And we’re done.
Complete.
Over.
Done.

On Jan 5th, we left Phoenix for Bangkok and on Nov 5th we will return to Seattle. It has been 10 months of being on the road living out a trip that we had planned for two years. The money is gone (more than we expected!) and the adventure is over. I can’t believed it has been that long. Traveling around Thailand seems like ages ago. We saw some amazing sights including Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Aya Sofia in Istanbul, the rice fields of Bali, the sheep and mountains and everything of New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, the Tibetan Plateau of China (or Tibet depending on who you ask), the mountain villages of Laos and Thailand, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the beaches of southern Thailand, the children of VIetnam returning home after school dressed up in their beautiful white uniforms, the karst formations rising from Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, the 300 monks accepting their daily alms in Luang Prabang, the Vietcong tunnels of Vietnam, the green mountains of Northern Spain, the shanty towns of South Africa, the crystal clear water of Zanzibar, the small town life of Provence, the giant wildlife (think lions, zebras, giraffes and hyena) of Kruger National Park, the vineyards of France, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, Spain and Australia and most importantly, the people and food of the world. What an amazing year it has been!

While it is a bit sad that it is all coming to an end, we’re also excited to be returning home.

Home. Where our friends and family are. Where we have our own place. No more hostels. No more hotels. No more sleeping on the (very appreciated!) couch of a friend or the (very appreciated) dirty floor of a stranger.

Home. Where there are 400 channels of TV. Where the snow is starting to fall in the mountains and the snowboard is waiting to be taken out for a ride. Where we have cars and can go wherever we want whenever we want.

Home. Where our jobs are…

Wait.

That last one isn’t so stellar but it ain’t so bad either. Being productive is nicer and being able to afford a meal and the power isn’t bad either.

It’s our last night here in Paris. Just in for 20 hours to catch our flight home. We got in a great meal and picked up a few kitchen supplies but that’s about it. We have to be up at 6am to catch the flight home and we will be back in our second home (Charlie and Emy’s) by 3pm.

See you soon!

Read the Lonely Planet.  Read any other travel book and they will all forewarn you that the biggest annoyance in Istanbul are the taxi drivers. There is no meter, so you’re advised to agree on a price before you get in the car.  AS IF that works. As we found out, it doesn’t.

We met my sister Emy and her husband Charlie in Istanbul.  While the Greiners enjoyed their 4 star hotel (sadly right next to the train tracks, but did the beautiful hotel description mention that? I think not), Tim and I went down the street to a hostel and shared an ok room with yet another stinky  and moist bathroom.  But this too, shall pass, I kept telling myself.

The first night we met up with my friend Yasemin, a Turkish-German that I met in Seattle a few years ago. Yasemin works for the German embassy in Ankara, but she made the trip out to see us. Being the local and all, Yasemin showed us around, ordered some great Turkish food, took us out for drinks with her cousin and friends and, at the end of the night, got us a cab.

She negotiated the price with our cabbie.  15 Turkish lira, she said.  Seemed like a good deal, about 10 bucks for all 4 of us (later we found out the tram is much faster and only $1 per person).

To say that the cab drivers there are crazy is an understatement.  They drive horribly whie yelling and raising their hands up in the air as if everybody were a horrible driver (true) except or them (not true).

So the crazy driver stops abruptly–not in front of our hotel, mind you–and rudely motions for us to get out of the car.  Guess it’s time to leave, we all figure.  My sister gets out.  Charlie gets out.  Tim gets out.  I am still in the car, ready to pay.  I give him a 20 lira bill and he nods his head.  I wait or my change.  He motions me to leave the car.  Nothing.

“It’s 15 lira,” I say, indignant.

He holds on to the crisp 20.   “20 lira, 20 lira,” he insists.

Nuh-uh.   This shady guy is NOT leaving with MY extra 3.5 dollars.  On principle.  And yes, a little bit out of spite.  Ok, so, a lot out of spite.  Totally out of spite, in fact.

“NO.  My friend already said it was 15!  She speaks Turkish and English, and she told ME only 15. “

“No change,” he blurts out, now raising his hand and violently motioning for me to get out–Charlie told me later he thought the Turk was about to slap me.

“Then give me back my money!” I yank the bill out of his hand, determined to find a stranger that will give me change.  Out on the street, to the chagrin of my husband, sister and brother-in-law, I ask a couple of tourists if they have change for a 20.  No such luck.

From the car, the cabbie starts yelling something.  It’s a miracle, he DOES have change after all.  Just like that.  So Diesel, already embarrassed by my so-called shenanigans, hands him the 20 lira note and gets the change.  And then counts the change.  A few CENTS!  Like four small COINS!!!  WTF.  By the time Diesel realizes it and most importantly, I realize it, the shady cabbie is gone.

If I had been left to take care of things, this would have not have happened.  I would have yelled (yes, indeed).  I would have chased him down the busy street (likely).  I would have kicked his Turkish butt (not likely, but hey, a girl can still dream, right?)

As Tim mentioned in a previous post, our year of traveling has not always been fun and games. Think about it: the common bickering between man and wife, the stress of traveling in a foreign country, and the sadness of finding yet another filthy bathroom all gets compounded. Worst yet, you are spending 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 11 months with the person you most love, but also the person who many times you’ve wanted to kill–and in a fight between me and Tim I would ALWAYS put money on ME and my Chinese cleaver. So there have been epic fights.

Sometimes Tim and I scream at each other in the middle of the street in all our ghettoness. Sometimes Kelly leaves Diesel on the side of the road to teach him a lesson, only to find out that the next exit is not for another several miles, and when she finally manages to turn around and pick him up, his wrath has reached unprecedented proportions. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes Diesel criticizes Kelly for complaining about going up a mere 50 steps to get to a guesthouse. And sometimes I finish going up a looong flight of stairs and triumphantly yell: “ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY STEPS. I TOLD YOOOOOOOU!”

But then again, sometimes Tim rubs my back when I am feeling motion sickness (which is pretty much every bus ride we took). Sometimes Diesel tells me it’s ok to spend another 5 dollars so I can have a clean(er) bathroom. Most times Diesel will carry all the crap I’ve acquired along the way. Most times I let Tim sit by the window because he likes to look out the window, even if I have to take the middle seat. Sometimes I leave him extra food on my plate because he loves to eat. Sometimes I drive more than I want to because I know he’s tired. It’s been hard at times, but mostly it’s been good. If NY has taught us to rely on each other in a city where we knew almost nobody, this trip has taught us that we are in this for the long haul.

Thanks Diesel for the good times. I hope we win the lottery one day and can do a lot more of this (or please become rich for me).

Honestly, if you had asked me about traveling to Turkey a few years ago, I would have had no interest. My thoughts on Turkey were mostly formed by the German thoughts of the late 80s. As a twelve year old living in the small town of Nußloch, Germany, I saw many immigrant Turks and heard the various complaints that conservatives generally have about immigrants – They take our jobs, they live off welfare, they are dirty, etc. I didn’t think much of Turkey or have any desire to go. We did not put it in our plans for our trip.

After many attempts to arrange a time and place to meet up with Kelly’s sister and her husband, it turned out that late October was the only possible date. We would be in Europe. Where should we meet? If Oktoberfest comes to your mind, then you don’t realize that Oktoberfest is mostly during September. We looked into a variety of options that would be both warm and interesting and because Emy and Charlie would be traveling on miles, available seats. Istanbul rose up and after asking around and hearing lots of good things, became our destination.

As you know, I’m back at work in London these days but because I came back earlier than expected, they decided to give me a couple days to see my family who were flying all the way out to see us. I couldn’t spend the entire 2 weeks with them as planned, but this was still a nice gesture and substitute. Kelly was in Germany still traveling and this would also be a time that we could meet up.

I flew into Istanbul’s new Sahiba Gocken Airport and quickly got into a giant queue to get a visa. It seemed that nobody on our flight was actually Turkish. Turkey must be betting on their entry into the EU because the visa office seemed like a complete afterthought. Ah. Back to the developing world where nothing works quite right.

Is Turkey a developing world? I think so. It is a member of the Developing 8 Group, an alliance of developing countries with large Muslim populations. Other countries include Egypt (home to the world’s poorest city), Iran and Indonesia among others.

I didn’t realize that Istanbul was this massive – 15 million people. And while housing and infrastructure are certainly nicer than Thailand, you can still see many similarities.

I arrived without any knowledge of Istanbul. I hadn’t even glanced at a guidebook. Traveling so much can make you a bit arrogant. I wrote down the name and address of the hotel and assumed I’d figure it out when I got there. I got a little nervous after the first taxi told me he did not know the address and my phone wasn’t working.

But it all worked out. the next taxi knew where to go and while I think he squeezed a couple extra lira out of me by going an indirect way, I made it to the hotel and met up with the group.

Istanbul has some really impressive architecture and history. Sitting on both continents of Asia and Europe, it was smack dab in the middle of the trading routes between the two. It also served as the capital of the Roman empire at one time or another and has buildings dating back to the BC times. And while some sites could use a bit of maintenance, others are in great shape. The Aya Sofia, built in the 530s is one of most impressive structures I’ve ever seen. While it was built as a Christian church and then converted into a Mosque 1000 years later, it doesn’t look like any other cathedral I’ve ever seen. A massive and open building that looks both Roman and Muslim. A picture could never do it justice and you’ll just have to go one day.

Aya Sofia

We also spent time walking through the various neighborhoods and street markets. Nothing impressive really in any of those, except maybe some spices. Maybe if you’re into gold or rugs or low quality clothing, but we weren’t.More interesting to just sit in a cafe and people watch.

Istanbul might rank up there as the pushiest city, right next to some places in Vietnam. All of our taxi drivers were trying to scam us out of money and restaurants and even the nice hotel that Charlie and EMy stayed in (we stayed in a budget hostel) were hassling us. It can be a bit overwhelming to hear somebody yell at you when you ignore their requests to eat at their place or shop in their store – in every other place, people would realize you weren’t interested but in Istanbul that get angry about it.

I don’t want to leave you with a bad impression. It would have been nice to stay and I would go back one day. Kelly is still there for the rest of the week, so we’ll have to see what she says when she returns.

I was waiting in line in the bathroom.  As soon as one of the girls came out of the stalls, I turned to he girl behind me, who looked like she had to go bad: “Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.”

As I said that, another English girl walked into thebath room: “Oh, but Asian girls take a looong time in the bathroom.”

Me:  “Hm.”

She: “Oh, but I can say that because my friend is Asian.”

That’s pretty much like Diesel making Asian jokes because he’s married to an Asian, which doesn’t make it any more acceptable. Let’s face it. Only Asians can make Asian jokes.

Me (rolling my eyes): “Riiight.”

Wow, it’s been a while since I posted. I know, but it’s like the more free time I have, the less I feel like blogging. And now, with TV in English and reality shows galore, it’s been like heaven!

So what are the chances that two very close relatives would be unemployed at the same time??? Pretty slim, but that’s exactly what happened in London.  My cousin Felipe (nicknamed Tico) graduated this summer from the renowned London Business School and between graduation and his new job, he enjoyed a whole month of staycation (because, as you all know, when you’re unemployed you have no $ to travel).

Anyhow, we were able to spend lots of time sightseeing, buying him new work clothes, bitching about the English and how London would be so much better without them (it’s one thing to see English travelers getting drunk, being loud and rude and culturally insensitive during our travels; it is yet another thing to see them at this high concentration in one place), eating at hole in the walls and cooking.  Lots.  And while we rubbed our bellies in disgust and lamented the sad state of our midsection, we just could not stop ourselves.

Our love of food as well as our gluttony is obviously genetic, so we took a fatalistic approach and decided not to fight against our nature.  We’ll just deal with the extra poundage later…

Our week of gluttony culminated in our strogonoff meal, where I cooked a big batch of strogonoff, almost all of which we ate in one, disgusting, yet delicious sitting.  And to top it off, we beat the leftover cream into whipped cream and had it with fruit–way to turn a healthy dessert into a calorie bomb! And then, as we sat together gossiping and rubbing our ever growing bellies, it dawned on us.  We had just consumed HALF a LITER of CREAM!

Anyhow, here are some of the food highlights of the trip..

Tico and I in front of Trafalgar Square

Indian food around Brick Road

Homemade bacalhau (salted codfish) with potatoes, tomatoes and olives (typical Portuguese dish)

Dessert at a hip Japanese/Chinese place

Raclette with potatoes at Borough Market

Famous Brandisa chorizo sandwich at Borough Market

Will write more, but after an awesome week with my cousin and then Tim in London, I made my way to Lausanne, where I am hanging out with an old German friend who moved here.

Also, after SO many months, I finally accepted that I like picasa way  more than Flickr, so from now on, my pics will be posted on picasa:

http://picasaweb.google.com/chowkelly

We know it has been a long time since we wrote and I still need to tell you about how awesome San Sebastian Spain is but i am writing this from my iPhone and so won’t do that now.

I’ve been back in the USA for about 10 days, just enough time to get sick, get a traffic ticket for expired tags and start work. Today I am leaving for London, where I will meet up with Kelly and spend the next month working on a work project. Kelly is only there for a few more days and then shell head to Switzerland and spend the next month traveling trough germany.

On nov 5th, we will meet in paris and fly home together. At that point we will be back permanently in Seattle. Many people have asked if we were going back to NY and the answer is no. We never had any intentions of going back there and we have nothing there now. All of our stuff is in Seattle.

I don’t know anybody in London so when I’m not working, I’ll start updating the blog again.

My last bus ride! Even if it was an uneventful and totally pleasant ride form Madrid to Oviedo, I’m happy to not have to take another long distance bus for a long time. 6 hours is about my limit before I start getting antsy and that is just the amount of time it takes to get this far north. Kelly has plenty more bus rides lined up for the rest of her trip but she is on her own for that. At least she’ll have the computer and a few seasons of Entourage.

We went to Oviedo because, of course, we had a friend there. Err, well, K has been getting onto me about calling her friends “our” friends because she wants to make sure everyone knows SHE knows everyone in Europe and not me. This is true. I don’t really know anybody here and anybody I do know hasn’t invited me to their house to stay a week with them and their mom, which is exactly what Bea did.

or at least I think she did. It really could be that we invited ourselves. Hrm. You’ll have to ask Kelly

But however it worked out, we ended up here in Arenas de Cabrales – a town of about 800 people in the state of Austuria and somewhat working the tourist market as the hiking and sceneary around here is breathtaking. I’m not just saying that to be all positive and nice. The state of Austurias really is beautiful. one of the most beautiful places we have been, in my mind.

If you didn’t know…and we didn’t…Spain is the second most mountainous country in Europe behind Switzerland. I’m curious to know how one defines this statistic – is it mountains per capita? Density of mountains per hectacre? Tallest peaks per sq km?

Well however it is, Austrias also ranks first in Spain in it. It is refered to as the Wales of Spain as the mountains shoot up from all sides, covered in grasses and rock outcroppings. In the winter the cows exist near the villages generally located down in the valleys. but in the summer the cows head to the higher altitudes to escape the heat and eat the richer grasses. The Austurians say this makes the milk unique and flavorful. And what do you do with a surplus of flavorful milk? You make cheese, of course!

Cabrales, a region of a dozen or so villages in this area, is famous for a particularly strong and stinky cheese. The cheese, aptly named Cabrales, is almost blue throughout from the mold it grows while aging in the farmer’s caves nearby. (They don’t really age them in caves anymore though because of EU rules, or at least they don’t for the cheese they sell.) it is a really strong cheese and takes a little getting used to, even for those of us who love other blue cheeses. I like the younger ones and even the older ones with honey or in a cream sauce, but neither of us have come around to eat it up with spoon like some of the old times do.

The other thing Austurias is famous for is their sidra – apple cider. Made in a similar process to wine, the cider is pressed from 4 different types of apples, fermented and then aged for 10 months in steel vats. It is then bottled and sold for incredibly low prices (maybe a euro or 2?) to every bar and restaurant in a 100 mile radius. This is not the super sweet stuff that you might think of when you think of cider in America. This is a lighter, lightly alcoholic (about 6%) wonderful summer beverage. And it even requires a bit of skill to drink.

The trick in pouring sidra is that you have to pour it from a distance of about a meter onto the side of a wide-mouthed glass. This allows the liquid to pick up some speed and then “break” when it hits the glass, destabalizing the oxygen from the rest of the liquid and generating a small amount of foam. You only pour a little bit, about 2-3 ozs and then you quickly drink it all. If you are sharing a cup, which is common, you pour at a little bit of the end over the part you drank from, thereby “cleaning” the glass.

Then you repeat this process everytime you want to drink some. Some places cheat and have devices to basically inject air into the process, but that seems to ruin the fun of it all and yes, it does taste differently if you don’t do this. But most places hold true to the old method and have special buckets or devices that allow you to pour in this style and not cause a mess as you can imagine you are going to spill a good 15% of you sidra in the process.

We were really lucky to be able to fulfill a wish of ours for our trip. originally, we had planned to rent a place in the country of France or Spain in an attempt to save money and to really get a feel for life in one of these countries. But it wasn’t going to work out. We had too many places we wanted to go and no time to rent a place for the two months or so that we wanted and so we shelved those plans.As it turns out, our two weeks in Provence were exactly what we needed to replace it. We got to see what country life was like with a bunch of locals and slow down. We even got to cook a few meals – something we greatly miss while traveling. And when the two weeks were up, we felt we HAD been there long enough and were happy to move on.

After a short drive to Marseille where we had a wonderful dinner down on the beach, we went to bed in a hotel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The next morning we took a cab and a bus to the airport and after a heated dispute that with Ryanair over the size of our carry- on that ended with me forking over another 20 Euros, we were on our way to Madrid.

Madrid was hot like Provence but at least the nights were cool. We spent a couple days there with an old friend of Kelly’s and her family. I love French food but I have to say that sitting down to our first meal in their house provided a welcome change to the subtle flavors we had been eating. A tray of lomo and cured chorizo along with crusty bread came out, followed by ham covered in paprika and olive oil, three types of Manchego along with quince paste and olives in a tangy brine. The acidity and saltity so much different from Provencial food.

The next day we walked around the old city a bit and visited the local market, but the highlight was clearly the Mercado de San Miquel. Opened just a few months ago in a converted structure near Placa Mayor, this cooperative of food shops and tapas bars was buzzing with activity when we came by at 11am. People were circulating to different spots, picking up a dozen fresh oysters on the half shell, a 3 euro glass of wine from the wine bar (which had about 50 different types of wine by the glass), diving into ham and cheese croquettas, giant grilled prawns in olive oil and salt and then just hanging out with friends and family for hours, which is just what we did. I think we spent 2 hours there, just the two of us, enjoying the wine and food.