Everest or Bust

This update comes to you one week into our three-week trekking adventure in Nepal. As Audra described, we flew into Kathmandu and spent two busy days prepping for three weeks on the trail away from most modern conveniences. This trip would mark the longest consecutive amount of time either of us had spent backpacking/camping. Feeling pretty well prepared and having left a bag of stuff at our hotel in Kathmandu (who knew we had so much extra?) we set off on the dusty, bumpy, terrifying (think climbing next to sheer drop-offs while passing trucks around blind corners at full speed), exhilarating 12-hour bus ride to Shivalaya, from where we would begin a 6-day walk to Lukla before heading to Everest Base camp.

I don't think either of us realized exactly what we were in for. The hiking we did in the first 6 days of this trip has been by far the most strenuous physical challenge I've ever undertaken day in and day out. These 6 days were supposed to be a sort of "training and acclimatization" pre-trip, which I think we assumed would mean "gradual warm-up" but turned out to be more like, "if you can do this, the rest will be a piece of cake". Serves me right for not checking out the elevation gains and trail details in advance.

In short, those first 6 days were grueling. Both physically and mentally. We walked an average of between 7 and 10 hours each day, starting early and often arriving at our destination as it was getting dark. During that time, we climbed and descended between 700 and 1200 meters (not feet!) each day. I don't know if I've ever climbed 3000 feet in a day prior to this trip, and we did it at least three times, often on back to back days. For a point of reference (for those who live in the Bay Area), Mt. Diablo is 1,178 meters high.

Day 3 was the most challenging. After it was over, Audra and I marched ourselves down to the freezing cold mountain stream to soak our legs up to the hips, chanting songs back and forth to distract us from the pain of freezing limbs. That night, I hit a personal emotional low. Feeling overwhelmed by what was ahead of us and a strong pang of homesickness, I took control of the situation by rifling through my pack and separating anything that could be considered a "nice to have" from the "must haves". Goodbye book (that I was 3/4 of the way through!), goodbye hair conditioner! goodbye lotion! goodbye Afterbite (no mosquitoes this high anyways), goodbye extra black tank top! goodbye forever and good riddance. Though Audge and I pride ourselves on light packing, the term "light" takes on new weight (so to speak) when you have to carry all your stuff (or "S" as we call it) on your back up and down a few mountains.

Things improved from that point on. We've taken precautions to be very careful and kind with our bodies, as they are our only mode of transportation at this point. It's interesting how you pay attention to little aches and pains differently when you know you're 2 days' walk from the nearest medical care. We made it to the first major landmark in our journey, Namche Bazaar, the day before yesterday and were able to take a day to rest and acclimatize (we're at 3,400 meters here) before moving on. The altitude has been an interesting factor as well...both of us felt pretty strange (light headed, short of breath) going over a pass at about 3700 meters earlier on the trip, and Namche is just a bit below that. I developed a pretty uncomfortable headache our first night here (despite massive hydration) and started taking Diamox (acclimatization meds) on a preventative basis that evening. Interesting, but normal, side-effects include tingly fingers and lips. But the headache's gone! Pick your poison :)

Today we're hitting the trail again for a longer stint, about 2 weeks in total. The plan is to head up toward Everest Base Camp, following a group of doctors taking a wilderness medicine course (moms, dads, and relatives, that should make you feel good). After base camp, we'll split off to see the view from Kala Pattar before heading over the Cho La pass towards Gokyo and coming back down to Namche Bazaar via the Gokyo route. This is all assuming good acclimatization and healthy joints. Expect to hear from us on or around the 15th of May!

If you're curious where we're headed, you can see a simple map here: http://vic.com/nepal/map1.html

Check out the Lonely Planet website if you want more details. See you on the other side!

Traffic Laws? What Traffic Laws?

We have spent the last 30-ish hours in Kathmandu... this city is nuts!! Carla guessed that the right of way belongs to whoever is moving faster. The streets are absolutely teeming with people, and there are a million shops for all kinds of outdoor gear. Even though it's definitely cheaper to stay and eat and get around here than anywhere else we've been, our fear of being cold, hungry, and unable to find warm things and food have led us to drop a lot of money. Now we're equipped with down jackets and mittens, thick socks, new sunglasses (I of course lost mine in Greece--I basically lose everything when I travel--and Carla's broke), hiking pants for Carla, and a hat for me. We also bought out half the drugstore-- I mad-dogged Carla the whole time for being such a mom, but if I get sick I'll have to really butter her up to fork over the goods.

Tomorrow morning we will leave on a bus for Shivalaya and from there hike to Everest Base Camp. It should take some 17 days to get there, then 5 to get back to Lukla for a flight back to Kathmandu. This will be by far the longest hiking trip of my life, though to be fair we will be sleeping and eating in tea houses, which negates the need for most of the gear that limits the length of backpacking trips.

We will probably not post again till mid-May, but look forward to some epic pictures!

Dubai: Supersize Me!

When we were shopping from flights from Istanbul to Kathmandu, the one that was cheapest by far was on the airline FlyDubai. It had an 18 hour layover in Dubai, so we decided to go for it and I posted on facebook to see if anyone knew anyone there we could crash with. True to form, my good friend Ghyrn, who has connected me with more awesome people than I can count, introduced me by email to his friend Jeremy who lives in Dubai, and we were set!

I was actually pretty excited about Dubai, which is in the United Arab Emirates, since one of the hostel workers in Jordan had showed us a bunch of pictures of the city and its architecture back in March. Sure enough, when we got off the plane the first thing I noticed—other than the blessedly warm weather—was the spire of the world’s tallest building rising in the distance.

We took a cab to Jeremy’s building and called him. He was coming back from Abu Dhabi in an hour and a half, so we left our packs in the lobby and went to the mall adjacent to his building. Biggest mall in the world, turns out! And—where do I begin? Dubai is like Vegas on steroids. More lights. More fancy cars. Taller buildings, bigger malls, more recent technology—you name it! This mall was full of all the usual stores you’d find anywhere, plus an ice skating rink, a completely ENORMOUS fountain covering 2+ stories of walls, extremely fancy restaurants, and familiar not-so-fancy restaurants including Chilis, California Pizza Kitchen, Au Bon Pain… it would have taken all day to see this whole mall. One thing I saw there that I’d never seen before was 3D television. So it felt like this place was stop #1 for technology that hadn’t even made it to America yet, and it was all very mind-blowing.



Not one store was un-Western. Not one ad showed a person who looked un-Western (I mean, there were Asian looking people in the ads but wearing Western clothes, and there was a notable absence of anyone Arabic looking or wearing so much as a hijab. Carla pointed out how alienating it might feel to the local women to feel marginalized in this way in their own homeland.) Also, not one worker we saw looked un-Asian. By which I mean Indian/South Asian or East/Southeast Asian, aka not Middle Eastern (or white).

Honestly we could have been in Houston. The only difference were that some 10% of people were wearing outfits that would have been rare back home—either full black robes with only a slit for the eyes (women) or long gowns and white or checkered head coverings held on with a round rope (men).

After getting lost and finally making it out of the mall, we met Jeremy at his building, which is a combo fancy hotel and apartment building. It. Was. Fancy. His apartment was far nicer than ANY residence I’ve seen inhabited by anyone our age. And I guess it has elements of a hotel, in that it gets cleaned and stocked with mini-shampoos and stuff (Jeremy, it took tremendous restraint not to steal your roommate’s mini-shampoos). There were 2.5 baths to 2 bedrooms, and on either side balconies looked out onto the spectacular night lights of the uber-skyscraper, the mall, and a fountain which is the—wait for it—yep, the biggest in the world, which had incredible water-light-music shows every half hour.



We hung out and watched a few shows and chatted over some wine, then went out to an Asian fusion restaurant where Jeremy treated us to what was BY FAR the nicest meal we’ve had since our travels began. Other than one time when we each got our own kebab sandwich, we always share meals. Which is something I really love about traveling with Carla—it saves money and keeps me from stuffing my face, and food is never wasted; our plates are always scraped clean. But we ate everything we wanted at this place and the food was awesome. Another thing to point out is that you can apparently get absolutely any kind of food in Dubai.

So we had a nice relaxed dinner, the three of us, and Jeremy paid for us so then we took him out for ice cream. On the way back we dawdled, walking slowly and stopping to look at fancy cars. It struck me that the whole evening felt a lot like… a date. But a 2-on-1 date. Regardless, it was a really great evening, and I was left with a great impression of Dubai!


Our 2-on-1 date... Why isn't that a more standard practice? Actually, once I brought a friend along on a first date with someone I met online, and it was really awkward.

Turkey III

We were in Istanbul for a week, and at first that seemed like too much time but it ended up being fine. We did some couchsurfing, which was interesting (and cheap) but also had its downsides. For the uninitiated, Couchsurfing.org is a website where you can have a profile and either stay with strangers (who you can scope out based on what previous surfers have said about them) or host people who are passing through. I used its counterpart, hospitalityclub.com, in Europe in 2006 and always had good experiences, but had never used either one since then. At this point we were ready to lay a little lower and save some money, so we got online and stayed first for two nights with a couple of very nice guys in a very cool apartment that was far from everything, and then for three nights with two very nice guys in a well located but... um, well let’s just say that when you are two 30-ish men living alone, sometimes your space is not up to the standards of women. Neither house had an oven, which was a bummer because we bought supplies for making hallah before figuring it out, and ended up hauling flour around the city and accidentally abandoning it in house #2.

We made the transition to Mehmet’s house on Monday and that basically ended up eating our day. It took a while to get going in the morning, and then we had to take a ferry to the Asian side of the city and a bus to his neighborhood, then wait for him. When we got to the house we did laundry and went to the grocery store, then cooked dinner for the two guys and ourselves. On the stove, naturally, even though I’d shopped/planned for a casserole!

The next day we took a ferry to one of the Prince’s Islands and this was one of the highlights for me. The islands are sort of distant suburbs to the city, and it was full of huge and elaborate, though startlingly run-down, mansions with lots of nice gardens, trees, and open green space. We hiked all over the island and got great views on all sides. We also found some great baklava and ate a lot of it. The funny thing about the day was that we had accidentally left the house almost without cash, so we had to strategize carefully to keep enough for all the transit rides! This involved trading the last of our Euros with a Dutch girl for Lira and begging more than one ferry guard for mercy (once when we accidentally bought the wrong tokens, once when we took the wrong ferry and had to turn around). The day was fun and the island was just so peaceful and serene. There are no cars on the island aside from emergency vehicles and a 3-vehicle funeral procession that we saw next to the (beautiful) cemetery, but all the roads are wide and paved! It seemed like a strange allocation of resources…


The boat ride back to the city took place near sunset...

That night we got back hours later than we had planned. Our host Mehmet had planned this outing to see live Balkan music, and the preview recordings he played for us sounded great! Then the night of the event, he had gone on out early, and his roommate who was supposed to take us got sick so he gave us (really bad, it turns out) directions to the bus stop and then Mehmet took a good half hour to meet us at the Burger King where we were supposed to wait for him. We go to the club at 1 and the band had long since finished. So we danced at the club for a while, but we were tired and it was only a so-so night out. My kind of party night—and this has been true since college and before—starts by 10 and ends by 2, and that’s why I know I was meant to be young in the US and not in Europe!

The following day we had to transition to the other homestay since the guys at the first place both left town. It was raining and we spent most of the afternoon in the modern art museum and then window shopping and reading in cafes in the Taksim area, where there are a lot of Western stores and it looks just like the pedestrian malls of… every other European capital. I was about to say with more kebab shops, but there are a lot of those in Europe too. We got to our new homestay that night, made some conversation, and went to bed early.

Friday we went out and did a few more touristy things, and I was REALLY GLAD that we made it to the Basilica Cistern. I expected an underground water tank, but in fact it was… well, it was an enormous room full of evenly spaced pillars holding up an arched brick ceiling. The floor was covered in clear water (you walk around on platforms) and the columns are all eerily lit with orange lights. I found it spectacularly creepy and ancient feeling! The cistern dates from the 6th century, when it was used to store water for royalty. Given the time of its construction, it really seemed like a marvel! We also went to see Hagia Sophia (cool but not mind-blowing) and the spice market (so many free samples!)



Our last day was dedicated to logistics for our upcoming travel. We planned a Nepal itinerary and sent it to our families, tied up loose ends that would require a computer (aside from this catch up blogging, which I’m doing on the plane and will hopefully get a chance to upload in Kathmandu) and so on. In the afternoon we went out and had a nice lunch, then looked for a place to print some documents including our flight confirmation and the Everest Base Camp chapter from the Lonely Planet Nepal guide we’d purchased online as pdfs.

This episode ended up being hilarious. First we asked around about where to print. A guy in a café gave us directions and then told us to come back afterwards and he’d treat us to a tea. We went on down the road he indicated and asked someone in a photo studio. That guy only spoke basic English, but he came with us and asked in all the shops down the street until we found one that would do it. There, a boy who spoke even LESS English helped us communicate with the other people there who spoke NONE. First they printed it such that the pages were huge (rather than book-style, it was twice the side and each book page had its own sheet). We tried to indicate that we wanted it printed two pages to a side, double sided. Which ended up being hilarious because Carla demonstrated this with one hand in front of her, then the other, then again lower down, in such a way that she looked like she was a mime doing the I’m-stuck-in-an-invisible-box routine!

The guy made a few sample copies and it looked right except that there were 2 copies of each page (side 1: page 59 and page 59. Side 2: page 60 and page 60). We pointed this out using sign language. He tried again and now there were FOUR pages to a side! We sent him back again (all with lots of laughter and good nature all around, thankfully). Then we got it back to 2 to a page, only this time it was out of order (60 then 59, etc) so we pointed THAT out, and finally he got it just right. We all high fived each other. High fives were the common language in that print shop.
Then we went back to that tea shop and sure enough, our Cassanova treated us to not only tea but also two beers each and one Raki (anise liquor, ubiquitous in the regions we have traveled on this trip under different aliases (Arak, Ouzo)). He had similarly recruited three Spanish girls and two Czech girls, so the table contained 7 hot women plus these two Turkish guys, which was funny because it was so blatant. Still, they wouldn’t let us pay for anything, and it was fun to sit around getting tipsy with such an international crew.

The day before at the spice market we’d met a Turkish-Italian guy named Roberto who was cool and seemed genuine. He gave us his number and we’d made plans to have dinner with him that same night, so we ended up telling him to come to this place and he came with his friend who also works in the market. Then it came out that his name was not Roberto and he wasn’t Italian—basically he’d told us all kinds of stories before he thought he’d ever see us again, so we got to make lots of fun of him as his real story came out. I’ve done similar things—when you meet someone in a random place, it can seem fun to give a fake name and a fake story. I’ve never really been burned before, except by one guy I met at a Pomona happy hour and told I was pursuing a career as an actress and really went into great detail before telling him it was all a joke. He wasn’t amused and I’ve never spoken to him again. But I digress.

We left the café and these two guys, “Roberto” as we continued to call him and his friend, took us to a local restaurant where we got one last dose of our fave Turkish food (meat and eggplant in garlicky yogurt with tomato sauce). These guys insisted on paying for our meal! They also got charged WELL under what the menu had said (the perks of speaking Turkish?) and then tried to bargain the price down further before paying.

We got home and got some sleep before leaving for the airport the next day. We managed to spend every last lira cent at the airport before jetting out of Turkey and on to… Dubai. Which I didn’t think would be a stop at all, but it ended up being one of the most interesting ones yet!

Turkey, Part II

We arrived in Istanbul from an overnight bus on which I'd gotten max 5 hours of sleep. In college, this was a standard night's sleep, but by now it is a recipe for crankiness and a nap. We got to the hostel where Eve was staying. Then Carla stayed back to rest, and Eve and I went to the Blue Mosque and then to a neighborhood called Taksim, which has a big wide street and lots of modern shops. It is sort of the equivalent of the Union Square area of San Francisco.

Earlier that day I had seen an English-language newspaper article about the Turkish college entrance exam and how students were protesting over it. So when we arrived at Taksim square and saw an ENORMOUS demonstration, all one of the kids had to tell me was "entrance exam" before I had an idea of what it was about. We ate a kebab sandwich and then followed the crowd, listening to them protest. It was funny, because the rhythm of what they were saying sounded like what you'd hear in any American demonstration, but the words were total babble to us. Blah, BLAH! Blah blah BLAH! BLAH blah blah blah BLAH blah blah!

We followed the march all the way down the street. Unfortunately, this coincided with my camera deciding there was a lens error and refusing to close (it later fixed itself, to my great relief) so I have no pictures.

We went back and got Carla in the afternoon, and then we went to some Turkish baths. THAT was an experience. You pay and get a token, a scrubby mit, and a pair of black undies in a bag. Then you go to a changing room, put your clothes in a locker, and just wear the undies and a cloth wrap to the bath room, which is a big round room with a round marble slab in the middle. There are a bunch of women all around in their underwear, either laying out on the slab, washing others, or washing themselves in side rooms that open out from the main circle. Some have on bras, most do not. Before you let your imagination go in some sort of Playboy-Mansion direction, let me repaint this a little for you by saying that this is an all-ages, all-body types group of women. I think the average age of the employees was probably over 50. Oh, and it probably goes without saying that all of this was women-only (there was a separate facility for men).



I started by laying out on the marble slab, which was heated. It was nice to just relax for a minute, especially because what came next was not particularly relaxing for me! This woman came and tugged on my foot. She was about 5 feet tall and at least 55, and her flesh was.. abundant. And she was bossy! She spoke no English, so she would just kind of pull me around until I assumed the correct position. The first step was to be scrubbed with the mit, which caused rolls of dead skin to come off. It was all very fast and businesslike, but it was still weird to have a stranger's gloved mit swiping me all over. She did my front, then briskly rolled me over and did the back. Then she tossed a bowl of cold water over me. Yikes!

Then came the soaping part, and this was actually even less relaxing than the last part because I was TICKLISH!! She pulled a pillowcase out of sudsy water and filled it with air, then squeezed the air out over me, creating gallons of fine bubbles. It got around my neck and I could barely handle the ticklish feeling of it-- and then I got some in my face and mouth. Meanwhile, she was spreading it over my front and back. When she got to the feet I kicked reflexively, so I think she spent less time on the whole thing than she might have otherwise. Which was fine with me.

Then she led me to a fountain on the wall, scolded me in Turkish (for being ticklish? it was unclear) and left me there. I didn't know what I was supposed to do until Carla came over and told me that was the end of it. After that we went in the jacuzzi and hung out some more in a side chamber, splashing ourselves with warm water and just hanging out until the heat started to seem oppressive and we called it a day. We were allowed to sit and have a drink in the next room before we went to change and leave.

It was definitely a neat experience. I got to add another item to my list of "jobs I'm glad I don't have"-- bath house worker. Those women have to do some pretty significant physical work, and all in a room that is almost a sauna. And as I mentioned before, they are not particularly young!

The next day we each spent the morning working on errands--I went to the post office, Eve went in search of shoes to replace hers that were falling apart, and Carla worked on a job application. We met back up for lunch and then went to see the mosque of Suleiman the Great and then another mosque whose name I didn't catch.



After that we continued walking across the bridge to the north and ended up back in the Taksim neighborhood where we did some window shopping. Eve had a Rick Steve guidebook on Istanbul, and Rick talked about an area with famous Turkish food. First we got this quince dessert with water buffalo clotted cream on top. I don't know how I would rate this. By itself the quince was too sweet (think a lump of soggy fruit rollup but less tangy) and the clotted cream was like cold, gamey butter. Together it was better, and I ate probably a third of it before deciding I'd pushed my luck far enough.

Well, apparently Eve is an adventurous eater, so Carla and I offered to pay for her dinner if we could choose what was in it. We went to a restaurant famous for its sheep brains and tripe soup, and ordered one sheep brain salad. Eve ate it--and liked it! I tried it and it was hard for me to get down... not because of the flavor (there wasn't much) but because the texture was like... extremely dense cream? Dense, creamy tofu? It was just not my bag.

Then we figured, why not get her a tripe soup too? Despite growing up in El Paso, I'd managed to never try menudo. Eve tasted the soup and said it was okay, so I had a taste. People had told me of tripe that it was "chewy" but I wasn't really ready for the KIND of chewy. It was like cutting the fatty part off a piece of chicken, then eating that. Or like skin. I don't know. It was awful! I swallowed it but my dinner was over after that. Plus, the broth was SO... barnyardy. It tasted the way a goat shed smells. Eve ate about half of it. What a champion!



Then yesterday was a kind of catch-up day-- we went for a run/stretch/pushups session, took a ferry to Asia, and cooked dinner, then called it an early night. Carla started a resolution to go to bed at 11 and wake up at 7, and of course my body has adapted all too well to this scheme-- such that nightlife has started to seem out of the question. Nonetheless, today our plan is to go to Princes Island and then go see live Balkan Music tonight. I may have to take a nap!

Turkey Part I

I wrote this two days ago but wasn't able to connect to the blog site from the hostel where we were..

We got to Istanbul this morning on an overnight bus from Cappodocia. Never say never… but if I never go on another overnight bus, I will not feel like my life was incomplete.

Cappadocia was pretty unbelievable! After spending 3 days on Kos—of which two were rainy and therefore spent mostly indoors, catching up on sleep and stuff that needed to get done (e.g. federal taxes) and the third was gorgeous and we spent it driving around the island and frolicking on turquoise beaches—we took a ferry to Bodrum, Turkey. Since leaving Bodrum, I’ve read about it in the guidebooks and apparently it’s an overrated tourist trap. Good thing I didn’t read that in advance, cause we loved it there! It had a big old harbor full of ridiculously tricked-out yachts, beaches, and hundreds of restaurants and cafes. It was cheap to stay there, and we had some incredible food. There’s also a giant medieval fortress there that houses the world’s biggest underwater archeology museum. (My assessment: castle is cool, museum element is sort of lame).

The other thing that stood out about the place is that just about all the downtown roads are completely torn up and under construction, which means that it’s kind of hard to walk around. You have to walk through torn up chunks of concrete and dodge traffic when the sidewalk ends on your side.

Now a word about language. We had finally gotten a few Greek words down, and then all of a sudden it was welcome to Turkey, where it takes six syllables just to say thank you! Phonetically it’s like this: teshekur ederem (quite a mouthful compared to “todah” (Hebrew), “shukran” (Arabic), or “efarishto” (Greek)). Over dinner one night with a Turkish traveler, we were discussing whether there was any way to shorten this, since it doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue as you’re peacing out of a souvenir shop or off a bus. How about just teshekur? Nope, doesn’t mean the same thing, apparently. He did say, however, that we could shorten it to “teshekur lehr” (equivalent of “thanks” instead of “thank you”). Excellent. So we’d been trying out the shortened version, still honing the pronunciation, when one day, our friend Eve thanked someone quickly and it sort of turned into one word: teshekurlehr! Pronunciation-wise, it was more like this: “teshickular!”…getting the idea? Now we have a good time cracking each other up by thanking people with a reference to a certain male gonadal element.

Okay so back to Turkey… after a night and day in Bodrum, we took an overnight bus to Ankara and basically got right on another bus to Cappodocia where Eve was waiting for us. We last saw her in Eilat after that epic clubbing night and before we almost missed the bus to Tel Aviv. We had a great time catching up in Cappadocia! We stayed in the same hostel and she was able to show us the good hikes since she’d already been there for a few days.



We hiked through a lot of gorgeous scenery—the first two days were beautiful! The third day Carla and I went on a tour of an underground city, the world’s 3rd biggest canyon, and a monastery carved into a spiky mountaintop. It was all pretty spectacular. I particularly liked the underground city. The deal was that early Christians were apparently being hunted by all kinds of other people, and they dug this city so that they could stay alive and worship as they chose for centuries. During peace time they lived underground but farmed above. During times of emergencies, though, they retreated into their caves and lived off food stores and water from subterranean wells.

These people were really resourceful! Their chambers were a maze of stairs, tunnels, and rooms—and booby traps for whoever tried to follow them! They had big stone discs waiting by thin holes along passageways so that they could roll the stones through and block the tunnel in case of attack. They also had holes in the floor that intruders wouldn’t know about, so they could escape through them and cover them up—or leave them and wait for their enemies to fall through in the dark. Exploring the city, I felt a little like a character in the Goonies.



There was one tense moment: Carla was taking a picture and I was waiting for her, when we realized our group had gone down a stairway/tunnel. We started down, and after a while a few people came up the same tunnel. We flattened ourselves against the side to let them pass… and then they were followed by more people, and more people! We were pressed against the wall with people streaming past us without any intention of letting us move. It was pretty funny, though I think Carla was feeling rather oppressed. Finally we broke away from the wall and forced our way past the people coming up. Turns out we were like 6 steps from the bottom and our whole group was waiting.

The last thing we saw on the tour was a carved-out mountaintop monastery. It was really gorgeous and so impressive that they had a) carved out these fantastic chapels and chambers and b) managed to conduct their lives up there for generations.





There was a view from the monastery that apparently inspired the Ewok homeland's depiction in Star Wars. It made me realize that, yes, this area looks like a place that aliens would live on some other planet-- it's THAT different from anyplace else on earth!

Written Greek looks to me like a giant math equation. This may sound stupid, but I never really put together that the Greek letters used in engineering are the VERY SAME Greek letters used in...Greek. I can't do it quickly, but I can actually read Greek based on my experience with math. Of course I can't tell what the words mean, so it only gets me so far.

We spent a few days in Athens, then went on a ferry to the island of Santorini. In heading to the Greek isles, all I was really going for was to relive that scene from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where Lena goes to that island and they have to ride donkeys up stairs along sharp cliffs, with cute white houses all drenched in sunshine. Well, minus the sunshine, Santorini was it! I still need to look up where they actually filmed the movie (and go there in July or something). But still, Santorini was lovely and we spent two days zipping around on an ATV. It was a wonderful time and the sun was out long enough to make some beach time essential.

After two days on Santorini, we took an overnight ferry to Kos. As we were waiting at the ferry terminal, it started hail-storming! And so far in Kos, it has been raining pretty much the whole time. Turns out this is off-season for a reason. Still, one of my favorite parts of Santorini was the fresh smell of all the grass and wildflowers, plus apparently all of the area is absolutely swarming with tourists in the high season (and prices are much higher).

We're off to Turkey tomorrow and are going to try to meet back up with Eve in the first few days. We've also booked our flight to Nepal for April 17. It includes an overnight stop in Dubai, so looks like we may have the added bonus of being able to see Dubai's crazy architecture all lit up...