24 Time Zones Later

We are home safe! Wow, what a trip! We are so lucky!

We are right back where we started after many miles, but we have learned 3 things on this trip:
1. The world is crowded.
2. We really like life at sea.
3. How you perceive things in life, depends on your perspective. All things are relative!

Traveling to each place, one after the next, has given us a comparative perspective we've never had in our annual trips. It has been very enlightening. And we have been so pleased to have people to share our experiences with in this blog. Thank you for your interest!

We have had so many people on the trip who were kind and helpful to us along the way and we want to send BIG THANKS TO:

• Maria in our Costa Rican home-stay who helped us learn Spanish (especially when explaining that lie detector show)
• Camden who oriented and entertained us and will one day make a great teacher
• Jane and Alan, the Brits in Chile who allowed us to tag along on their wine tasting tour
• Fernando and Marianna who opened their home and introduced us to Onces
• Tomas, who stuffed us like Thanksgiving turkeys full of great food and showed us that even locals can't get good directions in Chile
• Aggie at the Shiny Paua in Invercargill, New Zealand who helped us with -- everything
• Debbie's family for an amazing dinner and Debbie for killing my dad at ping pong
• The fearsome foursome in Tasmania who fed us our best meal in the country and kept us endlessly amused
• Chuck who allowed us to stay in his place in Cairns, Australia in a lifestyle we'd like to become accustomed to
• Dick, Jane and their son or grandson Owen who survived the whole cruise and allowed us honorary Australian status when necessary, as well as letting us win a quiz or two
• Peter, whose knowledge far outweighed all others on the cruise, and made the crossing more meaningful
• Rolando who knows what he did
• Pujon and Michelle in Nepal who have such a great atmosphere in their courtyard where we met some of the most interesting characters of our trip
• Aliki whose welcome to Santorini set the tone for the best Big Fat Greek Vacation ever

And our BIGGEST thanks to the 4 people without whom our trip simply could not have happened:

Bob and Carol for taking us and picking us up, storing our stuff, keeping us, paying our credit card and joining us in New Zealand

Gary and Linda for storing our stuff, booking our Nepal side trip (and others), keeping our stuff, keeping us, and sending us encouraging cards and e-mails

YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!

I also want to thank Steven who made a herculean effort planning this whole trip. He is amazing and wonderful. There are times where we drove each other nuts during these 214 days, but there is nobody I'd rather adventure with.

There are so many factors (including time, money, health, assistance, politics, etc.) that had to align to make this journey possible. We are forever grateful and feel very lucky upon completion of this amazing around the world journey.

Amsterdam Blur

Amsterdam was a blur of trams, cars, bicycles, scooters, and canals. Pedestrians are the last priority in this transport hierarchy. It is a nice city however with unique character.

The "Red Light" district was smaller than we had anticipated, and stripper-girls looked odd posing in windows in broad daylight due to the season of only a few hours of darkness.

By far the grand highlight was the Van Gogh Museum. It is rare that I am moved by creations of man, but the art of Van Gogh was truly moving. I would travel all that way just to see the museum and come home!

This is a fine city to make the final destination of our trip. It is amazing to look back at all we have done, and see how close we are to completing this adventure. We have been very lucky throughout. Daina being stung by a jelly fish and Steve getting food poisoning (IN BRUSSELS) is really not much to complain about! All that is left is to fly Amsterdam to Ireland to Chicago to LAX. Then our world tour is complete!

Belgium, Beer, and Bathrooms

Leaving Greece, we flew to Venice. What an amazing wonderland! More like Disneyland than an actual place, truly enchanting! We spent 4 days trolling the canals by water bus, always fighting for the front seat where it feels like you have the boat to yourself!

From Venice we took the train to Belgium, by way of Milan and an overnight in Switzerland.

WARNING - BATHROOM RANT:
I paid €1 to use the toilet in the Milan Train Station. Usually I simply skip it, rather than pay to pee, but sometimes nature will not be denied. After dropping my coins in the slot, and entering the main room, I observe red and green lights on each door indicating the availability of the stall. I open the door of a green-lit stall and am screamed at by a half naked woman. OOOPS. Not my bad, but I'm still horrified. Next I find an unoccupied stall, take care of business, and guess what. NO TOILET PAPER!!! One euro and no toilet paper!
END BATHROOM RANT.

Now we are in Brussels. There is a jazz festival this weekend which is great. There are several Greek restaurants here so we are again enjoying fabulous Greek food. Belgium has 700 types of beer so that is keeping us busy, as well as the proliferation of chocolate factories. Steve is in a constant state of choco-foria. (Is that a word? If not, it should be!)

Next we take another train ride to our final destination of the trip - Amsterdam.

Santorini, Crete, Paros

We are loving Greece!

Today, for the first time since we arrived, the weather is overcast but still a good temperature. I am hearing significant wind right now -- perhaps we'll get rain!

We enjoyed Santorini for 4 days without doing anything except enjoying the view from our balcony and eating.

Then we moved on to Crete. This is one of the biggest islands and we spent 8 days there. We rented a car for a couple days which was only $30 per day, but gas is $8 per gallon! We enjoyed some archaeological sites and an amazing little organic winery as well as wonderful scenery and quaint towns.

The food is still grand, although it seems to be a Cretan tradition that after they stuff you with large portions of amazing food (until you think you might explode) they bring you some delightful desert and a small pitcher of ouzo FREE! It would be rude not to continue to eat, drink, and be merry, right? Ugh! The owner of one of the restaurants we went to lived in the U.S. for 18 months in 1971. After we ate, he enjoyed chatting in rusty English while matching ouzo shots with us. Daina gave out when he brought the second pitcher...

Now we are on Paros. Yesterday we rented a quad motor bike to bop around the island. The bike was great fun and the island had more good scenery, but the hours on the bike were hard on the butt!

Our next ferry will take us back to Athens. We are hoping all the hostility over the "Austerity Measures" have cooled and we won't be caught up in protests. For much of our trip we have left disasters in our wake (earthquake in Chile, cyclone in Australia, earthquake in Indonesia, Red Shirts in Thailand), but now the disasters seem to be catching up! Hopefully the volcano will let our flight (which routes through Ireland) take us home without incident!

Life Since Everest

I'm over my self pity and back in the travel saddle!

Our flight over the Himalayas was a real pique experience, but our visit to Nepal went down hill quickly. The pollution was overwhelming and the country difficult. But the people were nice and the crossroad of travelers was very entertaining.

After Nepal, we made our way back to Egypt to rejoin the boat. We survived India, Nepal, and Egypt, thanks in a big way to Gary, who helped us find and book excellent accommodation throughout our time off the boat.

We were welcomed back to the cruise like old friends. The second half of the cruise had only 29 passengers due in part to the volcano keeping people from flying. Passengers and crew have come to know this as the Cursed Crossing, but we had a fantastic time anyway.

Passing through the Suez Canal took the entire day and it was really interesting. We then enjoyed an excellent tour in Alexandria and have created much better memories of Egypt. We still find it hideous and foul, but the tour experience did a lot to alleviate the PTSD from our visit in 2002.

Our arrival in Greece has been fantastic, although leaving the cruise was very sad. New friends and life at sea will be sorely missed, but we were able to get an amazing hotel on Santorini and enjoy the island is grand style. Few travelers have arrived, so it is like having it to ourselves. Our travel weariness is cured by the excellent food and amazing views of Santorini and we are good to go again.

Travel Weary

Tuesday April 27, for no good reason, I cried. Cried like a baby. The only reason I can think of is that I am a bit travel weary. How did I become travel weary?

1. Yesterday I puked extensively and there were way too many possible causes; sea sick, bad food, too much alcohol, flu... who knows.

2. When I saw the bumper sticker "Stop TB Before It Starts. Don't Spit." I realized that the disgusting lugies that I've been avoiding stepping on are not just slipping hazards, but missiles of biological warfare!

3. While flying from Kathmandu to Mumbai I was surrounded by many of the stinkiest people on the planet and the stinky man next to me spilled his orange juice all over both of us. Then AT THE END of the flight, the flight attendant walked through the cabin spraying air freshener. AT THE END!!!

4. Then, flying from Mumbai to Kuwait a new stinky man sitting next to me spilled his beer on both of us. (It was more on himself than me, but still!)

5. Finally, after a marathon 22 hours of flying (including 4 separate flights through the stinkiest regions on the globe), I arrived at my hotel at 7 am where I was unceremoniously plopped down in the lobby to wait 6 hours for my room to be ready while happy vacationers ambled by pitying the bedraggled mess I'd become. (Do you think they smelled the faint stench of orange juice, beer, and BO, plus the duty free sample fragrance I'd used to counteract the damage?)

The truth is this;
I don't want to figure out how to do my laundry again.
I don't want to find a reasonable place to do internet.
I don't want to ascertain tipping practices in whichever country I'm in now.
I don't want to haggle about a ride to the hotel.
I don't want to contemplate whether the sign on my bathroom door means no paper in the toilet or no paper besides toilet paper.

But the truth is also this;
All in all, we've had a grand trip. Tomorrow I will be ready to once again tackle the daily joys, triumphs, headaches and heartaches of life on the road.

But today I cry!

Into Thin Air

Woo-Hoo! From sea level to the thin air at the top of the world!

We saw Everest today. It was spectacular. We took a scenic flight and beheld the mighty force of the Himalayan Mountains. "Wow" is really the only word I can think of.

We have settled into Nepal and are thrilled with it. Kathmandu is a real cross roads. The book stores are full of the most amazing books from the far corners of the earth. We meet unique and impressive people every day. This morning we met a Swedish man who is on R&R from his work in training police in Afghanistan. His experiences there are shocking!

Tomorrow we leave Kathmandu for 5 days. We will be staying on a picturesque lake and will be able to do some day hikes. We are already looking forward to our next trip to this part of the world!