Coming out of the (over-cluttered, environmentally unfriendly) closet

In honor of Chris' birthday (yesterday, April 19th...I'm a bit late I know, but feel free to send him lots of birthday wishes!) I thought I'd post this as a bit of a birthday present for him.

After about 2 years of harping on about the environment, my wasteful ways, etc...I think Chris has finally done it. He's turned me into a(n) ... (budding) Environmentalist! Happy Birthday, Chris!

In honor of that and because Earth Day is coming up soon (Sunday, April 22nd - I'm a bit early for that, but we'll be away on the actual day) I thought I'd post a little Public Service Announcement on how YOU TOO can start on your way to becoming an Environmentalist (and know that I probably sound extremely hypocritical as I'm just beginning to turn over this leaf myself...)

I read this article in Real Simple* the other day (Thank you to Ed and Theresa for helping me get my magazine fix over here!) *and yes, I know...magazines = paper waste = bad for environment. Like I said...a BUDDING environmentalist - i'm not all the way there yet!

I saw the website Greener Penny this morning on Daily Candy (I know, my mentioning Greener Penny is doubly hypocritical, as the site is about both the environment AND cleaning!)

Also in Daily Candy, these ideas for reducing your carbon footprint.

Oh, and one more thing...This month's Vanity Fair (thanks mom and dad for THIS magazine hookup!) is their green issue and is Carbon Neutral, which made me feel better about it!*

*See above asterisk

OK, the PSA is over, but if you have a chance, take a look at these sites. The more Chris tells me about how we're really screwing up the poor planet for ourselves down the road, the scarier it becomes (and yes, I know you've probably been beaten over the head with this in the media in the States now and I'm wayyy behind the times) I just wanted to throw my two cents in. If I can change (or at least start to), anyone can!

Unrelated and Fabulous!
I love and miss my former coworkers at Armstrong Shaw for many reasons, but the latest being that I received a big box from them (more specifically Terry, Lisa, Joanne and Robin) the other day, containing an adorable felt Easter basket, more candy than I'm going to be able to eat for the rest of this year (and still remain on my Bridesmaid Dress Diet) and a Colony Grill (yum!) T-Shirt. I took a picture of all of this beautiful candy - including Tootsie Rolls, Hershey's Hugs and Caramel Kisses, Mike and Ike's, the ever-controversial Peeps and numerous other delightful surprises - but am having some technical difficulties uploading. I'll try again when we get back from Cyprus next week. It was the best package I've gotten in a long time, and my neighbors, students and I are all enjoying and partaking in it! And I'm pretty sure that candy is always good for the environment :) Thanks guys!!!

Kalymnos, Greece: Land of over-enthusiastic hotel owners, free coffee-givers and lots and lots of rocks...

Due to my lame internet connection, over the past 3 days, I have successfully uploaded 43 of my 113 Greece photos online. Hopefully the rest will be up soon, and they'll be located here.

In the meantime, you can see even better pictures, taken by our friend Ed, here ...

We had a great time with all of our visitors over the past two weeks, and a super time in Greece, where the people were above and beyond the nicest I have met anywhere.

Some examples are...
George, the most enthusiastic hotel proprieter I have ever met. He ran up and down the stairs of his hotel, Melina's Apartments to show us each and every available room so we could decide which we wanted.

Panos, the above mentioned free coffee giver. Our first morning on the island, we stopped at his place so my caffeine addicted self could get a fix. He has a restaurant, which we later learned was the 'go to' restaurant for all the climbers on the island, which also had the description "coffee bar" painted on the outside wall. I went in and asked for a coffee to go. After an "Of course, dear, why not?" He ran across the street to the minimart and bought some styrofoam cups to take the coffee on the road. While waiting for the coffee, we decided to take a taxi to our climbing destination (or "Crag" as I learned it is called) of the day so we had coffee at Panos' place while we waited for the taxi he called. 2 minutes into the coffee drinking, a large bottle of water showed up on the table, along with a huge plate of delicious homemade cookies. We, of course, were thrilled, and when our taxi arrived, asked for the bill. "No charge!" Panos replied, "It doesn't cost me anything to make coffee!" We were shocked, and ended up going to his place for breakfast (always free, and the last day had delicious pound cake instead of cookes) and dinner (always included a few free beers and dessert!)

Everyone we met was so much fun and so nice, it was like a magical land of the super friendly!

I'll add more detail in the next day or so, but now I've got to get back into the swing of work and prepare some lessons!!

I LOVE working part time!!

After we got back from our January break, I decided to start working part time. This decision was based on several reasons, one being that I need to study for my GRE's (which has been a truly humbling process) and another was that I was feeling way too burnt out in relation to the small "salary" I was receiving at the end of each month. It has been great. I am still working 6 days a week, either giving private English lessons or working at my regular job, but just a couple of hours each day, for the most part. It's been great. I have a whole day I can use before I go off to work. Sometimes, like today, my private lesson students will cancel, and I feel like someone gave me 4 extra hours for free! Granted, I lose out on a good bit of money, but these days, time trumps cash. Anyway, these days are usually spent catching up on emails, studying for the GRE's (lately math, which leaves me feeling slightly depressed), doing some yoga (which makes me feel slightly better) and reading(which I also count as studying, because I highlight, look up and create a spreadsheet of words 'I will soon know' - trying to put a positive spin on my limited vocabulary. I have also used the time to cook and bake. Today, after a 3 month hiatus (beginning on Christmas day when I broke our blender) I decided to re-enter the hummus making world (no, it's not common to find it in stores here, so if we want it, homemade is the best bet.)
It's gorgeous out today, and it's a Monday, which means Market Day in our neighborhood, so to prepare for my cooking session, I went out and did one of my favorite things, which I never had a chance to do while I was working all the time....The European-style shopping trip: First stop: Ekonomik Market, a small grocery store/mainly produce market, where I bought broccoli and yogurt. I plan to use the broccoli tonight in my new favorite dish to cook- Lemon/white wine/olive oil marinated artichoke hearts and broccoli over penne (look mom, I'm eating veggies!!) We'll buy the artichoke hearts fresh at the 'real' market, but I like to go with Chris because conversing with the (super friendly but English-free) market guys on my own about how much everything costs (and the fact that they always try to give me fruit makes me a little nervous. Next stop, the Sarkuterie, another little shop (the name of this type of store is based on the other word that sounds like it "Charcuterie" - the Turks have co-opted alot of words like this, like Taksi, Kuafor, etc...) that sells meats and cheeses (nothing international though. White Cheese or Yellow Cheese are the choices) and where I bought my can of chickpeas. Next stop, the Zeytin (olive) store, because we're nearly out of olive oil. These shops are always tiny and sell different kinds of olives and olive oil (sometimes house-made) and sometimes olive oil soaps, etc. I bought a small Poland-Spring type bottle filled with olive oil for 5ytl, about 3USD. From here I spotted the friendly gypsy lady on the corner, from whom we usually buy flowers. I bought a gorgeous bouquet of all white flowers (I'd post a picture but for some reason I don't see my camera around here...) She wanted15ytl, about 10USD but I talked her down to 10YTKL (approx. 7). I'm not sure if that's still a bit high, but I figure she probably needs the money more than I do, and on a nice day like today, flowers are a must! After visiting the gypsy flower seller, I went to Bag (pronounced bahhhh) my FAVORITE bakery and bought a delicious bread, sort of corn-bread-like, but not so heavy or sweet, and a bunch of cookies. I love shopping in this neighborhood, because the proprieters are all soooo nice to the teachers. We are the only foreigners who live in this neighborhood and I think they think we're amusing and/or they feel sorry for us. I asked for 10 cookies today, and the man weighed and priced them and then discreetly put about 3 or 4 more in the bag. After Bag, I decided that I really needed nail polish remover. So I stopped into the grocery store and picked up a bottle of that for 85 kurush, about 50 or 60 cents. For some reason, the combination of the cool enough for a fleece yet warm enough for sandals day, the friendliness of everyone around me and knowing that we'll only be here for a little while longer, has put me in a really good/slightly nostalgic for something I'm currently experiencing mood...Then I came home and tried to cook (by cook I mean make some hummus). I'll digress for a moment and share the fact that Chris has taken to calling me the Swedish Chef, a fair statement due to the fact that I can just LOOK into a kitchen and food and cooking utensils will be everywhere. Again, I wish I could find my camera because in the middle of making my hummus, I looked around - a blade from the blender, covered in hummus, was on the floor, tahini was spilled all over the counter, as was some exploding hummus from the blender. I mean, I don't know how it happens. It's sad, really, but I'm just not sure how to help myself! Regardless of my messy kitchen behavior, I think that my time cooking has started to pay off - My peanut butter M&M cookies are my new addiction (I had to stop making them, actually, because I need to be in a bathing suit in two weeks, and it wasn't really working out to have them in the house) and Chris actually eats just about everything I cook! Which is generally more complicated than my "cheese and crackers" or "bowls of cereal" or even "containers of ice cream" of the past! I highly recommend that everyone works only some of time...It's amazing what you can accomplish!

And this reminds me...

We're going to need a new name for our blog, now that we won't be in Turkey any more!

Any suggestions???

After we left Paris, we had a relatively uneventful flight to Boston (barring the fact that the Charles de Gaulle airport is an absolute nightmare - something that was confirmed both leaving the country and travelling back through on the way to Istanbul) and were so delighted to be back in the US, with people who spoke English to us, and Dunkin Donuts on nearly every street corner! I was delighted to see a television (HD with DVR no less - Thanks Will!) and to catch up on my favorite shows! The first night we were there, we were pretty jetlagged and went to dinner (at a pub - where the waitstaff talks to you in English! and there are multiple, good beers on the menu!) with Will, our gracious host for the week, and his fabulous girlfriend Christine.
Over the next couple of days, I was lucky enough to spend time with many of my favorite people:

Freshman year college roomies reunited (and with babies - cutest babies ever by the way, not that I'm biased - wow!) It was such a special treat to be all together again!






Leigh and Gretchen, at an all day magarita/mexican food/shopping drinks party. I missed the mexican food and the margaritas nearly as much as I missed these two fabulous ladies!







My cute family, who I was hoping to surprise, but had to settle for a run of the mill "Come to Boston, please, I'm here!" reveal.









Chris' parents, brothers and their girlfriends:









and Chris' friends of whom I have no pictures...

It was a really fun trip. It made us realize just how much we missed home and made us think that we really were ready to go back, despite Chris spending so much time at job interviews during the two weeks, until...The morning after our big get together with our friends, Chris decided he should really just go on one last interview. Would be rude to cancel, and all that...And he ended up really liking the school, the director, the principal, the location and the job. SO...After a couple of hours of speedy internet research and lots of talking, we decided that next year we are....Singapore bound! After more internet and book research, and alot of talking to friends who know, we are even more excited for this next phase. I'm excited because Singapore has: Chinese, Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Japanese food all over the place, is close to Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, etc. etc. and is equatorial, which means warm weather year round. I'm also excited because, while Chris beat me, by a long shot, in the visitor department this year, Singapore is close to so many amazing travel destinations that I think I'll be able to put up a good fight for the title next year...My calendar is open and waiting!

Writing about our France trip has turned into a long project for me...This will be my last post about it. We drove to the Loire Valley and stayed at a lovely B&B, La Maison Blanche, in the town of Amboise. Amboise is on the Loire river and is, as are all of the towns around, really quaint and smelling of fresh bread everywhere. After being deprived of great cheese here in Turkey, it was wonderful to be able to walk into any grocery store, or even quickie mart and find some artisanal French cheese, wrapped in paper with an AOC label. The second night we were Loire (the only place we stayed for 2 nights) we just got a bunch of bread, cheese and wine and stayed in for dinner. We actually discovered possibly the best goat cheese we'd ever had, in some small grocery store, but of course we don't remember the name, nor is it likely that we could ever find it outside of the Loire. The first night we were in Amboise, we went to dinner at a place our lovely B&B proprieter recommended. It was a perfect recommendation called Les Ramparts. The website is in French, but you'll get the idea. It was tiny, maybe 10 or 12 tables, and they had a great multi-course menu, along with local and fabulous table wine, that cost maybe $50 or $60 total. Unfortunately, that night I was feeling ill (I think my body was confused by being back into contact with such good cheese!) and I couldn't finish my meal or (shock of all shocks) my cheese plate. The waitress (owner?) was so concerned that I didn't like the food. It was all very sweet. Anyway, back to our B&B...It is owned by a lovely woman named Annick, who is so chatty and friendly. We had breakfast in a lovely room with windows on a whole wall, overlooking her wooded property. When the WiFi that we were supposed to have in our room turned out to not work, she gladly opened up that room to us, at any time, so we could organize the tickets we needed to buy for the rest of our trip. Also, she has 2 horses and 2 adorable dogs, Snoopy the Golden Retriever and Taylor (like Elizabeth) the deaf Great Dane. They were the best part of our stay! In and around Amboise, we did some wine tasting, visited Chateau de Chenonceau that was really beautiful, situated over a river. The most impressive part of the chateau was the kitchen, or kitchens, i guess. Really understated, gorgeous light coming in. Definitely a kind of kitchen you'd want for yourself! The rest of it was quite nice too, but that was the most impressive part to me. We also visited Clos du Luce, where Leonardo DaVinci lived his last years and where he died. In the basement of the chateau are models of many of his inventions and then there is a big park, with life size models. You can actually test them out, it was really cool! After the Loire, we visited Versailles, which of course is amazing, but almost tooooo big to walk through and stay interested the whole time. The gardens are great too, but it was kind of a rainy day. We got the idea of it though and then got back in the car, drove to Paris, where I unfortunately directed Chris to drive right through the center of the city, which he claimed was far worse that driving in NYC and even Istanbul, the city in which I cringe, with eyes closed, every time I'm in a moving vehicle. From that awful Arc du Triomphe experience to finally arriving at Gare du Nord, to drop off the car and catch the Eurostar, took us on a long journey through the city. We got to go up to the Montmarte area, which we weren't able to really tour once we got back to Paris, so that was a positive, and we got to see "everyday life" in Paris...or something like that, to make me feel better about my poor navigation. Anyway, we got to our train just in time to go to London to see Tamar and Pete and for Chris to go to some interviews for next year. While poor Chris had to dress nicely and sit in interviews all day, I was lucky enough to spend time with Tamar, and do some all-important shopping and the most important...wedding dress shopping for her! It was a really special weekend. After a whirlwind London trip, we got back on the Eurostar (at 5am, I believe) and headed back to Paris for a few days. We stayed in the Latin Quarter, in an apartment for which we had high hopes but was really just so-so. The best parts about it were, a) we were two minutes walking distance from Notre Dame Cathedral and a relatively short walk or Metro ride from everything else we wanted to see and b) we were in close proximity to one of our new favorite restaurants, Les Papilles (the photo in this article is in that restaurant). It is in a small gourmet shop and there's not menu, just a set meal for the night. That night we had a creamy carrot soup, which I never would've tried before, but it was amazing. Then a curried chicken dish over penne, a cheese course (certainly) and an unbelievably good orange creme brulee! The best part is that the store stocks some food but is mainly a wine shop and when you get there, you can stroll and find a wine that looks good to you (or rely on the suggestion of one of the owners, because you have no idea) and they tack on a 6 euro corking fee, to the shelf price of the wine. He selected a reasonably priced Bordeaux that was so delicious we were practically holding the bottle over our mouths to get the last dregs when we were finished. I'm going to try to remember the name of the wine and I'll post it back here if i can...The rest of Paris was just doing the regular touristy stuff - Louvre, Eiffel Tower, some shopping, etc etc. It was lovely but I think both of us were excited to get to the last part of our trip, Boston, to see friends and family, and for Chris to again sit in interviews all weekend...Boston leg of the trip to come...

So in the last post, I left off with us heading to Brittany. Due to my keen detective skills, I was able to re-find the website of the place we stayed in Cancale, La Metairie du Vauhariot. As with all of our B&B's, we found the proprieter charming and the surroundings fantastic. This is Chris standing in the impressive stairwell, and this is where we had breakfast. Cancale was a really cool town, although like most places we visited, nearly empty in January. The food was amazing and (again, I'm guessing this is due to the off season) we had a 4 course meal, including 10 oysters apiece, wine and of course a cheese plate (!) for about $30 or $40! I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, but it's a cute little place on a corner and it looks like this inside. The waiter/owner (I think he was the owner) loved Americans (imagine that!) and loved Vegas! He was telling us about his yearly Vegas/LA trip and how this year he was going to take his head chef. It was really sweet and the food was fabulous! Many of the restaurants we found in France served this great dish of steamed mussels, but in a creamy, rather than clear broth. The one we had here was the best mussel dish I've ever tasted, although I'm sure the cream made it entirely too unhealthy.
After we left Cancale, stopped by the medieval walled city of St. Malo, for a little visit before driving directly South through Brittany (Cancale is just to the East of St. Malo - at the very tip of the peninsula) to Vannes. St. Malo is really amazing - the whole city is really enclosed in walls. It was fun to just walk around in the narrow, winding streets and to walk on top of the wall around the city. I can't find my photos of it just now, but the walls go along a beach area and at one point, there is a pool ON THE BEACH. With a diving board! We had great, cheap paninis here before our drive South, proving apparently that if you're French, anything you cook will be good.
It took us a few hours to get to Vannes, where we stayed in a sort of boring, but convenient and parking lot equipped, Comfort Inn kind of place. The town was nice; a University town, again with the cobblestone and the cozy little streets - but we thought that if we had to do it over again (and in the same time span - 1 night in each place) we might skip it, as it wasn't too different from the other places we'd visited and it was a good drive to get there. The serendipitous thing about Vannes is that there was a new/used CD store in the town and in it Chris found a years old cd by a little known (I don't actually remember who she is) (not French) artist that he and his friend Will (who we would be staying with in Boston later during this trip) used to listen to during their cross country adventure about 5 or so years ago...So that part was really fun :)
After Vannes, and after driving along the coast that looked surprisingly like the coast of Maine, we left Brittany and headed into one of the great lands of wine...The Loire Valley. More to come...

Once again, I've been terrible about updating, but we recently (does two weeks ago qualify as recently?) returned from a great 2 week trip, including Northwest France, London, Paris and Boston. It was really fun and an absolute whirlwind of food, drink, friends and, for Chris, job hunting, but I'll get to that part later. Our trip began in a most non-Bulgarian way. Our flight actually DEPARTED EARLY from Istanbul! I really couldn't believe it. I think our bags were the 3rd or 4th on the conveyor belt once we landed in France, and we picked up the rental car and got out of the city with only one wrong turn! No multi-hour waiting and doing nothing, no people trying to smuggle cigarettes into France. It almost felt wrong. But in a really good way. We stayed in a standard roadside hotel the first night and then left that morning for our first destination - Normandy and the DDay Beaches. Going to these sites was something Chris was really interested in, and I just kind of went along for the ride. But I ended up being surprised about how powerful and moving it really was to see where these battles took place (we went to Omaha beach) and the accompanying cemetery.
After we did our historical siteseeing, we stayed for our first of several nights in fabulous B&B's. (note: We stayed at a bunch of great places and a couple of mediocre places. I had wanted to give all of the information about them but, sadly, a few days after we returned, my entire Yahoo Mail account was somehow emptied of all it's information. No more email addresses, contact information or emails. They have all been deleted. Of course Yahoo said there was nothing they can do. So there you have it. All of my reservation information is gone. I've been trying to retrace my steps as far as where I found these places online, but to no avail. If I find information on the places that aren't at the top of my head, I'll post them later. In the meantime, I hate Yahoo.)
Anyway, we stayed at this great B&B the first night. Part of the house dated from the 1700's and the hosts were a lovely husband and wife. The husband didn't speak much English, but managed to point us in the direction of (and make reservations for) a fabulous small restaurant called Chez Francois. It was tiny, with a big fireplace where they cooked all of their meat, and as we would come to expect, had a great wine list, all for about under 20 euros and fabulous!

New update: France Photos are now HERE...

On our second day, we went to Mont St. Michel which is one of the neatest things I've ever seen. It's this huge abbey/island that you can see from really far away and from the parking lot.
The best thing about our trip was that, while it was pretty cold, visiting France in January, we were nearly the ONLY tourists around! Literally, at Mont St. Michel, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in France and is apparently mobbed with tour buses for most of the year, there was one other couple who happened to be in the same area of the Abbey with us through most of our visit. Right as we were leaving, we saw a tour group come in, but luckily we were on our way out.

Mont St. Michel sits at the corner of Normandy and Brittany, so we headed into Brittany after we left the island. Our first stop was Cancale, which is known for it's oysters, where we stayed in another great B&B.

This is my first installment of the trip, and I'll update more, and hopefully make our photo album really fancy, later...

I forgot to mention...We're going to France next week: Brittany, Normandy, the Loire and Paris. My job is to plan Loire and Paris, and Chris will do the others. If anyone has any great ideas for these places - restaurants, sites we must see, a great place to stay in the Loire (we're set on that front for Paris), SHOPS I MUST VISIT, please leave me a comment here and let me know! THANKS!!

New Years Part II:

I am so lame, I know. I try to keep up with my posts on here but ridiculous things like "work" and the like are always getting in the way. Anyway, before I end up waiting until NEXT new years, I thought I should post about the rest of our trip to Bulgaria, which was made even better (I think) by the trials of getting there.
Since the snow was minimal (although it didn't seem too bad to me, on the bunny hill, on my first day skiing in at least 5 years, Chris and Nam weren't too fond of skiing over rocks and grass on their fancy skis and snowboards) we spent alot of time at the nearby hotel's spa, sitting in the sauna and getting massages. There are certainly worse ways to spend a vacation. After we finally settled into our hotel and spent a little time on the first day at said spa, we hit my new favorite restaurant, Pitsina Kruchma. DuWane and Chris knew of this place from last year's visit, and the owner of the restaurant recognized them too. The hospitality at this restaurant and in much of Bansko (much unlike the hospitality of the Bulgarian customs agents) is Turkish-like in how at-home they make you feel. When we walked in, the place was nearly empty, but the "best table" was in front of the fireplace. It had a 'reserved' sign on it, but the owners' daughter came over and told us, "My mother wants me to tell you that you guys should sit here by the fireplace, but that our friends from Sofia are coming in a few hours. I'm telling you this not because we want you to move, but because they will join you. They're all very nice." And sure enough, after an AMAZING meal - they have these potato-cake things with ham and cheese and all crispy on the outside, and surprisingly good domestic wine, not to mention HUGE portions (after Nam finished this dish, he started in on the half of my garlic and cheese stuffed fish that I couldn't eat!)

From New Years 200...

- the friends from Sofia arrived. We had already had a couple bottles of wine and, as for how the night progressed, I think the photos can tell it better than I can:

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

(that's the owner I'm dancing with...)
You get the idea, it was a perfect night and the perfect antidote to our hellish travels!

The next day was our one day of skiing, and it was also New Year's Eve! While on the slopes, Chris and Nam met an American couple, Lori and Dave, who are doing the International teaching thing, like we are, in Cyprus. They said they approached Chris because he was the only person on the mountain Telemarking, and I'm so glad they did! We met up with them that night - I felt terrible that we said we'd meet them before midnight, but due to the dinner we ended up having (see below), we finally got to the bar at about 1:30...

For dinner that night, we wanted to go to a traditional Bulgarian Mehana, much like the night before, but they are really working over the tourism thing, and while our first night's meal cost us about $12 apiece, all of the restaurants wanted at least 50 euros, and sometimes more, per person for a meal. So we found a pizza place that was completely empty and not doing the prix fixe thing, and went in. Another serendipitous find, as the food, both my pizza (wood fired) and the guys' food (all Bulgarian stuff) were wonderful! The waiter

From New Years 200...

was a really nice guy and told us that he'd give us a free bottle of champagne if we stayed through midnight. We were having such a great time that we decided to do that, and were again, were so glad we did, as I've never experienced a New Years quite like it. The owners' of the restaurant and their family were all dining next to us, cheers-ing us (Nazdrave in Bulgarian) and dancing around, lighting sparklers. Then we went outside to watch the fireworks displays, which were great, but not as good as the show of one of the owners or perhaps a family member, who was shooting off a gun to ring in the new year

From New Years 200...

After that, we took a bunch of pictures:

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

and watched DuWane get beaten by a stick (I guess it's Bulgarian tradition that kids make 'wands' from sticks and decorate them and go around whacking people with them for good luck)

From New Years 200...

Then we left to meet our new friends who, thankfully, waited around for us!
We had a great night that night, and the next day just walked around Bansko (I won't fully detail the disaster Chris and I had trying to find lunch. It was like the border crossing part II. Suffice it to say, it took four hours and we ended up with crepes. Great crepes, but crepes.)
The next day, the four of us and our new friends set off in search of some thermal springs that Lori had heard about. It turned out that it's a pool in a hotel that has the mineral water, and not some natural, gorgeous spring, but we grabbed a few beers and hung out in the warm water for hours. Here are some pics:

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

We're all very coordinated...
Oh, I forgot to mention the weird parade we saw while waiting for our 4 hour crepes...Men walking around covered in animal skins pounding drums...Sounds strange. and it was. But it was very cool looking too.

From New Years 200...

From New Years 200...

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and my favorite...

From New Years 200...

The next day or so progressed about the same way, kind of lazy, good food, good wine, it was nice. When we left to head back to work, we took one bus to another bus to the border and it took only about 7 or 8 hours to get there. When we got off the bus and got to the car, Chris sort of walked ahead of us to make sure it was there. I see him throw down his bag and curse loudly. I walk around to see what the problem is - there's a boot on his car. I was afraid we'd just have to drive back with it, a la when Homer Simpson got booted in NYC...thump...thump...But Chris, as determined as I've ever seen him, walks over to the tire, kind of shimmies the boot, and it pops right off. Fine Turkish construction if I've ever seen it...If there's anything I regret, it's not taking that boot with us. But I did take a photo for posterity:

From New Years 200...

Oh yes, and one other thing. I'm not sure if it was mentioned in Chris' summer details about Bulgaria, but apparently Bulgarian women are the most beautiful women on the planet. This is the first thing his friends told me about when I asked about their roadtrip this summer. And I'm not kidding. Anyway, the Bulgarians must take some pride in this. It's been awhile since I've been home, but I seem to remember that the "women" signs for bathrooms in the US are nowhere near as "developed"

From New Years 200...

Compare:
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International Lampoon's Bulgarian Vacation

Note: Everything I write here is completely true. There is no exaggeration. This is travelling at its extreme. Not for the faint of heart...

Friday 12/29/06 1:15 pm: Chris, our friends Nam and DuWane and I plan to leave the apartment in Chris' car for Bansko, Bulgaria for a long weekend/New Years/welcome Bulgaria to the EU trip

2pm: We leave

2:25 pm: We're on the bridge between Asia and Europe in Istanbul and Chris turns to me and says "I'm having a minor paperwork freak out. I think I need temporary international insurance*" *in addition to regular Turkish insurance. Why, i have no idea. We get off the highway several kilometers from his car paperwork company and sit in traffic for a little while. Finally, we get close and can see the building from the road. Chris says "I am going to go the back way to avoid traffic*" *There is generally tons of traffic in this area and we have had a disastrous experience in the past, so this made sense. About 20 meters onto the "back way" (another small highway) we see construction and realize there is actually no exit to take us where we want to go. We end up turning onto yet another highway and as we do, I see multiple cars backing up off the road. I took this to be a bad sign, but this does tend to happen here quite a bit, so we kept going. Unfortunately this little detour forced us to sit in stopped traffic for about 2 hours.

4:40 pm: We arrive back to the place where we changed to go to the "back way". We decide to do a chinese fire drill so DuWane can drive the car while chris runs to the company, which likely closes at 5.

5:10: In about 20 minutes and over 100$ later, Chris emerges from the building with the "international insurance"

7:30: No more unplanned stops, we're about a mile from the border where get a quick cafeteria-style dinner and visit one of the many horrifying, terrifying bathrooms that plagued us for the trip.

8:15 pm: We're through the first part of the border. Now all we need to do is have Chris stand in line with his car paperwork, including the fancy new insurance for awhile, get a stamp and go through. Keep in mind it is at least freezing, if not below while all of this happens. All of the cars at the border are "lined up" (in a haphazared, rules-free style parking lot) while Chris waits and DuWane and I buy booze at duty-free and start drinking it to stay warm.

8:45 pm: Chris comes back to the car. "There's something wrong with my paperwork. I need to go over there and talk to someone." (points back toward our original border check.) DuWayne and I sip a little more warming liquer.

9:30 pm: Chris walkes back to the car, gets into the back seat, and at this unusual placement, before he even spoke the words "We're f*$ked" I knew something was wrong. Apparently there was a misprint. Not on the new insurance, which I'm not sure they even looked at, but on his original car registration, which I'm sure his paperwork company looked at multiple times without noticing. The end result is, after 7 1/2 hours that we'd never get back, we can't take the car across the border. Chris says the border guards say we could try to hop on a bus going our direction and, nice Turks that they are, tell him of a hotel nearby where he can leave the car. We aren't sure this is going to work but for the sake of the apartment that we've already paid for a week's lodging (even though we have to be back at work in 5 days) we decide to give it a shot.

9:45 pm: Chris leaves us with all our luggage on the side of the border, near the 3 tiny duty free shops and goes to park his car. We are standing with our luggage, freezing (eventually I couldn't feel my fingers and toes) and sneaking into the same 3 duty free shops over and over again with tour bus groups, pretending to be interested in the carts of cigarettes with huge warning labels stating "smokers die younger" and "smoking reduces sperm count" for a few seconds of heat.

11 pm: This is the first time the phrase "Where's Chris" was used on the trip. As far as we knew, he just went to park the car close by so I was starting to get nervous. I called his cell phone, he answered, in a hushed tone and enlightened me to the fact that he was in the office of the head border guard who was attempting to extort first $4,000 from him which was reduced, due to the efforts of the "good cop" in the room to a mere $1,000. After multiple attempts at telling them that he is just a poor "ogretmen" (silent 'g' and it means teacher) they eventually believe him and send him on his way. Meanwhile, I made several lame attempts at finding us a host bus. I was quite proud of my Turkish, which while didn't amount to a ride for us, showed me that I knew how to say "Plovdiv (town we needed to get to in Bulgaria)? Ummm...4 people. OK, UM. Hmmm. Big car problem. I, and 4 friends. We go Plovdiv. But car problem. We go, but no car." then I pointed at him and the bus. And he actually knew what I was saying. But it doesn't help us at all. Finally, Chris gets back, and feeling guilty (though it was not his fault his paperwork had problems) he is determined to get us on a bus.



11:30 pm - 12:30 am: Chris finds us a bus. It is a bunch of Turks going into a part of Bulgaria I didn't know and their tour guide was more than happy to take a bunch of sad "Yabanci"(s) (prounounced Yabahnja's, means foreigners) on as a charity case. Apparently going through a border on a bus is even more of an undertaking than in a car. And don't get me wrong here, I was greatful to these people for bringing us across the border. At an American border, crossing into Canada let's say, if a group of foreign people who don't speak your language (very broken requests for bus access aside) asked for your help in crossing the border, people would likely think you were a terrorist, or a drug mule (oh yes, that's in the story too...we'll get to it later. But I digress...Each person has to get off the bus (please keep in mind the weather I mentioned before. Oh yes, and I wore my thin socks so as to keep my wool ones clean for skiing) and stand at the guard gate so he could flip through each passport. We all have to stand there until the whole bus (these are big Coach-type buses) has had their passports checked. Then we get back on the bus and drive about 3 meters and wait for the customs agent to come by. At this point, we all get back off the bus (ahem, freezing) and stand with all of our bags for the customs agent to check us. At this point (and this isn't the drug mule-ing I'm refering to, I'll come back to that later) I am a little nervous, because the kind lady who let us on the bus handed me a duty free back filled with cigarette cartons and explained to me (I think) that the cigarettes in the bag would be what 3 or 4 people could take across the border, so if I could just hold them and say that they are mine and my friends', well, that would be great. I'm happy to help, but it's been about 10 hours so far, I'm tired and confused and as we get off the bus, I forget the butts. I needn't have worried about that at the moment, because the more pressing concern was the woman attempting the comic Tom and Jerry or Wil E Coyote style tiptoe behind the customs agent, which he OF COURSE saw and which pissed him off to no end. At this point he lined us all up again, started to look through each person's bag again and started pulling people out of line. In the middle of this he gave some sort of speech, of which I understood "Prime Minister" and "cigarettes." The tour lady gave some sort of speech as well, of which I understood "I don't want" and again, the topic of the night "cigarettes." After this, customs man gets back on the bus (this is where I really start feeling freaked out about "my" cigarettes, but I think tour lady might have pulled the stupid foreigner ha-ha card for customs man so I was off the hook) and looked around for awhile. After this we all get back on the bus. Yay! I think, We're free to go! But of course that wouldn't happen! What was explained to me later was this this was likely a group of lower class Turks and the border guards felt like they could bully them (especially as they are now big-shot EU members) so they were taking advantage.



12:30 am - ..... 3:30 am: We sit on the bus. Some people get called off the bus. They come back on the bus. Many, many other buses pass our bus. We pull forward about 10 feet. We sit some more. The aforementioned drug mules come onto the bus. Exchange what was possibly money with the bus driver. They play rintones loudly on their cellphones and chat, also loudly with the driver. People start smoking. On the bus. One man, who had successfully hidden the contraband cigarettes from customs agent, started stuffing many, many packs of them into every part of himself he could find. As Chris and I had seats in the front of the bus, and he was in the entranceway, we got to see it all. And through all of this, the amazing thing is that no one was freaking out. Could you imagine being stuck on the border for hours and hours and not getting upset. They started having SING-ALONGS! and DANCING! on the bus! It was amazing. I had to go into a kind of mental hibernation so as not to freak out myself. Luckily our group of 4 was amazingly calm as well. We were about 1/2 of a kilometer from our car and had been for the past 7 hours. You could really freak out.



FINALLY....The last 'prisoner' was brought back onto the bus and we started lumbering away. After a 1+ hour trip, on which the other passengers began to think of us as mascots or pets, telling us to sit down and relax whenever the bus would stop and we thought it was where we got off (for yes...part 2 of our adventure), we finally arrived in Hravsko (or something like that. All the signs are in cyrillic. It's not helpful.)



5 am: We negotiate with a taxi drive to take us, essentially across the country, for 100 euros (I know this map is tiny, but Hraskovo or whatever is close to where Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria meet and Bansko, is almost at the Macedonian border). We are finally sitting. And thrilled about the prospect of some actual sleep. We pile into the tiny taxi, with our bags, Chris' skis and the 4 of us, lean our heads on the seat-backs and ....sit up with a start when our taxi driver decides that now is the right time to play Tupac's greatest hits. for 3 1/2 hours. OK, fairs fair, he played Tupac for about hours, and then, as the sun was coming up, as we headed into the mountains, he switched to Enigma. It was the perfect end to our travels.


8:45am: Nearly 18 hours after we began, and thanks to Chris' amazing visual memory based on his last visit to Bulgaria, we arrive at our barely marked Aparthotel, the Montblanc apartments. We walk in, a bit punch-drunk, give them our reservation name and await real sleep, finally. However, as we've now actually come to expect, there's a glitch. Our reservation is nowhere to be found. Of course. After attempting the art of patience (quite difficult after our "evening") we decided to go next door and get breakfast, assured the problem will be solved when we return. We had a great breakfast of omlettes and (a special treat when you live in a Muslim country) ham, we found out that the restaurant had rooms available, so we keep that in the back of our minds and head back to the Mont Blanc. We get back and they had done nothing on our reservation, had nothing to do to help us. All we wanted was our money back, but for some reason that was not in their vocabulary. After another hour or so, it is now....

10:30 am: I am laying in the sauna of Mont Blanc to clear up some of my bone-chill and eventually the guys come in to tell me some good news, they are planning to upgrade us to "the best hotel in Bansko" with pool! sauna! steamroom! much nicer than where we are now. Success! Something worked out! Haha ... A driver comes to pick us up and take us to our palace. He's about, ohhhh 85 and has no. idea. where to go. This is a small ski town, granted a new building is going up daily, and shouldn't be that hard. I mean, it shouldn't take 1 HOUR of driving in circles to find our place.

11:45 am: We finally arrive at our destination and find, not the luxurious residence we were described, but a place fully under construction, with zero amenities. No pool. No steam room. No sauna. No internet even, which was ubiquitous in the advertising of the apartments in the town. And the receptionist had never heard of us, or our plight. We were certain the driver had taken us to the wrong place. After I (I fully admit this, felt horrible and apologized to her many times before) yelled at this poor woman, who eventually was kind enough to even offer me her very own bottle of water because I had requested some, she called the hi - i'm working on a blog post now . manager and we found out we WERE in the right place and had been scammed. But ... we could use the amenities of the hotel down the road. For 15 euros. Per person. Per day. I was of the opinion that we shouldn't have even had to pay for our room, let alone anything extra, but luckily Chris got on the phone with the people we originally rented from, and hearing him madder than I ever have, he got us free passes to the spa for the whole time we were there...Finally, a little over an hour later, our room was ready and at

1:30 pm: We finally sat down and had a nap.

More to come but writing this has made me relive it and I'm now exhausted and must sleep!

A Very Mullet Christmas!

It was a very mullet Christmas in our household this year. Or was it? Is my new haircut the much feared and awed "Tur-mullet"? It's up to you to decide!

Modern take on an 80's haircut or not, we had a great Christmas! Chris' school helped fund a wonderful Christmas dinner for the foreign teachers (about 30 of us), which included two Turkey's, much (Turkish, but you forget after awhile) wine, and many potluck dishes. I'm biased, on both counts, but I thought that Chris' cauliflower with curried cheese sauce was the best dish at the party! Not quite as inspired were the rock-hard Snowman Peeps that someone tried to pawn off on us unsuspecting Peeps fans!

After dinner, we had a White Elephant (old crap) gift exchange in which I won a bracelet, which I think was the nicest gift, although I'm sure the person who won my 'barely used' Garnier Fructis conditioner would disagree.

I'll put up more pictures from the evening soon...We just opened our gifts (you can see them under our Plant, below) - I printed and framed a bunch of pictures from our travels for Chris, and I got (best gift ever!) a package of Aromatherapy Massages from a spa nearby from Chris, who knows me too well!

Today, I'm going to make the traditional Christmas hummus to share with our friends, while we watch Elf, A Christmas Story and two more episodes (5 and 6) from this season of Lost!

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Here is a picture of our stockings. Chris' (the red silk one) and mine, the Grey Thor-Lo.

From Christmas 2006

From Christmas 2006

Merry Christmas!!

From Christmas 2006

As Promised....

Photos of our N.W. set of 9 candles

and our N.W. Plant with our N.W. set of 9 candles in the background...

Ohhhh, Ahhhh, The Holidays!

Technology strikes again...

I like to think I'm pretty tech-savvy, but recently anything I try to do on the computer fails miserably. Mercury must be in retrograde. Anyway, I took a video of what we've decided to call our Nondenominational Winter Plant and I'm putting it here...BUT it's sideways. And I can't get it to turn right side up without becoming terribly distorted. If anyone knows how to fix it, let me know, otherwise, it's only about 30 seconds, so turn your head sideways. I think I am going to need to move from PC to Mac sometime soon to be able to do any real movie stuff...



Watch this space for pics of our N.W.P. with our N.W.Candles, our improvised menorah using a combination of tealights and large scented candles...

One of the more frustrating things that has happened to me recently was that I spent a good portion of my Sunday afternoon uploading photographs and writing 4 or 5 new posts. I told Chris that I updated some things and when he went to look at it, poof! Nothing was there. Some problem with the software blah blah blah. It made me very sad and I'm not sure when I'll feel ok enough about it to try writing all that stuff again.

But...Since I'm here, I might as well write about our GREAT weekend! Friday night, I was invited to an expat ladies night, where I met some new foreign women and I discovered a new and drinkable Turkish wine, Kav....I had just enough, but not too much so that I was able to go to work the next day and do "fun projects" with my kids...

Saturday night was a mystery to me. One of Chris' coworkers was hosting a party/amateur photography exhibition which we were able to attend for a little while (and have some of her amazing home-made Sangria) before we left to go on a date about which Chris was being very secretive. We went over to Beyoglu, a fun nightlife area in Istanbul, where Chris took me to a fabulous Thai restaurant that has been described as the best in Istanbul, and we were not disappointed! After dinner, and after leading me through the winding streets of Beyoglu to "throw me off track", we ended up at Babylon, a club that tends to be the go-to venue for most of the foreign bands that come through here, to see Buckwheat Zydeco, a band I had heard of but never had the pleasure to hear personally. They were amazing and if you ever have the opportunity to see them live, do it. Here's a video, not of the show we saw, but another one at a Blues Festival elsewhere in Turkey. The guy with the accordian is Buckwheat himself, a mature gentleman who was really energetic and quite funny too. The two best parts of our show were 1) when a guy in the audience wearing and playing his own washboard chest thing that is the "Zydeco instrument" was pulled up onstage and played a song with the band and 2) when a group of about 7 expat-looking older guys walked in in full Blues Brothers style - dark suits and sunglasses, some of them with bow ties and some with long scarves. We had a great vantage point to see all of this from up on the balcony.



Apologies if this post isn't at all entertaining, I think I used up all my funny on the posts that never made it ... Sorry!

Great Turkey Photographs!

A friend sent me this website...This guy is a well known Turkish photographer and his depictions of Turkey and it's people are amazing!

http://www.nuribilgeceylan.com/turkeycinemascope1.php?sid=1

As most of you who actually read this have probably figured out, I (Jenna) actually write most of the stuff on here. But, Chris recently sent out a long, informative and funny email to some family and friends, so I thought I'd post it here (with some additional comments by me where I couldn't resist) so you could read about our life - and mainly our travels this summer - from his perspective....Oh, and most of the pictures in here (or at least the best ... meaning guts and speedos ... ones) were taken by our friend Matt. We can't take credit for those genius shots!

Merhaba, Zdravei, Salut, Sziasztok, Zivjo, Ahoj, Guten tag, Bok and finally Hello,

After a summer of travel and mangling the above versions of hello, I hope this missive finds you all well and enjoying life. All is good on this end, particularly so now that I (we) am finally out of the dreaded long distance relationship, as Jenna decided to move over in June. After a nearly three month holiday spent recovering from the ravages of money management and its ubiquitous 2 week vacation she has moved into the education field working with the little guys (3-8) at a progressive after-school program. Anyhow we are enjoying the process of learning how to live together and thus far successfully navigating the delicate "lifestyle" issues that inevitably arise ie. dishes, underwear and the dreaded socks. (ie. Jenna is messy) (False. False false false. Anyone who knows me knows that!) In commemoration of the move and the fact that at the end of the year I didn't want to look at another child again, I took the whole summer off for the first time and traveled. Jenna and I began our cohabitation with consecutive visits from our respective families. While probably not the easiest segue, we had a fantastic time showing them how wonderful Turkey is when you get away from the rich people's children. We headed out with a large group of friends to Cappadocia, which has to be one of the most amazing landscapes in all the world. Here is a great article on it. After that we headed down to the coast for what is called a blue cruise which roughly translates into lots of beautiful scenery, swimming and lounging on a traditional Turkish boat. Here is a recent NYT article about it: After that we met Jenna's parents in Bodrum, which is something akin to a cross between South Beach and a quaint Turkish village.

After returning to Istanbul we had a day to recover before Scott, a college friend, arrived. After showing him the city, he and I took off for a road trip out to Cappadocia while Jenna headed to Bar-tha-lona to visit a friend. I couldn't believe she turned down driving around, hot and sunny, southern Turkey in a small, Turkish built, French car with no A/C and two stinky dudes whilst camping. It was really great to get back out on the road with Scott. Check out Scott's blog here: http://roadtripturkey.blogspot.com/

The Road Trip Begins....Of Clown Cars and Border Crossings

Close on the heels of Scott leaving, the next crew, Matt, Scott #2 (Dubbed "The short Scott" for expediency) and Will, arrived for the big question mark of the summer. The plan was to drive my previously mentioned small car (see photos, note the wheel well when fully occupied) full of 4 guys and there respective baggage from Istanbul to Prague and back again. Mind you that I'm by far the smallest at 6'1" 160, needless to say it was a tight fit, so much so that we felt kindred spirits to the poor fellows who make their living piling into small cars with face paint. After a few days of traipsing around Istanbul we hit the road bound for Bulgaria. Thankfully sans face paint as it would have melted off from our sweat, obscuring a beautiful drive through the sun and sunflower soaked countryside. Quick math side note; 4 guys = 750 lbs, 4 guys gear = 160 lbs, snacks = 2.854 lbs = Total = 912.854 lbs ¸ 1.2 liter manual transmission equals what an elementary physicist would regard as a mathematical impossibility. A 1.2 liter engine generates roughly 73 horsepower giving each of us 18.25 horsepower to get our asses to Prague and back. Chaos theory would indicate that something was bound to go wrong. Chaos theory was wrong, or at least for awhile.

Upon arriving at the Turkish border our car was forced into a concrete lined queue, as the Turkish people as a whole don't understand the concept of queuing, that forcing was a good thing. However, throughout this 2 hour process of advancing in the queue, we watched repeated attempts by doggedly stupid peoples to bypass our place in line. These others, upon arriving at the border and finding an empty line between two very long lines would go right to the front and begin honking their horn. They apparently believed that they had been granted this good fortune due to the grace of god as opposed to the line being closed. Upon this stark realization, resultant to being yelled at by the various authorities, each of them would then begin the lengthy process of asking why this line was closed. This in turn would slow down our line, further angering the many others who had gone through this same exact process many hours before. All in all quite funny when you have moved beyond getting frustrated with the utter lack of efficiency. Once to the gate we exchanged a few pleasantries and were allowed to pass. Evidently from here we were to park the car and get into another queue, although this time a human one, meaning there were no concrete barriers to keep people in place. This is where the real fun started. Upon entering the queue we became witnesses to a scene of Byzantine comedy. Evidently this wealthy German family in (actually, out of and yelling) their perfect Mercedes wagon, had discovered upon returning from their trip to Turkey, that their passports didn't have the proper stamps. They had evidently passed through this border 2 weeks prior thinking all was good. Upon arrival at the border the guards told them that they didn't have the proper paper work and were thus "working on it". . . all day. They were not finding their predicament in the least bit funny. It's strange what happens to people when all you want to do is get through a border. My regard for fellow man disintegrated into a wish that this guy would stop yelling and I could get through this god forsaken no mans land. I and my fellow line mates should have risen up and made the guards acknowledge the arcane stupidity of the Turkish government and their place in it and demand that they let this family through instantly but we quietly bowed our heads and physically pushed the guy next to us who was trying to take our spot as we thought about the right thing to do. Shockingly we got through this line in about an hour leaving the poor family to their bribe negotiations and were sent on our merry way, or at least until the next booth. Here we were met by a man who demanded our passports again. Upon typing my passport number into the computer he began saying something to me in Turkish. When his words were met with a black stare and acknowledgment that I speak very little Turkish he became highly agitated. From here he began hitting the top of my car yelling, KOMputer problem. KOMputer problem. When this didn't phase us and the blank stares remained, he left the booth and continued gesturing and striking the car for us to go back while yelling KOMputer problem. A quick u-turn and telling of the guy at the computer that there was a "KOMputer problem" and we were back to our final hurdle. This time however the guy quickly put the passport number in and we were on our way with a high five that much resembled Borat's failed attempts at connecting to western culture. Our border crossings would be relatively easy and peaceful from here, aside from the 1 1/2 hour work-over the car received going into Romania and some troubles in Croatia. Now, you can tell me by looking at the photos, but I don't think we, in the least, resemble drug runners but the earnest Romanian authorities gave our car, henceforth referred to as The Spring (early 90's Renault make), a full body cavity search, while letting all other cars pass with nothing more than a nod. After getting under, looking through the engine compartment and trunk, removing seats that weren't removable and making us unpack every bit of our belongings, they gave an understated OK and we were into Romania.

Romania. Just like Connecticut. But with Speedos and Beauty Queens

Romania was and is strange, and made all the stranger when a few kilometers into the country we spotted a Connecticut license plate ahead of us. Not wanting to miss this opportunity to figure out why there was a car with a Connecticut license plate on the border of Bulgaria and Romania I put the pedal to the floor and made those 73 horsepower earn their keep. Upon waving down the driver of the late 70's MG, top down, full of little kids, we met Vern. (check out Chris and Scott's faces in this picture, politely pretending not to notice that one of the men they were chatting with- not Vern, incidentally, he is on the far right - was wearing a speedo and boots) Vern, evidently, was born and raised in Wethersfield but due to "economic and political" circumstances had decided to move to the Black Sea coast of Romania. Whence there he had his car shipped, 10 years prior mind you, and failed to register the car with the Romanian government. Vern began by telling us a bit about his life in Romania, "ahh man this place is paradise, especially that little hippy town you just passed a mile back. The place is heaven, I found it about 8 years ago and I've been spending my summers down here, just everybody hanging out and having fun . . . so many ladies." During this time there were two young boys who were bouncing around the car and when the attention shifted to them Vern introduced us to "these guys, they're my kids and I'm heading home to put them to bed before heading out, well I should show you around, you know take you out, I don't see many folks from CT but I have a date, actually a double date, you know two ladies". Upon the double date clarification, with its requisite wink, the distinct impression began to overtake me that we were looking at a modern day 70's style swinger. Equipped with the requisite hairy gut and back, he fit the bill, only his swinging lifestyle had obviously hit a few bumps, actually two, sitting in the back of his car ready to be put to sleep. A quick examination of Dictionary.com yields a number of definitions for the word "Swinger" but the one that I find most humorous and apropos of Vern and his historical place in Romania is; A person who actively seeks excitement and moves with the latest trends. Romania is most definitely experiencing its fair share of excitement and massive influx of access to the latest of trends. It was fascinating to witness how those changes are evincing themselves. On one hand you have a country of gypsies who live in dirt poor villages straight out of the middle ages (in fact, the Borat village scenes are shot there), horse carts taking up the road (WHICH ARE TINY and are also full of large trucks that are carrying the goods that are partly responsible for the changes) and on the other you have a country that is coming into the EU this year. It all leads to a very odd, disjointed access to and hunger for foreign cultures. Everybody seemed to pick a look and take it to the n'th degree but were perfectly willing to hang out with everybody. As America has had many years for their distinctive individual sub-cultures and looks to solidify, Eastern Europe has not and nowhere was more emblematic of this cultural egalitarianism than in the aforementioned "hippy town" of Vama Vece. After the glowing recommendation of swinging Vern we had to check it out. What we were met with was something akin to the dirt Main Street's of the Old West, only every store was a saloon or beer and liquor laced bodega. What was sold as a hippy town looked, from people to architecture, distinctly like some sort of post apocalyptic Ozz cum Warped Fest. Goths, metal heads, square guys, bohemians, punks everywhere. Where was the summer of love, people with flowers in their hair and freedom from commercial convention? After finding a place to crash, I won't dub it a hotel, although it dubbed itself the "punk hotel", we hit the town. Finding the place initially sadly bizarre we decided to head down to the beach. What we found were huge sound systems, open air bars, hundreds of tents and thousands of people dancing to everything from 50's Chuck Berry to Nine Inch Nails. Literally every major sub-cultural look in America was represented and all of them were hanging out and dancing to Britney, Abba and Queen. There is something strange in watching a pierced and tattooed punk singing his lungs off to Mrs. (I'm sorry, Miss. now) Spears. As the night wore on and we tried to get away from the large mosh pit full of naked hippies, punks and metal heads we found ourselves dancing next to a group of seeming supermodels who began trying to talk to us. We, 4 white guys without one iota of rhythm, are by no means good dancers but must have "had it going on", at least comparatively, to the naked mosh pit guys. As it turned out they were in town for the Romanian Diaspora Beauty Pageant and this was their one night off from pageant festivities. While they seemed younger than us, we thought they were 21, maybe 22 but when one of them said in seeming anticipation of the interview portion of the event, "When I graduate from high school I want to see the world and make it a better place." We decided that after a photo for posterity we should move on. If you're interested, check out the link http://www.missdiaspora.ro/main.htm. We danced with the winner! From there we headed to Bucharest, where I can confidently say I wish to never return. Aside from the second largest building in the world, built by Ceausescu, which took 3 shifts a day of 20,000 workers and 700 architects, 5 years to build, it's a typically crummy communist city filled with little joy. Seriously, no one smiles, it may just be their affect but its makes you want to get out of there as fast as you can and that's what we did.

Having seen what communism has wrought throughout Bulgaria and Romania I can't help but see the striking corollary between the following quote from the great Samuel Johnson and what we witnessed from Bulgaria to the Hungarian border (although I'm told that we just missed the same in Hungary, Czech Republic and Germany). "I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else." Having forced the people to suffer through communism they gave them the gut. It, the gut, fueled by bad food and booze, allows them to overlook all else, from the horrific housing and infrastructure to the poverty and alcoholism, the men and women seem comfortable in their skin and their place in the world. As you can see from the accompanying pictures of guts and speedos (sometimes together. YUCK!) there is far to much skin

being shown. For the first time in my life I, or at least my eyes and stomach, were wishing for a little more Christian conservatism or Islamic fundamentalism. Oh the humanity. After the dermal overdose of Bulgaria and Romania it was good to get to the cold and wet weather of Hungary. Budapest is a lovely city that, at this point, is much more Western Europe than Eastern or at least when they're not rioting due to the incompetent, albeit democratically elected government (not unlike a certain other government we know...)

Czech Republic...Where the Beer Was Cheaper Than Water (it's true!)

After picking up Jenna and sending Matt and Scott on their way back to the States, we decided to hightail it to the Czech Republic to begin the beer tour. A few days prior to his flight, Will found a Wall Steet Journal article (I tried to link to it but the cheapskates at WSJ require a password. If you can get it, read it, it's a good article!) about beer tourism in Czech (oddly followed by a different article on the exact. same. subject in the New York Times (who, seemingly, are not as cheap as the Journal) the next week and we figured it wasn't a bad way to see a country. What with beer goggles making most everything else attractive it couldn't be the worst approach to travel. As all we had was a general 1 by 2 inch map of the country with various dots and no roads marked we decided to drive to what looked like the location and begin asking around. Shockingly our first stop, Stramberk, proved quite difficult to find. Evidently Stramberk is the Czech equivalent of Springfield. After debating which one to head to with the wonderful woman at the local tourist office, we struck off to what would prove to be the correct place. What we ended up finding was an absolutely gorgeous little village and the brewery the WSJ author claimed to brew the "best beer [he'd] ever tasted" nestled between steep hills overlooked by a castle tower. After exploring the brewery and its underground stone labyrinth of nooks and crannies we settled in for the first pint on the communal outdoor tables that overlooked the town square. The brewery would indeed prove to hold the best beer any one of us had ever tasted (as beer is highly subjective I am loath to call it the best beer in the world but it's as damn close as you can safely get) and as we settled in for an evening of beer and Boggle (we became addicted to the game) we noticed the locals eying us relentlessly. Evidently the town sees very little tourism and what it does see comes from Poland and Czech Republic. So as we sat in the fading summer sun we struck up a conversation with the highly drunk and boisterous table next to us. They were in town, having ridden their bicycles from the surrounding countryside, some up to 50 km away, to celebrate their friend Vidus's birthday. As the Czech Republic ranks number one in per capita beer consumption at 160 liters for every man, woman and child I sensed that this crew was and would do more of its fair share. As the night wore on and they felt safe that we were anti-Bush they opened up telling us about their impressions of America today and how they contrasted with their impressions before the curtain fell. How they felt Bush was destroying their and the world's perception of America. How different their lives have been since the Velvet Revolution and what an exciting time it is to be Czech or at least that is what I remember before my brain was fully submerged and swimming gloriously in the local brew. As the night wore down one of the guys went off to try and unlock their bikes. After much discussion and laughing they revealed that they had forgotten the code and were therefore preparing to sleep in the park. After laughing about how in the hell you forget the code to the bike lock you've been using for years I suggested that I may be able to cut it with my leatherman, you know, McGyver style. Knowing that the leatherman fears nothing I plunged in headlong. While it wasn't easy I can now say that it is possible to cut a bike lock with a medium sized leatherman. I don't know if that's a compliment to leatherman or a reflection of post-Soviet bike lock manufacturing. As they unevenly and unsafely rode off into the night I prayed for any one of the various Gods to see them home safely. I know that if I had to get on a bike and ride anywhere from 20-50 km I would most assuredly kill myself. The next day we ended up having dinner with Zuzanna (a local fluent in English, living in Rome, doing Czech to Italian translations for the Czech consulate) and her mother who eased our fears by telling us that everyone had gotten home safely.

From there we headed to Prague with its tourist clogged streets, and would suggest visiting out of season. It's as beautiful as they say though if you can deal with the hoards. After a few days we decided we had had enough with city life and headed back to the country or more specifically to a beer spa. That's right, a spa that is based on the healing properties of . . . err, beer. While they offered the usual massages and wraps, the reason people go is for the beer baths. This entails lying in a large metal bathtub full of a stout-like beer while drinking more of the same. It's a kind of internal and external cleansing that sure as hell beats your run of the mill heath club scene. Admittedly, my skin had never felt softer so there must be something to it. Add to this a 12th century fermentation cave turned into a restaurant that serves the most garlicky soup in the world and you have yourself a perfect vacation destination that both sexes can agree on. After our paradigm shifting "de-tox" it was time to re-tox so we headed down to Cesky Krumlov and its Eggenberg brewery. Situated on a large oxbow of the Vltava River, over-looked by a requisite castle, it's one of the most picturesque towns in Europe. Jenna says to make sure and do the tubing. (ha, ha. I nearly was lost forever to the Vltava River. In the rain. it was fun) From here we headed west to Munich for a few days before Jenna and I turned south (back towards work) and Will headed to Copenhagen. Crossing Austria in a hurricane like deluge on constant aquaplane (yeah, the car might look good but isn't the best in the rain) we crossed into Slovenia as the clouds were parting. Due to time constraints and the fact that we couldn't pronounce it, we skipped Ljubljana and instead headed for Bled. Suffice it to say, Bled is all the tour books make it out to be, a picturesque town on a mountain lake with good pizza. At this point we were getting antsy to get to our next destination of Croatia and getting a few days of hiking in before heading back to Istanbul.

Croatia would turn out to be a land of many troubles, from the 20 minute, highly sketchy, closed door interrogation I received at the border for being a "drug smuggler" to the inability of finding a hotel room in Rovinj and subsequent night of NO sleep in an old lady's "extra room", to signs stating "Do Not Enter LAND MINES" along a road to the largest national park, to the car breaking down, we may have been the first people happy to see the Welcome to Serbia sign. We did end up getting some hiking in and it's a beautiful country, I just suggest going out of season as it was a mad house.

Speaking of land mines and other such horrors of war. . . Serbia. What can I say about Serbia, well, it's about as nice as Bucharest. It was fascinating to enter a city only 7 years out from a NATO aerial bombardment. Still having major bombed out city center buildings laying in various states of disrepair, its not your run of the mill vacation spot. Its got a long way to go but you could see rebuilding everywhere, sadly I suppose the people are used to this as the city has been destroyed and rebuilt 40 times in its 2300 year history. Another humorous, very much in hindsight, aspect of Serbia, is the fact that currency exchange businesses at the border don't even take the currency. This proved to be a problem when all we had were Serbian dinars at the Bulgarian border. After telling each and every currency exchange place what I thought of them and their mothers I found and then pleaded with a guy, buying 5 cartons of cigarettes at duty free, heading to Serbia, who was willing to give me 10 euros for 16 euros in dinar. All to pay the Bulgarian border patrol, who only accept euro to "disinfect" my car. Freaking Balkans.

After an all out assault on the Bulgarian motorways, we got to the Turkish border in a few hours. After the uniform brusqueness of the Eastern European border patrol, what would ensue at the Turkish border was a sight to behold. As I have mentioned in previous emails the Turkish people have to be the most hospitable on earth and this story is just the icing on the cake. As the border guard was inspecting our passports I asked him in my broken Turkish where Jenna (cough: illegal) could get a new visa. He pointed us to a booth off to the side and said we could park the car and walk over to it. After rustling up the visa official, who was asleep, we were back to the first booth. After exchanging the usual pleasantries he asked us if we would like to have tea with him. Not being asked this at any of our many other border crossings, we accepted. At this point he left his booth, effectively closing the border, to take us off to the guard shack, to have a drink with he and his coworkers. So as we stood in the no mans land of the Bulgarian-Turkish border, drinking our hot tea, the head lights began to pile up. Jenna and I gave each other a few looks wondering if they noticed or cared. Obviously they didn't because they drank and chatted with us for 20 minutes before returning to their posts, gracious hosts to the end. So here we are back in Istanbul adjusting relatively seamlessly to cohabitation and our respective new jobs. I am teaching younger kids than last year and am enjoying it while Jenna is having a great time with her kids. Who can argue with a job where your coworkers order a bunch of chicken wings so that you can bury them in the garden and the kids can dig them up as archaeologists. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a little turkey for me (surprisingly its very hard to get here). Chris