Middle East, Part 4 - Eilat and the Jordan Border

I know I'm ridiculously behind on these. I'm doing my best to catch up, but I have a new writing job that takes up a lot of my time. I hope to go on a short trip soon so I can get the rest of this shit done.

The city of Eilat is in the far south of Israel, where the land comes to a pointy end and tops at the Red Sea. Within 5km of the city are border crossings to both Jordan and Egypt. It's the resort town of Israel, set up to be a mix between Vegas and a beach town. It doesn't really succeed at either, but its definitely amusing in its own way.

After my epic moment of stupid that involved paying 13 bucks for a taxi to the hotel that was across the street, we checked the place out. The beach was about a 10 minute walk away, surrounded by resorts and your typical beach promenade. Lots of nice restaurants, stalls selling everything under the sun, etc. The Russian influence was huge down here too, with almost everything being written in the 3 main languages (Hebrew, English, Russian). For some reason we bought vodka energy drinks, which tasted absolutely horrible. We chilled in a beach bar for a bit and checked out the JAPs (its not racist, honest. I'll get back to it in a bit), then went back to grab our bags from the airport and open our Christmas presents.

After chillin for a bit, we went back down to the beach after dark. It wasn't that busy, so we were able to get couches right beside the water at every bar we went to. Most had pretty cool setups. The best place by far had something you wouldn't expect though - kittens. Lots of em. They were all running around and playing with each other, which was hilarious for us. They'd sneak up on each other and scare the shit out of one, or team up and charge at each other two at a time across the beach. Jess filmed while I narrated, which turned out hilarious and completely retarded at the same time. Seriously, that took up probably 2 hours of our night. Besides that and a chick that couldnt stop screaming on a swing shot ride, it was a pretty uneventful night. The next day made up for that though.

Upon departure from the hotel in the morning, we grabbed a cab. "Aqaba border" I said, which is the city across the Jordanian border. We headed out, but even with my broken sense of direction, I could tell weren't going the right way. Jess apparently noticed it too. Its pretty easy to figure out after all - Jordan's on one side of the water, Egypt's on the other. We were headed towards the Egyptian border. I thought about not saying anything and attempting to cross over into Egypt anyway, which would give me a new country AND continent, but Jess was having none of that and shot down my dream a couple of minutes later by asking if we were really going to Jordan. "Jordan? You said Taba! That's border city in Egypt!" "No, no...I said Aqaba." "No." "Yes." "No." "Look, we want to go to Jordan, so...can we please go to Jordan now?" He proceeded to turn around and backtrack right past our hotel and back to the correct border. And only charged us 40 shekels. Nice guy, I guess.

The border was hilarious. The D is missing on the sign, so it said "Welcome to Jor an". We had to pay 100 shekels to get out of Israel first (Jews!), then cross over the most disorganized border I've ever seen. We were shuttled through about 5 windows, handed over our passports multiple times, and managed to obtain a visa for Jordan. Without anyone ever actually asking us to pay for it. Even though it costs 10 JD (13 bucks or so). We walked to the very end, expecting to get sent back or something, but nope. A guy with a big gun pushed open a gate and said "Welcome to Jordan". Cool.

So now Jess and I are standing in a sandy parking lot, full of Jordanian cab drivers and the like. And our arranged ride is not there. Uh oh. We waited for a bit, but no dice. A old french lady kept talking to us about the cabbies trying to rip her off on a price into town, and she was gonna wait for more people and group together. Uh, okay. I had the guys phone number, but we couldn't get Jess' iphone to figure it out, so I figured I'd have to ask a cabbie. I was expecting scams and treachery and trouble communicating, but I got none of the above. The guy was super nice and spoke perfect english.

"Obeid was supposed to get you? HA! He always forgets or sticks people with no ride. Hold on, I'll call him. 1 dinar for the call, okay?" "Sure, thanks". At this point I was expecting a BS convo in Arabic and an offer for a taxi ride there (ie. ripoff), until...cabbie handed me his phone. "Talk to Obeid." "Hello?" "You never confirm email! I no pick up because you no confirm!" "What, dude I emailed you back and forth for 3 days, arranged the price, the time, everything. What more confirmation do you want?" "I send you email yesterday, you no respond!" "I'm on vacation dude, I don't exactly carry a computer around with me! (Well, I do...but I didn't check my email over the last 24 hours). "Okay, okay...I arrange ride. You wait."

I handed the phone back to the cabbie and fished around for a dinar, but all I had were 5's and 10's that I had just exchanged at the border. "You got change?" I asked. "No, it's alright. Don't worry about it." "You sure?" "Yeah man, have a good time in Jordan." "Wow, thanks man. Much appreciated". It seems like whenever I'm in a situation where Im on high alert for a scam, everyone's super nice and honest. Then I go and give money away by taking a taxi to a place 50 meters away. I'd scam me too sometimes.

While this is happening, the French lady had gotten into a huge argument with some of the other cabbies and kept periodically coming back to Jess and trying to talk to him. The friendly cabbie tried to jump in and mediate, but she just kept going nuts. About what, exactly? It was 6 dinars into Aqaba (8 bucks) and that was way too much for her, and she thought it was a huge scam. Jess and I lost our patience with her too and told her to stop complaining and pony up the 8 bucks instead of making everyone angry. Unsurprisingly, she got mad at us too and said we didnt understand. Whatever lady. Stop being a fucking moron and people might understand. You know things are fucked up when you're siding with cab drivers over tourists.

Anyway, about 3 minutes later, some dude walks up and says "Okay guys, come with me". Jess and I look at each other like "WTF?" we walk a bit, but when he goes to take our bags, I was on alert again. "Who are you man?" "Obied just called me to give you ride. You Tim, you Jess. I have your email on my phone, see?" He showed me my own emails to Obeid. "No ripoff, just ride." He stuffed us in the back of a sedan with a very stoic, suit-and-sunglass-wearing driver and yelled something in Arabic at him. And we were off...into the desert.

Middle East, Part 3 - Anatomy of an Israeli Strip Search

Just thinking about writing this blog makes me kind of angry, so I'm listening to happy music and watching the Flames lose to try and make sure this episode doesn't come off as too vindictive or bitter. I know "happy music" is pretty stupid, since most of you know the shit I listen to is pretty lame anyway...but it's either this or kick a foreigner. And there aren't any foreigners here right now (who needs a gardener in the winter?) So...here we go.

Since the airport was about 5 minutes away and the flight didn't leave until close to noon, we decided the night before to sleep in and head up there not long before the flight. The airport was super small, so we figured we didn't have anything to worry about, right? I'll take foreshadowing for 400, Alex. Luckily we both woke up early anyway and headed up there 2 hours early. Because apparently the full two hours were going to be necessary. Bastards.

First off, we had to show our passports to the guard at the front gate - of an AIRPORT. That should have clued us into something, but nooo...we're just innocent Canadians trying to get to a city within the confines of Israel that was 350km away. This aiport is TINY...our hotel was bigger. Domestic flights are a breeze everywhere I've ever been. We got into the country super easy. This is fuckin nuthin, right?

You think I'd be leading up to impending doom so much if it was that easy? Bitch please.

After showing our passport again to someone guarding the front door, we walk inside. Two steps inside is the metal detector thinger. Hand over passports again, bags on belt, empty pockets, don't beep, voila. Hey, why aren't our bags coming out the other side of the machine? Odd. We don't have anything in there that's weird...

A voice emanates from a booth off to the left. "Excuse me, Mr...Burkey?"
"Uh...yes? That's me."
"Come over here please. And bring that bag (my daypack)."
"Er...okay."


3...2...1...the infamous Israeli verbal assault begins. Imagine this staring at you: A fairly pretty 19 year old girl wearing a big fuzzy brown sweater, with matching brown eyes and hair, and a nose that a toucan would be proud of. And she's got a look on her face that alternates between "I hate foreigners" and "My period just started and my tummy hurts".

I paint a pretty odd (yet vivid) picture with words, don't I? Anyway, it begins...

"Where are you flying? (the airport only offers flights to one destination - Eilat).
"Eilat?"
"How do you know about Eilat?"
"What? Uh...I've seen a map of Israel?"

BZZZZZT WRONG ANSWER! PROCEED TO ISRAELI DEFCON 2!

"Mr Burkey, I will be conducting a line of questioning in regards to why you are in Israel, what you are transporting, and your future travel plans. Is this acceptable?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Fine. Do you know anyone in Israel?"
"No."
*her eyes narrow*
"Okay. How do you know your friend you're traveling with?"
"We've been friends since we 18 or so? 19?"
"How did you meet him?"
"Though his cousin Jim."
"How do you know his cousin Jim?
I met him through a mutual friend Mike."
"How do you know this Mike?"

...after 7-8 minutes of questions about how I know everyone I know, part 2 commenced...

"What is your purpose for coming to Israel?"
"Tourism."
"Why did you decide to come here?"
"There's a lot to see, I guess. And it was his idea... *look and point at Jess, who's being interviewed by another woman behind me*
"DO NOT LOOK OVER THERE. LOOK AT ME."
"Uh, okay?"
"How do you know about Tel Aviv and what you made come here?"
"Uh, it's a world-renowned city? And there's lots of cool stuff to see?"
"What stuff? How do you know of this stuff?"
"Uh...my Lonely Planet guide?"
"Show it to me."
"It's on my computer."
"Turn it on and show me."
*turn on computer, open guide while being eye-raped...and not in the fun way*
"Uh, here's the Carmel Market, Jaffa..."
"Where did you get this guide?"
"I bought it?"
"Where?"
"From their website?"
"Why do you keep answering your questions with statements that sound like questions?"
"Why are you asking so many questions?"

WRONG ANSWER AGAIN! ISRAELI DEFCON 3!

After 15 more minutes of inane questions...

"Why are you going to Jordan?"
"To see Wadi Rum and Petra."
"How are you getting there from the border?"
"The guy that runs the bedouin camp is picking us up."
"How do you know this man?"
"Uh, from the internet? We've exchanged emails."
"Let me see them."
*hand them over*
"HA. This Arab man...this Obeid...what if he doesn't pick you up?"
"I get my friend over there to pay for a taxi, I guess."
"What if there are no taxis there?"
"There are."
"How do you know?"
*Tim points at computer*
*Lady makes angry/crampy face*

...and so on. For 45 minutes. Seriously. When she finally ran out of questions, I was told to go back and sit down where Jess was now chillin. I got there, and we just looked at each other and laughed. "GOD DAMN!", we said in unison. Jess then introduced me to the Israeli guy across from us that was on our flight.

"Whoa, that was intense!" I said.
"HAHA you guys are really getting the gears! All foreigners get this. Anyone with Israeli passports can take whatever they want on flights, they barely pay attention to us. But everyone else? I feel sorry for you guys. It's not over yet."
"What?"
"Mr Burkey, Mr Jess (?)...come over here please."
"Sorry guys."
"...Grab your bags and follow us. You and your baggage will be searched in a separate location" she said.

ISRAELI DEFCON 4. The "oh shit!" meter is off the charts.

We both sat down in 2 bowl-shaped chairs outside a building across the alley from the terminal entrance.
"Mr Jess (I don't know why they kept calling him Mr Jess)...please come inside."

DUNNN DUNNN DUNNN.

10 minutes later he walks out, kinda white-faced, and fired an odd look at me. "Your turn." He smiled a bit. Uh, okay?

I entered a small room, with two dudes standing there and a small screening device beside them. "Mr, Burkey (why Burkey?), please take off your shoes and empty your pockets. If you have any money or credit cards in your wallet, you are entitled to hold onto them if you choose to". I was swept with a wand you see at regular airports when you beep after the metal detector. "Take off your belt". Into the machine. Swept again. "Drop your pants. "And your shorts. And take off your shirts." Swept again. Then they looked at each other. Ruh roh.

I still had my boxers on, which I was thankfully spared from dropping. But two thoughts rang through my head at that moment -

1. "I hate your country right now."
2. "Now I know why Jess had that stupid smile on his face."

You know that scene in every movie where someone's getting strip searched? The one where you hear the snap of a rubber glove? Well they were already wearing them, so I was spared that. I, however, was not spared the illegal touching referenced in the title. This dude took his gloved hands and...well, let's just say some people pay money for massages like that, apparently. And no you sick bastards, not one with a happy ending. Gross. I was spared the indignity of fingers inside me, and really didn't get violated all that bad in the end (wow, double entendre). But still...that's some traumatizing stuff. Buy a brother dinner first, come on.

"Okay sir, you're free to go...
"Aweso -"
"...and now we will begin searching your bags."
"Schiesse."
"What?"
"Nothing."

Jess filled me in on the increasing stupidity as soon as I stepped outside.

"So, they need to search our bags still (they've screened them 3 times already!)...they're not gonna make the flight, but we can if we want. We can wait for the next flight 3.5 hours from now and go with our bags, or go now and pick up our bags from the airport later."
"Wow. That's...weird."
"Yeah, we -"
*Dude comes outside, hands a book to the chick standing there*
"What's this?" she says to Jess.
"A book?"
"It's big."
"Uh, yeah. It's a textbook for a professional course I'm taking...so I can get professional certification."
"School book?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you were on vacation. Who brings a school book on vacation?'
"HIM!" I butted in and responded.
"Hmmmmm.....okay." she said and went inside.
I continued - "So what do you think we should d-
"What's THIS?" she said as she came back out the door.
"It's a cleaner for my camera." Jess said. "It blows air into the lenses."
"Hmmmmm...okay."
"Dude, we should go. NOW." I said. If they were gonna ask us about every item in our bag, I might freak the fuck out. I was relatively calm throughout the whole ordeal, because I obviously had nothing to hide, but them resorting to acting like children and asking about all our shit was, as Peter Griffin says, really grinding my gears.
"Okay, let's go get on the flight then." Jess said. "Are we staying close to the airport in Eilat?"
"I think so. It's pretty small, so I think everything's close."
"Cool. Let's go. We don't have much time."

We told them we were gonna go, and were thrown into a sedan and driven to the plane, which was surprisingly far away considering how tiny the airport was. All the passengers watched us get out of the car, probably knowing what we just had to deal with. After boarding the 40-odd year old plane and a quick 50 minute flight, we arrived in Eilat. Where the story concludes on a couple of humorous notes.

The first funny came at my expense, of course. After departing another tiny airport, we got in a cab while I handed Jess the hotel confirmation email.

"C Hotel please." I said.
"C Hotel?" the cabbie responded.
"Yup."
"You sure?"
"Uh, yeah?"
Okay...here we go."
Jess decides to pipe up at this point... "Uh, Tim, the email says tha -"
"There it is!" the cabbie points and says. "I have to go around though. Can't get in this way."

We had driven about 50 feet from the airport exit, and through a roundabout. Yes. 50 feet.

"Uh, Tim...the email says the hotel is a one minute walk from the airport."
"Oh. Shit. Is that really it?" I said.
"Yes!" Helpful Cabbie says...as we drove by it. And kept going for about a half kilometer. Then turned around and came back.
"50 shekels."
"What? 50? For that? No...aww fuck here, just take it."

Let's sum this up: I had just paid about 13 bucks to be transported approximately 80 feet in total distance from my starting point. I could have thrown a rock from the airport exit and hit my hotel. Fuck. Jess laughed at me. I laughed at myself. Just another day on the road. It IS pretty funny, I guess.

After we checked in and walked around for a few hours, we went back to the airport to get our shit. It obviously wasn't fucking far away. The ladies hand us our bags, which feel very light. As we look at each other, confused...another lady shows up with a baggage cart full of what looks like UPS packages. I don't know how many, maybe 25? 30? "Your electronics are here!" says baggage lady. What?

I have no idea why, but every individual electronic item was placed into a different package to be transported on the plane. No matter how big or small the item was, they all came in these identical big envelopes filled with bubble paper. Every cord was in it's own package. Bitch's huge camera came in a package the same size as my ipod shuffle did. At that point, it was like our version of Jewy Christmas. We just opened all the presents, and handed over whatever wasn't ours to the other person. And laughed hysterically, while the Jewy airline ladies looked at us with disdain.

So, that was our "50 minute" domestic flight from Tel Aviv to Eilat. I think you can understand why I will never, EVER fly domestic in Israel again. At that point, I actually never wanted to step foot in Israel at all again. I'd been molested, insulted, typecast, and racially profiled...all in the course of 5.5 hours. I guess it's something people get used to as part of life in Israel. But you know what? Fuck that. That's fucking bullshit. I'll take the relative lax security of Canada in exchange for the personal freedoms I enjoy, thankyouverymuch. Like keeping my clothes on before I board a plane.

And if you feel like I got off light because we weren't completely strip searched, and you expected more from this story, well...surprise! You got Jewed! At least I learned something there.

Next episode is all about cat fights, border crossings, and chillin in the desert with bedouins. And some travel surprises that turned out awesome. Stay tuned.

Epic Journey to the Middle East, Part 2 - Tel Aviv

Germans are weird. There, I said it. They usually come across as 10 times as nice as your regular European, but they have this look on their face that seems sooo fake. Everyone in our Cologne hotel was exactly like that. I mentioned it to Jess, and he covered it better than I ever could - "Yeah, it's weird. They seem nice, but they'll probably stab you in the throat when you turn around."

So, onto the holidays. Y'all probably woke up Christmas Day, opened some presents, maybe rebelled a bit by putting some baileys in your coffee. Hung out with the family. Ate some turkey. Blah blah. All the bullshit I avoid like the plague. Christmas Day for Jess and I? Lil different, yo. We're going to Jewyland!

Note - For all of you with Jewish relatives, don't call anything "Jewy" like I do about 643 times in this blog. They hate that apparently.

6am. Cologne airport. Two security screenings, which is one too many. A nice long wait on the bus that is going to take us to our plane, which conveniently sits there in -9C weather with the doors wide open. Guess who was right beside the door?

Pretty reasonable 4.5 hour flight to Israel. Arrive in the Holy Land. Looks like someone bulldozed everything around the runways. Oh wait...they did. Not pretty. Welcome to the Middle East!

I'd heard for years that Israeli security is unbelievably harsh and that we were gonna get questioned up the wazoo trying to enter the country. I had all the paperwork ready for the interrogation and all that. I wasn't gonna be intimidated by some big-nosed angry Israeli guy. Wait, guy? Why are all the immigration people women? And why are they all young and hot? Odd. Wait, why is that dark-skinned guy in front of us yelling at them? Don't be stupid buddy! Oh shit, he's being hauled into a back room by some beefy male security guards that just showed up. Whoa. Uh oh.

I got all psyched up for the barrage of questions, and Jess and I approached a pretty brunette with an angry look on her face:

"Where did you arrive from?"
"G-Germany."
"What is the purpose of your trip?"
"T-t-tourism?"
"How many days you stay?"
"Six. Total. We're going to Jordan too."
"Thank yous. Goodbyes."

My shock and excitement about being admitted to the Holy Land lasted about 6 seconds, until Jess said "You're so dumb. I told you it'd be easy." He was right this time, but he'd get his Jewy security lesson in a few days. For now though...we were in fucking Israel bitches! Bust out the shofars and draidels! Don't worry about not knowing what the hell that means...I didn't have a clue what they were either until I was there for a few days.

Our first stop was an ATM, which made us both immediately envious of how cool their money is. Canadians like to say they have colorful bills, but Israel puts them to shame - their money is fucking nice. Too bad we had to spend so much of it right away, because the train into the city was stopped for a while because of Shabbat.

READER NOTE - Shabbat is the stupidest fucking thing in the free world, and I hate it more than I hate hepatitis. I'm still not sure why I hate hepatitis, but that's not the point. I will explain more about Shabbat in future blogs, but here are the basics - Jews need a day off each week, and they need rules to govern that day off. It lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, basically. They go with rules written 2000 years ago, because they're Jews and they make no sense. The rules are ridiculous. Here's just two of the fun ones - They can't turn light switches on and off. And hey can't ride elevators unless they stop at every floor, because they're not allowed to push buttons. You really think they had light switches or buttons 2000 years ago?

What the fuck?

So, we had to pay something like 45 bucks to take a cab into Tel Aviv because Shabbat shut down the trains. We arrived at our hotel, which turned into stereotype central in about 10 seconds. I talked to the reservations guy, who told me about all his Jewy relatives in Canada and how he had to go to Vancouver ASAP. Jess got stuck talking to a Jewy American hotel guest hanging in the lobby, who explained the ins and outs of bargaining and never paying full price for anything. Seriously. Both were super cool and very nice, but it was surreal. Are they all really like this? American TV wasn't lying?

After we left the hotel...it took about 5 minutes of walking for us to figure out that Tel Aviv was fucking awesome.

Ever seen You Don't Mess With the Zohan? I hadn't until after I left and Jess insisted I watch it. But at the very start of that movie, Adam Sandler walks down a hill onto Frishman Beach in Tel Aviv, with ladies all around him. Our hotel was 30 seconds from that hill, and 2 minutes from that beach. That was our introduction to Tel Aviv, walking down that same hill onto that same beach. Killer.

To the right of the street, a strip of beach bars stretches for half a kilometer or so. After that, there's a bunch of people on the beach playing a grown-up version of paddleball that I'd never seen before. It was like ping pong for big people with no table. Again, that stupid Zohan movie I watched later captured it perfectly, way better than I ever could. It's called maktot, apparently.

We decided that it was drinky time, so we settled into a table at a beach bar. Drinks were fairly pricey, but that wasn't exactly surprising - we were apparently in a pretty famous place. Jess and I sipped 9 dollar pints and 3 dollar jager chasers (best. idea. ever), while we admired the wealth of female talent using the boardwalk as their personal exercise area. Seriously people, Israeli girls are really hot if you don't mind the big noses.

While Jess took 26335 pictures of the sunset, I...got shitfaced. And admired the abstract culture. Apparently back in the day, Russia was one of the few countries sympathetic to the Jewy plight, and they sent over 100,000 Russian Jews to their "homeland" at their request. Israel was so appreciative for the support that they pledged to make the Russians feel as at home as possible - so they put Russian writing on a lot of their signs. 50 years later, it's still there. It was trippy to see menus, or street signs, or pretty much any sign in Hebrew, English, and...Russian. I had no idea about the Russian influence on Israeli culture until I saw it with my own eyes. (It became quite obvious later when we figured out that almost every cab driver was of USSR descent).

It had been a very long day by around 10pm, and I was less than sober, so I decided to shut er down. There was an Irish pub about 60 feet from our hotel, and I couldn't even muster the will to check it out. I was done. Jess on the other hand...was not. After I passed out, he walked north from our hotel, past the marina, all the way to the old port, which was where all the cool clubs were. He basically walked all the way to the local airport, and back, which is almost 5km each way. Good on him, I guess. I thought it was weird at the time he told me about it, but it turns out the Old Port was kinda cool.

The next day was all about us trying to grasp some culture. South of our hotel was a gigantic bazaar called the Carmel Market. Basically a flea market, but way cooler and less ghetto than a swap meet. We walked all the way though it, laughing at the crazy shit we saw. An entire table full of candy (mostly gummy worms), then a table full of t-shirts with ridiculous touristy slogans on them, then a table full of dates and nuts and stuff. Everyone was pretty chill until you hover for a second too long, or (god forbid) ask the price of something.

Then it's fucking ON.

"45 shekels. You like? Is very nice."
*walk away*
"40 shekels, yes? Very good quality!"
*keep walking*
"35 shekels! 35!"
*barely paying attention, still walking, like 4 stalls away by now*
*HEY! YOU! HOW MUCH YOU WANNA PAY? COME BACK!"

We were already headed south anyway, so we decided to head for Jaffa. Jaffa is the Arab town about 4.5km south of Tel Aviv. The main city's actually normally referred to as "Tel Aviv-Yafo" to incorporate the two towns. Yafo=Jaffa in Hebrew, apparently. Hebrew sucks, by the way. I'll get to that in a later blog.

Now that we were out of the Market, we were already almost 2km into the trip, so walking the rest of the way worked out well. The weather was absolutely perfect - about 15c, clear skies and sunny, with a great breeze off the water. We stopped at a beach bar on the way, admiring the hot JAPs (Jewish American Princesses) and the beaches themselves. Tel Aviv is an awesome Mediterranean city, there's no doubt about that. I've been to a few now, and it's the best yet.

As we approached Jaffa, shit changed up quick. Modern architecture gradually degraded into crumbling ancient buildings. We walked along the actual port at the bottom, which the Romans used 2000 years ago as their most important link to supply the Middle East via ship. It was still a bustling and thriving port on the day we walked in...obviously with a very different purpose, but still pretty cool.

After walking for a bit through the port, we climbed the hill up into Jaffa proper. This village had all these obviously modern fountains, with rocks carved into the shapes of whales, or goldfish. These were in the middle of a 2000 year old citadel on top of a mountain, designed to ward off intruders to the throne of whomever ruled it at the time. A huge sign just outside the walls described the ridiculously turbulent 3000+ year history of Jaffa, naming ruler after ruler and conqueror after conqueror. The mix of ancient and modern was really interesting.

We sat in a cafe, watching 18 and 19 year old Jewish girls in their military uniforms, carrying automatic weapons, which is a bit strange the first time you see it. You get used to it though. Everyone, man and woman, has to do a mandatory 2 years in the military. That's why all the immigration officials were young girls - it's all military duty.

20 minutes later, we wandered by a clocktower with a speaker on it, belting out the Muslim call for prayer that's echoed as far as possible 5 times a day. Jess was in a store buying mud from the Dead Sea, which supposedly is full of minerals and good for your skin. I stood outside, getting harassed by a Jewy street vendor trying to get me to buy a shirt that said "Israel Defense Force"...listening to the prayer call. A very odd couple of minutes for sure, at least to me.

The rest of our day just involved observing various things about the city, and drinking. We headed back to the beach bars for a while, then made our way to an American bar called Mike's Place and watched some NFL football. After that we took a cab up to the Old Port, where all the clubs where. They looked pretty cool, but it seemed like everything was closed that night. Oh well. We headed back to the Irish Pub and had the weirdest Shepherd's Pie ever, and I went to the store to buy beer. There weren't any prices on anything, so I carried 4 to the counter with a bag of chips and asked how much. The guy looked at the beer, then me, then the beer, then me again, and said "60". That's like 17 bucks.

In other words...I got ripped off. What a surprise.

After that, it was sleepy time, then the ill-fated flight to Eilat I'll never forget. Ever. Ever ever ever.

Epic Journey To The Middle East, Part 1 - Not The Middle East

I'll get the first question out of the way, because I'm sure you're all thinking it if you haven't asked me already - "Tim, why the fuck would you wanna go to Israel? You're gonna die there. Dying's not fun, is it?" There are two answers to this:

1. It was Bitch (Jess)'s idea, and I'll travel anywhere, so we had ourselves a plan.
2. Anyone who does a little research will realize that Israel is probably one of the places you're LEAST likely to die in the world while visiting. Unless Iran unleashed thermonuclear war on Israel during our time there, we weren't in any danger. The Israelis know everyone hates their asses so security is uber-tight, plus they've kicked the bejesus out of all their neighbors a couple of times already anyway, so they all know better.

Now that we have that outta the way, we can get onto the trip.

The plan for the trip was as follows - fly to Seattle for 1 night to catch European flight; fly to Amsterdam through Iceland, stay in Amsterdam one night; take train to Cologne, Germany with 6 hour layover in Brussels to check it out (on Christmas Eve), stay one night; fly Cologne-Tel Aviv, Israel on Christmas Day, stay 2 nights; fly to Eilat (Southern Israel), stay 1 night; cross the border into Jordan and stay in Wadi Rum and Petra, each for one night; get back to the border and stay another night in Eilat; take the bus to Jerusalem and stay 2 nights; fly overnight to Stockholm, Sweden through Riga and stay one night. At this point, Jess would fly back to Boston, and I would fly to Vienna to stay 3 nights, then one in Salzburg before a night in Sweden and the long trip back home.

Ambitious aren't we?

I made the mistake of listening to Jess the night before and we left drank a big bottle of Rev while packing like he did. What the fuck was I thinking? Hello 3:30am bedtime. Up at 6, sleepy day of work, then met Bitch at the Flying Beaver for a few drinks before we went to the airport. Both of us nearly fell asleep at the bar, but we survived. Got the full body scan at the airport again (heeeey) and bought some hummus at the airport bar, since I figured I'd have to eat it in Israel anyway. Shit's pretty good. After somehow briefly convincing Jamie that we were actually in Honolulu on a connecting flight (which was funny), we made our way to Seattle. Where we promptly passed out without even drinking the beer we bought. Off to a dopey start.

First leg of the Europe flight (7 hours) was completely full, but not too bad. A flight attendant that had worked for Iceland Air for 46 years (!?!) was working her very last shift on our flight. Jess thought it was irrelevant of course, because the only things relevant to him are the Habs, being a nerd, and arguing with me...but I thought it was kinda cool. After connecting so quick we didn't even have time to go to the bathroom or grab water, we got onto the next flight and...waited forever for it to be de-iced. Unsurprisingly with our luck, we couldn't use the can or get food/water during that time, so we were dying. Once service finally started, I basically stampeded to the bathroom, then promptly got back and ordered 2 huge sandwiches and 2 bottles of water. Yeah yeah, make your jokes assclowns.

Upon arrival in Amsterdam, we quickly took the train into the city, where we proceeded to get ripped off by a cabbie pretty much immediately. He managed to take us to the wrong hotel, AND charge us 15 euros (20 Canadian) for a three minute ride. Dammit. We were both too tired to protest much, which makes it our fault. It actually didn't work out so bad though...we walked the extra 2km to the correct hotel, and got a nice view of the Amsterdam city centre. And to make it better, my bag was WAY lighter than Bitch's and he has a bum shoulder to boot, so he suffered the whole way. His suffering amuses me.

It was pretty cold and windy outside, but nothing unbearable. Check-in was followed quickly by red bulls and a lot of walking around. And bars. The first bar was a Brit Pub, which was pretty shitty overall. But the bartender chicky had HUGE cans, so it wasn't a total loss. After that we sauntered up to the famous Red Light District, which was...amusing.

It's sooo commercialized. Kids, couples, grandparents, you name it...all walking through an area full of erotic clubs, pubs, and windows with prostitutes hanging out. Some ugly, some decent, and a couple super-hot. One kid was ogling one of them and she shut the curtain on him, which made us laugh. We checked out a pub down there, which was pretty dead. We walked in and see coasters, ads, posters, and everything else identifying one kind of beer. So we went in and ordered Stella, which made the barlady laugh. She just pointed at the coasters. Guess we only had one choice. Oops. I seem to do that a lot for some reason.

On the way out, we stopped at a smoke shop, where Jess was hoping to get some mushrooms. All we ended up getting was some shitty energy drink that didn't work, because he didn't ask about the shrooms. He said that they probably didn't sell them anyway, which amused me because there was a gigantic stuffed Toadstool (of Mario fame) on top of the TV which seemed to indicate they did indeed sell them. Jess didn't even see Toadstool somehow, which is crazy because he was HUGE, so he went shroomless (totally not a word) for the night.

Onto the next pub. Little busier, and some chick seemed to want to have a staring contest with Jess, which was pretty funny. We ended up hitting two or three more pubs that night. I liked it because every place had a different vibe, and there was a lot to choose from. Amsterdam is a lot more walkable than I thought it was...I expected a huge city, but the downtown core is pretty small compared to a place like London or Berlin.I know Ive been thee before, but I obviously went the wrong way or something, because I never found any of this stuff.

Finally, after being awake for 33 hours, I hit a wall and it was sleepy time. Jess said I was asleep about 3 seconds after laying down, which is funny because normally it takes me a while to get to sleep no matter what. He got like 3 hours sleep, then somehow woke up and watched the Habs game on his phone. They lost too, which makes it even better (for me at least). Weirdo.

The next day was Brussels and Cologne. I woke up at 5am, starving and dying for water. Jess had been up for 3 hours already and was starving as well, but nothing around the hotel was open in the middle of the night. And it was fucking cold outside. After getting ripped off by the vending machine (I always make other people go first if I'm with someone using a vending machine...if they get ripped off, I save my money! Thanks Jess!), we waited it out until it was time to head to the train station. Magically this cabride was 15 euros as well, despite being twice as long. The canals are pretty cool in the morning, by the way.

Upon arrival in Brussels, we had to ditch our packs so we could walk around for a few hours. The manned luggage service was closed, so we were forced to use lockers. No big deal, except...the lockers kept spitting out all the change we put in them. BUT they were spitting out tickets and locking our bags up. What the hell? We opened and closed them a few times just to make sure we weren't being Punk'd, then left for town happy to save 3.5 Euros. Weird. I was expecting our shit to be gone when we got back for sure, but alas, it was all there.

We arrived in Brussels on the wrong day, in many ways. Christmas Eve might seem like a cool time to visit a town in theory, but it didn't really play out like that. First off, they had a crazy snowstorm the night before and the roads were nuts. Our cabbie kept stopping to help people push their cars up hills because they were stuck.

(Side note - I'm going 207 km/h on this train between Vienna and Salzburg right now, and it's tripping me the fuck out. Trying to look out the window at anything just makes me dizzy)

We finally got out of the cab right down near Grand Place, and slid/stumbled through the snow and ice into it. They had a gigantic Christmas tree and a whole manger set up in the middle, complete with real sheep. Kinda cool for Christmas shit. The funny part was the tree was full of snow, and it seemed like every time someone tried to take a picture near it, the wind would pick up and either dump snow on their heads, or it would blow by so fast the picture would be just a white blur. Between that and a few people slipping and falling, we were pretty entertained.

Bitch had one order of business in Brussels - to go to the Delirium Cafe. It's a bar with like 2000 different types of beer or something, so obviously I was down. He had been talking about it since we had set out in Seattle. He was hyped as we tried to find it...without success at first, because Brussels can be hard to navigate, even with a map. Finally, we found the Holy Grail. Jess starts jumping up and down like a 4 year old, runs over to it...and stops dead. And almost bursts into tears. He then says, with a hilarious pouty look on his face:

"It doesn't look like it's open. FUCK, it's not! What the fuck!"

After I stopped laughing, I walked over and saw the sign myself. You see, it's not just that it was closed. The sign, which made me laugh even harder, said:

CLOSED ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Delirium Cafe is closed exactly one day out of the entire year. And it just happened to be the day we were there. Basically, Delirium Cafe bitchslapped Jess somethin fierce. Which had me laughing for DAYS. Sure, I'd like to see 2000 beers too, but this place was actually important to him, and he got brutally denied...like I do by pretty much every woman on the planet. Fair enough. Either way, it was fucking funny.

Luckily, Brussels has a lot of places that can (at least somewhat) make up for Delirium being closed. First stop - De Bier Tempel, which I came to the last time I was here. It's a store that sells like 1000 different types of beer or something. And assorted Delirium stuff, which made Bitch happy. You see, all Jess was really in the market for at the Delirium Cafe was some of their memorabilia. They have a mascot, which is - get this - a big pink elephant. Jess came all this way to shop for a PINK ELEPHANT.

I'll let you get the laughing out of your system before we continue.

So, while he tried to decide between a pink stuffed elephant, a pink blanket, and a pink t-shirt, I walked around and silently yelled at the beers I had bought here last time which induced one of the worst hangovers of my life. The worst part was that he didn't even end up buying anything. He's like a woman in a mall - they like the first thing they see, but they have to walk all over the mall five more times before they just come back and buy the first thing anyway. There's a reason I call him Bitch people!

After some lunch, we ended up down in the market area, which was fucking hilarious. After doing shots of jager out of chemistry beakers (awesome) and Jess drinking some hot wine they sell on the street, we happened upon the most slippery spot in Brussels. Hell, in THE WORLD. Everyone that walked through this one area slipped. Most fell. So what did we do? We camped out there, with Jess videotaping the whole thing, while people slipped and fell. I know how immature that is, but come on...strangers falling down is fucking funny, I don't care what you say. Especially after beaker jagers.

After a while of that hilarity, it was about time to go back to the train station to catch our train to Cologne So we went in search of a taxi. Seems like a pretty simple thing in a large city, right?

Nyet. Not on Christmas Eve.

After multiple hotels telling us "dere arr no taxeeees today" we became a bit concerned. Finally one hotel lady (coincidentally at the last hotel I stayed at where I was here) directed us to the metro and told us where to go. We arrived with a few minutes to spare. Crisis averted. Or was it?

We went down to the Thalys (train company) tracks, to find out our train had been delayed...indefinitely. No one would tell us anything about the situation, which was annoying. Jess called it before we even got there though - he saw they were giving out free coffee and said "companies never give out free shit unless they fucked something up". Sure enough, Jess was right (fuck I hate typing that). The problem was that it was fucking COLD down there, and we pretty much had to stay there because the other screens didn't update very fast and we could miss the thing if we waited up above in the main station. So we suffered. And it fucking sucked.

At one point I was so cold that I actually went and got a cup of coffee. The second cup in my entire life. The first was when my train to Barcelona was delayed in 2004 and someone bought a cup for me. So I kept up two trends at least - I only drink coffee when waiting for a late train in Europe, and I don't pay for it. I can live with that. Unfortunately there was no sugar left so the coffee tasted like Chernobyl soil. Oh well.

Finally after about 2 hours, they let us on the fucking train. We didn't arrive in Cologne until after 10pm, which sucked since we had to be up at 5am to go to the airport. Our hotel was right up the street from the station luckily, but it was insanely cold and windy outside. We ended up taking the wrong exit out of the train station, which put us face to face with the biggest, craziest church I think I've ever seen. It was too dark to get a pic, but it was MASSIVE. I wish we had the time and patience to explore it, but we were all out of both at that point, so onto the hotel we went.

Stay tuned for the following: (seemingly) killer Germans, all the strangeness of Israel, being strip searched (!), cat fights, being ripped off in a bunch of countries, modern bedouins, me hiking 5km uphill and Jess riding a donkey, craters, the Dead Sea, the worst fortress ever, fucking stupid Shabbat, Penguins, and much much more.

Mexico City, Finale

I'm on a flight between Stockholm, Sweden and Vienna, Austria, so I figured it'd be a good time to finish a story about...Mexico City. Yeah, it's weird. Deal with it. The faster I get this done, the faster I can get onto writing about this trip, which was pretty epic and strange at the same time. Okay peeps...last part in the series.

So after the excitement of the Dutch upset over Brazil, it was time to head back to the old DF. The busride entailed some truly horrible movies being dubbed into Spanish, but all was good otherwise. We arrived into Mex City's south bus station, after going through some really nice suburbs like Xochimilco. After a long cabride where the driver didn't know where to go but I somehow did, we arrived at our fancy hotel, directly across the street from El Angel, the Monumento de Indepencia, and 3 blocks from the sleazy Zona Rosa.

After settling in, we headed off to our one goal of the day - the Archeological Museum that was closed the last time we tried to go to it. We took an unmarked taxi this time, supposedly the safest cabs in the city because no one knows they're cabs, so they won't rob them. Or something. All it turned out to be was ridiculously overpriced. Folks, when a Dodge Aries is the best you can do it a city, something's not right. This was precisely the type of thing that made Mex City so...strange. Awesome, but strange. Even stranger was getting charged MORE for the ride back, even though it was the exact same trip!

The museum was fucking unreal. I'd studied for months for this trip, and I learned more in 2 hours about the history of Mexico and Aztec culture than I had in all previous attempts. Again though, Mexican weirdness reared it's ugly head. They have these uber-expensive audioguides for the museum, because everything says that all the descriptions are in Spanish and to fully appreciate the museum, you should understand it in your own language or something. And, to guilt you even more, they have physically handicapped children selling the damn things. Some kid with a hook for one had and a pair of tongs for the other (seriously) fleeced me for 15 bucks for the fucking guide, and...guess what?

All the descriptions are in Spanish AND english on all the signs in the place. Fucking tards these days.

Either way though, Milo and I thought it was awesome. It's not as big as I thought, nowhere near the size of the British Museum or anything like that, but it's laid out well and had a ton of cool shit to see. It's amazing how stupid the Aztecs were when it came to the Spanish Conquest - basically, despite everyone else telling him how terrible of an idea it was, Moctezuma the 2nd thought the Spanish were cool and befriended them...and then the Spanish slaughtered the fuck out of them. He basically handed his entire empire to them, after showing incredible guile and intellect in the decimation of all the other empires in the area. Very strange.

After that illuminating experience, it was back to crazy Mexicans. Lisette agreed to come meet up with us to go out to the Zona Rosa. She said she'd be there at 9. At 7:15, Milo and I went down into the lobby to grab some stuff from the store...and there she was, sitting and listening to her ipod. Milo asked why she was so early, and she said she had already been there for an hour. Instead of asking for our room number or just texting Milo...she was just gonna hang out there for close to 3 hours until we came down. Soooo weird. But she was cute, so Milo was still willing to look past this obvious foreshadowing of crazy.

The night basically alternated between really fun and really weird. Lisette was funny and engaging for a while, putting up with me teasing the shit out of her for his spastic Italian-like hand movements while she talked while teaching me a shit ton of Spanish and telling us stories about her family. The weird started when Milo wasn't paying attention to his smoke, and literally lit some girl's ass on fire. He put the cherry of his smoke against her jeans for so long it basically burrned a hole, upon which she finally noticed, screamed, and jumped up. Milo was embarrassed as hell, but the chick didn't seem to care at all. She saw gringos, so it was go time. Uh oh.

This chick didn't speak a lick of English, but her friend Erika did. She had studied English in Montreal for 2 years (who studies English in Montreal?). After a few minutes of conversing with her, the entire band of oddities moved to our table. This included ass-on-fire, a huge Mexican dude close to my size, a little tiny gay dude, and another Mexican chick that refused to interact with us for some reason. Erika translated while ass-on-fire (who was probably 40 and not attractive in the least) offered her services as a wife to me and Milo. Lisette put the damper on it for Milo immediately, which made me her central target, unfortunately.

Interspersed amongst all the crazy were the leeches, At LEAST 30 different women or children wandering into the bar and trying to sell us everything from gum to pens to dolls to smokes. You can only feel bad for poor little cute kids for so long - then you want to throw them all in a bag and toss them off a bridge like kittens. Hey, it's how my dad got rid of excess kittens in Saskatchewan in the 30's. Don't blame me for the stunniningly awful mental picture, it's all dad's fault dammit.

Back at the party, Erika did an awesome job of boosting my ego while explaining that the woman didn't care who the gringo husband was, but she wanted a white man to marry so she could leave Mexico. Yeah okay...sign me up. What the fuck? I politely declined, which led to badgering questions like "You think she's ugly?" (YES!) "Do you have a girlfriend or something?" (Time to lie! YES!) "Are you gay?" (No, assholes, she's just a sea donkey!) Eventually ass-on-fire gave up, and I just started talking to Erika for what turned out to be a long time. She was pretty cool, actually. Other than asking me to hug the gay dude a bunch of times because it was supposedly his birthday or something, which was obviously met with "Keep that thing away from me", the night was going well....until the bill came, and the arguing started.

The waitresses (they kept switching) rang up something like 45 beers and 8 plates of food for the 3 of us. In 3 hours. This is amusing because: None of us ate a thing; Lisette had 3 beers; and Milo and I were both still relatively sober. We certainly didn't have 42 dos Equis between us (depsite doorknob insisting on being called "Roberto dos Equis" all night. Freak). We got into a huge scrap with two of the waitresses, which luckily came down to Lisette losing her shit until all the food was gone and we were down to 31 beers. Still way too many, but whatever. I was fucking done with the Zona Rosa at this point, so I headed back to the hotel, which Milo and Lisette trailing behind. Back at the hotel, the weirdness began again.

Once we were back in the room, Milo said something to Lisette that made her completely lose her shit somehow. Neither of us had any idea what she was mad at, but she cursed us both up and down and stormed out. Milo chased after her, which led her to go and talk to a bunch of cops for some reason. Even Milo's smart enough to know that fucking with that combination is trip suicide, so he came back upstairs and passed out. I sat up drinking for a bit, then passed out too.

The next day turned out to a be a big bummer. I found out that I either lost my camera or someone stole it from our room, which really sucked. Milo's camera didn't work for the entire trip, so all of our shit was on mine, and I had forgotten the cable so I never got the chance to upload any of the shit I had on there, which was a lot of cool stuff. The square during the Mexico game, all of Milo's retarded pics with cops, all the pics of Taxco and Puebla...all gone. I was fucking pissed (and kinda hungover).

It was our last day in the DF, and we still hadn't been to the Pyramids yet, so Milo inquired about a tour through the hotel. He ended up taking it, but I was not in the mood to be a tourist anymore. I was fucking done with Mexico at that point, so I just chilled. And I'm soooo glad I did. Rob Milo can't go one single day without something seriously nuts happening to him, and this tour was no exception.

He left at 3pm, and was due back around 8:30 or so. I was just chillin, watchin TV and writing. At 6:15, Milo comes through the door, freaking out, trying to tell me an entire story in 4 seconds. While it was hilarious to see him that animated, none of that compared to the actual story. I swear this kid has such a big travel horseshoe so far up his ass, nothing can hurt him. He's fucking unbreakable. I would never, EVER believe this story if I didn't get stone cold proof it a little while later. But it's Milo, so the unbelievable is just on the regular for him.

This is Milo's explanation of the tour, paraphrased. So...he sets out on the tour in a bus. There's himself, a few other tourists, and some german dudes in Mex City for a physics convention. I'll let your imagination fill in how cool these kids likely were. After traveling through, by far, the worst slums Milo had seen yet in the DF, they get dropped off at a gate outside Teotihuacan (the Pyramids), but are told by the tour leader to meet up at a DIFFERENT gate to be picked up in 2 hours. Besides the fact that the tour didn't even include a fucking TOUR OF THE PYRAMIDS, he was supposed to meet the bus at some unknown location a couple of km's away to get home, for some odd reason. Crazy? I thought so.

So, he walks around the the German cast of the Big Bang Theory for a while, then they go to the appointed gate. No tour bus. No...anyone. And the gates to the site are about to close for the night. Him and the nerds understandably panic, and debate what to do. Milo thinks they should go back to the original gate, but it's over 2km away and the Germans think waiting is the best thing to do. 20 minutes later? Still no one, and the gates are shutting. They're being told they have to go out...into the slums. Obviously not the brightest of ideas.

While they're all arguing about what to do, a Dodge Aries (again!) pulls up beside them with a sketchy Mexican behind the wheel, who explains to them that all the buses are gone and they're basically fucked...unless they give him 500 pesos for a ride back into town. Despite how creepy this dude is, they don't see any other choice. Rob chips in 200 and conveniently gets dropped off back at our hotel, where he bursts in and tells me this story way too fast.

Now, this is Milo...he leads a ridiculous life, but this all seemed pretty fucked up, even for him. Ditched in the slums by a tour from a nice hotel? A sketchy Mexican gives them a pretty good price to get back to town, and drops him right at the hotel? Unscathed? Hmm. Let's just say Timmy was a tad skeptical...for an hour or so, until the phone rang.

"Can I speak to a Robert Milo, por favor?"
"Uh, sure."
*Milo on the phone* "Hello, this is Rob. No, no I'm okay. Yes, I couldn't find the driver so I hitched a ride back to the hotel. Really. No, seriously, that's what me and the Germans did. YES, honestly. WHAT? The tour bus is still there? WHY? Looking for...oh shit. Oh my god. Tell them I'm okay and to call off the search, we're good. The police? Oh my god. I'm so sorry. Holy shit. No, I'm leaving tomorrow, I don't think I need a free tour. Just tell them I'm really sorry. Holy. Shit. Uh, sorry for swearing. Bye."

Basically, the gate meetup was mixed up, and when Rob and the Germans didn't show up, the tour driver called the cops because the hood is so sketchy. They had spent the last 2 hours looking for him and the guys, while the rest of the tour (that apparently met at the right gate) waited impatiently on the bus, unable to go home, while everyone freaked out.

Yeah, wow. This kinda shit only happens to Milo.

After all that drama, Milo called up Lisette, who had apparently calmed down, and he took off with her for the night. Turns out she flipped because Milo asked me to leave the hotel room for an hour so he could bone her, but before I could even respond, she apparently wigged out because "she's worth more than an hour's worth of time" and that it was disrespectful or some shit. Who knows with her. Anyway, Milo ended up taking the metro down to the Zocalo at midnight, where he was the only gringo and it scared the shit out of him. And he wondered why I wanted nothing to do with the metro.

The next day, we met up, packed up, and flew home. Other than ridiculous boarding procedures in the Mex City airport, the day was pretty unventful. Milo got picked up at the airport by his mom and sis, and instead of going all the way home just to come all the way back in a few hours, I just got a hotel room near the airport. The post-script of the trip is where things truly get nutty though.


TWO WEEKS LATER

Milo sends me a FB message that just says "call me NOW". Uh, okay. The first 5 words out of Milo's mouth sent me into shock and hysterical laughter immediately -

"Dude, she says she's pregnant!!!"

After I stopped laughing, I asked what the fuck he was talking about. He said she called him and said she was pregnant, and asked him what he was going to do about it. Milo didn't believe a god damned word coming out of her mouth, so he spit out the absolute best response I've ever heard to that statement:

"No you're not. You just want money, don't you?"

After talking to her for a bit, she admitted she was totally drunk in Veracruz, the city of the coast we were gonna go to but went to Taxco instead. But insisted she was pregnant. He told her to stop being fucking crazy and hung up on her. She called back 2 nights later and said it again, and she was totally drunk again. He called her on it again, and questioned the shit out of her, with her providing less-then-credible answers to all of it. She had already lied about one kid (initially she said she had none, but eventually admitted to Milo that she had a 5 year old a few days before we left), and Milo knew she was full of shit. After he denied her, she deleted us both on facebook and never talked to us again...but I looked at her FB a few days ago (6 months later), and magically she's not pregnant.

The moral of the story? Don't fuck Mexicans without a rubber, retards!

Overall, Mexico City was not how I imagined it at all. It was a fucking beautiful city, full of cool neighborhoods, interesting sights, and crazy people. I never felt unsafe once, despite the city's crazy rep. Especially in the centro, which always had a ton of people around and it never felt strange. It was a truly strange destination overall though, full of contradictions and backwardsness (totally not a word) that always kept you on your toes. In addition to that, I never would have imagined the variety and awesomeness of Central Mexico, especially Taxco. Taxco might be the most uniquely cool place I've ever been, and I've been to a few places (like right now, since I'm typing this in a pub in Brno, Czech Republic, with a hot bartender chicky sitting in front of me smoking and not understanding a word I say to her).

Next up on the Mexican front, Guadalajara. Who wants to come?