death to art that makes a life not worth living possible”
but if wanted to be somewhere else today perhaps i would like to be with my friends in cuba with whom i worked on a francocubain ‘macbeth’ – these cubans who showed me the meaning of many things including art. these intelligent soft yet tough people who have endured what the united states has done to them – in the meanest & cruelest possible way.
it is fashionable to demonise castro & cuba here in france where cuban emigrées have made an art of their exile & their vilification of the cuban revolution. but for every zoe valdez there are 50 cuban writers who are cuba & who do not have to dress up in the garments of hysteria & melodrama for me to want to read them. some of the most intersting things to be happening techincally to the novel are happening in cuba, today. but because it does not appear in le monde or the new york times – it does not exist
as all the pain of the other does not exist until they start blowing up planes in deserts, until they offer their sons & daughters as sacrifice as suicide bombers, or until the walls of the empire come falling down to kingdom come
no the other – in our most technologically advanced age – is more frightening than it was in the 19th century – we recoil from the images of bhopal – because we know it is our world that did that, it is our world that refuses to make recompense, it is our world who refuses to accept the suffering of the other as we would our own & one day we will surely pay for that aversion to comprehend
i suppose i loved greece & the greeks because that is where ‘tragedy’ was invented – the ‘tragoidia’ – the song of the goats – when a human life had less value than a goat & where a slaves suffering was a thing of wonder & of envy
& it is tru the rich envy the poor their suffering because they know that nobility is constructed there & thos who benefit from that suffering are excluded from the possibility of that nobility. what is left of man – what is worthy in man – exist only in the poor – it exists almost nowhere else & in greece they mock their gods as all good humans would – they are not beholden to them klike the christians, the zionists or the islamist – who weep & tremble before their vengeful gods who want their kicks now on earth
no give me a fishermans hand on a small boat in hydra where his mocking mouth may ridicule you but where his heart understands, all
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 4 2004 23:13 utc | 14
I was in Germany, France and Australia in the past year. Wish I was in one of them now!
Posted by: albatross | Dec 4 2004 23:16 utc | 15
i live in the washington, dc metropolitan area, and was in belgium and netherlands the week of the u.s. elections
my wife’s friends hospitably invited us to move to europe – (and my canadian cousin has invited me to go up north)
it’s not impossible that something like that might happen, but for now there is still a chance that something could be salvaged here – or at least i hope so
i am sick at heart that the american people did not repudiate bush – i fear that my fellow americans are not just ignorant, and lied to, but deeply deluded and captured by the dark side of the force – “like calls to like”, and fox news and limbaugh are popular, unfortunately
Posted by: mistah charley | Dec 4 2004 23:25 utc | 16
I normally eschew hypermobility (Jerome, above, has deftly pre-empted my usual carping commentary about air travel so I’ll skip the accusatory statistics, take it as read). but this year work and personal business drove me far afield — to British Columbia, to Glasgow (UK). I am occasionally sent to the Big Island of Hawai’i on business, for my institution (but not this year). despite my attempt to moderate/contain my own fossil fuel guzzling, I do love travelling. there are few delights in life like having a day or two free in a strange city and heading out for a walk with absolutely no goal but flaneurisme!
what I remember about Glasgow was the heart-tugging sense of being “home again,” even though my family left the UK in ’62 and we have not lived there since, even though I never lived anywhere north of Swindon — just being in the UK was “home” in some primal sense that overwhelmed me while I was there. I remember looking around from the bus, going from the airport to the conference centre, and thinking that the roadways looked almost sane, the cars a normal size, not the weird, cartoon-gargantuan, bloated SUV and minivan horde that chokes roads and freeways in CA. and I remember two American academics in the seat behind me laughing at the “tiny little cars” and referring to the UK as a “third world country” because the cars were small. sigh. “Might as well hold the damn conference in Thailand,” said one of them, “at least the food’s better there.”
I was in Glasgow at the summer solstice, by coincidence, and I remember the pleasure of being far enough North that the high summer sun did not feel like an imminent threat of skin cancer — not having to wear sunscreen — and feeling the pull of the high latitudes. the city seemed prosperous and evidence of a stirring of civic pride was everywhere — freshly painted pedestrian bridges, restored buildings, posters for a wide variety of public events, etc. I visited the People’s Palace, a museum dedicated to the history of working-class life in Glasgow, with an attached, magnificent Edwardian conservatory (deluxe greenhouse, not musical). I visited a train station that put every train station I had ever seen in the US to shame. I walked for miles along the old river Clyde. I didn’t want to go “home”. I felt that I had “come home.”
earlier last year I and a dear old friend of mine made a pact to take a long vacation somewhere very interesting, without using cars. after much planning and conferring and scheming (they really make it difficult to travel in the US if you don’t use a car) we walked out my front door one morning, caught a bus to the transit center; caught a bus to the train station the other side of a mountain range; caught a train North — and so, by train and eventually shuttle buses, we made our way all the way from San Jose CA to East Glacier Montana, where we spent a happy few days in a KOA campground near the St Mary Lakes (on Blackfeet Res land).
we splurged on one of Amtrak’s minicabinettes, with bunk beds. it was the most fun I have ever had while travelling. we lounged about, mesmerised by the scenery rolling by our big picture windows, free to walk about the train any time, not confined in narrow little seats, not forced to endure “in flight movies” (there are movies on the train, but in a special car)… and when we got there, Montana was everything we had hoped and more. the mountains were so enormous and rugged that we had to pinch ourselves to believe that they were not painted backdrops 🙂 the glacial lakes and streams were clear as window glass. and the herds of Blackfeet horses roamed free all over the countryside. and the “big sky” was every bit as big as it’s made out to be 🙂
we took a tour bus over the border to Waterton in Canada for a day trip. the Canadian border guard who let us in was an apple-faced blonde girl who called out jokingly “All right, any of you taking drugs into Canada?” to which some wag called back, “I thought people came here to buy them, not to bring them!” [laughter all around]. the US border guard who let us back in some hours later was a grizzled old jarhead with mirrored shades, wearing plenty of weaponry and a scowl. he confiscated everyone’s ID, East German fashion, and disappeared with it into his guard building. the driver warned us to take our sunglasses off, sit still, don’t crack jokes, don’t talk to the guard unless he talks to you first. my travelling companion and I exchanged depressed glances. we felt we were re-entering the Eastern Sector. but the lady sitting next to me said to the bus at large, after our papers were returned and we were back on the road, “Oh, it feels so good to be back in the US!” chacun a son gout I suppose. the town of Waterton was delightful and I would very much like to go back there one day and spend at least a week.
whenever I travel, of late, I have the haunting feeling that we are the last generation to have this privilege (at least the non-wealthy among us). the vulgarisation of global travel must, I think, come to an end fairly soon as oil prices rise. I think this will be a good thing in some ways, sad in others: the good thing is that travel for the non-wealthy will once again become a matter of adventure, a leap into the unknown by unconventional transport; and perhaps the mcdonaldisation of the world will slow down or even reverse. it astonishes and irks me to spend time in airports, mentally calculating the amount of jet fuel being burnt as I stand and watch the runways; in some ways it is like having foreknowledge of something like, oh, Pompeii or the Mongol invasion or the collapse of the N African grain trade, and walking the streets of some bustling ancient capital, raucous and vibrant and hustling and arrogant, and knowing that its days are numbered.
travel for me, these days, is always tinged with this, what can we call it, avant-nostalgie or something like it, a precognitive sadness, a sense of the outrageous precariousness of the whole absurd Rube Goldberg system, and also a hovering, distressing guilt at the number of human lives being spent to keep my air tickets cheap… but for all that, I admit, with both feet on the threshold of middle age and knowing what I know, my heart still leaps a little with joy and excitement at each take off and landing. I always try to get a window seat for the fun of watching the landscape below, wondering what the heck this or that strange construction may be, tracing the tragic path of deforestation and erosion or the more cheerful evidence of wetland restoration; and when we hit high winds or turbulent air I love to watch the wings flex, and feel the plane drop and catch itself, rumble and stumble through the angry air. flying around thunderheads is a particular pleasure, for a weather watcher who usually sees them only from below 🙂 the naive pleasures of travel are not destroyed by an uncomfortable consciousness of its hidden costs and shaky future, merely strangely complicated, textured, shaded…. still, on the whole if I always had the option of travelling by train I would always take it. the whole experience is so much more pleasant.
Edinburgh, 2-11 June, 2004–to visit a son studying at the University. Walked forever in the late light, and saw two unforgettable things: the botanical garden, and an exhibition (at Hollyrood House) of 17th century Dutch painting, on loan from the Royal Collection at Windsor. Perfection in plant-life, perfection in art (Edinburgh, site of perfection)….This is also the place where I ran up an insanely high phone-bill while surfing the blogs (British Telecom, it would seem, runs a highly profitable monopoly)….In the end, the hotel was truly merciful.
Posted by: alabama | Dec 5 2004 1:30 utc | 18
I have really enjoyed this thread. I don’t have the funds to travel much but in the late 60’s my brother and I inherited a small amount of money from my grandmother. He bought a car. My mother convinced me that taking a trip to Europe would last a lifetime (in memories). She and I spent three weeks going everywhere we wanted to in that amount of time, Scotland, England, Amsterdam, Majorca. I couldn’t agree with her more, looking back. I came home and still had enough left to buy a used motorcycle and continued the adventures.
Posted by: beq | Dec 5 2004 1:35 utc | 19
deananaander
i have a tale to tell you of 12 hours in belgrade airport the day before jat airways was forbidden to fly – it was a hallucinatory experience that money could not buy & i felt like i was a lead actor in a film by angelopolous or dusan makavayev – horrific, wonderful, terrifying & little moment of grâce in a world without it.
not peace but wonder. i guess too i am unlike benjamin in that people even the worst of them possess some form of treasure & i guess its my face – or the sense of being condemned before i was born but people speak or more frankly -they confess – even in the middle of belgrade airport as their world is falling apart
worst no doubt – stuck in a phillipine airport – with a throng of american australian & english pedophiles screaming & cackling at each other over the joys of asia – an experience it took a lot of water & soap to wash away
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 5 2004 2:07 utc | 20
in the last five years:
Canadian Rockies & Glacier, car-camping (& hot-springing)
England by train (where’s my coffee?)
eastern and central Turkey, on a Rotary GSE tour (Cappodocia, wow)
Jamaica (depressing)
New York City (learning the subway the hard way, lots of walking)
Houston TX (museums and concerts save one from endless heat & freeways)
Hungary & Romania/Transylvania (Unitarian choir tour)
Nebraska (Go Big Red state, revisiting Repub roots, talk about stranger in a strange land)
Plus many short trips to Oregon beaches and dormant volcanic ranges–my local Taoist paradise.
On my list, in no particular order: return trip to Turkey, France, Greece, Quebec, Prague, Australia/NZ, Eastern Oregon desert
Posted by: catlady | Dec 5 2004 5:56 utc | 21
going to costa rica a man let me cut in front of him in the duty line after i bought what ever it was i had wanted, they cut the line off and closed down.he was going to buy his girlfriend some perfume she wanted.on the plane i went and sat by him to apologize.well when we got off the plane he drove us to our hotel,helped us get a better deal in changing our money.and we ended up staying at his beautiful house for 2 days.then he set us up with a guide who we spent the next few days with meeting his family in the country and seeing things and places tourists seldom get go experience.several weeks later back in the capital on our last night i decided i wanted to see the bad side of town and went to a strip bar.there was a very young girl trying her best to dance you could tell she was scared and uncomfortable,these 10 japanese men had deciede to buy her for the evening which made my blood boil at the cheapness of it all so i put my credit card on the bar and said i’d go $50 over anything they offered.which ended up to be $100 which pissed me off even more.anyway
i explained to her that i wanted her to be my guide around town my last night to see where the locals hang out.we had a great time and when we got back to the hotel she said i’ve never been with a girl but..i stopped her said she had done just want i wanted her to do already.well a hour later finding myself hungry i went out for a late breakfeast she happend to be their with her friends in the back and came up paid for my food and gave me her moms phone # in case i ever came back.well on opening the cab door on my arrival home (i lived aboue a bar)i heard the same %$#@# song being sung as the day i left.i got back in the cab and said back to the air port,where i bought that perfume buy the way.upon landing in san jose i called her moms # who sent her nephew to pick me up and i stayed with the family for a week before heading back thank god a different band was playing or i might be living in a grass hut eating ocean fresh catch and wild fruit.i often think i might be happier today if only becky allen was playing when i opened that cab door the second time.
Posted by: onzaga | Dec 5 2004 10:59 utc | 22
Went to the islands in the south of Thailand in the 80s with a friend who had decided on a Greek island that her heaven on earth was to own and run an island hotel. We spent two weeks searching the islands for the perfect location – by boat, by foot, and by motorcycle on washed out roads, we gorged ourselves on scenery and possible neighbors. Thai property law was a revelation of how power works there, and in the evenings we alternated between imagining how to build to highlight the natural beauty, and talking to local landowners to find out what sort of alliances we would need.
And always that beautiful ocean and the sound of waves.
We learned the history of every pier and the plans for new airports, and spent hour after hour really trying to see how the place happened. It was like a graduate seminar and an exciting first date with a few lovely kisses – and all rolled into a two week adventure.
In the end, I realized it was her dream not mine. She did make her life there. For me it became a vacation.
Posted by: Citizen | Dec 6 2004 16:34 utc | 23
i love car trips.although i’ve been to numerous continents some of my favorite memories are right here in the states. when my son was 6 we started spending a few months a year living in the back of the truck. at first he was reluctant. then he learned to love it. we would just take off . state parks, hot springs, following leads. caravaning w/ motocycle groups, living w/ other truck people in the ozrarks. mining for crystals.one time our car broke down right over the glacier national park border in the little town of sparks in canada. we were stranded there for a few days, all these very ordinary people just took us in. i felt like we knew the entire town before we left. ranchers in momtana,reservations in arizona.by the time jess was in high school, uprooting him for a few monthe was not so easy. but those trips hold some of my best memories.
Posted by: annie | Dec 7 2004 16:51 utc | 24
Well, since recent times seem to run further back than I expected…
Holidays in Greece: Naxos, Athens, Sounio. Climbing Mt Olympus. Delphi. Maybe we’ll pop back there next year, spend a week split between Athens and Sounio – the view from the Temple of Poseidon is incredible, and spending time in a resort for Greek families is much more tempting than some of the alternatives.
Three weeks in Canada six or seven years ago, family in Toronto, fun in Montreal, family in Calgary, side-trip to Waterton and Glacier Park, with a little trip into the scary US (mirroring DeAnander) visit my then fiancee’s (now wife) ageing uncle in Edmonton, mercifully getting one good day from his Alzheimer’s. Then spent an idyllic week in Jasper, staying in log cabins down by the lake, confusing people by not having rented a car and walking to and from town and wondering at the absolute stupidity of most tourists: note to everyone, when you see a bear cub by the side of the road, DO NOT GET OUT OF YOUR CAR. Please. We’re on foot here and don’t need a pissed off momma bear running around. Thanks. Oh, and don’t try to get close-ups of the one that’s wandering around the cabins either. It’s hungry, and probably willing to eat Germans. Really. Even old chewy ones. Two-day train journey to Vancouver. Did you know Canada has lots of trees? And that rich South Africans are in my experience a uniquely trying subspecies?
Then, in 2001, our honeymoon: married on 03/02/01; off to Paris for a rest for a few days; on to the German side of the Austrian border for a proper rest and some snow; on to Delhi for culture shock and eventually some really interesting lessons; escape to Bangkok, feeling as if we were dirtying the nice airport with the grime from Delhi, staying down by the river, loved the city; Hong Kong, city of the future, dinner in Man-wah in the Mandarin Oriental; Tokyo, oh Tokyo, colour and noise and energy and discipline; a little Ryokan on the west coast, snow and warm springs, fresh tofu and mountain temples; San Francisco; Mexico City, dirt, noise, somehow more ancient than anywhere except Delhi; New Orleans, Cajun food, Creole food, more food and chest infections courtesy of Mexico City. A circumnavigation of the globe with a food theme: it seemed like a good way to spend six weeks!
We haven’t escaped the country since, and we’re looking forward to celebrating our anniversary in Paris next year with some fervour!
Posted by: Colman | Dec 7 2004 17:26 utc | 25
Garden enthusiasts: Ever been to the Broschart Gardens in Victoria Vancouver? It’s heaven on earth. On the U.S. east coast, Longwood Gardens and Winterthur are lovely.
Posted by: gylangirl | Dec 7 2004 18:50 utc | 26
I just got back this morning from 8 days in the Maldives. This is our third trip there and I find it to be as close to paradise as I can imagine. The weather is around 28 degrees C during the day and about 26 degrees at night. We have been so lucky as to get maybe two days of rain in the more than 3 weeks total we have spent there.
My wife and I scuba dive and it is more beautiful underwater than on land. This last island we stayed at has a website
Our diving adventures started in November of 2001 when we got a really cheap vacation in Roatan Honduras. Got certified there and have about 50 dives so far. We have also been to Malindi Kenya and Marsa Alam Egypt for diving but also did a safari on the Massai Mara. All of these vacations have been done using lastminute deals and have been relatively inexpensive. That is all coming to an end now as prices are coming back to pre 9-11 levels and the dollar has lost its purchasing power.
Living here in Northern Italy we have visited most of the countries around us as well and usually take a ride on the motorcycle through the Alps a couple of times a year. Riding in Switzerland is a special treat but Austria and Slovenia are nice too. Italy is the place to play Speed Racer as the roads are pretty good and the police are usually quite scarce.
Coming from North Dakota I have seen things I had only read about in encyclopedias on those cold winter nights. I can honestly say that I do not miss being there.
Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 9 2004 22:20 utc | 27
For Americans traveling abroad can be difficult. In case you don´t want to name your country of origin, why not go Canadian.
For $24.95 you get a complete disguise. A t-shirt with the Canadian flag and the saying “O Canada! (National Anthem), a patch for your luggage or backpack, a window sticker and a lapel pin. Plus – Free Report – How to Speak Canadian, Eh?!
Posted by: b | Dec 10 2004 13:49 utc | 28