המשפחה (Family)

Saturday, November 13, 2010 - Finally, after almost 9 months of constant travel and being thousands of miles away from either of our home continents, we returned to the US, and were bursting at the seams to see family and friends. 

1 week after returning, my parents, Ana, and I hoofed it to Dallas; partly to go to the office for the first time in a long time and also to meet my new boss, but primarily, to reconnect with our family on my mom's side of the family that lives in Dallas. I, however, left on Thursday by myself and stayed with my old roomies Greg and Mel, while Ana and my folks would come up on Saturday. This was partly to go to the office Friday, and, well, partly an excuse to hang with my old roomies.

An interesting thing happened before I left Houston; Thursday morning I felt a weight of anxiety fall on me like I haven't felt since I was in my previous nightmare relationship in Dallas.. In typical male fashion I ignored this for as long as I could until a moment of realization arrived, and a smile grew on my face. Where I used to ache with anxiety when I was with my ex-wife in Dallas, I was now aching with anxiety for drawing away from my wife to go to Dallas.

Family

I lived in Dallas for some 7 years and, though admittedly in a bad relationship then, never even thought to pick up the phone and call my family there, much less see any of them. But thankfully, a lot has changed since then. When I/we (my parents) found ourselves in Israel meeting my mom's family there for the first time, it struck us marvelous that we'd travelled all the way across the globe to meet this incredible family, yet at the same time ridiculous that we have relatives of this same family back in Dallas, only a couple hundred miles away from us, that we haven't seen in years. It was shortly after my parents returned from Israel to the states that they picked contact back up, and we planned this weekend specifically to see them again.

This weekend, my greatest joy was just sitting back and watching my mom fit into this family puzzle like a piece that had long been missing, where when it's fit back together, the whole makes better sense. We had an absolute blast; it was like watching a bunch of sisters that grew up together, which really isn't far from the truth here. The even stranger thing is, it's like there'd always been a missing piece in this family puzzle since from eternity, and Ana fits it. This I can't explain, I only write.

PS

Those of you that are Jewish and interested in your lineage, you ought to check out the below. The Stephen Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library digitized records of Jewish families from all around Europe and thousands of towns are now available to print via the internet. Our family in Dallas apparently found the tiny Polish town in this collection and bought the book for it, which is hundreds of pages. Now I just need to learn how to read it. But chances are if your lineage is Ashkenazi, you can find a lot of your family records here.

Jumbo Jet

Friday, November 5, 2010 - Ana asked me to make the arrangements for the last few stops in Scandanavia, which was an immediate mistake. I'd completed all of our bookings all the way through Stockholm, only lacking our last night there, which Ana only was hoping to be near the airport. I did much better than that. I found a hostel, with free wi-fi, within our budget, on a JUMBO JET.

These folks took a jumbo jet and rolled it off the airport grounds and into some nearby grass or something, then converted the main cabin into many rooms, converted the cockpit into a deluxe suite, the upper deck (first class) into a little movie theatre (with the original seats intact), and all the little airplane windows and overhead cabins in place.

Apparently the plane has only been sleeping people for a year or so now, but it was hilarious. I worked from the front of the plane all day while parents brought their little kids in just to see the thing and then leave. There was no flipping way I'd see a Jumbo Jet Hostel anywhere and not stay in it. A fantastic ending to our most recent leg of travels, indeed..

Stockholm

Saturday, October 30, 2010 - After Oslo we flew to Stockholm. We landed and I said to Ana, "I'm excited to see Stockholm." Ana replied, "I wanna go home." It gave me a good chuckle but it's true, while we aren't tired of travelling by any means, we are simply very excited to see family and friends. We spent almost 9 months outside of the states, which was far too long.

But, one last hoorah before the states. Beauty returned when we arrived; Stockholm is really this gigantic system of islands. In fact, it's an archipelago with supposedly over 24,000 islands! We rented an apartment on an island called Sodermalm, which is just 1 island south of the small Old City, which is beautiful. It's another fantastic old city to get lost in and squeeze through tiny alleys of cobblestone floors. Stockholm is also massive. It seems like it would be a cool place to live, mostly because you could probably not see all of it in an entire lifetime; you'd never be bored here..

Language

The people are still universally nice. If I hadn't mentioned it before, the Scandinavian languages are (I think) considered "North Germanic", but in my opinion, prettier than German.. One thing that strikes me as funny here is that Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish all have only 1 greeting word. So far, all countries have had different greetings (like "hi", "hey", "what's up", "how are you", "how's it going", "can I help you", etc).. In Denmark and Norway, regardless of where you are, you will be greeted with the same word 100% of the time: "HI!". And in Sweden, the universal greeting is "HEY!" How succinct, no?

Oslo

Thursday, October 28, 2010 - After visiting the northernmost point in our lives, we flew to Oslo which, quite frankly, was slightly boring in my opinion; at least comparatively speaking. It's a huge city, and also the home to Nobel Peace center.

Oslo wasn't completely void of excitement though! While travelling, I've always got my work laptop as well as a personal laptop, just for backup in case anything happens to the work one. Well, while in Montenegro, the monitor on my work laptop went kaput. All my efforts to fix it were in vain. So I went to the personal laptop as backup and have been working with it ever since. Well, while in Oslo, my backup laptop corrupted itself and refused to boot up anymore. Yay!

We contemplated which would be cheaper: buy plane tickets to fly back home and get a new laptop at the office, or just buy a new one here? Unsurprisingly, I opted for the latter. This would mark the first time in our nearly 2 years of travels that I had to finally charge something to my credit card.. Scandinavia, you have finally broken me.

Northern Lights



Sunday, October 24, 2010 - On Friday we travelled the furthest north either of us have ever been - Tromsø, at the very north of Norway. It's inside the Artic Circle, further north than Iceland, and further north than much of Russia and Canada. We went there really for the sole purpose of seeing yet another thing I've been dreaming of seeing since I was a kid - the Northern Lights.

The quick science behind this, if you don't already know, is when solar flares (explosions from our nuclear reactor, the sun) send charged particles at the earth. These particles react with the magnetosphere and emit visible light.

Our friend Kay, whom I met while at the Yeshiva in Jerusalem, coincidentally went there last year for the same reason, and she recommended an awesome guide that would take us 'chasing' the lights. Toda Kay!

Our guide, Kjetil Skogli (pronounced "Chetil"), is an award-winning photographer and has been featured in TV shows (including BBC). He's also a cool guy, and a fellow programmer of all things! Why did we hire him? His job is to drive us as far as we have to go in order to find the lights. Plus he had about a thousand gadgets in his car to keep him updated with weather reports and such. We figured if we were going to go all that way, we may as well do it right.

So we met him Saturday night at 6:30PM. It had been a complete cloud cover all day, and that night was no exception. But alas, we tried anyhow. We drove, and drove and drove - even all the way to the border of Finland. But it was simply snowing harder there. We drove until about 2:30AM and found nothing. Kjetil made us a deal though - meet him the next night and we'll try again.

Touchdown
Indeed we, as well as another family from the UK from the night before, showed up again to meet Kjetil Sunday night. He drove us out to a place that was beautiful all on its own.. A remote fjord on the Arctic Sea an hour or so away from town, no lights for miles, snow-covered huge mountains everywhere around and all lit up by the full moon. I shall now describe the experience, but descriptions, and even photos, can do it no justice to actually being there.

We pulled up to this beautiful area and saw a very faint, green cloud off in the distance. Apparently this was the beginning of the show.. About a half hour later, faint, green bands slowly began showing up, stretching from the eastern horizon to the west, and barely but slowly converging in the north, and then disappearing. Then, nothing.

For about 30 minutes.. Then some bands show up again, but this time more vivid, more flourescent, and more fake looking. This time however, one of them stops in front of us before it reaches the northern horizon, and begins to go absolutely nuts. Vertical bars, or columns, begin showing up inside this giant green band, and each contain brilliant, indescribable colors.. And then, each of these bars start moving around, as if they're alive. Then they start speeding up, some of them flashing all the way across the sky, some of them dancing with each other slowly - seriously, as if they were sentient beings.. The best way I can describe this part is, it looked like a party. And even weirder was that it looked like all this was happening no further than 50 feet away, as if we were the audience at a ballet, the green bands and beautiful bars the dancers, the sky the stage, and we, applauding a magnificent performance. This was the craziest thing I've seen in the night sky. It was so dramatic that it actually scared Ana. What an honor to actually have seen this in my life.

This continued for several minutes, lighting up the whole sky and illuminating the clouds; so bright that you could see the reflection of this in the water below. All I kept wondering was, can you possibly imagine what the ancients must have thought about this before more proper (scientific) understanding came to light?

Bergen (Norway)

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - We hopped on a plane after Copenhagen (something we'll be doing for the duration of our travels in Scandinavia - flying, that is) and headed for Bergen, a ridiculously picturesque port town on the west coast of Norway. This town is everything I pictured Scandinavia to be: fjords everywhere, blistering cold, brightly colored wooden houses, mountains, and tons of blonde people.

We arrived to near-freezing temperature and rain, welcomed the next day with blue skies and warmer, pleasant temperature, and our last day to a torrential downpour of snow.

It still strikes me, especially with the weather they have here, how many buildings and houses are made of wood. The wharf area here in fact is completely made of wood - wood sidewalks, wood stores, wood buildings, etc. Walking through this truly felt like walking through a Western movie set in the 1800s. Walking a tiny bit outside the city center and to the residential area was perhaps the most beautiful of all. Everywhere are tiny streets to get lost in a world of little, unique, brightly colored (doll!) houses. With the fjords and mountains as your backdrop to all this, it's hard not to love.

Our hostel here was quite good as well. It's interesting, there are some hostels that simply seem to breed a spirit of friendship. Not all are like this; it's somewhat of a rare thing. But some, regardless of which guests come and go (and typically we stay longer than most people, so many come and go during our stays), seem to bring all the guests together somehow. This was one of them. Among the backpackers I got to know there was a Spanish programmer basically doing what I'm doing, but who has chosen to live in Bergen now; a local Norwegian who just moved back from Sweden; a quite funny Australian who saved up money at his law job, quit, and is now travelling for months before returning to find a new job; and 2 more Spaniards very interested in things American.

Our last day in Bergen we took a "tour" of the nearby Fjords, although it really just turned out to be a very expensive ferry that dropped us off in the middle of nowhere for about 3 hours. But the boat ride was beautiful.. The majority of the time it snowed, and it snowed hard. How many times in your life will you get to see it snow on the sea?!

København

Wednesday, Oktober 13, 2010 - Here we are in Copenhagen now. Here are some fun facts about Denmark: my !@#!@ it's !@#!#&! expensive here! Actually though, there are some very interesting things I've learned about this country. First, there are only a few handfulls of countries in the world that actually have an official State Religion. Many of the middle east countries do (Islam), Israel kind of does (Judaism), and the Scandanavian countries do (Protestant Christianity - Lutheran). I also noticed some interesting statistics about Denmark (that seem to extend to all the Scandanavian countries really):

1) Denmark has the highest level of income equality,

2) Rated last year as the 2nd most peaceful country in the world,

3) Rated last year as the 2nd least corrupt country in the world,

4) Has the 4th highest ratio of college-degree holders,

5) Has the world's highest minimum wage; and, one of my favorites,

6) According to Wikipedia - "International studies show that the population of Denmark is the happiest of any country in the world."

How could you not be happy, taking trains across water wherever you travel?

Copenhagen
Copenhagen was the only city in Denmark we visited, but we spent 5 (expensive) nights there. It was recently ranked as the 7th most expensive city in the world. To put it into perspective, a beer at a pub will cost you at least $12. A coffee, typically $7. The city itself was cool, although I think I may have built it up in my head a bit much. I'd read articles putting Copenhagen at the #1 coolest spot in Europe. It is indeed a cool European city, but I by no means found it even as a "must" necessarily.

One thing that was fascinating to me was that everybody spoke incredible English.. In fact, sometimes they had absolutely zero accent. In some cases, I feared some of them may speak better English than I. Is this supposed to happen in a foreign country? I don't think so!

I was also intrigued to go to Copenhagen just to visit the hometown of one of my favorite philosophers - Soren Kierkegaard - and the university he attended there. Near the university, we also found one of the coolest cafes I've ever been to.. The walls were lined with bookcases full of all kinds of old books, little rooms upstairs and downstairs with candelit tables and beautiful chairs, begging you to take a nap on them and peruse through a book of antiquity from the shelf next to you. Needless to say, we spent quite a bit of time there once we discovered it.

Christiania

Another interesting area was Christiania on the island of Christianshavn. It's an area smack in the middle of Copenhagen, but after a fire in the 1970s, basically some hippies took it over and created their own commune there, that now I actually think is legally separated from Copenhagen; if not in every respect, certainly in some. Walking out of the area is a little sign that reads "You are now entering the EU". It's very interesting, as I'm reading Plato's The Republic which in part deals with how a society ("State") begins. Rudimentarily from a few people who want food, then want a house, then want a coat. Plato then goes into what makes a State successful and what kills it (not surprisingly, Philosophy pervading the State, and a Philosopher/King is what is asserted to make it successful). Anyhow, as we walked through this area, which is truly different than the rest of Copenhagen, it was impossible not to see Plato's theories playing out, especially watching this society of 850 people evolving from its rudimentary form. It was undoubtedly a sketchy area. Drugs are legal. There are no real 'architects' there to speak of, so everything is homemade. It's a very interesting idea.. Can a commune survive peacefully? 30 years after its inception, it appears the answer here is No. There have been plenty of murders, violence, etc. here, and like I say, the place doesn't feel safe at all. It felt like there were no laws, except whatever seems right to you. Unfortunately they don't let you take pictures in the area!

Pub Experience

Finally, I got to catch my first real views of NFL football this year when we found an English Pub showing games. We met an American (James) and Canadian (Paul) there and hung out with them watching the games.. The 3 of us really felt like we were back in North America watching the games. James is a guy from Atlanta who lived in the Czech Republic with his wife until he was walking up the stairs in their apartment building one night, he slipped and tried to brace himself against the elevator doors, but the doors were open and he fell 7 stories, paralyzing him below the waist. A tragic story, but stimulating conversation talking with the 3 of them about travel, politics, and religion. Paul must be pretty loaded because he kept buying us beers, which I most certainly wouldn't have been able to afford more than 1.

Scandanavia

Wednesday, Oktober 13, 2010 - What's the easiest way to travel between two countries separated by sea? Why, by train of course! We boarded our train in Hamburg set out for Denmark - Copenhagen. After we boarded and got moving, I stopped to think about the logistics of our train ride. And asked Ana - "Mo, do we make any stops?" "No, it's a direct train." I asked to look at the ticket. Indeed, no stops. I pondered, and became bewildered. "Mo, isn't there a large body of water between Germany and Denmark, like, a sea?" "Hmm. I think you're right Mo." "Mm. This should be interesting."

The longer our journey, the more water we started seeing around us. Then finally the conductor came on and, after speaking gibberish (that was supposedly Danish), told us we were approaching the ferry. "Ahh, great. Now we get to lug all our luggage to a ferry and board another train" I said. But this is Denmark, one of the richest countries in the world.. Far be it from them to make their passengers perform such a monstrousity!

The train gets closer and closer to water, and closer, until it enters ontop of the ferry. And like clockwork, as soon as it does so the ferry bolts. We exit the train en-route ontop of the water and go up the stairs to a floating city, with luxury shops, perfumeries, expensive clothing stores, restaurants, cafes, etc.

Then the ferry docks and the train hauls @ss immediately off the thing and onto train tracks again. I can't imagine how much money and engineering it took to accomplish this feat, all so I wouldn't have to take my luggage and get on another train.

And thus begins our entrance to Scandanavia, a possible omen of things to come..

Hamburg

Saturday, October 9, 2010 - After Gdansk we took a plane to Hamburg (it was the cheapest option!). My apologies to anyone reading this who's from there, likes it there, likes the name, whatever; but it wasn't really what I was expecting. From everything I'd read about it, I thought it was going to be like the Venice of Germany. Indeed, it's near the water, and has a few canals here and there, but was basically a behemoth of large, modern buildings. There were a couple nice areas, but mostly it seemed it a bit stale.

It probably didn't help that the "free wifi" advertisements our hotel made online were bogus and that their "business center" consisted of a computer and small chair. But, being Hamburg, it had Starbucks on nearly every corner and they actually did have free wifi, so Starbucks once again saved me with my job.

One highlight was finding Ana's favorite beer (Paulaner Hefeweisen) and watching her get drunk after a few sips. She's gonna kill me when she reads this. ssshhhhhhh...

Gdansk

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 – After Torun we came to our last stop in Poland – Gdansk, on the Baltic Sea at the very North of the country, in what used to be a separate country/region known as Pomerania.

Pomerania was a separate country ontop of both Germany and Poland, a horizontal sliver of land hugging the Baltic Sea. During the German persecution of WWII however its inhabitants largely fled, interestingly enough, a large portion of them to Brazil - this I learned from my brother-in-law Antonio in Brazil.. This population still exists in a very isolated area of southern Brazil, retaining its original European language, culture, architecture, etc. It's almost like an entire country moved to a more suitable location.

Still, Pomerania is actually somehow autonomous from Poland, and Gdansk is the capital of this region still called Pomerania, I just don't really know how exactly. One thing's for sure though, this was aesthetically the prettiest of all the cities we visited in Poland. It's a port town with tons of history, dazzling architecture, horribly nice people, and plenty to see.

Torun

Sunday, October 3, 2010 – Did you know Copernicus was Polish (originally Mikolaja Kopernika)? I honestly did not. But we came to his town after Warsaw - Torun, a sleepy little medieval town in the North of Poland. We only stayed for a couple days, so not much to report really other than it reminded me for some reason of what I fantasize 1950s American towns might have been like. There were Coca-Cola signs everywhere and tons of ice cream shops and whatnot. And all things Copernicus. I'm not sure the ubiquity of Copernicus is necessarily 1950s American, but this is my blog, so you will listen to what I say.

Stoczek

Friday, October 1, 2010 – My great-grandfather, Boim (Ben), grew up in Poland in a Jewish family, as did many of his generations before him. He married a fellow Polish Jew, Mechle (Mary), and had a child shortly thereafter (my Grandfather, David). I would love to be able to ask my great-grandfather Boim what he and his siblings were feeling in that 2nd year of my grandfather’s life (in 1914), that compelled him to leave Poland for Argentina with some of his brothers and a sister, in search of a new life for my family, ending not only centuries of unbroken Polish habitation, but also leaving all familiarity and comfort behind.

But whatever his reason, which must have been great and undeniable, so he did, and arrived in Salta, Argentina. And I would love to be able to ask my great-grandfather, again, what was he feeling when he arrived to Argentina and felt compelled to migrate north – this time alone - in an unknown country and continent, again leaving behind whatever remained of familiarity and comfort in Salta. But whatever his reason, so he did. And did, and did, and did: for 2 years. The First World War broke out the year he left (1914), and so all the letters he sent back to Poland of his whereabouts were in vain, as they never made it.

Finally, he crossed the border from Mexico into El Paso (Texas), and felt compelled to remain. It wouldn’t be for another 5 years that his family in Poland would receive his letters – neither side knowing whether the other was even alive during these years. Can you imagine? But there, in 1921, Mechle finally received word from Boim, and she and their son (my grandfather) left and migrated to America. And thus, why eventually I was born in El Paso, Texas.

Stoczek
We met Bogodon early the next morning and set out for Stoczek, the little village my family came from. My cousin Jeff tried to find Stoczek some years ago when he was in Poland but was unsuccessful after a combination of bad weather, inability to find English, and ontop of that, locals purposely sending him to the wrong places.

Luckily we had Bogodon, who not only acted as our cabbie, but also translator, searcher, and comedian. And luckily I had Ana, who not only acted as organizer, but also director, and most of all, family. She had a folder of papers with a bounty of information. We finally found Stoczek and headed for the city hall to see if we could find any family documents. Which we did, though I need to send a formal request now to get them. Bogodon pro-actively inquired and found the Jewish cemetery, which he drove us to. Tiny, and unfortunately simply many blank headstones. Not all of my family left Poland, and those that remained, none of us ever met. One commemorative headstone represented the whole, written in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish, that was dedicated to all the Jews murdered in the Holocaust there.

This solemn and bittersweet day, basically, Ana and Bogodon focused on the details, which allowed me to simply soak up being in the little village my family came from. For this I am grateful to them both. And for my great-grandfather; if it weren’t for his move to leave Poland just before some of the worst wars in human history broke out, I wouldn’t be here to extend the gratitude of my existence.


Warsaw

Friday, October 1, 2010 - As we’ve been travelling, there have been a few places I’ve fallen in love with for one reason or another. I love Paris like she was Ana, Edinburgh like my wise-@ss dad, Israel like my spiritual mother, but Warsaw we immediately fell in love with like he was my warm and inviting grandfather.

This was possibly more of a subjective occurrence, as my grandfather was actually born not too far from here. And thus, a big reason we came to Poland in the first place. We wanted to see if we could find the tiny village where he spent the beginning of his life before emigrating to America in 1914.

But the city itself is horribly charming – especially the Old Town. At night tiny restaurants awaken everywhere, dark and lit only with candles, as if yawning from slumber in their perches among all the pastel-colored buildings. I wanted to start bringing a pillow with me to dinner to see if I could go upstairs and sleep after eating at these restaurants.. But even more incredible is all this in light of the fact that nearly all of it (estimates at 80% or so) was destroyed in WWII. But the citizens were said to have rebuilt it all, stone by stone, after liberation.

We took a cab from the train station and talked with the cabbie a little, and when we showed him our map with my Papa’s village on it (Stoczek – “Stoy-check”), he recognized it. We asked if we could hire him for the next day, which he affirmed of course (killer fare for him).

Our cabbie, Bogodon (which is evidently an old Slovenian name meaning “From God”), is one of those people that’s hysterical without trying (or knowing half the time).

“So, I’ll meet you here at this square at 8:00 tomorrow morning, right?” He asked us.
“Yes sir, we’ll be here!”
“Ok. But that’s 8:00AM Polish time, right?” He asked again, obviously stressing to us that he didn’t want to drive all the way over here and not find us here, thus wasting money.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be here - this is very important for us.” Ana said as she got out of the cab.
He looked back at me with a little mischievous grin “Mm.. For me too.”

Auschwitz

Tuesday, September 28, 2010 - We left Prague and headed to Poland, where my Jewish family (on my mom's side) is from. I'd been torn on whether or not to go to Auschwitz while we're here. On the one hand I wanted to pay respects to the victims - some of which were family members that I never met, and on the other hand the last thing I wanted to do was make an attraction out of Auschwitz or bring more fame to the perpetrators. But in the end, we (I) decided we should go, mostly for empathic reasons. I only imagined for a split second, if I were there, I would have wanted the rest of the world to know what was happening to us there.

It was the most horrible thing I've seen in my life: you have no idea. My prayer is that nothing ever happens again like this, to any group of people. Here, words really, truly, cannot describe the evil that went on there. So I won't even try.

Prague

Monday, September 20, 2010 – After a couple of nights I don’t completely recall in Munich, we took a train + bus to Prague in the Czech Republic. Our first impression was: Wow. Our middle impressions were: Wow. Our final impressions were: Wow.

Prague is one of the prettiest places we’ve seen. And that's saying something, because I am awesome. This place is a must for anyone remotely interested in Europe – whether you’ve been before or not. It’s a quintessential European city, not too big that you can’t get around, not too small that you get bored, not too expensive, some of the most impressive architecture I’ve seen, friendly, charming as h3ll. Oh, and beer.

It was also of special interest to me as it has the oldest Jewish settlement in Europe, called Josefov. I learned a morbid fact here, that Hitler planned to establish Berlin as his political capital, and Prague as his cultural capital; Josefov was to be his Jewish museum of an extinct race.

We rented an apartment there that was great, but the complex was as noisy as a hostel. Someone would drop a glass of some sort from their 5th floor parties in the middle of the night almost each night, like it was some sort of pre-slumber rite of passage.

The good news however was that our friend Paula, Ana’s next door neighbor from Brazil who lives in Italy now, came to meet us there. If I hadn’t mentioned it before, it’s always awesome to see a familiar, friendly face while we’re travelling. It was also good for me to practice my Portuguese, as I was afraid I might have misplaced all of my mental Portuguese notes since we last visited Brazil; it appears they’re mostly still there, although I think I might have scribbled over some of them with Hebrew and a beer recipe

Beerbeer beer

Czechs like beer. Apparently, they consume more beer per capita than any other country in the world. Prague has beer halls that remind me a lot of German beer halls, only smaller. Generally these force you to sit right up against someone you don’t know, smile, order potato dumplings and listen to accordion music. I pretty much like all of these things.

Perhaps the highlight for me was when the 3 of us stopped listening to my ideas and followed Paula’s, which landed us in a Monastery ontop of a huge hill overlooking the city, eating and drinking their local Monastery beer, which were the best beers I had in Prague. Afterwards we noticed the little door to the cathedral was opened, so we quietly looked inside, only to find a Saturday mass in what I would possibly consider the prettiest cathedral we’ve ever seen.

I would go on and on but I think I would bore you; I think I’m starting to bore myself. I will now let the pictures try and speak for themselves.

Turkish Bath (by Ana)

We chose the Suleymaniye Hamam to experience our Turkish Bath. The Suleymaniye Hamam was built in 1557 by Sultan Süleyman and designed by Architect Sinan.

The Haman consisted of a few sections. First, they send us to a small room where we found a towel (peştemal) / wrap for Brent (sorry, he wouldn’t let me post his picture) and shorts, bikini top and another wrap for me. They also give us wood slippers (takunya) to walk in the wet marble floor. As we started walking I couldn’t help but become slaphappy. You have no idea what it’s like walking with these things in the wet marble, and even more seeing Brent holding his wrap and trying to walk in these slippers.

Then, we were sent to “the hot section”, which was a large marble room with a central platform where we were supposed to relax for 40 minutes. The temperature of this section is approximately 40-60 C (72-108 F). Once in a while, as we were trying to relax in the heat, we would hear a loud sound from the other rooms that we couldn’t figure out what was (not for a while).

After sweating everything out of our bodies, two Haman attendants (masseur) took us to a small room by the main hot section. We sat on the floor by a “fountain/sink” and they started cooling our bodies with room temperature water at first, and then with very cold water. It felt great! Then they started rubbing (very hard) our bodies with a bath glove. This was probably my favorite part of the whole process. Great exfoliation! Then we lay on the marble table and they used something that looked like a bag over our bodies and all of a sudden we were covered with bubbles. That’s when the “torture” started. They gave us a very very hard massage. After a few minutes we finally figured out what the loud sound was… they pretty much were smacking our bodies. Seriously, I might still have red spots in my back. It was so painful that all I could do was laugh.

After the massage we sat on the floor again and to finalize they washed our hair.


We were happy when it was done and it felt good, until they left us in the “hot section” again. They didn’t say how long we were supposed to be there. It didn’t take too long and I started to feel uncomfortable. My blood pressure dropped and I told Brent I was leaving. He followed me and soon we found one of our masseurs. He gave us dry wraps and told us to change and come back. As he was wrapping my shoulders and head, I told him I had to sit. He kind of ignored me and continued wrapping me. I finally said “I’m not feeling well”, he then grabbed my arm and we started walking. I must have fainted because I really don’t remember how I got to the other room. All I remember was Brent coming to the room where I was without knowing what happened to me. He didn’t hear when I said I wasn’t feeling well and because he didn’t have his contacts or glasses, he didn’t see how I left the room.

Anyway, we hung out there for a while and left thinking that we probably won't do another Turkish bath, but at least we can say we've done it!

Oktoberfesten

Saturday, September 18, 2010 – Last weekend we left the Asian continent for the European to meet up with my cousin Greggy and his friends Jimmy, Leigh, Mark, and Ellen. Where we were meeting them was a place and time I’ve dreamed about seeing with my own eyes for probably 15 years now: Oktoberfest, in Munich.

I always dreamed of it being crowds of Germans clad in traditional little colorful dresses and Leiderhosen and feathered hats and dogs frolicking and odorous bratwurst and kraut in the air and gigantic liter glasses of cloudy German beer clinking and collective groups of drunk and happy Germans singing traditional folk songs. As I got older, of course, I realized it’s more likely a gigantic frat party of American jags on college holiday giving us a bad name, puking everywhere and acting like idiots.

My older, wiser, more mature assumptions were a big bag of wrong. Indeed, people are on every street corner and subway puking their guts out, but they’re Germans. And guys are everywhere getting rowdy and acting like morons, but they’re Germans. And women are dressed up in skimpy little traditional dresses and men in ornate Leiderhosen, but they’re Germans. What! My little teenage dreams of Oktoberfest were right?! I was shocked. In every neighborhood, bus, train, grocery store, are drunk Germans dressed to the tooth in traditional garb, and singing. The whole scene was right out of the movies (and dreams).

Party Time. Excellent.

It was so awesome to see Geggy and the friendly, happy faces of all his friends – all Texans no less! They’d all arrived the night before us and got a head start on their hangovers. They weren’t feeling so sharp the day we got there; I asked them how many beers they had the night before and most of them each had 4 or 5. Keep in mind; the glasses here are a full liter. 5 liters of beer! I’m not sure the human body is made to ingest 5 liters of anything in one night.

Since we left Jerusalem, where I went on alcohol strike, I’ve been “practicing” for Oktoberfest. It did not work. I completely thrashed myself on Saturday, our first night there. I’m still finding pieces of the night here and there that I lost.

I do remember the beer tent we went to, and how absolutely nuts it was. Virtually everyone is drunk, the entire place is sardine-packed with people, and you must wait around tables like vultures in order to sit – which we finally did. You then have a human body touching you on your left, right, and back. To my back was an Italian so drunk he was no more than a half hour from unconsciousness – but he made for an awesome seat-back cushion. I truly utilized his lifeless body for maximum comfort, and he was anything but aware. I was sad when he left.

Both Ana and I really clicked with Geggy’s friends, they’re all fantastic souls of substance. They all live in Austin and we’ve already made plans to show Ana Austin and hang with them there.

What else can I say? We partied and partied, and I can now say I’ve been to Oktoberfest in Munich. That being said, unless we know someone going again that really wants us to meet them there, I’m not sure we’d do it again; the chaos was enough. Unless one of you was willing to drink yourself into oblivion and allow me to use you as a seat-back?

Istanbul II

Thursday, September 16, 2010 – From Montenegro we headed back to Istanbul for another 2-day stay. It’s interesting, arriving back in Turkey again I felt comfort in knowing we’d be around horribly nice, welcoming people (and I was not mistaken). I also recognized the quirky sense of humor the collective city itself seems to have.

Our first night back we visited my relaxing little Hookah bar and sat next to a really cool couple from Croatia, and had a good hour-long conversation with them about travel, politics, Texas, Tennis. He wanted to know, “I heard Texas wants to separate from the United States. Is it true?” A well-informed dude indeed! The dude was blowing mathematically symmetric smoke rings at will; I was waiting for him to write his name in the air. I tried to make smoke rings too. They were more like, modern abstract art? They looked like hairy trees. Not really ideal.

I would have talked longer with them, but a gigantic buzz hit me from the Hookah and I felt like I weighed an extra couple hundred pounds all of a sudden. Then the sweats came. I ran to the bathroom expecting to hurl but never did; instead, I hovered above a stanky bowl that some Turk blew up just before I arrived. I examined the marks on the bowl as my entire body was literally dripping with sweat. I looked like a moron when I came out; my pants all wet from legsweat and my shirt like it just got out of the washing machine.

Hamam

At the insistence of many of our friends, we went to a Turkish bath for some expensive torture. You will wait though: I’ve requested that Ana instead write her experience. She had a more profound experience than I.

Back to Europe

There are so many places in Turkey I want to visit, and though I try not to regret anything in life, I feel a little foolish we didn’t go through with our original plan to stay in Turkey over the past month. Right now Turkey is one of the most inviting, friendly places I’ve been to, but I get the feeling this is due to the country’s governance as a truly secular state. As the current presidency leans toward reforming the government with Islamic law, and I may be wrong, but I fear a little for the Turkish atmosphere in the future.

Budva

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - After the chaos of Dubrovnik, we migrated south down the Adriatic coast to Montenegro again, to the beach town of Budva. This relaxing little town was a nice change from Dubrovnik, again, simply because the volume of tourists was smaller. The old town is right on the water of the Adriatic sea, which is crystal clear (just like the rest of it). Not much else to report. Which is good, as we're now gearing up for Oktoberfest in Munich, which I don't estimate will be very quiet....

Dubrovnik

Monday, September 13, 2010 - All h3ll has broken loose at work. We left the super-pleasant village of Kotor in Montenegro and headed for Dubrovnik in Croatia.. But when we arrived, I was given a project request unlike I've ever received: build a fully-functional, entire software, in 1 day. We arrived to our apartment in Dubrovnik, only to find out that they didn't have internet. So I scurried about looking for an internet card, finally found one: then the monitor on my laptop broke. Luckily we've been travelling with a backup laptop, so I used it to build and actually complete an entire system in 1 day's work. Thus, my excuse for our complete blogging silence lately.

Dubrovnik

Ana read that Dubrovnik has been recently titled as "The New Pearl of Europe". I could totally see this too. But that being said, I will now say I've never seen a city as crowded and touristy as it was when we were there.. It truly felt like we were in a perpetual line at Disney, just to walk the streets.

It turns out this tyrannasourus of a project came at a good time; I'm not sure how many fanny-packed, sunscreen-nosed, aimlessly confused, floundering, video-taping holidayers I can handle running into me. I asked the lady who rented our apartment if this volume of tourists was normal; she said unfortunately yes. There are 2 gates to get into the old city, she said some mornings it can take her 15 minutes just to walk through a gate. She said it's been getting worse and worse every year.

It's too bad - really, if it weren't for that, I could see Dubrovnik being one of the coolest places I've ever seen. It's a medieval city on the clear, blue waters of the Adriatic sea, island scattered all around it with cathedrals on them, and a city layout that's horribly unique.

All that being said, we only went to 1 place in Croatia just to get a little taste. Next year probably, we'll go back for a month or so and visit all sorts of Croatian cities. Dubrovnik is Croatia's most popular tourist destination, so I really am excited to see the rest of the country.