Mark and Susan wander the world

Gorilla Trek #1 – “I have a 17 hour flight!”

How to describe this adventure? This post will be rambling as was the hunt for the Muonza Family, a family that has been an easy hike to see since June (important point).

Let’s start with the Group members:

Mark and Susan
Tom from Belgium – about 50’ish in age, perfect English, nice guy
DC man and woman (DCM and DCW) – in their 70’s, we’re guessing.
Alabama man and women (ALM and ALW), friends with DCM and DCW– younger, maybe in their 60’s.

DCM, DCW, ALM, ALW had trekked the day before on what turned out to be a steep hike in the forest for 2 hours. That was their description of that hike and they made sure to tell the guide, Patrick, and the group about this.

The day before they’d been accompanied by another friend who used eight porters to carry him on a stretcher to see the gorillas. This is an option for $200. Since we never saw the stretcher (“African helicopter” as the guides call it), we have no idea what it looks like. Friend opted not to come on the 2^nd trek.

Note: if you do a hard hike one day, you will generally be assigned an easy hike for the next day.

Patrick tells us about our family and its silverback leader and off we go. Mark and I each hire 2 porters and Tom hires one porter (important part of the story). The other four people hire one porter per couple. We trek through farm fields and DCM slips off a ledge about 2 feet and tells the guide he needs to stop. The guide talks with DCM and the DCM continues on the trek. Note – you are told that when the group starts, the group has to stick together since there is only one ranger with a gun with the group and the group can’t be split up. We reach the wall, and start hiking UP the volcano. The whole time Patrick is talking to the tracker about the gorilla family location.

The whole saga goes from bad to ludicrous from here on. When we reach the wall, DCW wants to know how far away the gorillas are because they have to be done with the trek by 11 AM so they can go back to the hotel, pack, shower and drive to Kigali because they have 17-hour flight to get home to the US. “They were promised the trek would be done by 11 AM”.

It’s getting a bit slippery, but Susan’s two porters are amazing in the slippery places and steeper areas. One of Mark’s porter and Tom’s one porter go off to help DCM and DCW.

A bit further on, DCW complains “the trek is taking too long and they have a 17-hour flight home. They can’t keep trekking. They were promised this trek would be short.” The tracker via radio tells Patrick that Silverback Muonza has figured out that another family is in the territory and has gone off to fight with them to chase them off. The rest of his family is scattering through the forest but a few gorillas are nearby. Patrick tells the DCM, DCW we are only 10-25 minutes from the gorillas. He encourages them to continue.

We had paths part of the way but, eventually, the trackers cut the jungle away and we trekked through it.

Patrick was our guide for Trek #1 and the search for the elusive group.

Another note: Before you can visit with the gorillas, you give your walking sticks and backpacks to your porters who stay with them. The only people who go to the gorillas is the guide, 8 visitors, trackers, and ranger.

Anyway, we all stick together and manage to see about 4 gorillas for a short amount of time. To see more of the family, we have to trek through rain forest that is being hacked down by the trackers. At this point we are going straight uphill and walking over very slick plants that have just been cut by the trackers with machetes.

DCM and DCW refuse to go any further so Patrick has to decide what to do about porters, trackers, etc. DCM and DCW stay in a clearing with two porters while the rest of us go chasing through the jungle with trackers using machetes to hack down the undergrowth. Thank heavens they helped me walk on the undergrowth (I must have looked pitiful.) to keep my feet from getting tangled and falling!

Watching a gorilla have a little snack.

The gorillas were bigger than I imagined. This one was sitting on the trail.

We see another two gorillas before the gorillas take off running. At this point we all head downhill to a clearing with Patrick trying to find out where the silverback is. Now, ALM and ALW say it is getting late and they all need to leave and they can’t go without DCM and DCW – remember the 17 hour flight!

The porters bring DCM and DCW to our group and after a bit of discussion, the four of them with their two porters and a tracker leave. We have no idea if or how they got down because at this point Tom and Mark each get their porters back. DCM & DCW asked why the porters weren’t going with them and Patrick said they didn’t hire the porters and the porters were staying with Mark & Tom. With all porters back, we go downhill to try to find the silverback.

Thank heavens for John (an ex-poacher) and Emil who helped me through all the brush and mud and over rocks and down slippery slopes. The three of us were pretty far behind Mark and Tom and Patrick. We all met up in a potato field at the bottom while Patrick checked with the trackers again/continuously!

This was our group at then end of the trek as we waited in the potato fields for an update from the trackers.

It’s now been 4 hours of hiking and we are all (probably not the porters) tired. When Patrick hears that the silverback has headed up the mountain to find his family, we admit defeat and head back to the cars.

We could tell Patrick was very frustrated with the gorillas and with DCM, DCW, ALM, ALW. He just shook his head and apologized because we didn’t see the silverback of the Muonza family – it’s nature! The next day, our guide, Fernando, told us that trekking guides have to fill out a report if they don’t see gorillas and the group can come back the next day for a free permit or get another one free the next time they visit Rwanda.

It was an adventure! Our group of three was the last one to return of the day and Patrick reported to the head ranger that Muonza Family needs to be reclassified as hard family because the silverback is moving around trying to add females to his family by fighting. He promised we’d get an easy family tomorrow!

We started out as an easy group, but finished as the hardest trek that day. All the Rwanda people we spoke to knew that our family had become the most difficult trek. We climbed over a 650 feet in a mile so we had approximately a 12.3% grade.

Gorilla Trekking 101

We are in Rwanda to trek with the gorillas, requiring a flight to Rwanda, a visa on arrival at the airport along with $30 US, and a trekking permit for a substantial amount of money. We lucked out because we got our permit about 1 year ahead of time before the permits doubled in price. The additional revenue is used to buy land and increase the size of the park/habitat for the gorillas. Up to 12 groups of eight people each can go out in one day to visit the gorillas and permits can be hard to get in the high season. In low season (now) far fewer groups are here. On the day before our first trek, only 2 groups went to visit the gorillas. There are 20 families total in the jungle, but 8 of the families are for research only and no visitors are permitted.

The gorilla trekking in Rwanda is all in Volcanoes National Park on the volcanoes that are shared with Uganda and the Congo. Gorillas can and do move between countries without a passport or a visa. That is a favorite joke of the guides. Not so much for the humans who want to visit them.

Oee of the 6 volcanoes in the morning with interesting clouds

We all met here at 7 AM before the treks starts

Check-in time for the visits is 7 AM at Park Headquarters where our driver took copies of our passports to check us in. Everyone checks in here if you are doing the Gorilla Trek, Golden Monkeys trek, or a hike.

Before going any further, let me back up a few hours. The 7 AM check-in required us to get up at 5 AM (Yes, it is dark then.), eat breakfast about 5:30 AM and then go with our driver at 6 AM for the hour drive to the Headquarters.

How did we dress for this adventure? Long pants, wool sox pulled up over the pants, hiking boots and gaiters. These are to prevent nettles from sticking to our legs and nasty ants from crawling up legs between the pants and sox if the sox are under the pants (This happened to 3 people on our Golden Monkey Trek.) as well as to collect mud along the way. Leather gloves are recommended to protect hands from the nettles and to grab on to bamboo and plants to pull yourself either up the mountain and to help keep you from sliding down the mountain because of the mud.

All the literature warned us it could be cold at 8000 feet. Being good Coloradoans, we had layers with us – t-shirts, mosquito repellent long sleeve shirts and rain jackets – to go with the pants. Did we need them? We wore some combination of these clothes everyday on the hike but not because of the cold. The volcano is a rain forest – think humid – meaning Mark and Susan were never cold but we couldn’t prevent rain and used the rain jackets during the rainfall; we used the long sleeve shirt to save our arms from getting scratched up.

It was warm and we hadn’t reached any nettles, so no need for long sleeves yet.

Back to check-in … the drivers negotiate with the trekking guides for what kind of hike their customers want – easy, medium, or hard. Robert, our driver, was good and negotiated an easy family for the first day. He seemed to know all the trekking guides which is a good thing!

The gorilla group you are assigned is based on the hike difficulty and during high season, it’s tough to get an easy hike. A lot is based on age and even VIP status. It’s low season, making it a bit easier to get the family/hiking difficulty we wanted.

After being assigned a gorilla family, the group of eight meets with the trekking guide who is responsible for getting us to the gorillas. He gave us information about the gorilla family and trekking and we met the other members of the group.

Then it’s time for the last visit to the toilets – VERY clean – before heading out with our driver, Robert, to the trek starting point. Each gorilla family has a different starting point requiring a 10 to 30-minute drive to the starting point. At the starting point, everyone gets a walking stick to use if we wanted and we both opted for one. The porters can be hired there, too, and then it’s time to start the walk!

About the porters – Porters carry your backpacks which should have bottles of water and some snack food or lunch along with all the clothes you have. They also are amazing at pointing out where to step and helping the visitors up and down stones and steep inclines and muddy trails.

These are a few of the porters who helped on the trek.

The porters dress in blue with a name and number on each uniform. All of them are either ex-poachers or from a family of poachers with these jobs providing an alternative income to poaching. We were told that the average income for a person in Rwanda per month is only $45.

The porters show up each day to their assigned area and are assigned to visitors in a rotation, ensuring that everyone gets a chance to earn money. In low season, porters may only work 1 day a week. The official price to hire a porter is $10 US plus a tip and visitors can hire as many as you want. Mark and I each hired 2 porters each, both to help us and to help the economy. Given the cost of a permit, the cost of a porter is miniscule. We were rather surprised that more people didn’t hire porters given the age of some of our fellow trekkers. (Read that to mean older than we are!)

The trackers for each gorilla family are already in the forest looking for the families and stay in radio contact with the trekking guides to inform them about the family location. Our treks involved walking through potato and bean fields to get to the “wall”, the boundary of Volcanoes National Park. At this point the trek starts to go uphill, either gradually or steeply, and each group is joined by a park ranger armed with a gun. The rangers will scare off any elephants or water buffalo you might encounter (We never saw anything worse than big piles of buffalo poop.)

Pyrethrum, a natural insecticide, is made from these flowers

When the trekking group meets the tracker in the forest, you know you are close to the gorilla family and the excitement builds.

A side note … our trekking guide on day 1 used his cell phone in addition to the radio. We laughed that cell phone reception is better in the middle of the Rwandan National Park than it is in our house in the middle of Ft. Collins!

An All-day Trip to 6 Islands and the Blue Cave

We booked the 6 Island Excursion with Space Fun Troghir to go to the Blue Cave, Hvar City, and a few other places along the way.

We met at their booth along the Riva with Maja and 4 other people about 7:30 AM. Maja walked us to the boat, Moody Summer, that showed up from Troghir with a Finnish family on board – mom, dad, and 2 girls. The other passengers were a French couple, a video editor from UK (works for Technicolor), and a female psychologist from Mexico City. First stop was the Blue Cave on the island of Biševo after a 1.5 hour speed boat ride. The water was smooth but we both had to put on wind breakers.

This is the beginning of the off-season and we lucked out – no wait to transfer to the small boats to go into the Blue Cave. The wait can be 2-4 HOURS in the summer. The cave was beautiful and very quiet because only 3 boats were inside at one time. Unfortunately, the visit time is very controlled so we didn’t get a very long visit.

The underground entrance to Blue Cave and where the light enters to create the reflection.

Inside the Blue Cave. This is all natural light.

Keep reading for more pictures

T-shirts from Croatia

T-shirt #1 – A t- shirt for sale in a shop … “Who needs a boyfriend when you have wi-fi and pizza?” accompanied by a picture of pizza and the wi-fi symbol. They had this shirt in English and Croatian but were out of the Croatian one. I’d have bought it!

T-shirt #2 – Black shirt with black letters – “I’m a lot cooler on the Internet”.

T-shirt #3 – “Why am I so thirsty when I drank so much beer for lunch?”

T-shirt #4 – “I don’t need Google. My wife knows everything.” This one is complete with the Google colors.

T-shirt #5 – “Don’t worry. Saturday is coming.”

T-shirt #6 – “Three Wise Men – Jim, Jack, Johnny”

These are all either for sale someplace in town or we saw people wearing them.

People wear t-shirts that make no sense. We see ones from made up U.S. colleges, universities, athletic teams – wrong towns, wrong colors, wrong logos. I’d love to take pictures of all the wrong shirts!

Camp David is a real brand of clothes in Germany but we always think of Camp David, Maryland (the Presidential retreat) so it looks a bit odd to us.

17 Days in Split, Croatia

Ever heard of Split, Croatia? Could you find it on a map? Split is the second largest city in Croatia sitting on the Adriatic Sea with a population of about 178,000. The city is famous for Diocletian’s Palace built in the 4^th century AD. The most interesting thing is that the “Palace” still exists after numerous incarnations and people live in it with shops and restaurants built into it. Split also has a seaport so we’ve see cruise ships (Norwegian, Viking, Princess, and a few we’ve never heard of) almost every day. The itinerary seems to be to dock here in the morning and leave about 6 PM to move to the next port.

Part of the Diocletian Palace Walls. A few scenes of Game of Thrones were filmed here.

Houses are built into the Old Palace.

The town square of Split that was part of the Palace at some point.

Beaches are located about 4 blocks from our apartment, ranging from a small beach with sand and very shallow water to rockier ones with deeper water. A walkway goes on for several kilometers with ladders to get out of the water, deck chairs to rent for 50 kuna, bars and coffee bars and night clubs and boat docks. The clubs all seem to be closed now since mid-October is the end of the tourist season.

We had beautiful sunsets 14 days in a row.

Enjoying a beer with sunset. .5 L beer is about $3 US.

(more…)

More Rome 10/16

I forgot to add a story about not paying attention when you’re walking – no, not me! At the street corner near our apartment in Rome, the city was repainting the cross walks on the very narrow streets. A few barricades were set up, an orange truck was parked, 2 guys were painting .. you get the idea. Everyone was walking around the wet crosswalk, the guys and the truck except for one man, clearly an Italian. He was about to saunter right into the wet white paint when the Italian workers started yelling at him and waving an arm. Did this get his attention? Not at first but ,finally, and he managed to avoid the wet paint and paint buckets and sprayers. I would love to understand the Italian that came out of the painters’ mouths at that point as they shook their heads and looked dumbfounded that the guy was so clueless.

Then I forgot to put this panorama of the line around St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday of the audience. It’s a bit hard to see but the lines were on both sides of the square – one for individuals and one for tour groups.

Lines on both sides of St. Peter’s Square for admission to the audience area

5 days in Rome

Rome … the eternal city or so the saying goes. I’ll preface this posting by saying we’ve been to Rome four or five times at various times of the year – May, June, January and now October. January was definitely the least busy as far as visitors go. We thought May and June were busy but this visit tops them all. Rome was crammed with visitors from all over the world. We heard people speaking every language we can identify and a few we can’t.

The prior visits also mean we’ve been to all the “must see” locations – Coliseum, Forum, Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s, Pantheon – and didn’t HAVE to see them again. Now on to our stories …

We both love seeing St. Peter’s Basilica. The size is awe inspiring, both inside and out, and the sculptures and altars are amazing. I always stop and consider how much time and money went into building it.

St. Peter’s Square is nice and quiet at night

One night we walked up to St. Peter’s Square at night and enjoyed the quiet.

The next afternoon we wandered past about 1:30 PM on the way back to our apartment and the line to get in was the longest we’ve ever seen – wrapped around the square clockwise. We can’t figure out where all the people are coming from! I would have been upset if that day was my only chance to see St. Peter’s and I had to stand in line for an hour or more.

Part of the problem is that everyone has to go through a metal detector and at any one time they may only have 4 or 5 open. The line moves pretty fast but we had no intention of standing in that line.

We looked on the Vatican website to find out that St. Peter’s opens at 7 AM. It seemed like such a good idea – be at St. Peter’s when it opened at 7 AM Wednesday morning. To be fair to the Vatican, their website did say the Pope has an audience on Wednesday at 10 but no mention of any restrictions to St. Peter’s.

The square was completely empty except for security before the Pope’s audience. Check out the little truck going down the steps of St. Peter’s.

We woke up at 6:30 AM, dressed, walked over to the Vatican just to see a long line, lots of Carabinieri, seats set up, bomb sniffing dogs, etc. We joined the line on the right side of the square, believing the Vatican website that says St. Peter’s opens at 7 AM. After standing in line for a bit, we noticed that the line wasn’t moving and no one was going into the church. And did I mention the tour groups showing up? As in lots of tour groups who were all funneled to their own line on the left side of the square.

The vendors were out in force selling rosaries, medals, whatever. They trolled the lines selling their goods. We checked the boundaries of the Vatican and they are clearly selling in Rome – no restrictions, it appears!

When the line moved at 7:40, we all were sent to a line a metal detectors (8 or 9 of them lined up) and saw people running to the chairs after they cleared security. We went through the metal detectors, slowly sauntering our way nearer to the church. We finally asked some nice Italian police what was going on? Turns out the Pope was saying Mass or having his audience (a bit lost in translation) outside at 10 AM (it’s now about 8 AM) and St. Peter’s will not open until after the audience – about noon or 1 PM. Since we had no intention of sitting for 2 hours to wait for the audience to even start, we bailed out. It explained why everyone was running – they wanted seats up front!

This was the line along the side of St. Peter’s that we went against to NOT go to the audience.

Getting OUT of St. Peter’s was just as hard as getting in – even following the EXIT signs. They led us to a long line of people who wanted in while we wanted out. We finally made it out – lots of “Excuse me’s” -and stopped at McDonald’s for coffee and an Egg McMuffin. That McDonald’s may be the safest place in Rome – across the street from a Polizia station and the police all get their coffee and sweets in McDonald’s!

One idea for the Vatican – assign someone to keep the website updated with a few more details about opening and closing times!

St. Peter’s Square at 7 AM is quiet when it’s not audience day.

This was the line at 9 AM when we came out of St. Peter’s.

The next day we tried the St. Peter’s thing all over again. This time, the line was just 20 minutes long to get through the metal detector at 7 AM. One disadvantage of coming early is many priests saying Mass all over the church so some sections were blocked off. The basilica is still impressive, especially at 7:00 A.M. when not many tour groups are around.

Again, we had coffee at McDonald’s and this time we sat by three American seminarians and eavesdropped on their conversations about coffee/espresso/café Americano and the seminars and shadowing they needed to do. I wonder what they would have done if I asked them what they are studying in Rome?

Keep reading … There’s more to come!

Mark’s version of Oktoberfest

Germans think it’s a good idea to let people shoot fake guns after consuming large quantities of alcohol.

Full Disclosure:

This is Mark’s version of Oktoberfest – I haven’t read Susan’s account. This will be fun to see how we match up on our stories!
Most of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
You will see duplicate photos from Susan’s version – she used mine

Mark’s abridged version of Oktoberfest

Drink, drink, drink, eat a chicken; drink, drink, play carnival games; drink, drink, eat a brat, go to bed

Mark’s full version of Oktoberfest

I knew this day wouldn’t be like any other day in Munich – it was sunny! We had pretty much a week of cold and damp weather before Thursday when our Oktoberfest reservations rolled around. Susan and I went over early to the Oktoberfest grounds (no, not to drink) to buy a souvenir stein that our lovely German friends were gracious enough to take back to Heidelberg for us. We will recover it, along with some clothes we leave in Heidelberg, next summer sometime. We, along with the girl selling the stein, about had a heart attack, when the opening bell screeched at 10 a.m. to announce that the grounds were officially open!

This is the tent we had reservations for in the afternoon.

We had a reservation for 30 people at the Pschorr Braurosl tent. Due to unforeseen issues, some people couldn’t make it. We had 22 people at our 3 tables – 15 Americans and 7 Germans. That meant we had an additional 8 * 2 = 16 beer tickets to use. We wondered if they would go to waste but any guesses if they went to waste? We added a couple of extra people the night before at Schneider Weiss, Dan & Debbie from Minnesota, to join us at Oktoberfest. It was easy to pick them up, we just mentioned beer! OK, they are friends of Chris and Janet and we knew they’d join us but they were new to our group.

We (the Americans) arrived at the tent at 11:30 and found our table with no problem. The only issue we ran into that day was our 3 tables were spilt between 2 waitresses. One waitress had 2 tables and the other waitress had 1 table. John committed a mortal sin and ordered his first beer from waitress number 1 and his second beer from waitress number 2. John was summarily berated, spanked, and given a wedgie by waitress #1. OK, I am a bit foggy on the wedgie. We were then told to order only from the table where you ordered your first beer. Fear of the wedgie, we didn’t make the same mistake as John.

Our German friends, led by Bettina, made it to the tent around 11:45. What took them so long? They had been in the Lowenbrau tent queuing up! The roar of the Lion was the giveaway they were in the wrong tent. At 11:30, BTW, the drinking hadn’t started! Not for us at least, but maybe the Germans started early!?! If you are keeping score, it’s Americans 1 – Germans 0.

A tent in the afternoon – not crowded yet

Being the afternoon session, the tent starts off quiet and is not very crowded. As the afternoon wore on, the tent started to get busier and noisier. People in our group moved around to different tables so people had a chance to speak with everyone during the session and spend time with each other. No fights started in the tent, so that was good.

As the session got later in the afternoon, people started ordering their chickens (Remember, you get a ½ chicken with your voucher). Here’s how they cook all those chickens. This was one of maybe 6 stations that just cooked chickens.

Lots of chickens needed to be roasted.

People also consumed more beer as the day progressed – shocker. The operation to clean, fill, and serve the beer is impressive. Again, this was just one of several stations in the tent.

Beer glass washing station – one of at least 5 or 6

Where would we be without the vendors? People came by, selling pretzels, hats, t-shirts, snuff, and desserts. At some point Justin decided he need a Chicken hat and, yes, the legs do move! The hat made it around the table with plenty of photos. I believe I have a video of people wearing the hat and dancing. If I find it, I will post it! Justin also decided that I needed a traditional Bavarian hat, so he bought me a hat. The hat immediately made me more dashing and I immediately became fluent in German – “Ich kenne diese Leute nicht, sie haben mich einfach gebeten, mit ihnen zu sitzen. Es tat mir leid für sie, also sagte ich ja.”

The hat lady sells a variety of hats. (Thanks to Dave S. for the picture.)

Justin wearing one of the hats.

Thanks, Justin, for the hat. I got a lot of compliments on the hat.

Franziska (Bettina’s daughter) bought some tobacco snuff and peppermint snuff; as they say, when in Rome…. I tried both and can attest both open your sinuses. I did have peppermint several more times that day from unknown Germans.

Fast forward to the end of the session … you can guess a lot of beer was consumed during the afternoon. Justin commented that he knew, now, how all the people we had seen over the last several nights who were passed out, were puking, or were so drunk they could barely stand could reach that state. He said “if you were at Oktoberfest from beginning to end, you could be pretty drunk”. Enough said.

The trumpeter played from the balcony to signal the end of the session

The trumpeter played his song to conclude the session and at that point people scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on. We didn’t see most of our group until the next morning. We aren’t sure what happened. We ended up with our German friends and going to the carnival part of the Oktoberfest – great!

Here’s the list of games I played and the results (Remember, this is my memory of Oktoberfest).

Strongman Game (think sledgehammer and bell) – 3 attempts

Swing and a miss – I had that hammer cocked over my head for a good 2 minutes (I swear) and the whole time I am thinking “Don’t miss the target. Don’t miss the target. Don’t miss the target – shit!”
Rang that bell – I won a little horn.
Not sure, I swear I hit the bell again.

Shooting game – yep, my comment at the beginning about Germans and shooting after drinking – I had 12 shots. These guns shoot BB’s, but haven’t they seen Christmas Story and the Red Rider BB gun?

Summary – I hit pieces of the target, but instead of moving on to the next target, I just kept shooting at the same target until it shattered. If you’re confused about why I was confused about the rules of the game, read the part above about drinking for 5½ hours. That said, I hit 10 at least parts of 10 of 12, if that counts.

Franziska did the Strongman Game and hit the bell 3 times in a row! I think she even knocked the bell off on her third try. Her and her dad, Hermann, blasted most of the targets. BTW, they showed up later than everyone else to the Pschorr-Braurosl tent so they had an unfair advantage on me.

I’ll give this round to the Germans. Americans 1 – Germans 1

After games of chance our German friends did some “traditional German rides”. One was for 2 people where you stood in the cage and tried to get the cage to go in a circle. They also rode a ride that went in circles; see my FAQ page about vomit-inducing rides.

Mark and Bettina on the traditional German ride – slightly out of focus.

I rode one “traditional German” ride. The only way to describe it is spinning top, upside down, without the point. The object is spin around and try to stay on as long as possible. The announcer called for people 45 and over to do the ride. Bettina and I both rode it. I didn’t win that one, but didn’t vomit either. So, a win in my book!

Since everyone was getting a bit parched by this time, we all stopped at the Champagne booth to have a glass of bubbly. At that point our German friends left and we met up with John, Deanna, Hans, his cousin Mark, and Mark’s friends at a wine tent. The wine tents are much smaller than a beer tent. Weinzelt seats 2,500 people. We had the table until 8:30 and had a little wine.

Spaten tent toward the end of the evening in the middle of the week.

At some point we got separated from Mark and his friends, but found them again at the Spaten tent around 9:00. Of course, we heard “Sweet Caroline” while we were there. The Spaten tent was fairly crowded and noisy. It was fun as we got to meet and talk with new German friends. We stayed there until it closed at 10:30. I bought a brat on the way back to the hotel and went to bed.

I must give Dave and Justin the award for Best spirit of Oktoberfest!

BTW, no beer tickets went unused.

I want to thank everyone who came to Oktoberfest to celebrate the start of our Around the World adventure. It means everything to us to have such good friends to celebrate with. Thank you again!

As Bettina says “same tent, same time next year”. Are you in!?!

A week in Lucca, Italy

Lucca was a great place to hang out for a week – walled city, quiet or as a quiet as an Italian city can be. Very few cars have permits to drive within the walls so most of the “traffic” problems occur when walking in narrow streets with pedestrians, bicyclists, dog walkers with small and large dogs, baby strollers, delivery trucks and the occasional car. We saw one Belgian car driving down the main shopping street. The passenger looked terrified, chewing on her hands. We’re not sure whether they were supposed to be on that street but the Italians just went with the flow, getting out of their way.

One of the many bell towers in Lucca on churches

lucca truck squeezing thru narrow street

This truck did manage to squeeze through but he rubbed the scarves outside the shop along the way.

The weekend before we got to Lucca, the Rolling Stones performed outside of the walls in one of the open areas. We were told the city was crazy with 60000 people and all the hotels and restaurants were completely sold out. One lady told us that Lucca negotiated for 2 years to get the Rolling Stones to perform there.

The walls are not what we think of when we say walls. These are very wide – wide enough for cyclists, walkers, runners, a park or two, benches, picnic tables. The Italian life in Lucca seems to swirl around and on the walls.

Susan standing on the walls of Lucca while we were out walking.

Lucca city walls

People walked, ran and biked all along the 4 km. of walls.

This is one of the gates into the city. The walls are surrounded by parkland requiring regular mowing.

We rented an apartment via AirBnB in Lucca and it was on the ground floor. It is ALSO across the tiny little street from a Bicycle Rental shop that, unknown to us, rents tandem bikes as well as regular bikes. This part of the city is pedestrian except for bicycles and cars and trucks with special stickers. You can imagine the chaos at times – people, baby carriages, bikes, tiny cars, delivery trucks, store displays, you get the idea.

I have the front window open while I work on the blog and we heard a crash of metal and 2 girls laughing. They had American voices and talked to the bike store lady. Turns out they’d rented a tandem bike and were trying to ride it. The shop worker gave them a few pointers and off they went again only to return in about one minute and tell the shop owner “We give up on the tandem bike. We can’t ride with all these people around . There are too many lives at stake!”

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Padua for 3 days

When we left Munich, we took the train to Padova (Padua). Padua is a nice small university city (210,000) only about 40 km (28 miles) to Venice. University students are everywhere from the University of Padua, founded in 1222. Galileo taught there at some point. It’s like being in Fort Collins except on small, arcaded, narrow sidewalks and streets.

Padua gate

We had our first lesson on how to make coffee in the Moka Coffee pot. Pretty easy but not very efficient if you want to drink lots of coffee.

The moka coffee pot – fill with coffee and water and let it boil.

We stayed at a little apartment just up the street from the Basilica of St. Anthony where we followed an Indian tour group around in the church and eavesdropped on their Italian tour guide. St. Anthony’s body is in the church as well as a few relics.

View from our window of Basilica of St. Anthony

Basilica of St. Anthony – no pictures allowed inside

Basilica of Saint Anthony at night

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A day trip to Pisa – the tower still leans

It was a Pisa sort of day and only 25 minutes from Lucca by the regional train. After walking to the Lucca train station, we needed to buy a ticket. Thank heavens, these ticket machines will actually print out a ticket! A whole bunch of us got on the train we thought we needed and a nice female train driver came to tell us that they had to switch the train to a different track and we have to get off while they do it. She kept apologizing but it was no big deal and shortly the train switched tracks and showed up again!

Lots of small villages dot the train tracks along with patches of tomatoes and beehives. Towers and big houses, old and new, could be seen in the distance. After arriving in Pisa and NOT buying a return ticket when there were no lines (more later), we walked to the Piazza de Miracoli following Google Maps and the Lonely Planet printed directions. We would have lost a bet because no signs were posted at the train station or at a big plaza giving any indication which of many streets we should choose to walk down. The first pedestrian sign pointing to the Tower wasn’t until we crossed the Arno River.

This is the first directional sign we saw and we were pretty close to the Tower.

Our route took us across the river and past the U. of Pisa Law School and more churches than we could count. We stopped in one church for the obligatory visit. (No idea which church it was.) We knew the Leaning Tower was close when the number of tourists increased dramatically as well as the number of gift shops and restaurants.

River Arno in Pisa

A street scene as we got closer to Piazza di Miracoli and the Leaning Tower

The Duomo, Tower, and Baptistry are beautiful especially in the sun. They all were bright white and, miraculously, only the Duomo still has some scaffolding on it. Mark decided we should check out the W/C. It cost .80 E and the line for the Women’s room was really long – Surprise! – but Mark just whipped in and out of the Men’s. Lots of tour groups and individual tourists, like us, so I can’t imagine what it’s like in the summer.

Pisa Duomo.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Duomo.

The Baptistry described as a big cupcake.

Leaning Tower of Pisa. We didn’t do any of the pics holding up the tower.

Susan in front of the Duomo and Leaning Tower

We took pictures and picked up a walking map of Pisa from Tourist Information before we wandered our way through the city and the Piazzas. We didn’t visit the insides of any buildings nor climb the tower.

This building was in one of the piazzas on the walk back to the train station.

The next challenge was getting a ticket to go back to Lucca. All of the ticket machines in the Pisa station will only issue paperless tickets so even many of the Italians had to get out of the machine line and go use the ticket office line. Of course, the non-Italians were all out of luck! We queued up in the LONG ticket line, starting out with 4 ticket sellers; reduced to 3 when one of them served a guy and hung his “Closed” sign. The line actually went pretty fast but Mark and I just commented “Full employment”. We think Lucca machines sell tickets because the ticket counter closes at 8:05 PM.

Pisa summary – Ok for one visit but not someplace I’d go back to. Pisa is a pretty busy city and didn’t impress us enough to want to return for another visit.

Tips and Tricks for Surviving Oktoberfest in Munich

History of Oktoberfest
You can thank Prince Ludwig for the annual party that hosts more than 6 million visitors a year. It all started when Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I, was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12th October 1810. The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the happy royal event. The fields have been named Theresienwiese (“Theresa’s fields”) in honor of the Crown Princess ever since, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to the “Wies’n”. (http://www.muenchen.de/int/en/events/oktoberfest/history.html)

If you have any doubt about where to go, these signs are posted in the U-bahn and S-bahn and along the streets. Follow the signs to Oktoberfest.

Welcome to Oktoberfest!

Afternoon vs. Evening Session
If you have “Ein Prosit” or “Sweet Caroline” running through your head for a few days, that means you attended the afternoon session (Ein Prosit) or the evening session (Sweet Caroline) at Oktoberfest. If you have both running through your head, you probably had too much to drink at Oktoberfest. BTW, the bands don’t play “Ein Prosit” because they like it; they are required to play it every 15-20 minutes to increase the drinking of beer and, hence, the sale of beer. It works!

The German band playing at Pschorr Braurosl all afternoon.

Evening session in a tent. This is the floor of the tent as seen from a balcony.

Another tent toward the end of the evening in the middle of the week.

What is the difference between afternoon session and evening session ?
You could say night and day. ? The afternoon session is what you would expect – calmer, quieter, and plenty of German music. The afternoon session starts at 11:30 a.m. and last until 4:45 p.m. During the afternoon session, it is easier to find a table, especially if you have a large group and no reservation (I will talk about table reservations later). You will see people of all ages in the tent from school children to senior citizens. If you worried that the afternoon session will be like watching paint dry, don’t worry. By 2 PM or so, most people are feeling no pain and singing to the songs regardless whether they know the words or not. We saw one guy toss his lunch at 2 p.m. inside the Lowenbrau tent … sweet!
The evening session is a complete flip from the afternoon. The session starts at 5:00 and last until 10:30 p.m. The tents close at 10:30 p.m. You will hear very few traditional German songs sang during the evening session. You will hear “Ein Prosit” once in a while, but no need to play it, everyone is drinking!!!
Evening sessions can be very difficult to even get into the tent and these tents seat 6,000 – 10,000 people in EACH tent. There are 14 tents in total. They will “close” a tent when it hits capacity. As people leave, others can enter. Trying to find seating for a large group (i.e. >5) is tough. Did I tell that you need a seat to drink a beer? Yep, no seat, no beer. No self-service either.
Tip: Get to the evening session early (e.g. 5) or late (9:00). If the main floor is packed, go upstairs and look for a table. If the weather is good, head outside to the tent’s beer garden. They seat another 3,000 – 5,000 people outside at each tent. Note: the evening sessions are VERY loud!

A tent in the afternoon – not crowded yet

A panorama of the Pshorr-Braurosl tent on Thursday afternoon

The opening night crowd in a tent – more noise and people than one can imagine!

Do I need to pay to go to Oktoberfest or to get into a tent?
No, admission is free for both.

Are there just beer tents on the Oktoberfest grounds?
No, Oktoberfest grounds look like a State Fair. There are food vendors, games of chances, haunted houses and several rides that we termed “vomit inducing rides”. Think spinning around and upside down at high rates of speed.

Can I only get beer at Oktoberfest?
It depends. In a beer tent, only beer is served. There are 2 wine tents located at Oktoberfest where you can get wine and beer. Besides beer or wine, you can get food. Food varies by the tent.

Full liters of beer (1 mas each)

Where did all the beer go?

Is there only one size of beer? What kind of beer can I get?
The beer is only served in a one liter mug. There’s only one kind of beer per tent, a fest beer. Each tent has their own beer.

Can I eat at the tents?
Yes, there are full menus at each tent. You better bone up on your German or have someone in your group who knows German. We never saw an English menu.

What’s about reservations?
Reservations are very hard to get, afternoon or evening session, especially if you are in a large group like us (30 people). Reservations are handled differently by each tent. Requests are submitted via letter, e-mail, etc. The tent(s) will let you know if you got a reservation sometime around May; again, this varies. Check individual tents for specific information. A reservation gets you an assigned table for a specific time and day. When you walk into the tent, you find the row number on your reservation, walk up the row and look for the name of your group at the end of the table.
Tip: Reservations are made by the table size, most common is a table of 8 or 10. You MUST book an entire table.

Does a reservation cost anything?
No. But, you are required to buy a voucher for each person that includes 2 – 1-liters of beer and a chicken.
Tip: If you speak enough German, we understand you can change out the chicken. We don’t, so chicken it was!

Keep reading!

A Thursday of Oktoberfest Fun – and beer!

Oktoberfest seemed to be a success for our gaggle of 21 people – 6 Germans and 15 Americans. If you don’t know, Oktoberfest is celebrated in Munich every year for 17-20 days and is a large party/fair for everyone who attends. We had reservations in the Pschorr Braurosl Tent, thanks to hard work by a German friend. Reservations are free but you must buy food and drink vouchers for 2 beers (Each beer is a liter.) and a half chicken for each person. You can order other food and “pay as you go”. Our reservation started at 11:30 AM on Thursday morning and we had the 3 tables until 4:30 PM. Let’s just say everyone enjoyed the food, drink, company, and German music. I lost count of the number of liters of beer that were consumed by our group. A few hats were purchased from the vendors, too.

This is the tent we had reservations for all afternoon.

Half a chicken and part of a beer – The rest had been consumed!

Everyone hangs coats on the table legs. Reserved signs are on the table after you find the row of your table from your reservation letter.

Keep looking for more pictures.

Oktoberfest fun!

The official logo for Oktoberfest 2017 – steins, tshirts, post cards, magnets.

If you have any doubt about where to go, these signs are posted in the U-bahn and S-bahn and along the streets. Follow the signs to Oktoberfest.

Oktoberfest is not just a time to have a few beers and some food. Oktoberfest is also a big fair – sort of like the Iowa State Fair without the cows, pigs, and chickens. The rides included ones that go upside down, up high and around in circles. No one in our group tried any of them but the lines were long, including people who I’m sure were not really in any condition to spin or turn upside down.

This ride went upside down and rocked back and forth

This ride spun in circles and each car went in circles, too.

Midway at night at Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest has a post office set up for the event with its own cancellation stamp along with ATM machines since all purchases in the tents are cash only.

Keep on reading for more pictures

A day hike to Andechs Monastery

One day 14 of us took the S-bahn to Herrshing and then walked about 4 miles up to Andechs Monastery for lunch and an Andechs beer. The monks make the beer – pils or dunkel – and they’ve added a schnapps-making business.

Andechs monastery church

We’ve been there a few times so we know there are 2 different paths to take up (about 1 hour walk) or you can take the city bus #951 that leaves from the train station in Herrsching 2 times an hour and take 10 minutes. Eleven in the group walked while the other three with colds took the bus. Naturally, Mark and I picked the hardest route up (We can never remember from year to year whether to go left or right at the sign!) but we had a nice walk up and then we came down the other path. The walk up does involve 2 very long flights of steps – about 60 in each flight. We missed the rain and had beer and good food as a reward for our hard work.

The steps we walked up during our hike to Andechs. (Thanks to Stephanie for the picture.)

Enjoying beer and apfel strudel after we went inside to warm up after lunch on the terrace.

Two routes to choose from Herrsching and one of them takes you through this meadow

Pork Knuckle and Pretzel for lunch

Dunkel beer from Andechs

9/14 An “Amazing Race” sort of day

Getting to Frankfurt was no problem from Dulles but when we tried to go to Heidelberg on the Lufthansa Express Bus Shuttle, it was a whole other story – best described as an “Amazing Race” kind of day. As a preface to the story, we each had 2 suitcases with us – one hard-sided and one rolling duffel bag that we need for the safari and we wanted to go to Heidelberg to leave the duffel bags with friends until it’s time to fly to Tanzania. Oh, it was POURING down rain in Frankfurt when we landed.

We booked the Lufthansa Heidelberg shuttle in August sometime so we wouldn’t have to manhandle 2 suitcases on the train with a change needed in Mannheim. We knew exactly where the stop was the last time we did this about 6 weeks ago and we lugged our suitcases up 2 escalators or elevators and across from Arrivals to the train station to the stop. Alas … a sign was posted that the shuttle pickup location (Wrong location #1) was changed as of September 1 to “P29 by the vending machine” but with no hint as to where P29 could possibly be located in the Frankfurt airport.

We knew the “P” probably indicated a PARKING location so the hunt began! We asked a Lufthansa employee by the Lufthansa Shuttle desk and she sent us to the bus lot, involving another trek and an elevator ride. Not there! (Wrong location #2) We asked a Lufthansa bus driver there for help and his answer was “I get asked all the time and I have no idea.” Back up the elevator and, now, we see a Frankfurt Airport Information phone that Mark picks up and promptly hands to Susan. After 5 minutes with the Information lady (She tried to send me to wrong locations 1 and 2 and I had to convince her I just needed to know where P29 is.), I finally got a good answer – Go to Arrivals Hall, exit the building, turn left and walk to the end of the building.

Before we manhandled the suitcases on two more escalators, Susan went exploring and found the location, we hoped, went back to Mark and we took our bags to P29. Now there are 2 vending machines to choose from, no signage for Lufthansa Shuttle although there is signage for other shuttles and we had 45 minutes to wait to see if we really found the correct location. I called the Lufthansa Shuttle number and the guy who answered sounded like he knew what he was talking about and convinced me we are in the right location. Grabbed sandwiches while we waited and, sure enough, the Heidelberg Lufthansa Shuttle showed up at the closest vending machine that had no cover from the rain. Yes, it’s still pouring down rain.

The driver was from York, England, and explained the whole mess with shuttle locations. We were the only passengers and he was kind enough to drop us at our Ibis hotel when we got to Heidelberg. Success at last but I now know how the Amazing Race players feel because we had NO idea – and neither did anyone else – where P29 is.

Where is P29 when you have no map?

After we made it to Heidelberg, we were in need of a shower, nap, food, and a beer in that order. The room wasn’t ready so we settled for food and beer and THEN a nap and a shower, a few hours later.

KulturBrauerei glass of Fest beer

Fountain in the gardens at Heidelberg Castle

View from the castle looking on the Neckar River after a walk in Heidelberg

A visit to western Maryland

We’re finished with the family visits after 5 days in Cumberland, MD with Susan’s Mom. We went exploring and found the Great Allegheny Passage and used it for 2 days of walks. It’s a biking/walking trail that runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, following a rail line. Walking in 2 different directions, we found the Brush Rail Tunnel and the Cumberland Bone Caves where prehistoric bones were found about 100 years ago.

Western Maryland is full of eastern mountains – highest point is about 1600 feet. It’s very green and full of trees.

Some wild mushrooms we found along the Great Allegheny Passage

Mark at the start of our walk on the Great Allegheny Passage. We didn’t walk all the way to Frostburg!

On 9/10 we drove over to Shanksville, PA to visit the Flight 93 9/11 Memorial. It’s a very quiet, peaceful place and very moving. I needed a few tissues as we toured the Visitor Center and walked down to the Memorial Plaza where there’s a huge panel for each of the 40 victims.

Looking down on the Flight 93 Memorial Plaza from the Visitor Center.

Visitor Center of the Flight 93 Memorial

September 5 – The trip begins!

The adventure has started! Stop 1 was Iowa via Omaha and, as Mark likes to say, the trip is all downhill from Iowa! We started in Omaha (cheaper flight from Denver) with an overnight before heading across Iowa through all the fields of ripe corn and beans and spending the weekend in Iowa City. Thank heavens the University of Iowa beat Wyoming in the opening game of the season or the entire city would have been filled with VERY unhappy people!

You can find Hawkeye gear all over Iowa City.

Just in case you need a U. of Iowa Tie

Just in case you need to update your supply of Iowa sox you can find them at the Hawkeye Fan Shop in Coralville, IA.

These are highly prized and expensive reserved parking/tailgating spots right outside of Kinnick Stadium at University of Iowa.

The route back west across Iowa to Mark’s Mom’s house took us through Washington and Pella, Iowa. We went on a hunt for Susan’s long-ago relatives in Washington cemeteries and found a few 5^th cousins 4 times removed. (We share great great great great great great grandparents – and, yes, the number of “greats” is correct!)

John Baker tombstone in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, outside of Washington, Iowa.

Located about 5 miles outside of Washington, IA in the middle of cornfields. We’re guessing my relatives had a farm somewhere in the vicinity in the late 1800’s.

The rest of the Iowa stop involved visiting sisters, nieces and nephews and Mom and watching Va Tech beat West Virginia University on Sunday night late!

Road Trip to the eclipse

We had a pre-trip trip when we decided to go to Nebraska last weekend to see the total solar eclipse and, yes, it was spectacularly worth it! We’d heard the dire warnings about traffic – have enough gas, food, water, etc. so we packed up the car and left about 5 AM on Sunday for Alliance, Nebraska. Taking the “back roads” of CO 14 to Sterling and heading north to Sidney (Home of Cabela’s who are not open at 7 AM on Sunday morning) and further north to Alliance, we made it in 4 hours with no traffic.

U. of Iowa flag flying

Mark and Vivian Payne found the Well’s Ranch who mowed a field and rented out space for campers and tents so we met them there by looking for the University of Iowa flag, set up the tent in the Nebraska wind, and hung out in the sun, watching more and more people arrive for the grand event the next day. About 850 people watched the totality in total at Wells Ranch. While the vast majority were from Colorado, people came from as far away as Switzerland, London, Minnesota, California and Texas .

The faithful long-lasting tent. This is the same tent we took to Europe for 9 weeks 26 years ago. It might be time for a more modern one!

Kite flying and wine drinking

We enjoyed some margaritas and wine and a cold beer with our munchies and appetizers.

Morning fog

Mark and I were a bit panicked at 4 AM Monday morning when we looked out the tent and saw nothing but heavy fog. By 8 the fog cleared and by 10 we had clouds and blue skies.

Mark watching the eclipse

Susan watching the eclipse

“sunset” appearance at totality

Total eclipse

The eclipse was spectacular! As the moon covered more and more of the sun, wispy clouds floated across the sky and made the sun look very much like the Halloween pictures you see with a witch flying across the moon. The temperature dropped 15 degrees during the eclipse. We all agreed that those 2 1/2 minutes flew by. Be the end, Mark muttered something about planning a trip to Chile or Argentina for 2019. Next time, we’ll take some binoculars to see sunspots and flares during the eclipse.

The trip back to Fort Collins started about 4:30 but about 5 miles outside of Alliance we could see cars for as far as we could see so decided to run around and either put up the tent in the wind again or find a hotel room. Victory! The Quality Inn in Alliance had a lovely room complete with a shower and A/C that worked well. We even found a pizzeria across the street after we made a visit to Carhenge outside of town. Tuesday morning we left at 7:30 Am and were home by 10:45 without running into much traffic until I-25 between Cheyenne and Fort Collins.

Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska

August 13 – Panic time!

Only 18 days until we leave FC and the to-do list IS getting shorter! We’ve met with all our important people like the doctor, dentist, and insurance agent; have ordered nice neat crisp U.S. bills to use in a variety of countries; stocked up on Pepto-Bismol and Kirkland brand of Immodium equivalent (MUCH cheaper at Costco) and put together contact information for our families and friends, including where we will NOT have wi-fi connections. The piles of clothes are all over two bedrooms, the Tanzanian visa is attached to the passports, the Australian ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) has been approved, and the last party scheduled to drink the beer inventory in the house.

On top of all this, we’ve decided to drive up to Alliance, Nebraska to see the Total Solar Eclipse. We’re soooo close that we couldn’t pass up the chance to sleep in a tent and huddle with the masses to see this event. What’s one more to-do list?

Mark and I had some fun this summer in Germany and here are some pictures to enjoy.

Bad Wimpfen window box

Not bad for 3 Euros

Monastery outside of Heidelberg

We had a nice walk up the hill to the Stift Neuberg and ate delicious potato soup lunch with a beer. We bought this one at their organic grocery store.

Mark with Kulturerai beer

Matterhorn in a clear sky

Country-specific Travel Advice

We like to keep up on events that might impact our travels around the world and we use a number of different sources. The most well-known one in the U.S. is the U.S. State Department. They publish information about travel in many counties. The topics include information on passports, Alerts and Warnings issued for each country, visas needed to enter the country, crime, driving conditions, etc. I think the State Department tends to be very conservative relative to the U.K. and Australia but it’s a good place to start.

The State Department also runs a program for Americans called Smart Travel Enrollment Program (STEP) to enroll your international trips. After enrollment, you are connected with each Embassy and they will send alerts, if necessary.

If you want another take on security around the world, you can sign up with the U.K. Foreign Office to get alerts as they are issued. Go to www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice and enroll in “Get Updates” via email. You can choose the countries you need alerts for. I really like that the U.K. even gives information on possible travel problems due to soccer matches and other events like this. You can tell where football/soccer ranks in importance there!

One of my favorite information sources is run by United Health Care Global. Sign up for “Daily Security Alerts” and every day the alerts will show up in your email box. In addition to the “normal” crime, terrorism, and political activities, this groups publishes information about a wide variety of strikes also that can definitely have an impact on your travel – taxi strikes in Italy, rail strikes in the U.K., airline and airport strikes, etc. – as well as a list of holidays around the world. Can anyone say “Closed Museums”??

Hope this helps!

May 2017 Planning Update

Thank heavens for Excel spreadsheets! I use them to keep track of where we’ll be every day, where we’re staying, flights, trains, etc. Another spreadsheet is tracking costs and what we have left to book. I even have a worksheet to calculate how many days we need to take anti-malaria meds.

The spreadsheet is getting longer and details are added by the week. We have most of the long haul flights organized and have organized a tour in Jordan for 8 days – seeing Jerash and Petra, the Red Sea and the Dead Sea.

The latest detail is setting up a tour in India. We’ve decided to use Audley Travel with a driver and tour guides in each city. We’ve been working with Byrn Woodworth at Audley Travel and she’s been great, so far. She gave us “homework” to do – check out hotels, make a list of cities we want to see and what we want to see in each city. Bryn took that information and came up with an itinerary along with 3 or 4 hotels in each city for us to consider. The tour includes driver between cities and private guides in each city along with admissions and hotels with breakfasts. Dinners and lunches are on our own. After some more research on our part, we’ve made that reservation!

Now it’s time to start filling in the blanks – trains, a few hotels, short flights.

Today was pretty frustrating when I tried to book 2 seats on the Indian Pacific train from Perth to Sydney on the Great Southern Railways website www.greatsouthernrail.com.au . I made it through the booking process but when I clicked on “Payment”, the website just sat and stared at me for 5 minutes (Yes, I timed it.) with the little message “Payment Processing”. Finally, I checked my credit card website and, sure enough, they’d approved the transaction. No booking number appeared, no email showed up with a booking number and I couldn’t log on to an account, even though I’d attempted to set one up. I couldn’t even get Great Southern to reset my password. Their site SAID they were sending me an email so I could set a new PW but that email never showed up.

I sent Great Southern Sales and Booking an email. The autoreply announced they are experiencing a greater than expected number of emails and to just hang on and wait for a reply. Wonder why?? Now, I’m sitting on hold with Great Southern trying to get this figured out. Thanks heavens for Skype!

5/22/Update – Great Southern was really helpful after I got through the hold – a mere 15 minutes. The booking is done – yeah! Now we have to figure out the rest of the time in Australia!

996,607 down, 3,393 to go – updated May 2017

I’m on the hunt for 1 million miles on United Airlines after joining their Frequent Flyer Club when it first started in about 1981. Mark already has 1 million miles so I can be his designated Premier Gold partner but it’s the principle of the matter. I want my own Million Mile designation!

I made up a spreadsheet with Excel and with only 47,00 miles to go as of January 25, I’ve searched high and low for flights with the most miles/dollar. Since I don’t really want to spend my life on planes, I’m searching for long flights. Last year I went to Hong Kong from Denver but routed myself through Newark to get about 1500 extra miles for the same price. So far this year, I’ve found Denver to Tokyo to Bangkok to accrue miles and I did that trip in January. (The miles have to be “butt in seat” on a United plane so only the DEN-SFO-NRT miles count.)

The Aloft Hotel pool – Bangkok

View from the Mo Chit BTS stop for the Weekend Market in Bangkok – cabs and buses!

Memorial to the King of Thailand who died in 2016

Year of the Rooster – Bangkok

Sushi in the United Airlines Club at Tokyo Narita airport. You won’t find this in the U.S. United Clubs.

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December 2016 – A few days in Bruge, Belgium

Time to head off to Bruges, Belgium (one of our favorite places) before we head back to Amsterdam to fly home on New Year’s Eve. Berlin Tegel is quite easy to get to from center city – hop on the TXL bus and in about 20 minutes you are at the old and dingy airport. We can’t figure out when the check-in desks open but the U.S. idea of checking in 2 hours before departure doesn’t exist here! Security is right at the gate because the airport is so old it has no place to do a central security. Everyone on the flight uses ONE security line and the line does not move quickly – take off coat, put phone, computer, Kindle, belt, in the bin. New airplane rule on Brussels Air … exit row cannot have anything under the seat in front of it.

After landing, we took the train to Brussels Midi and then to Bruges where we stayed at the IBIS. Standard IBIS – small room, clean bathroom, excellent breakfast. The ongoing mystery for us is why European bathtubs with showers are so deep. People with short legs have great difficulty getting out of the tub after a shower!

Belgium and Bruges are known for beer and chocolate and that’s what this stay was about – visit to Halve Moon Brewery for a beer and Bourgogne de Flandres brewery to do the tour – self-guided with a map to hunt down the moles in the brewery. Mark had a lovely chat with the brewer who’s working on a degree in brewing even although he has a degree in microbiology already. The Bourgogne de Flandres house beer is brown mixed with lambic and that makes a pretty nice sour beer for me. We also stopped at Trappist Beer Cellar (great selection of Belgium beers and knowledgeable staff) and Bieratelier Bruges -on Wijngaardstraat 13. Bieratelier is a tiny bar with 7 beers on tap, 6 of which are Christmas beers. We tried 4 of them. It’s a fun bar and the bartender is always helpful.

Christmas beers at Bieratelier, Bruges

Christmas cupcakes in Bruge

Bruges canal in the fog

We had to buy some Neuhaus chocolate for a variety of people and make a stop at our favorite little chocolate shop in Philipstraat. We found this one in 1990 on our first visit to Bruges and have returned ever since.

One night dinner was at Malesherbes on Stoofstraat and you’ll need a good map to find this. Maleherbes was yummy and our splurge – champagne, pigeon pate with a side of duck foie gras, lamb filet that was rare and tender served with potatoes and ratatouille. Finally, we had chocolate mousse for dessert. This was a typical French meal – 3 hours. The manager told us they only do one seating at dinner so no one has to feel rushed. (more…)

December 2016 – Berlin for Christmas by way of Atlanta, Auburn, D.C. and Amsterdam!

Christmas bear in Galeries Lafayette window, Berlin

End of dinner at Entrecote, Berlin. The wine is a giveaway!

Advent wreath hanging in the Augustiner Kellar, Berlin

Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin

Nativity Scene at Charlottenburg Palace Christmas Market, Berlin

We took the roundabout way to get to Berlin from Denver. Leg #1 – We flew to Atlanta, rented a car and – Leg#2 – drove to Auburn for 4 days for a nephew’s wedding. Driving on I86 is not much fun on a Friday afternoon and by the time we got to Auburn we thought a beer would taste pretty good, but when we asked our waitress at dinner what kind of beer they have on tap, the answer was “we don’t serve alcohol”.

While we were in Auburn, Mark and I went for a tour of the university – checked out the stadium with sculptures of their Heisman winners, the book store and the student center where we were one of the few customers of the Starbucks! We drove around a bunch of Auburn, the town, spent time with friends and family, and got the nephew and his bride married!

Leg #3 started on Sunday afternoon – another drive on I86 back to the Atlanta airport where, by the way, there is no gas station anywhere near the rental car return location!

Leg #4 – the flight to Washington Dulles was delayed several times thanks to all the ice all over the country, slow luggage loading and the air start machine to start the compressor that didn’t work – the hose kept popping off. We ended up leaving 3 hours late and arrived in IAD about midnight, took the shuttle to the Hyatt and went to bed.

Leg #5 was DC to Amsterdam and this one went remarkably well except for United moving Mark without asking to a different aisle seat. We both ended up changing seats – Mark because United moved him to accommodate a mom and son and then I changed with her husband so I could avoid sitting next to the children. Why did we fly to Amsterdam? Cheap tickets! I found this one for about $470 RT each and that was too good to pass up.

We saw the news about the truck crashing into the Christmas market in Berlin so everyone was sending emails checking with where we are.

The sun was actually up by the time we got to the Amsterdam Centraal station and found the hotel – IBIS Styles at Centraal Station. The only room open at 8 AM was in the basement but has a big bathroom! Had a nap and shower and walk and a pancake with ham and cheese for lunch before Mark started on some work meetings.

Dinner at the Kantjil & de Tijger (Indonesian food) – The food was good but the service was spotty.

Leg #6 the next day – Amsterdam to Berlin by train. We had the 2 window seats in a 6-person compartment in 1^st class. While we waited for the train to leave, we could hear a cat meowing in the next compartment. It turned out to be 2 Siamese cats and, when the owner let them out of the kitty carrier, they were happy and quiet. They proceeded to lay on the seat by the guy and just check out the world. Eventually, they fell asleep curled up together.

We have a VRBO apartment on Plankstrasse near Friedrichstrasse Station (more…)

November 2016 – Weekend in NYC

We had quite the adventure in New York City last weekend. We were in town for the New York City Marathon! Mark won a lottery spot last February, trained for the event and then he had to run it! After flying in last weekend and using the train from Newark airport to Penn Station in Manhattan, we spent one day at the 9/11 Museum. We did get tickets ahead of time so we had a time slot and the line was pretty short to get in and go through security even though it was crowded once we were inside. The museum is well-organized but it was hard for me to see some of the exhibits. I spent most of the visit in silent tears remembering all the events on 9/11 – waking up to the news, watching it on TV, cancelling class because no one was capable of learning that day. We had friends flying back from London and they were diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Another friend on his honeymoon was returned to Orlando and a colleague drove back from Columbus, Ohio dropping people off along the way.

9/11 Memorial, New York City

Thanks to being a Diamond Member in the Hyatt Gold Passport we had coupons for 2 free drinks at Bar54 on the 54th floor of the Hyatt Centric Times Square Hotel on 45th Street in Manhattan. The hotel is a great location for all things marathon related since we could walk to and from Central Park and Mark walked to the New York City Library to catch the bus to the Staten Island start at 6:30 AM. His report – not many people on the street at that hour on Sunday morning! We timed our bar visit for sunset although we had to wear coats when we opted for seats on the deck outside.

Looking south from Bar54 at the Hyatt on 45th Street at sunset.

The next event was the Abbot Dash to the Finish 5K on Saturday morning. The run (we walked!) started at the United Nations and ended in Central Park at the Marathon finish line. In between we got to walk down the middle of 5th Avenue on a Saturday morning. Now, I can say I’ve walked in the middle of the Champs Elysees AND 5th Avenue!

Mark ran the Marathon along with 50,000 of his closest friends and he finished – his goal! The atmosphere was electric – one big party for 26.2 miles with runners and spectators from around the world. One French tour company, France Marathon, brought 1000 French runners – and lots of them were staying at our hotel. I’m pretty sure we were in the English as a 1st language minority at the hotel. I used the New York Subway system to watch him at Mile 11 and Mile 23 and then meet up at the end at Central Park West.

Mile Marker 11 in Brooklyn

Monday was our day to go walking some more and after we visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral we ran across NBC’s setup for broadcasting for the Presidential Election the next day. They had Rockefeller Center decked out in red, white, and blue including the ice rink. Fox News and CBS were further along on the walk.

I am happy to report we had no problem flying back to Denver from LaGuardia – no traffic and no long security lines – despite all the horrors we’d heard about the place.

Let’s add Jordan to the itinerary.

An interesting story about Jordan on 60 Minutes gave us an idea to make a stop in Jordan for a few days to see Petra and the Dead Sea. It would be prudent to check with the U.S. and U.K. governments for any travel advisories – travel to Jordan is a go! The CTP (chief travel planner) looked for some tours in Jordan so now it’s a matter of choosing a good one. Another task added to the “to do” list. Now the itinerary has grown to Rwanda … Cape Town … Seychelles … Dubai … Amman … and back to Europe.

Lonely Planet books became our go-to travel sources ever since we found them when we lived in Australia and discovered that they include laundromat locations! Finding a place to do the laundry is VERY important! Now the books are offered in e-versions and, when LP has a sale, I stock up on e-versions of the books. I can always print out a few pages to take along and I don’t have to lug the whole book in my backpack. Today, I added a book about Jordan and another one about the Arab Peninsula. Does this mean we’re REALLY adding those countries to our plan?

We made our first reservations!

Thomson Safari booklet

A safari made it to the top of the bucket list and we started researching safaris about a year ago – talking to friends who’d been on safaris, reading magazine stories, checking out rankings. We finally narrowed the list down to one country – Tanzania – and one or two companies. After quite a few conversations and more than a few emails and dozens of questions, we finally decided on Thomson Safaris. (I’m sure Gabriella cringed every time she saw another email from me.) We picked a date and a safari but we knew the decision was REALLY made when we made a reservation and put down a deposit last month.

Mark took a few looks at the map and said “Rwanda is the next country over. We need to see the gorillas if we are so close!” More decisions to be made and more research to be done. The gorillas are in Volcanoes National Park along with the Golden Monkeys and permits to go trekking to see the gorillas are limited each day. After going back and forth on dates and availability of permits and hotels, we finally added this experience to our trip – more deposits were made! Now we have a few dates in concrete on the trip itinerary.

Deciding to visit Rwanda added one more little task to the “to-do list” – yellow fever vaccine is required to enter Rwanda. Off we went to visit the Larimer County Health Department for a Yellow Fever immunization. I’m happy to report neither one of us had any side effects from the experience!

10/5 Update – we made hotel reservations for the Hotel Uhland in Munich for 8 rooms for 16 of us so now we have a place to stay for Oktoberfest. Next task for Oktoberfest is to get reservations for tables in an evening session tent and then buy food vouchers. I’ll be in Germany this summer and may try to get them all then.

Hotel Uhland, Munich

A change to the not firm plans

Last Friday I got an email from SRH in Heidelberg asking if I want to teach a class this coming summer for 5 weeks. I’d like to but this throws a wrench in the plan that’s not set in concrete yet! Since we can only be in the Schengen countries 90 days out of every 180 days, spending 5 weeks in July reduces the number of days we can stay in most of Europe after the Africa trip. Thanks to an amazing calculator I found published by the EU, I figured out we can stay about 7 days after the Africa trip so it’s on to Plan B. Now we’re thinking we can drop off the duffel bags in Heidelberg, pick up our “regular” bag and head off to the UK – maybe stop in for a visit with Darcy and Kelly before we head up to Scotland to see what the whiskey trail looks like. We need to so some research to make sure the distilleries and castles are even open in December but I’m betting we could have a few places pretty much to ourselves!

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How do we pack for this adventure?

What should we pack?

After working for LOTS of years and trying out all sorts of travel, we’ve decided we’re too old to do the backpacking route. While we’ll each have a daypack with computers and cameras, we are NOT lugging backpacks along and trying to manipulate them on buses while earning sore backs and shoulders – as much as I like massages! We’ve opted for one suitcase each plus one joint duffel bag for the safari.

I can hear everyone say “You’re taking too much.” Here’s the explanation. We can only take a soft bag on the safari and each safari bag has a 15 kilo weight limit. We’ll leave the suitcases with friends in Germany, take the duffel bags (One big and one small) and daypacks on the safari. After the safari we’ll go back to Germany to exchange the duffel bags for the suitcases. We may send things we won’t need back home unless we decide we’ll be back in Germany in the Spring. In that case, we’ll let the duffel bag spend the winter in Germany and reclaim it when we come back through. Of course the packing gets more complicated because Capetown and the Seychelles keep showing up on our destination list after we finish with the safari, meaning we need clothes for there, too.

This would be way easier if we could plan our travels so it’s always summer but starting September in Europe nixed that idea! We did eliminate the Winter Olympics in Seoul because taking THAT many winter clothes is just too much! We already have a few dedicated shelves for items we know we’ll need. Stay tuned for the packing adventures.