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Follow That Shawl!

Posted: June 14, 2004

DAY 235: Like the mummies of ancient Egypt, seven backpackers lay in polyester and nylon sarcophagi until the sun god Ra woke them up. No, it wasn’t the afterlife; it was breakfast time.

Valley Boy

Posted: June 14, 2004

DAY 236: While modern Egyptian civilization seems to be occupied with one thing — making a living by any means necessary — ancient Egyptian civilization seemed to be obsessed with only one thing: death. With strong beliefs in the afterlife — and the preparation thereof — citizens of all classes prepared for life after the living. Pharaohs were no stranger to this custom; in fact, they were the masters of preparing for the afterlife with all their goods, and no where in Egypt was this more concentrated than in Ancient Thebes, on the west bank of Luxor.

My New Paradise

Posted: June 17, 2004

DAY 237: Tourism in Egypt falls into two main categories: 1) sightseeing the ancient sites and 2) relaxing down the shore of the Red Sea. Of all the Egyptian shore communities of the Red Sea, nowhere is the scene more laid back than in Dahab, on the eastern side of the Sinai Peninsula. Away from the “package holiday” scene of the bigger cities, Dahab has retained a hippy vibe with an Arabian flavor so relaxed that Lonely Planet states that many travelers to Egypt skip the ancient stuff and head right for the shore.

Moses For A Day

Posted: June 17, 2004

DAY 238: “Uh, there’s a camel behind you,” I told Michelle in the darkness of 2 a.m. It sounded like the beginning of a practical joke, but lo and behold, fellow hiker Michelle turned around and saw a massive moonlit camel right behind her. She flinched back in surprise. Apparently, camels are quiet walkers in the desert sands and can really sneak up on you.

My Three Dives

Posted: June 17, 2004

DAY 239: Dahab was once an oasis for the hippies of the 1960s, where bohemian travelers sat on cushions and sucked up the haze of marijuana through the pipe of a hookah. But as Let’s Go states, “Now, Tommy Hilfiger is more popular than tie-dye and cell phones more prominent than the joints… More than any other factor, the diving industry has driven the changes in Dahab.” Nowadays, travelers come to Dahab to suck the oxygen from a tube out of an air tank.

Last Day In Paradise

Posted: June 17, 2004

DAY 240: It was only about 7:45 in the morning when I was out of bed and back in the comforts of the pillow lounge on the beach of Penguin Village. Reason (other than the fact that pillow lounges rule): I had to finish all my written homework for my Advanced Open Water diver certification course to turn in later that day. Apparently my classmate and dive buddy Oz had the same idea because he was out and at the pillow cafe by eight to do the same. I had finished most of my homework by the time Oz arrived — it was fairly easy; the homework was open book, and the book was written at a fifth-grade reading level — and so I did the courteous American high school thing by letting him copy.

Into The Arabian West

Posted: June 18, 2004

DAY 241: “Where are you from?” the nameless taxi driver asked me from the driver’s seat. I was in the back row, behind my carpool companion Rosa.

“New York,” I replied.

“Ah, New York?” the jovial portly man said. “My brother lives in New York!” He told me that he had planned to visit his brother in the Big Apple, but when he applied for a visa at the American embassy in Cairo, he was rejected. The embassy said he didn’t have enough bank documents to show that he could financially support himself there — even though he claimed he did. The taxi driver thought there was a different reason.

“I have three thousand dollars American, but I think they reject me when they saw my name,” he said. “My name is Osama.”

Talk about having the wrong name at the wrong time.

Now in Color!

Posted: June 18, 2004

DAY 242: Casablanca, the Moroccan oceanside city made popular by movie quotes from the 1942 Humphrey Bogart movie, has come a long way since then. For one, it’s no longer in black and white.

Next Train to Marrakesh

Posted: June 18, 2004

DAY 243: If there’s anything that the French influenced on the Moroccans during its occupation in the mid-20th century other than language, it’s the idea of a fast and efficient modern railway system. Morocco has one of the most modern train networks in Africa, linking most of the major cities via rail, with trains that actually depart and arrive on time. The only drawback to the Moroccan railway is that you have to be at the correct train station for you to appreciate its efficiency.

Splish, Splash, He Gave Me A Bath

Posted: June 22, 2004

DAY 244: Most of Marrakesh’s main points of interest are within a 40-minute walk of the Place Djemaa el-Fna and without the comforts of a package tour’s air conditioned tour bus coach (complete with a guide holding up an umbrella for people to follow), I took to the streets to run errands and see the sights on foot.

Rock The Kasbah

Posted: June 22, 2004

DAY 245: “It’s amazing there are no French people,” Australian Lucy said. She was referring to the fourteen people that had amassed into a small minibus tour group with the Imagine Le Voyage budget tour company based in Marrakesh. Despite the fact that a huge majority of the tourists in Morocco were from France, we were a rainbow coalition, all English-speaking, from other nations: Lucy and Steve from Australia, Russ from the UK, Maider and Serbio from Spain, Miguel from Portugal, Mazza from Japan, Kim from South Korea, Tina and Hendrik from Sweden, Coral and Waddah from California, USA, Canadian Sebastian and me.

Carpets and Camels

Posted: June 24, 2004

DAY 246: I once read a story about how persuasive Moroccan carpet salesmen can be, using not a tactic of aggressiveness, but the strategy of feigned friendliness and hospitality to guilt one into buying a genuine Moroccan rug. That day in Morocco, I finally got to see these salesmen in action.

Profit Mohammed

Posted: June 24, 2004

DAY 247: The Sahara, the world’s largest desert sprawling all over northern Africa, gets extremely hot in the daytime. (Perhaps that’s why they call it the desert, huh?) To combat the heat, our tour was set up to avoid the hottest part of the day, by first bringing us in at sunset the day before, and leading us out at sunrise that morning.

Animated Ascent

Posted: June 28, 2004

DAY 248: “If there was any one song you could have in your head while riding the camels, what would it be?” Sebastian the 20-year-old Vancouverite asked me. I drew a blank.

“I don’t know.”

Sebastian revealed the one he had in mind, a song from his childhood when he was ten and I was in college:

Prince Ali, mighty as he, Ali Ababwa…

(from Disney’s animated feature Aladdin)

This was just one of the many references to cartoons throughout the day as we hiked up Djebel Toubkal, north Africa’s highest peak at 4167m. ASL.

Heels On The Hill

Posted: June 28, 2004

DAY 249: One of the dangers of mountain trekking is mountain sickness, caused by the lack of sufficient oxygen to the brain in high altitudes. Mountain sickness (or “altitude sickness”) affects different people in different ways at different levels of severity. For example, when I climbed to the altitude of 5681m. up Mount Kilimanjaro with a Japanese guy named Kenji, the thin air caused me to vomit three times and it put Kenji into a delirious, near-vegetable state.

The effects of mountain sickness were bound to happen again as I continued the second day of a two-day trek up to the peak of Djebel Toubkal at 4167m. ASL, this time not with a Japanese vegetable but a Canadian named Sebastian.

High, Dry and Hassle-Free

Posted: June 30, 2004

DAY 250: In the 1960s, Essaouira, the relaxed ocean city on the north west coast of Morocco, was a hippie haven that attracted the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Bob Marley and their faithful long-haired disciples. Nowadays, the hippies are gone — along with their big clouds of hash smoke — but Essaouira still retains its cool, relaxed vibe with ocean breezes and welcoming cooler temperatures than that of the cities inland. A new generation of music goers go there now, both locals and foreigners, more so in late June when the city hosts the annual Festival d’Essaouira, a four-day music festival with international appeal.

Laid Back In My Galabiyya

Posted: June 30, 2004

DAY 251: The Let’s Go guidebook calls Essaouira “one of Morocco’s most laid-back cities.” Compared to what we had seen in other tourist-frequented places, this was nothing further from the truth. Essaouira’s chilled out vibe — even with shopkeepers — was just like the book claimed, even with the surge of people in town for the music festival.

Jamming in Morocco

Posted: June 30, 2004

DAY 252: Legendary international superstar Bob Marley has had a long lasting effect on the people in Essaouira. Long after his departure not only were people big fans of his reggae music, they also tried to look like Rastafarians with kitschy woolen hats with dreads knitted into them. But the Moroccan affection for Bob Marley epitomized at the Festival d’Essaouira’s big finale act: The Wailers, Bob Marley’s former band.

Funky Old Medina

Posted: July 03, 2004

DAY 253: Founded in the eighth century and declared a World Heritage Site in 1981, Fez is one of Morocco’s premiere imperial cities with a “bustling, colorful medina [that] epitomizes Morocco. No visit to the country is complete without seeing it,” says Let’s Go. With only two days left in Morocco, I supposed at least one in Fez was in order.

Out of Africa

Posted: July 03, 2004

DAY 254: “It’s the end of an era,” I told Sebastian as we rode on the last ferry from Africa into Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar. The nighttime ferry ride was the unforeseen final leg of a mad dash from Morocco to Spain.

Back in the Western World

Posted: July 03, 2004

DAY 255: Being in Spain, I was back in the Western World. On a morning walk to make a reservation at the train station, I saw the familiar images of scantily-clad women on billboards and the sounds of Vespas whizzing by. No longer would I be hearing Arabic, I was back to the language of Spanish, which I learned during the first two weeks of The Trip. However, the main difference between Latin American Spanish and European Spanish (other than some words being used differently) is that the Europeans pronounce their soft C’s with a lispy TH sound. I’m told that this was because a former king of Spain had a lisp and they changed the language entirely to suit him.

Second Time, Second Nature

Posted: July 10, 2004

DAY 256: Barcelona, has a particular allure unmatched by other Spanish city. It attracted the likes of wild and world-renowned artists like Picasso and Miro and lured the Olympic committee in 1992 for the Summer Games. It lured me once before and it was doing it again a second time.

City of The Phallus

Posted: July 10, 2004

DAY 257: I don’t know if it was intentional, but I’ve heard that Barcelona seems to be obsessed with phallic symbols.

My First Celebrity Sighting

Posted: July 10, 2004

DAY 258: You never know when you may bump into someone famous in a major city. During my days in New York City, I’ve randomly stumbled upon Keanu Reeves, Nathan Lane and Sarah Jessica Parker to name a few — friends and acquaintances of mine have encountered Kiefer Sutherland, Uma Thurman, Andre 3000 from Outkast, Jerry Seinfeld and even the guy who played his TV dad Morty. Being in the world city of Barcelona, another celebrity sighting was bound to happen.

Progression to the Typical

Posted: July 13, 2004

DAY 259: Pablo Picasso, the world famous painter, revolutionized the art world with his Cubist style. However, he didn’t always depict his subjects in the sharp angles and loud colors that made classical art buffs at the time what to hang themselves. Like most Modern artists that don’t get really famous until they die, Picasso had an artistic history of painting and drawing things formatively, mostly in his younger years in Barcelona. Gradually over time he progression his style into the one he is most famous for today.

Jack and I would also leave our “young days” in Barcelona and progress our travels together onto other parts of Spain, but not before one last day in the roots of our time together.

Guidance in the Home of Paella

Posted: July 13, 2004

DAY 260: Every great city can be characterized by its local cuisine. Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, has the American classic Philly cheesesteak sandwich. The chilled out vibe of the Florida Keys spawned the cool and relaxed Key Lime Pie. And Valencia, Spain, a perfect fusion of things old and new, is the Home of Paella, the fusion of saffron-spiced rice with any mix of meats, vegetables and seafood.

To Run Or Not To Run

Posted: July 13, 2004

DAY 261: Most non-Spaniards know Pamplona’s San Fermin Festival solely as “The Running of the Bulls.” However, the Running of the Bulls is just one part of an eight-day festival that transforms the normally peaceful northern Spanish town of Pamplona into a huge Spring Break party where even wild bulls are allowed to participate. It’s sort of like the biggest barbecue where cows skewer the flesh of humans instead of the other way around.

Run Erik Run

Posted: July 13, 2004

DAY 262: The Running of the Bulls. The title has been heard over and over every year between July 6-14, usually on the news in a world report about someone getting gored by a powerful male bovine. Evolved from the old tradition of people moving bulls across town to get them into the arena for a bullfight, the encierro, as it is called locally, is now the most famous (and most deadly) of all of the San Fermin Festival’s agenda of week-long events, occurring every morning at 8 a.m. sharp.

King For A Day

Posted: July 15, 2004

DAY 263: “If this gets anymore romantic,” I said as the two flautists and solo guitarist serenaded us and the handful of other outdoor cafe patrons, “I may have to ask you to marry me.”

Jack took my joke only semi-lightly. “Alright, cut the music, that’s enough!”

An Invitation For Trouble

Posted: July 16, 2004

DAY 264: Part of the drama of travel is getting into trouble whether you like it or not — or caused it or not for that matter. On the road, you never know if trouble is lurking right around the corner.

Last Night Out (Take Two)

Posted: July 17, 2004

DAY 265: I woke up not really much hung over. My brain was too busy cursing myself out for being robbed just a couple of hours before. I sucked it up and just spent the morning on my laptop, attending to Blog duties while Juan and Jack were passed out cold all morning.

The Race to Paris

Posted: July 17, 2004

DAY 266: There is a familiar scene on CBS’ The Amazing Race: confused, hurried Americans in a foreign country at a ticket counter, begging for the first ride out of town. Immediately after I parted with Jack, I sucked up the fact that I had only one hour of sleep the night before (only three the night before), and rushed over to the train station as fast as I could, whistling the theme to The Amazing Race. From my experience, it was best to reserve a train seat the day before you plan to travel, and you cut it pretty close doing it the day of, especially for a long distance on a Sunday night.

Open and Closed

Posted: July 17, 2004

DAY 267: “Attention, s’il vous plaît. Nous arrivons à Paris-Austerlitz en vingt minutes!” came the cry over the PA system, telling us we had twenty minutes before arrival. I woke up in my train bunk all confused. Huh? Where am I? Was that just in French?

Paris Lost

Posted: July 19, 2004

DAY 268: “Une carte Mobilis,” I ordered at the Metro ticket booth. Asking for a one-day unlimited train and bus travel pass was the first thing I’d say for this and the next three mornings. The Mobilis card is aimed for tourists who want to zip around hassle-free. However, the sights would have to take a backseat to the errands I had planned that day.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Posted: July 19, 2004

DAY 269: July 14th may just be a random summer day to others in the northern hemisphere, but in France it is Bastille Day, the independence day of the French republic, a day of national celebration and, as Let’s Go so eloquently puts it, “a time of glorious firework displays and equally glorious alcohol consumption.” Paris, the governmental center of France had no inhibitions of celebrating the national holiday in a big, big way — so big that the huge Bastille parade on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées altered the normal morning rush hour Metro service.

Dead End

Posted: July 21, 2004

DAY 270: Up by seven, out the door by 7:40. Another “working day” for me in Paris had begun, this time at the Chinese consulate in a nearby suburban area of Paris. It was the last part of the puzzle in planning my Trans-Siberian/Trans-Mongolian Railway trip from Moscow to Beijing.

To See The Bridge

Posted: July 21, 2004

DAY 271: “Where should I go?” I asked dorm mates Ben and Daniel. Having done all that I could concerning Russian and Chinese visas in Paris, it was time to move on — but where to next? The beauty of the unlimited travel Eurail Pass is that you can go mostly anywhere in Europe on a whim (some trains require reservations). I boiled down my options to two out of many: the northwestern beaches of Normandy to see the World War II memorial sites; or the southeastern town of Avignon, home of the legendary bridge which became subject of the French children’s song, “Sur le Pont d’Avignon,” which I learned in junior high French class. Figuring I hadn’t really taken full advantage of my 17-country Eurail Pass (I only did two so far), I might as well go to Avignon en route to third country, Italy.

On the Roof and Under the Bridge

Posted: July 21, 2004

DAY 272: In the early 14th century, there was a civil war in Italy between those who supported the emperor and those who supported the Catholic Church. Until the smoke cleared, the popes of the Catholic Church picked up their robes, hats and little communion wafers and took refuge in Avignon, France, a town governed by one Charles II, who was also King of Naples and Sicily and friend to the Church. For about seventy years, the popes lived in Avignon and continued performing their duties of the Catholic empire until 1376 when Gregory XI brought the papacy back to Rome after another scuffle between Catalan Rodriguez and the Italians in the Cataluyan War. If not for this decision to move back to Rome, “Roman Catholics” as we know them today might have been known as “Avignon Catholics.”

Three Flavors of Alps

Posted: July 22, 2004

DAY 273: The sun came up over the Rhône as I waited for an early morning taxi on the riverbank. I was the only one awake in probably all of the Ile de la Barthelasse at 6:30, other than security guards or groundskeepers. I was the only one on the island trying to get an early train out of Avignon to move onto another destination.

Memories of Tuscany

Posted: July 25, 2004

DAY 274: Firenze, more commonly known in the English-speaking world as Florence, lies in the scenic hills in Tuscany, the northwestern province of Italy. Florence has attracted many people for centuries, particularly in the 14th and 15th (A.D.), when it became the center point of the Renaissance, a place where the masters of thought, astronomy, literature, art and architecture came to be. Nowadays, the city of 376,000 residents attracts tourists from all over the world, each bringing home his/her own personal memory of Tuscany.

Mr. Big Head

Posted: July 25, 2004

DAY 275: Florence holds one of the world’s most famous sculptures, Michelangelo’s David, which one art critic hailed, “Nor has there ever been seen a pose so fluent, or a gracefulness equal to this, or feet, hands and head so well related to each other with quality, skill and design.” I don’t know what that guy was talking about; all I focused on was how disproportionately big Dave’s head was.

Overcoming Dysfunctions

Posted: July 25, 2004

DAY 276: Germany, like most countries, is not without its historical dysfunctions. However, Germany’s dysfunctions of the past may be just a tad more obvious, you know with that whole Hitler/Nazi/Holocaust thing. That’s not to say Germany doesn’t have its good things in history — the classical music of Bach and Beethoven, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, beer — but upon my approach via overnight train into Munich, the German Bavarian city in the south, there was a bit of a snag.

History On Wheels

Posted: July 29, 2004

DAY 277: Berlin might have been a less overwhelming place to tour around in the 1980s because back then only the sights of West Berlin were open to American tourists like myself. But after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, marking the end of the Cold War between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., the east side of the wall was open, making “New Berlin” a bigger and much more overwhelming place of historical sights to tour around.

House of Superheroes

Posted: July 31, 2004

DAY 278: Design is a much more important part of society that the average person may think. For example, what would society be without graphic design? Every magazine layout, advertisement poster or web page that is effective to its viewer is like that because of graphic design. Passports, airline tickets and even money looks official because of graphic design. A diploma or certificate of authenticity just looks fake and illegitimate without graphic design. And really, which would you trust more: a company that has an established logo and corporate identity design scheme, or one that uses clip art from Microsoft Word?

Perfect Strangers

Posted: July 31, 2004

DAY 279: There was an American sitcom in the 1980s called Perfect Strangers about the mishaps of an American in Chicago named Larry who took in his estranged Mediterranean sheep-herding cousin named Balki who suddenly appeared on his doorstep one day. In 1989, Perfect Strangers went into daytime syndication so that teens on their summer vacation like me had something to watch in between morning game shows and afternoon cartoons.

What’s A Motto With You?

Posted: August 02, 2004

DAY 280: Luxembourg is not French, not German, not Belgian, but Luxembourgish, a national identity its citizens strived to keep for centuries despite the country’s small size. Although Luxembourg may have lost territories to its bordering countries throughout history, its core has been strived in the center of Western Europe since it was founded in 963 A.D. Over a thousand years later, its proud Luxembourgish motto says, “Mir welle bleiwe wat mir sin” which translates to “We want to remain who we are” (or in layman’s terms, “We ain’t sellin’ out to The Man!”)

Searching For Einstein

Posted: August 02, 2004

DAY 281: In 1879, one of the most influential scientists in history was born. Known for his famous Theory of Relativity and his out-of-control, just-got-out-of-bed hair, Albert Einstein was born in the southwestern German city of Ulm on the Danube River. Although Einstein left Ulm and moved to Munich and then Switzerland and ultimately to the United States where he died in Princeton, New Jersey, his hometown had no qualms in celebrating its claims that the genius was born within their city limits. If not for the birth of Einstein in Ulm, sarcastic people around the world might not have had the expression, “Smooth move, Einstein.”

Palace Pictures

Posted: August 07, 2004

DAY 282: There is a saying that goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” With that adage in mind, I often shoot quick photos of ordinary things with my little digital camera in lieu of jotting down notes when I’m lazy, so my memory is jogged when writing Blog entries — particularly when I’m a week behind.

“You’re taking a picture of the sign?” my cousin Hans-Georg questioned when I took a picture of the sign to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.

“Yeah, so I don’t have to write the name down,” I replied.

Hans-Georg had taken the day off from work to show me the nearby palaces and castles in and around Stuttgart. His retired parents, Tony and Ursula, tagged along. It was a nice sunny day for a stroll anyway.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Posted: August 07, 2004

DAY 283: The Czech Republic, one of the newer members of the European Union when it joined in May 2004 (even though it still uses the local currency, the crown [at the time of writing]), has been a popular destination for tourists and backpackers for decades, particularly its Bohemian capital Prague. It was here that poets, writers and musicians convened — Franz Kafka was inspired to write his Metamorphosis here, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart premiered his opera Don Giovanni. Every backpacker I’ve met raved about Prague and it’s Bohemian vibe and I ventured on to see why.

Classical, Hip Hop and the Ghosts In Between

Posted: August 07, 2004

DAY 284: Music, as Madonna once put it, “makes the people come together.” I’m sure this was still true in the caveman days, when a caveman started banging on a rock in a manner as simple as the percussion in a White Stripes’ song. Music brought villagers together in South America, tribes together in Africa and Americans together in “we can do it” montages in American 80s teen flicks.

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