A delayed conclusion

Well, maybe I will write another conclusion at another time, a 'what I've learned,' feelings-y type entry.  First, let me blabber about what I did on the end of my trip.

So, I landed in Barcelona early in the morning and ventured into the city without a map, hoping to find my couchsurfing host by directions alone.  Six months of traveling did not teach me enough about my sense of direction, but it made asking for directions common enough that I stopped caring that I looked like an idiot, and hey...I finally spoke the language and didn't have to rely on other's English.  I enjoyed the tapas, the wine, and the famous gothic architecture of the city.  I met some really lovely people at a happy hour in the city, and overall enjoyed my (third) trip to Barcelona.  I then got on the bus to revisit Valladolid where I spent a semester studying abroad.  It was nice to see the city again, and an old friend from when I was there.  Unfortunately the city was a lot smaller than I remembered, and friend might be a bit more familiar than the relationship actually was.  The first night there was truly enjoyable.  The second night was a little bit awkward, but we still had fun.  On my third day things were getting a little slow, and by the evening it was clear that I should have made earlier travel plans for leaving Valladolid.  In my defense for overstaying my welcome, the third night was a Saturday night, and I thought being in a city with a friend on a Saturday would be a bit adventurous, and it would be rude to leave before the most exciting night of the week.  I was wrong.  Oops!

After Valladolid I made my way to Madrid where I would spend a few nights before flying to Baltimore to visit my loveliest friends!  So, I was really excited about going to Baltimore, and I thought I would lay low in Madrid.  There were really fun people that I hung out with and the time passed quickly.  Before I knew it it was my last night abroad.  I decided it couldn't hurt to go out for a few drinks to help me sleep on the plane the next day, my flight wasn't until 10:30. But...it could hurt.  One drink turned into many drinks, midnight turned to 2 then 4 in the morning.  I very carefully set my alarm.  I still had the wherewithal to know I needed to get up in a few hours to go to the airport. I did not however turn the volume up on my alarm, and as I was holding it close to make sure I would wake up, I in fact rolled on top of my alarm to muffle the sound. At 9:15 I woke up. Cursed. A lot. Grabbed my mercifully pre-packed bag and sprinted to the metro.  I had to switch to 3 different lines to make it to the damn airport and while I arrived before the plane took off, I was unable to find any representative for my airline as they had long since closed the ticket counter. So I traveled around the entire world, but missed my flight to the United States. There are so many different things that I have thought about this whole thing, such as incredulity, hilarity, anger, disbelief, shame.  In the end, it was the world's worst, most expensive hangover, but in the grand scheme of things not soooooo bad.

I arrived to Baltimore in the same clothes I had gone out in two nights before in Madrid and felt positively disgusting, but received the best welcome I could ever have hoped for.  because I was visiting two of my very best friends, Baltimore may have been my favorite stop on the whole trip.  You may say 'are you serious!?' but I am absolutely telling the truth.  I cannot believe everything I saw in the last six months, or that I really did it...I really traveled around the entire world (by my self!), but what I learned is that the company with which you travel can affect the entire experience.  Also...I had never been to Baltimore.  It was still a foreign land to me.

After Baltimore I spent a couple nights in NYC.  Many people have been there, so I will simply say that I was proud to be a giant tourist wearing myself out visiting the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Times Square, etc. I found it all enormous, sparkly, glamorous and magical!

And one more stop before Denver.  Wisconsin of course.  Even though Denver is home now, it was nice to have a couple weeks at home with Mom and Dad, family and friends.

I think I may be the luckiest person in the world to have done everything I just did, seen so much in the world, and still have such wonderful people in the world to come home to. I must have been a saint or something in a previous life to deserve such luck!

Flying

Plane etiquette.

So there are a lot of rules to follow while traveling on an airplane.  Some of them stated, some of them common courtesy type things.

For example, they tell you to remain in your seat while the fasten seatbelt sign is illuminated, specifically while the plane is taxiing down the runway.  They do not tell you, but you ought to assume, if you are taking a 6 a.m. flight, you should brush your teeth, use some mouthwash, or do something about that morning breath (some people on the plane just stayed out all night and smelled like booze, which is an improvement over that morning breath).  Both of these rules have been broken in the last few months of my travel.  Ok, I'm just being picky (with reason) about the morning breath.  But I have seen a lot of people lately standing up to attain their luggage from the overhead bins while the plane is still moving.  It's not like having your bag while taxiing is going to make exiting any quicker because everyone else who has to get their bags is going to block you in.

This brings me to another point of flying etiquette (which they clearly state): use caution while opening the overhead bins, as luggage may have shifted during the flight. You hear that one enough that you ought to expect something to come tumbling out.  But I suppose as it rarely happens, people let their guard down, or their bags if you will.  And one hasty man let his bag down right into my lap.  I was fortunate it was not my head because it was unpleasant enough having his bag of bricks (or whatever weighty substance) bounce off my shoulder.

Specific to budget traveling (or South West, or any other airline that does not assign seats): Nobody likes to sit bitch on the plane, but someone is going to have to crawl in between you who rushed ahead to get the good seats.  So it would be nice if, when you let this traveler (usually me), into the middle seat you don't get huffy and upset that it takes me a couple minutes to organize myself and stow my bag at my feet, all within the 2'x2' box that is the allotted space on a budget flight.

Also, I have a query.  Is it important to actually turn off your electronics during take off and landing, because sometimes I forget to switch my iPad into airplane mode, and I've never fully powered it down.  Also, the guy next to me blatantly broke that rule by first acquiescing the flight attendant's request to turn off his mp3 player, then turning it right back on as soon as each flight attendant finished their sweep.

So, this is my entry of a square's travel perspective.  Of course I am a seasoned traveler who would never commit such a heinous faux pas while flying (except that I spilled my coffee on my neighbor's seat as I was clambering to get into mine...I was a good traveler and wiped it up with my own scarf [mostly because she was glaring and refusing to sit back down, but I still did it]). But I am glad to report that my budget traveling is over for a while, and I only have 5 more flights to complete this tour of the world! (Actually a fair number of flights, as there are just two more stops via plane).

Braga to Praha.

Prague was the beautiful old city full of magnificent architecture that you would expect.  I toured the castle, which came to life for me much more easily having read Ken Follet's novels about 13th century life in cathedrals/castles.  The cathedral there is both the oldest and newest in Prague.  It was started in the 900s and was not finished until the early 1900s.  I also toured the city where the guide spouted all sorts of fun facts at top speed. The two things I remember: Hugo Boss and BMW employed slave labor by the Jews during WWII, and Hugo Boss designed the nazi uniform.  Ironically enough, there is a giant Hugo Boss store in the middle of the Jewish quarter (among stores like Gucci, Prada, and the other really expensive brands I don't even bother to know). The other thing is that the Czech people have a fascinating, tragic history that leaves many without a solid sense of country identity.  For example, my tour guide's mother in law has lived in 9 different countries during her 90 some years of life. She has never moved!  Wow!  Talk about disruption!

In Prague I had my first official couch surfing experience (couch surfing being a network of people who offer couches in their home for travelers coming through to see life with a local).  It was a mediocre start.  Now, I am a shy person, but I learned through my somewhat emotionally difficult semester abroad that you need to push past that shyness to truly see, learn and enjoy another culture. However, one shy person can only carry a conversation so far. I tried starting many conversations with my host, but I could only ever manage short answers.  She was always smiling, but she never drew out her answer or tried to carry the conversation further.  True english was not her first language, I sympathize with her in her possible discomfort, but I could only do so much.  In the end I was in bed by 9:00 both nights.

My struggles were not limited to conversation with my host.  I was also defeated by her Ikea shower.  It was electronic, controlled by a touch screen and a number of confusing dials.  It took about 5 minutes to even turn the shower on, but I managed.  Very quickly it started to get hot. As it continued to get hotter by the minute I lathered up with shampoo and body wash.  By the time I was ready to rinse I could barely get under the water. I figured out how to switch the language to English, but there was still no clear way to turn down the temperature. In the end I splashed enough soap off of my body to exit the shower, but could not stand to scald my scalp. Scorched and defeated I rinsed my head in the sink.  Damn you Ikea!

And finally, Prague defeated me financially.  I carefully calculated how much money to take out at the ATM to buy a beer and a bus ticket to Vienna. But alas, my math skills have gone down hill since the 8th grade and it turns out I carefully miscalculated by about 20 cents. It was not a huge loss, I just had to use my credit card instead of cash, but the Czech Republic is not on the Euro, so now I had essentially $25 that would have to be spent in the next hour.  There could be worse dilemmas, but still, an austerity travel plan is not forgiving to these little mishaps. In the end I bought a bunch of groceries so my spending was not frivolous.  Now I just have to carry all this extra weight from place to place. I am happily in Vienna and back on the Euro...for a few days.

Waschbär...Ausgetsichnet!

Farewell to Munchen (Munich). My stay in Bavaria was exceptional, and also educational.  While traveling in Bali, I made friend from Munich.  She invited me to come stay once I got to Europe, so I did, and I gained a great deal of insight spending several nights with her and her roommates.  I enjoyed my stay very much because I learned a lot through casual conversation about German life and it also reminded me of home, just chatting and laughing with friends over dinner.

Some things I learned about Bavaria:

Life is very structured and punctual. First of all, no one j-walks (I have a feeling this term is politically incorrect, so I apologize if it is and someone is offended).  There could be a huge gap in traffic, only one car far away, even, and everyone still stands there and waits for the walk signal.  An opposite from life in Asia, but even for life in America that was strange.  Also, I caught the bus from Munich to Prague and it was scheduled to leave at 5 p.m. At 16:58 the bus driver turned on the engine and as soon as the clock turned to 17:00 he put the bus in reverse.  Good on Germany, structure is nice.

They really like good beer.  So first of all, Oktoberfest is Munich specific (not an all over Germany event).  When the prince of Bavaria married the princess of somewhere (Austria?), he bought her a field and there they had a two week party with free beer for everyone and horse races. 200 years later the beer is not free and they've done away with the horse races, but the population jumps from ~1.5 million to almost 8 million for this world famous beer fest.  

Also about beer.  It was originally regulated by law that brewers could only use three ingredients, which is why it is so delicious and pure.  Its no longer law, but the Bavarians are proud, so they still brew their beer in the same pure fashion.  

More about beer.  Bavaria has had two beer revolutions. The first one was when the king tried to raise the price of beer (hundreds of years ago?), and the Bavarians set fire to the beer halls and let the king know, that is the one thing you cannot mess with.  More recently (1995?) a man who lived next to a beer hall complained to a lawyer that it was too noisy too late.  Since beer halls serve food they should have to stop serving and close by 10 p.m. The lawyer somehow convinced congress to pass this law but again the Bavarians revolted, protesting in the streets, and the law was repealed.  Such a beautiful story of unity among citizens of Bavaria.

On drinking today. Beer is part of the culture, kids can have a glass with dinner, it's normal. My friend was a girl scout, she joined around the age of 13 or 14.  She joined because all of the events were social drinking activities.  Imagine the scouts of America being based around a drinking culture!  The thought is laughable!

Ah, and the young adult night life.  As an American I just cannot keep up.  We went to the club around midnight, and I was quite proud to remain on my feet until 5 in the morning.  As my friend said (trying to make me feel better that I dragged her away so 'early'), it is almost like something you have to train for, this staying out until 8 in the morning (one club even remains open until 4 in the afternoon...the next day!).

I did a couple tours in Munich, one city tour where I learned a great deal and the guide was hilarious, and a tour of Dachau, a very somber experience.  The tours were fascinating, but I also really enjoyed discussing history with my friends.  I felt like a(n) historian getting an inside perspective on German life after the war.  The war has been over for almost 70 years now, but the Berlin wall came down so recently, it was during their lifetime (not that my friends really remembered anything as they were so young, but they were still around). I'm not sure I can eloquently paraphrase what I learned, but it was even better than reading a historical novel!

And on food. Traditional Bavarian food is pretty meaty, so I didn't go down that road until my last morning.  We got up around one for a post-clubbing, Bavarian-American breakfast of sausage, pretzel, and pancakes.  As with every brunch experience in life, it tasted best in the company of friends (and with a very strong cup of coffee).

OportO. Portugal

Okay, so, I've been in Portugal for well over a week and have been uninspired to write a blog post. I mean, 8 out of ten nights I've been drinking copious amounts of wine, and the other two nights? Hungover of course.  That, so far has been the theme of Portugal...cheap wine, and it has kept my brain from producing the ever loquacious babble you choose to read.

Tonight I have kept my wine consumption to a minimum and am ready to tell you what has been happening in Portugal. In Porto and in Braga. In the tourist world I've been living in.

I arrived to Porto on a Friday afternoon, took an easy metro ride downtown where I was supposed to find my hostel 'just steps away from the Trindade metro stop.' Well, I took a few steps from the metro, and didn't see the hostel. I went back and tried a different direction. Fail. Repeat. Fail. Repeat. Fail. Repeat. Forty-five minutes later (with my giant backpack weighing heavily on my shoulders), I sat down and admitted to myself, 'you are not omniscient, you need to look up directions to where you are going.' After finding a tourist center to point me in the right direction I checked myself into Oporto city hostel and headed straight back out for food (of course). I have enjoyed all of the meals prepared for me along the way so far, and have enjoyed eating out for $3/meal otherwise. But, I was in a state of bliss to find a corner store lined with fresh fruits and vegetables for me to chose what I wanted to prepare.  I bought fresh kale, tomatoes, garlic, onions, a mango the size of my head, and a bottle of wine for $5. 

During dinner I made friends with some other travelers and we shared more wine.  We then went to a tiny bar where we listened to local fado music (Portuguese guitar-y folkish music...not like flamenco) and drank more wine. Next up was a bar downtown, with more drinks (free for me as a reconciliation offer from my friends who tried to play 'guess Richelle's age' and failed miserably...the kindest guess being 30 years). I forgot how late European night life can get, but pulled myself away 'early' sometime after three. The next day I had dedicated to site seeing in Porto.  The sites I saw were the different Ikea patterns of my Porto hostel bed linens. When I was able to get myself going, around dusk, I took a brief tour of the city hoping to come across the river. The lesson regarding my lack of omniscience had not stuck because I tried again to find my way without a map, and eventually had to call it a night without ever glimpsing the water.

My solo travels were over when I met with a Global Village team (some of whom I knew from Guatemala) the next morning. This trip had seventeen of us who came together to help build a Habitat home in Braga. These Global Village teams are very important to the local affiliates as they provide a powerful (although sometimes inept) work force for a week.  I, however, join these builds more for the camaraderie than the making a difference side of things. And such a big team made for an exceptional and rowdy social experience. I was the youngest...there were four of us 'young professionals,' and then there was a jump to the average age of 60.  The age gap was meaningless though. Happy hour every night, with a never ending flow of cheap wine, helped solidify friendships like the cement we threw at the house, and dinners were always long, loud and full of laughter.

The work we did during the week was masonry. The basic structure of the house was already up. The bricks were laid and some walls had different layers of cement on them.  Our jobs were to mix cement and finish the walls inside and out.  It was actually quite fun work.  There was a certain 'zen' quality to cement mixing, and the next step was to throw the cement onto the wall with a trowel.  You could throw mud all day!  It was a blast, and then more zen finishing work as you smoothed the cement layers flat.  The mason in charge was very kind and very funny.  He was a perfectionist, and would always run over saying 'no, no, no!' and show you how to do the job just a little bit differently, babbling away in Portuguese (which is not close enough to Spanish for me to really understand anything). It sounds annoying, but he was very sweet.  He always had a smile and always said 'thank you, thank you.'

It was an amazing week in Portugal.  When we got back to Porto I finally found the river and the Port wine cellars that make Porto famous with my friends from the trip.  I was sad to say goodbye to everyone I had met, but have already made a number of plans to see people again (there were six of us just from Colorado). Meeting people has by far been the best part of my trip, in every place.  With little more than a month left, I look forward to even more friendships during the whirlwind end to my trip.

Irish thoughts

Hiya! The friendly Irish greeting heard all around the country. Even though English is widely spoken around the world, I was looking forward to being in an English speaking country, if only for a few days, so that I would be able to listen to idle conversation again (eavesdrop if you will).  But the Irish accent was so fecking hard to understand...I listened to entire conversations between people without picking up any of what they were saying.

Anyways...Ireland was a very friendly country to visit. Even the immigrations officer gave me the warmest greeting I've ever gotten by someone in that position. If only the warm greetings could actually warm the body. I know my cold threshold has not had to deal with anything below 70 degrees in many months (hardly below 80 degrees even), but I still want to complain about how drastically cold Ireland feels! I pulled out as many layers as possible but I still had to buy a sweater. (The sweater is covered in cats and hearts, I am no longer in an obvious minority wearing glasses, and people don't openly tell me I have a boyish haircut...it's nice to have some hipster comforts back.) One of the most common questions I get when talking with other travelers is 'how did you pack for so many different environments?' Well, I packed versatile and 'layerable' outfits, but I may still need to purchase more layers. My next pursuit will be gloves, but I might wait until I reach eastern Europe where I won't have to sacrifice the day's food budget to stay warm. Ireland is quite nice, but quite expensive. No more gourmet meals for $3. Probably no crappy sandwiches for $3. But I was ready for this, and it is back to cooking my own food rather than eating out.

Ireland is beautiful.  My first few days were in Belfast (which is actually part of the UK and uses pounds even though it is in the state of Northern Ireland and Ireland uses euros). A big city but still manageable on foot. There is a long, violent history between the Catholics and the Protestants and a wall is still erected to divide the two neighborhoods (not entirely--it's not the Berlin wall, you can get from one side to the other eventually, but still it is a blaring sign of the division that exists even today). There are also many, many murals around the city displaying citizens' viewpoints on the history of their city. these were beautiful and emotional, and probably even more meaningful had I taken the tour that explained them all. But I just checked them out by foot.

I came to Ireland to see the Lumineers and the Civil Wars. The show was quite excellent. I was even in the front row without having to throw out elbows, and no one crowded me during the show.  I had planned to go meet the Lumineers at their merchandise table after the show and bond over common Denver interests, but they weren't at the table, so I was not able to expand our Denver circle of friends to include them (sorry!). 

My next couple of days I bypassed Dublin to get to Glendalough. A quaint hillside village without a grocery store or any industry really. Just a couple hotels and churches.  People come here to go walking. So I did. I walked and I walked up the hills, through the trees, around the lake. It was beautiful. Please see Facebook for pictures as I really don't have much else to say about walking.

Or about Ireland. So...Cheers. See you very soon, it's already November. Please vote!

Walk like an Egyptian!

Egypt is not currently at the top of most American's (or anyone's) travel lists, but it was a completely safe and thoroughly enjoyable vacation for me! Part of the joy may have been the company (Cormac, my AmeriCorps teammate and 3 of his friends from Peace Corps Uganda), but Egypt had a lot to offer of their tourism industry and they're begging you to do ANYTHING because everyone is scared of Egypt right now.  

Due to the world being quite small Cormac had a friend in Cairo who was able to walk us around the town for a bit.  We didn't have much time but we made our way to the River Nile and then over to Tahrir Square--scene of the revolution. But, it didn't seem all that spectacular or dangerous or even like a good place to gather. It was actually a round about full of regular traffic. Our 'guide' did point out Mubarak's old headquarters which protestors successfully destroyed.  Other than that there was no sign of revolution, at least not on a Monday morning.

Our first night in town we took some giant dinner boat up and down the river Nile and watched a belly dancer perform.  It was a very bizarre and tourist oriented experience, but we had some good laughs over our mostly American meal.

The next morning we took a cab out to Giza to see the pyramids.  Had there not been traffic it would have been about a 15-20 minute cab ride from downtown Cairo to this magnificent ancient wonder of the world!  I know I was all up on a high horse about animal rights after the elephant park, so go ahead and judge me for taking the tourist camel ride to the pyramids. I am a bit ashamed, but it was the Egypt experience that the whole group wanted. Who am I to say no? 

The pyramids were even more incredible than pictures depict (as long as you are not a bitter cynic). I learned many facts that I can't keep straight about the pyramids we saw: one was originally covered in marble, one has a hole in it, one is oblong because they realized it wouldn't hold the weight once they got higher in construction. We saw the oldest pyramid which is over 7,000 years old, and we saw the first perfect pyramid.  We saw the sphinx who is missing its nose because Napolean Bonaparte came to steal it (not because it had syphilis). And finally we descended into one of the pyramids. It was an absolute claustrophobic experience climbing down these steps into an abyss that is thousands of years old, in the middle of the earth, and once held a bunch of dead people--trust me, it smelled like it. Ooh, we also went to a museum where one of the original mummies was on display. A five thousand year old corpse perfectly preserved! Well, not  perfectly. It was solid black and had lost a toe, but otherwise you could discern all the different human features on the tiny little king, even his toenails.

After the pyramids we hopped on a bus and made our way south to Aswan.  We site-saw the high dam which is currently the third largest dam in the world and provides power to Egypt, Sudan, and another country.  Russia was quicker to help Egypt than the US, so the friendship monument at the dam is dedicated to Russia, but as a US citizen, I appreciate friendship with Egypt. Also in (around) Aswan we went to the temple of Isis and later traveled into the desert to Abu Simbil to check out the temples Ramses built for himself and his favorite wives. All of this ancient stonework was pretty incredible.  These temples were enormous and covered (from head to toe except that temples don't have heads or toes) in hieroglyphics and pictures of Pharos and gods, and there were giant stone statues as well.  And these were all created thousands of years ago!

The temples and pyramids were (for lack of variety in my vocabulary) absolutely amazing to see and amazing to just be in the presence of something so simple but so brilliant. Despite their amazingness my favorite night in Egypt was the simple felucca ride we took.  After much touring and traveling we got back to Aswan tired and confused (we never were clear on what we were going to be doing, our concierge guy just ushered us from one thing to the next...), but we gathered our bags and boarded the little sailboat.  Our captain then sailed us slowly down the Nile while preparing for us a delicious lunch, tea, and dinner.  It wasn't until after dinner that we realized we would actually be spending the night on the little boat.  But it was the perfect night, even if we didn't ever know what was going on.  We simply laid about on the boat, drank some delicious warm beer, and went to bed with the sun. In the morning we returned to shore and, well rested, made our way to Luxor.  I spent the afternoon with my friends, but because of my flight to Ireland I wasn't able to stay in Luxor and visit the valley of the Kings or any other tourist attractions there. Even though I missed this final tourist bit, my trip to Egypt was truly fabulous!