Iceland

This Thanksgiving I was able to take a short trip to Iceland with my brother and some friends from work. It was a great trip and I look forward to going back someday to see more of what it has to offer.

A quick synopsis of the trip:

Thursday:

- Early morning drive to Glasgow, Scotland with 5 people crammed into my car. We ate Christmas sandwiches before the flight, which involves turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

- Flew to Keflavik. Got stuck on the airplane for 40 minutes because the skybridge/jetway was broken.

- Went straight to the Blue Lagoon, which is a geothermally heated pool (it also happens to be the waste water from a power plant). We hung out there for a few hours. Sitting in a super warm, giant pool of water during a snow storm is so great. Maybe one of the greatest ideas ever in the history of the world. I am going to have an outdoor hot tub some day. Mark my words!

- From there to Reykjavik to check into the hotel. The studio apartment that my brother and I were sharing had a broken pipe. We got upgraded to a two bedroom place with a 7 jet shower. Nice.

Friday:

- Up early for breakfast and a start to site seeing. We left the hotel over an hour before dawn. Of course, dawn was around 1000. During breakfast the fire alarm went off. We thought it would go off on its own. Turns out it was hooked up to the whole building. All of our neighbors were outside standing in the snow in pajamas while we ate eggs. The lady that came in to tell us we were messing things up for everyone ended up being from Chicago. She told us a bunch of great places to go to and see.

- We drove around the Golden Circle, hitting all of the major sites

- Geysir (the name of a hot water spout after which all others were named)

- Thingvellir rift valley (where the continental plates are ripping apart)

- A few churches

- The place where laws were debated and fought over way back when

- A giant waterfall called Gulfoss

- Ate at Fjorubordid, the most famous langoustine restaurant in Iceland, in a small town called Stokkseyri.

Saturday:

- Up early, breakfast, including Skyr; custard like yogurt.

- Drove in the wrong direction for almost an hour.

- Got back on track.

- Crossed over a mountain

- Saw some great waterfalls; Glugafoss and Skogarfoss

- Hiked a little, but didn't make it to the glacier we were hoping to see

- Saw Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that caused all of the air travel delays a year and a half ago

- Accidentally ate some Icelandic horses (cheapest meat!)

Sunday:

- Left before 5am for the airport; streets were packed (everyone stays out until all hours on Friday and Saturday night)

- Flew home, followed by a long drive. So sleepy. I drove 1000 miles on that trip!

Iceland was beautiful. The people weren't necessarily the most friendly, but I definitely much prefer people who don't smile or wave than the ones who buddy up trying to sell you their not-so-sweet souvenirs.

England / Scotland / Morocco

Edinburgh

The last week has been an eventful one. Jeralyn came out for a bit and we did some traveling. There were a couple of formal events to attend to, but the majority of the time was spent seeing the sights around the local area, a day trip to Edinburgh, and a few days in Marrakech, Morocco.

The day trips in the local area were nice. Being able to go home every night is very convenient and means not having to lug anything around, which is also a bonus. It's funny, too, how one tends to not worry about pickpockets while in an area that is familiar. Maybe that has more to do with being in a place where you don't stand out.

Black Sheep Brewery

At any rate, we went to York, Hawes, Ripley, Ripon, and Masham while in England. The weather was really warm for this time of year and we avoided any rain. The sun wasn't shining as much as it could have while we were in England, but you can't have it all.

Edinburgh was lovely as always. The sun is always shining there, somehow. We ended up only going up for a day; train in the morning and then back again that night, but it was enough time to hit the major "must see" attractions (minus the scotch tour that looked like a Disney ride), eat some haggis, and explore the narrow passageways.

Walking through a 'close' in Edinburgh

Morocco was a little disappointing. I think a big part of the disappointment was that we had already done some trips in the UK and were accustomed to UK style traveling. Morocco was obviously a very different place, which is part of the attraction, but is also something that can take people off guard.

The most perfect tower in all of North Africa, allegedly.

Inside the Saadian Tombs. The only place I felt comfortable taking pictures was inside attractions that we had to pay to get into. If you stopped anywhere else, people were on you like stink on stank.

The thing that really threw me about Morocco was the aggressiveness of the touts and locals. It was to the point that we literally couldn't stop walking without being accosted. When we wanted to figure out which way to go, we would have to just pick a way and circle back if it was wrong. If we stopped to debate or consider, we were swarmed. I really got the feeling that everyone was doing everything they could to get as much money out of us as possible, by any means possible. Other than that, they were annoyed by our presence.

Cooling off after an extra hour or so of fumbling our way through the souks back to the riad.

The best example of that is when we asked a kid to point us to a street we couldn't find when we were lost in the souks (separate story: crazy complex alleys and roads). I asked a boy, about 12 or so, if he could point me to street. He walked us to it, which was nice of him, but there was an older boy, maybe late teens, that came along, as well. We went around a couple of twists and turns that we had circled a couple of times already and, two minutes later, we were back on track. We gave the older boy 10 dirham (about $1.25), but he looked at me with disgust and said, "10 dirham? This is nothing! Give me 50!" It's worth noting that most Moroccans make less than 80 dirham a day. When I turned away to ignore him, the younger boy took the money.

On the plus side, the streets and alleys were really neat. As long as you don't mind being lost (it's fun for a short while), you can come across a lot of things and interesting sites. It seems that the locals spent most of their time in these alleyways. It was mostly younger boys, but the girls were out and about, as well. A lot of the areas had the classic dude arc welding in sandals and no eye protection, people overloading vehicles of all sizes, and 20 people all giving their opinion in an argument that really only required the two primaries.

Jemma al Fna, the big, open square in the southern part of the Medina, was interesting, but we weren't there to shop, so we spent most of our time noticing how every shop had the exact same things. It really makes you wonder who the supplier is for all of them. It seems like every place you go that has all of the tourist trinkets must be supplied by one person or company. One interesting piece of that puzzle was the food stands that go up every night in Jemma al Fna. There are supposedly over 100. As we were walking around looking for a place to eat, the touts with the empty stands kept telling us, "it is all the same. Eat here or eat there, all the same; eat at ours, there is no wait." In the end, we went to a place that was packed with locals, but when we ordered a wide variety of items from the menu, we noticed that only one thing (the tangia; slow roasted mutton) actually came from that stand. Everything else, the bread, soup, salad, and eggplant, all came from somewhere else. Maybe even the food stalls have the same supplier...

Our riad

Although the place we stayed in was windowless to the outside world and pretty much impossible to find (we hired a local kid), we had a pretty nice stay in a riad, which is apparently the authentic Moroccan style guest house. Basically, it is a small place with a courtyard and a handful of rooms built around that. The place we stayed had 5 rooms. The staff didn't really speak very much English (and we didn't speak French), so that was a bit of a challenge, but it was nice to have something that wasn't crowded. There was a group of French travelers staying there who we would bump into at breakfast. We also randomly sat next to them at a restaurant on the other side of the city, which was odd.

Other than that, back to work, Thanksgiving coming up, and some more excitement (depending on how loosely you are willing to define that word) that I will write about as it happens.

Remember Remember

(I shamelessly copied this poem from Wikipedia:)

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Today, the 5th of November, is Guy Fawkes Day, or bonfire night. Most of what I know of the event comes from one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta. Basically, in 1605 a group of men wanted to blow up parliament and kill King James because of his poor treatment of the Catholics. One of the members of the group wrote a letter to a friend in parliament telling him not to go there on the 5th. The friend turned over the letter and a trap was set for Guy Fawkes, who was in the process of putting barrels upon barrels of gunpowder in the tunnels beneath the building.

In fine Olde Worlde tradition, he was tortured mercilessly and killed. Ever since then, on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy over huge bonfires while fireworks are set off. People watch while eating roasted chestnuts and candied apples.

Despite being here for the last couple of years, this was the first time I made it to a bonfire. It was a pretty good sized crowd and the bonfire was pretty impressive. I crashed a party beforehand, although I ended up more or less sleeping in the corner due to a combination of eating too much pizza and German food (it was an Oktoberfest themed party).

In other news, I have been reorganizing, decluttering, and cleaning my house in preparation for getting it on the market. On top of looking like a construction zone, it also looked like this for a while:

I am happy to say that I finally got it on the market today. The realtors went through and all should be official on Monday. Now I just have to keep it clean at all times so that strangers can walk through and judge me.

Here are some more photos of what the place looks like. Hopefully it sells. I meant to get it on the market in August. Better late than never, I suppose...

Still Alive!

It has been a very long while...

The summer is over and autumn is here already. It's October and I'm not exactly sure how that happened. The easiest way to retrace my steps is to look at the memory card from my camera. In order from oldest to most recent:

I went to a great music festival with my friend Allen. The festival, called Fieldview, is small and low key, but full of great music and activities. Extra bonus, my friend Lewis (car camping in New Zealand and trip last year to see him in Norway) helps to organize the event. It was a really good time. Lots of hanging out, eating, and listening to music.

I spent a week in the US for work. I was able to make it to some historical sites in the Baltimore area that I had never been to before. The picture above is from Fort McHenry, of Star Spangled Banner fame. Since I live in England, I had the honor of placing the British ships and troops. For a while there I thought I was going to win, but the US ended up claiming victory.

I finally finished my heated floor and then decided to paint the bathroom walls. While at the store, I bought paint for the hallway, living room, and kitchen, as well. Months later, I only have one room left, which I hope to finish this weekend. Painting is way more time consuming than one would think.

I went back to the US for two weeks of vacation. I spend some time on my land, preparing it for a camping trip that never happened due to rainy weather.

We went to the cabin for our yearly trip. We figured out the math: we have been going for 15 years. Half of our lives (we had a professional portrait taken to commemorate. I will be sure to post that once available).

We spent a lot of time hanging out and enjoying the cool but dry weather. September is a great time to go to the UP.

I got to catch up with my good friends from the grade school/high school (and still current!) days (and Tomollie, but I lump them in the "old friends" category).

I spent some time with family, as well.

On my last day in Wisconsin, I forced my parents into a manual labor scenario. We cleared trees and branches, cut grasses and weeds, made a trail to the river, and hung out by the water for a bit. I didn't end up buying a canoe like I was originally planning, but some day I will. Seeing as I only go there once per year, and I don't know how often a canoe would get used, it probably doesn't make sense to buy one now.

Turkey Greece

My friend from Hawaii (now Maryland), Dan, came to Europe recently for a work trip and a wedding in Italy. We were able to schedule some travel into the mix.

We spent about 10 days in Turkey and Greece; the majority of the time being in Turkey. The trip involved a lot of planes, trains, and automobiles. Well, no trains because the Greeks were on strike. Planes, buses, and automobiles, I suppose.

En route to Greece, I had a work trip to Germany. From there I took a flight to London to meet Dan. After a very expensive bus ride from Heathrow to Gatwick (twice the price of my train ride a week later from London to Harrogate), I made a few laps around the airport in search of Dan. Gatwick, being a "budget airline" hub, is an interesting place. It was like a refugee camp, in a way. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people sleeping every which way around the airport waiting for flights that leave at ridiculous hours (ours was scheduled to depart at 5:50am). Dan and I were two of the refugees. After moving around a couple of times, we settled in by some scales for some reasonably comfortable sleep. I think they were plugged in and were generating some heat, which was nice.

We spent day one in Greece walking around Thessaloniki. As I mentioned before, none of the trains were running, but we were able to schedule an overnight bus to Turkey for that first night. We had a whole day to walk around and see the sights, but all of the museums were closed, I am guessing due to the strikes. So what do you do when there is nothing to see or do besides walk around? Grab some Greek beer and wine and check out the open air ancient sites as well as the graffiti from the anti-government folks.

The bus ride to Istanbul was mostly uneventful, minus the fact that a guy in a bow tie kept waking me up and telling me to sit next to Dan. The bus was mostly empty, but he did not like the fact that I was trying to sleep lying down. Getting 20 minutes of sleep at a shot, then getting woken up and told to move (then moving back again for another 20 minutes) gets old pretty quick.

We didn't spend much time in Istanbul that first day. We met a guy at the airport to pick up the rental. The transaction involved someone driving the car up to the curb, Dan signing some papers, then everyone disappearing and we had our car. From there we filled up the empty car (at $9.50 a gallon) and started west towards Gallipoli. Fuel was expensive, but we slept in the car and got fresh fruit, vegetables, and bread (as well as a lot of pickled foods) from markets as we went. Long story short, our goal was to spend less on this trip than the hotel cost from when I went to the Beltane Fire Festival at the end of April in Edinburgh. We succeeded.

At any rate, from Galipoli we took a ferry across into the Asian side of Turkey and make our way towards Troy. By the time we got there, the site was closed. Rather than wait overnight to see a replica of a wooden horse (the site itself didn't seem that impressive, based on the descriptions), we kept driving. We stopped the first night near Avaylik. We slept in the car by some farm fields. Apparently we were surrounded by cows first thing in the morning, but I slept through that.

After looking at a couple of small towns by the water, we pressed on to more sites and spent the night on a trash strewn beach (took some of the appeal out of it). As I write this, two weeks later, I don't remember what the names of a lot of those sites are.

I do remember one of the towns had, according to the book of Revelations, Pergamon, "Satan's Throne." It was where the devil supposedly made his home on earth. I can't confirm or deny the allegations, but I can say that they had free doughnut Fridays at that site, which is now a mosque. Long story short, we were walking by a doughnut stand and a guy offered us doughnuts. Dan and I split one. He offered us more. We decided that we would buy some rather than eating his. We got in line and each grabbed a bag. We noticed that no one was paying for the doughnuts. At that point, we realized that we were taking from a free food stand set up to cover the zakat requirement. Sheepishly, we offered money, even though we knew they wouldn't accept it (they got offended). We ended up taking one bag and split. Overall, it was a neat little town. It had a lot of winding roads up the hill towards the ancient ruins. We decided not to go to the ruins, but it was a good stop.

From there, we made our way to one of the most famous sites in Turkey (Turkey actually has more ancient sites than Italy and Greece), old city of Ephesus. The city was inhabited by 6000 BC and was the second largest city in the world in the first century BC. It was an important city for both the Greeks and Romans as their empires ebbed and flowed in present day Turkey. There was a lot of Christian history there (Paul lived there, the book of John was probably written there, the Epistle to the "Ephesians" was about them, the first church dedicated to Mary, etc). The site was impressive, but extremely crowded with tour groups from cruise ships. We were able to buy some sweet sunhats to keep us from burning, but the crowds made the stop somewhat unenjoyable, despite all of the amazing ruins and history.

After Ephesus, we headed east towards Ankara. Along the way we made a couple of stops at ancient sites, including:

Aphrodisias

- My personal favorite site on this trip. While smaller than Ephesus, it had a lot of great history, was better preserved, and had way fewer people. We got there fairly late in the afternoon, but there were maybe a total of 30 people there. It really felt like we were able to wander and see everything at our own pace without the noise and frustration of of tens of thousands of people taking the exact same pictures as everyone else.

Pamukkule

- Calcium deposits. Looked a bit like snow/ice/salt. It was none of those and tasted like none of those.

Gordion Knot

- Story of the knot that whoever could undo the knot would rule all of Asia. Alexander the Great came through and couldn't untie the knot. Out of anger, he drew his sword and slashed the knot to bits. He went on to rule all of Asia, but died 2 years later. The local oracle claimed that he died because he only technically undid the know. Swords didn't really count.

- The tomb of Midas (the guy who turned everything he touched into gold, including his food and wife) was also there. Scholars no longer think that it is Midas' tomb; however, it is the oldest wooden structure (740BC) known to man, which is cool in it's own right.

We made it to Ankara to hang out for the day with one of our friends from Hawaii who is spending a month there learning the language. It was fun having someone that could talk to the locals, give advice on food, and give some insights on the culture and history. It was also nice to catch up, seeing as we hadn't hung out in a few year. I should mention, he was the guy in Hawaii that I would help brew beer. I think there are some older posts that show the beer making.

After Ankara, we headed north for the Black Sea. Along the way we stopped at Safranbolu, which is supposed to have some great wooden architecture of a specific style. We saw some of the really touristy area and decided to push on. At that point, we had been sleeping in the car for 4 straight days (but were fresh, thanks to the super solar shower) and were getting less impressed with the history, mostly because it was only about 400 years old, rather than 4000. Still, 400 years for a wooden structure isn't bad.

The Black Sea was nice. The town we stopped at, Amasra, didn't have much in the way of sites, but it seemed like a pleasant place. I ended up buying some cheap sandals due to my toe shoes smelling worse than dead things, and we moved on, towards Istanbul.

That night, we showered (separately) in a mature forest and slept in an opening just off of a quiet road. It was a very peaceful place to stop and a great way to end our car camping portion of the trip.

Istanbul was a busy place. We ended up staying there for 3 days, which I think was maybe 1.5 days too long. It was nice to see the sites: Blue Mosque, Ayasofya, Grand Bazaar, Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sofia, etc; however, it was the same as Ephesus: super crowded. In hindsight, late June and early July is the high season for tourism, so we should have been expecting the crowds, but waiting in line like we are at a theme park to see displays in a museum seems a bit excessive.

Overall, it was a great trip. Obviously, there is a ton of history. Thousands of years of different peoples and cultures fighting for, conquering, and subsequently losing the same land makes for a great mix of things to do and see. Most of the sites were literally built on top of previous sites. The further one digs, the older things get.

One of the stories I really liked was of the Basilica Cistern. It was built in the 6th century and subsequently lost to history for over 1000 years after rioting burned down the city. It wasn't until the 1500's that a visiting historian looked into the story that people had magical basements. All they had to do was lower a bucket into the hole in their basement and it came back up with water and, sometimes, fish. He dropped down one of the holes to find a 105,000 ft2 area with 336 thirty foot high carved marble pillars.

Following Turkey, we made our way back to Greece for the return to the UK. We ended up sleeping in a train station our last night, made it back to sunny N. Yorkshire in time to catch up with some friends (Dan made jambalaya or gumbo. We weren't sure what it was called, but it was really good), and then take off for the conference in Wales, which was another good week.

I am just about caught up on work after being gone for 3 weeks and am looking forward to the remainder of the summer and the autumn.