11 Days in Europe, September 2011

I try to go to Europe a lot. I don't say that to be a dick..."hey look at fat boy, he's bragging again". I say it because it's true. I love Europe. 40 countries in an area less than the size of my own country. So much diversity. So much shit to check out. I keep going back for more, and I will until I've seen it all. Twice. For my October 2011 trip, I only had 11 days. My original plan was to hit countries I'd never been to before. It didn't really work out that way, but a good time was had nonetheless.

If you read many of these things (god bless you, someone has to), you probably know that my brother Terry lives in England. Leeds, to be exact. He's awesome, as are his girlfriend Shell and son Ryan, so I try to visit whenever I can. I started my trip there this time, after going through the usual Seattle and Iceland and Manchester to get there. I hadn't been in a while, so it was great to see everyone again. Somehow I managed to stay up for something like 47 hours straight, which is my second-longest streak ever. We managed to drink every night until 3 or 4 am, and had some good times and laughs as usual. I even ended up going back just two months later, but that's a story for another blog.

Alas, my family time was up way too quickly and I had to skip town. My next destination was Prague. I had been to the Czech Republic the year before when my hotel concierge in Vienna begged me to go there (Brno) instead of Slovakia. I hadn't been to Prague yet though. And to be honest, I was pretty underwhelmed.

I'm going to go off on a tangent here for a bit, but I promise it relates back to Prague being underwhelming. Bear with me here.

I started today in Charlotte, and am currently on a flight from Chicago to home. Jess is in Rome, after a comedy of errors led to him not going to Russia. Rome is one of my favorite cities in Europe, but he's pretty meh about it. "There's no culture. It's all tourists," he said. "The sites are pretty nice, but it feels like London. Or Dublin". That might sound stupid, and I thought so too at first, but he has a point.

I'm paraphrasing with what he said, but we had been to both (London and Dublin) in 2004 and weren't exactly enamored with either because they just felt like big American cities. No substance, just sights. Nothing made them really unique. He felt Rome fit into that category as well. I disagreed at first, but looking back at it...he's right. I spent three weeks in Italy, and it's the least Italian place I went. The sites are amazing, and totally worth seeing. But after traveling so much, you need more than statues and buildings and museums sometimes. You want to feel like you're checking out something truly unique, not something everyone and his dog has seen by now.

I never relayed this to Jess during our conversation because it never even occurred to me until now, but that's EXACTLY how I felt about Prague. He loves Prague because it was the second major European city he went to after London. Rome was mine after London (other than Nice. Fuck Nice, hills and poodles suck). I have all these amazing memories of Rome, as I'm sure he does of Prague. But looking back on it, there was no substance there, in either. They're both tourist commercialism at their finest.

I spent four days in Prague and loved the architecture, but felt like I was in a theme park. Everyone's just looking to bleed you dry. You're a mark. I probably could have gotten off the beaten path to find something uniquely Czech, but I feel like I did that already in Brno. THAT was Czech. When I went to Budapest, it felt authentic. It didn't feel like you were experiencing Hungary through a filter. Prague felt like that to me. Much like Rome feels like that to Jess. I get that now.

Tangent over. I hope that made sense. I'm not trying to dissuade any of you from going to Prague, or Rome, or London, or Dublin. They're all beautiful in their own way (except Dublin). It just amazes me how many variables affect how you look at the places you've been.

Anyway, after Prague I flew up to Copenhagen. I've already been there and enjoyed it, but decided to take the train in the other direction from the airport this time and went to CPH's sister city - Malmo, Sweden. It's only like a half hour from Copenhagen, but worlds away in terms of pace. Copenhagen is cosmopolitan and up-tempo. Malmo is laid back and sleepy. It was exactly what I needed after frenetic Prague.

Malmo is one of the bigger cities in Sweden, but you'd never know it when you get there. It has a picture-perfect central core with great architecture, immaculate streets devoid of traffic, and a great park that runs along the river to the castle. Chill is the best word I can think of to describe it. I cruised around for most of the day, past people just going about their daily lives. I walked all the way along the river to the castle, exploring the place all by myself. Swedes aren't exactly all that outgoing in general, so I was left alone in the pub as well, but I expected that and was fine with it. I fell asleep a happy man, knowing that that are still respites from the chaos of European tourism. I highly recommend a trip to Malmo if you're ever in Copenhagen. It'll be one of the most illuminating days of your trip.

I only had one day there though, and then it was onto Estonia. Estonia doesn't exactly sound cool, but the capital Tallinn is really nice. I stayed in the old walled city for two days, and enjoyed the shit out of it. It was a lot of fun to just get lost, checking out the odd mix of ancient and modern, Russian and European. Tallinn is WAY more European than Riga, the other Baltic city I had visited a couple of years before that, but that was fine with me. It took a lot of the hassles out of your regular off-the-beaten-track place. And there was a bar that offered a 15 euro all-you-can-drink special around the corner from my hotel. I don't really remember coming back from the place, but it was awesome nonetheless.

With my last two days, I took a catamaran over to Helsinki, Finland. The price difference kicked in right away and it was a bit jarring. I was paying 2 euros (like 2.50) for a beer in Tallinn. 10 minutes later on the Finnish catamaran, the same beer was 6 euros (7.50). Ouch. The ride was really nice though, and docking in the port of Helsinki is great. There are a ton of cool boats and ferries on all sides to check out, a big market right on the water, and a bunch of statues and stuff. My hotel was on the other side of the port, so I walked all the way around and took it in on the way there. So far, so good.

My hotel was really nice, easily the best I had stayed at during the trip. I immediately went exploring and found out that Helsinki is pretty nice. The coolest thing was a huge church near my hotel called Upenski Cathedral. It was Russian Orthodox style, and one of the most amazing buildings I had ever seen. The Helsinki cathedral is down the hill from there and really nice as well.

The city has a ton of nice buildings, but it lacks culture to a degree. It kind of goes back to my tangent from earlier - it's really nice, modern, and efficient. I think I'd enjoy living there. But as a tourist, it's not like you're missing a lot by never going there. I only had two days and didn't get the chance to check out the fortress or do any side trips, but I doubt I'd go back again unless I was on my way to St. Petersburg.

I thought I might be turning into a travel snob by even thinking that at the time. I got the impression on the way home that this might be the case, and promised myself I wouldn't take it so easy on my next trip. I'd go to places where everyone didn't speak English (yes, everyone spoke English in Tallinn and Malmo). Where it was going to be a little tougher to explore and get to the bottom of what makes that place tick. Where it might not be full of beautiful buildings and nice people, things I was starting to take for granted.

So what did I do?

I went back to England/Netherlands in December. Hawaii in April. And the Southern US in July. All three of those were more of the same - comfortable, relaxing, and nice. I clearly hadn't learned my lesson. So after a brief sojourn to Sacramento in October to catch an MMA event, I will be returning to Europe in December, and I'm going to venture out of my comfort zone again. I'm not 100% sure where yet, but at least one destination will be a WTF? place. That's how I feel like I made my bones traveling, and I've really gotten away from it.

It's time for me to stop being a pussy and go find some fucking adventure again.

Tim's Mexican Vacation, Part 2 - Campeche and Merida

This is a continuation of the my brief sojourn to Mexico in April 2011. I'm currently on a flight between Charlotte and Chicago and got got hooked up with an exit row seat, so it seemed like a good time to finish this up. The first part covered my time in a Mayan Riviera resort with Mikey and Shannon. This part will cover my solo trip through the Yucatan to Campeche and Merida. Both were brutally hot, but interesting in their own way.

First thing's first - Mexican buses rule. You're not doing the whole greyhound thing when you're cruising between towns in Mexico if you have any sort of money whatsoever. The primera class and ejecutivo buses have big, lazyboy-like seats with your own personal video system and tons of leg room. After heading down to Playa del Carmen, I boarded one of these bad boys to head about six hours away to Campeche, the capital of a state called...Campeche. Go figure.

I was all sorts of confused at the bus station, but eventually got it sorted out despite my shitty Spanish. The ride there was entirely devoid of entertainment - it was just bush on either side of the road for the entire time, other than than going by a huge prison right outside of the city that didn't exactly inspire feelings of safety.

My first night there was game seven of the Canucks/Hawks series. The Canucks had been up 3-0, but pissed away the series and were down to the wire. I wasn't about to miss that game, so I headed over to the Oxxo (best store ever) to grab some beer. But...Oxxo's in Campeche don't sell beer. What the hell? They do everywhere else. I went back to my hotel and asked where to grab beer, and they pointed at the restaurant across the street.

"Uh, no...I want to buy some to drink in my room?"
*blank stares*

Well fuck. I guess I was doing this sober, because the game started in 15 minutes. It's fucking Mexico though - you can usually get beer from just about anywhere. What the hell? I was surprised the concierge wasn't selling them out of a cooler in the fucking lobby along with t-shirts and sunglasses. But nope. Sober hockey it is.

The Canucks were up 1-0 for most of the game, but gave up a goal late to go to OT. When Burrows scored in overtime, I completely lost my shit, knocked my netbook onto the floor (almost breaking it) and ran around my hotel room screaming like a retard. Sober. About a minute later, there was a loud knock on my door that killed my euphoria. I answered it, and there was a big (well, Mexican big - so like 5'6) security guard standing there, asking me questions in Spanish that I didn't understand. I guess I was a little louder than I thought.

"I'm sorry...uh, lo siento? That's right isn't it? Uh, I'm sorry. Hockey, me very happy."
*blank stare*

He came into the room and looked around, like there was gonna be 12 other people in there. I  just pointed at my netbook on the floor. He didn't get it. So I pointed at myself and made the universal shhh sign with my finger to my lips. He said "SI SENOR!" and rattled off some other shit I couldn't understand. Then left, shaking his head. I didn't give a shit though, the Canucks finally put away the Hawks!

I went out exploring after that, waving at the security guard as I passed through the lobby. He just gave me the "I have cramps" look that most women give me when I try to talk to them. It was still really hot, but Campeche is really nice, especially at night. It's an old walled city on the water (the walls were built to defend against pirates) with narrow, picturesque streets and a pretty laid back pace. The malecon (beach walk) was amazingly nice, and devoid of people. No beaches, but still cool. There were also a lot of funky buildings along with the old walls themselves to check out.

After cooking in the heat for a while, I retired to the restaurant across from the hotel (where they spoke English! Huzzah!) and grabbed some killer food and a few pacificos. The next day was exactly the same, minus the hockey. Just chilled, wandered around, went to the Oxxo for snacks and the restaurant for dinner, and enjoyed the ambiance of  a non-touristy Mexican city on the water.

The next day, I headed north to Merida. It's only about 2 hours away, but I still took the fancy bus because it was about four dollars more than the regular one. This is when I came across something known as the first-class waiting room. Apparently all bigger Mexican bus stations have one, but I didn't see it in PDC. And folks, they fucking rule.

Instead of dealing with the oppressive heat out in the station with everyone else, you can go chill in an air-conditioned room with TV, free drinks, newspapers, the whole deal. It was 39 celsius in Campeche that day, so I'm sure you can imagine how happy this fat kid was when I figured that out. The best part is that it was only separated by a glass window, so all the people dying in the heat sit there and stare at you, basking in AC and drinking a Corona, and seethe with anger. Sorry homie, I guess I got Juan up on you this time. Aaaand that's my shitty joke out of the way for this blog.

Merida turned out to be even hotter than Campeche. Like, unbearable can't-go-outside-or-you'll-die hot. I think it was 42 one day and 43 the next. I explored as much as I could, but only in short spurts. None of the bars or restaurants had AC and even Mexicans were all "why did you come here in April? Are you retarded?" when they'd talk to me. In English. Tons of people in Merida spoke English, which surprised me. It was a bigger tourist destination than I thought, apparently.

After checking out the zocalo (second-nicest I had seen in Mexico so far behind Puebla) and having a few beers here and there, I went for a walk though the area where all the colonial houses were. It wasn't the type of architecture I expected to see in the Yucatan, but the buildings were really cool. And the city was quite affluent by Mexican standards. I was impressed, except for the heat.

Shit got weird back at my hotel though. As I was walking through the main corridor that separated the lobby from the back of the hotel, I had to step in between some dudes that were on both sides of the hallway. I didn't touch any of them, or do anything in particular that could have pissed them off, but one of them yelled out "Fuck gringo! Fuck you!" after I passed by. I just ignored him and continued walking, thinking he was just drunk or something. It turns out he wasn't drunk, just fucking crazy. I wouldn't find that out until the next day though.

After getting up early and going for another long walk before it got really hot out, I headed to the lobby of the hotel to grab some lunch. It was basically a a big square, probably 100 feet on each side with tables scattered throughout and a covered roof with a bunch of birds chillin on the inside, swooping down to steal any food they could. I'd never really seen anything like it in a hotel, but it was cool nonetheless. At 34 bucks a night, it's tough to argue with oddities like this place.

Anyway, I sat off to the side where I could plug in my laptop and was busy writing about some UFC event and mainlining coronas. I was pretty oblivious to everything going on around me, until I got splashed with a shitload of water and saw a cone cup land on the table beside me. The fuck? I look up, and see the angry vato from the night before walking by. Not stopping, not looking at me, but yelling "Fuck you gringo! Fuck you!" while heading for the exit. There was a dude walking beside him, presumably a friend of his, looking at him but pointing at me with the universal WTF look on his face. He then looked at me and gave me the universal "I'm sorry!" face, but fuck that. I wanted to know what this kid's fucking problem was.

"Hey!" I yelled as I stood up, with everyone looking at me. "What is your fucking problem?"

I guess he had been waiting for me to respond, because he immediately stopped at the sound of my voice and turned around. "Fuck you, you fucking gringo! Get out of of here or you gonna get fucked up!"

Now I'm a big dude, but I'm hardly the kind of guy that goes looking for confrontations. I have a big mouth that frequently gets me into trouble, but I can usually either talk my way right back out of it or just stand up and look scary. That works 99% of the time.  This time though, I was fucking pissed off because I didn't do a god damned thing to make this guy mad. That, and I had about 10 coronas before 2pm. I lost my temper, which almost never happens, but I never even got out of the angry starting gate. His friend took care of that quite nicely for me.

By slapping his buddy in the back of the head, as hard as he could.

The bitchslap echoed through the square, and everyone went from looking at me to looking at them. Like, in unison. It was like a tennis match where the ball got hit across the court and the entire crowd's eyes followed. That snapped me out of seeing red as fast as I had seen it in the first place, and I started to laugh. It was quite similar to a kid that says something stupid and his mom swats him for embarrassing her. But it was two adult males. It was too ridiculous not to laugh at. And if defused everything.

The slapper pushed the idiot through the lobby door and came right back to me, giving me the prayer signal that signified apology the whole way. Once he got over to me, he was extremely apologetic and explained that his buddy was, in his own words, "angry a lot". He said that I had pissed him off by walking by the night before without excusing myself, as he had been in the middle of a conversation. I apologized for that and said I had no idea. He brushed that off and said his buddy was just constantly looking for a fight, and anything set him off.

"Especially white people. He usually picks smaller ones though," he said with a laugh.

I laughed my ass off at that. Before I could say anything else, he flagged down the waitress, ordered me two coronas and paid for them, then apologized once again. He introduced himself as Javier, shook my hand, told me there wouldn't be any more trouble, and left. Nice dude. Every crazy dude should have a handler like that. It totally reminded me of when the crazy Latvian guy wanted to kill me in the Stockholm airport just for wearing an Alex Ovechkin jersey, but his buddy came to the rescue.

Not much happened after that. I headed back to Cancun for a night before I flew home. Staying in town is 100 times better than out in the hotel zone. I had a kickass huge room for 40 bucks a night, right in the middle of the more authentic action. I took a pass on that and watched UFC 129 on my netbook in my room though. I got all pissed off when the wifi cut out right before the main event, then started watching TV out of frustration...and the show was on a Mexican channel! For free! I could have been watching the whole time on a 46 inch TV but noooo. At least I got to see GSP beat Shields.

The day after this event, I wrote something for BE that people liked and by the time I got back to Vancouver, I had been tentatively hired as a staff writer. And I've been there ever since. Most people would remember a trip to Mexico for drunken antics. I remember it for most getting a writing job. Strange how that works.

Tim's Mexican Vacation, Part 1 - Mayan Riviera with Mikey and Shannon!

So I'm gonna try and catch up on some older trips, just to get things rolling again. I'm sitting in a hotel bar in Atlanta right now, trying to drink off the July 4th hangover I acquired in New Orleans. NO is a great place, by the way. Once I get through all these, I can write about that. So let's go back - back through time. To April of last year.

I had a trip planned to China (seriously), flight booked and everything. I was kinda iffy about it though, since the visa looked like it was gonna be a bitch and I already work in in little China as it is. When my homie Mike Daly called me up and inquired whether I'd like to go to Cancun with him, his wife Shannon, and two of their friends, I quickly brushed off the suggestion. I already had a trip to go on. Turns out Air China has a good refund system though, so shit got flipturned upside down and I had Coronas in my new future, not Tsingtaos (and cholera).

I didn't really want to sit in a resort for a week though, and I actually had 12 days off, so I figured I could check out some other places. I decided upon four days at their resort, and six more days checking out the other two Yucatan capitals, Merida and Campeche. I should have probably checked the fucking weather reports before I did that though. Who knew the interior of the Yucatan Peninsula might be kinda warm in April?

Soon came travel day, and I scheduled a night in Phoenix on my way to Cancun, just cuz. It turned out to be an interesting night. The Canucks were playing the Hawks in game five of their first-round series, and I went down to the hotel bar to watch. The bartender had to search for Versus for a while, but he eventually found it. What I suddenly found around me was terrible though - a shitload of people from Chicago. And the Canucks blew that night.

1-0 and 2-0 got cheers from the Windy City faithful. 3-0 too. The 4-0 goal almost made me cry, and actually got some condolences from my newfound "friends". At 5-0 (a few minutes into the second period), a dude actually felt so bad for me that he bought me a shot of tequila "to make the pain go away". The game was terrible for many reasons, but the people were pretty damn cool. i went to bed sad, but oddly content (and shitcanned).

Anyway, it was onto Mexico. Land of the short, home of the lazy. Just kidding Mexicans, I love your country more than you probably do. Once I'm there I never want to leave, and all y'all would do anything to escape.

I met Mikey (my best friend for 29 years, for those that don't know the goof) and his buddy Ray at the front desk, where they greeted me with a beer. The guy who let me out of the shuttle had already greeted me with champagne, so I was double-fisting after approximately 25 seconds at my resort. I was obviously a fan. After dropping my shit off it was drinking time. We met up with the ladies on the beach, drank some beers, ate some dinner, the usual resorty stuff. Normally there wouldn't be a lot to write about at a resort trip, but there were a few humorous moments over the four days that are worth sharing.

First up was Mikey and I getting in trouble. His wife Shanny's awesome and I love her, but she knows what Mikey and I are generally like when we hang out (liquor in face!) and she can usually sniff out our BS pretty quickly. I think she overestimates our intelligence sometimes though!

She sent us off to Ray and Monica's room to return something she had borrowed (I think) before going out for dinner, but we couldn't find their building. You gotta understand, the resort is like 30 three-story buildings set out all over a huge property. They're numbered, but the maps suck. We were admittedly unsober, but we legitimately got lost trying to find their place and didn't come back for a long time, like close to an hour. Turns out the place was like 45 seconds away. Oops.

She obviously suspected that we ran off to the bar and guzzled a bunch of beers before dinner, and told us so, but we were just legitimately lost. She was just about to buy our (true!) story when Mikey accidentally dropped his bottle on the tiled floor of their room, smashing it into a million pieces. Any shred of legitimacy we had smashed with that bottle. We just looked at each other and said the same thing in unison - "Aww crap." You ever tell the truth and still fuck it up? Welcome to the Mike D and Tim B show. It was all laughed off quickly though, as usual.

The next night we all got pretty sloppy drunk (except Monica). Mikey had met a French Canadian kid named Alex before I got there, and he hung out with us in the lobby bar drinking. When he was sober, he made complete sense. But when he was drunk, all the Quebecois came out and he didn't make any sense at all, to any of us. He was hilarious though.

He ordered us a bunch of tequila shots, then had the foresight (?) to see that Ray was way too drunk for tequila...after the shots were already there. As Ray came back to the table, instead of doing his shot or hiding it, Alex panicked and threw it in this big candle thing on the table. The candle responded with a big fiery whoosh, then darkness. Everyone sitting in the area looked over at us. Ray couldn't figure out why we were laughing so hard and probably thought we were laughing at him, but we weren't - it was Alex.

Alex continued to entertain us over the last couple of days. We'd be sitting in the nightclub, shitfaced, and he'd lean over and yell over the music - "Tim, man, you my friends right?" "Sure man, what's up?" "If you my friends, you don't lets me go over dose girls over tere. Dat big one likes me. Promise you keeps me 'way from tem. I'm drunk man!" Then, he'd order shots for everyone at the bar and sneak off over to them while we were drinking. And look back at us with a shrug, like it was inevitable. Between that and Mikey's infamous dance moves, the "nightclub" was an entertaining place to be at night.

My favorite part of the four days was our trip to Tulum. Mikey and Shannon rented a car, and we headed the two hours south down to one of the nicest archaeological sites in Mexico. It was hot as hell but the site is amazing. Gigantic iguanas are just chillin everywhere, and the big temples are on a cliff overlooking an awesome section of the Caribbean Sea. After checking out everything  we walked out and around to the beach, which was the nicest I've seen in Mexico thus far.

I'll save my solo travels to Merida and Campeche for another blog, but my time in Cancun with Mikey, Shannon, Ray and Monica (and Alex) was great. I'm not really a resorty kinda guy (which should be pretty obvious by now), but this place was super fun and laid back and I had a really good time. Thanks for inviting me guys!

Middle East - The Long Overdue Finale

I went on this trip 18 months ago. 18 fucking months. I'm generally lazy about writing these things, but I've never come close to being this bad. Ever since I got a writing job (BE represent!) last May I've been slacking majorly with my blogs and the only time I ever get inspired to write them is - go figure - when I'm traveling again. Well, I'm in the Fort Lauderdale airport right now waiting to board my way-too-early flight to New Orleans (via Tampa), so I'm gonna finish this sumbitch up. And then try to catch up on the 4 or 5 other trips I've been on since then. Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it too.

The last you heard from us, I woke up still drunk on January 2nd in Jerusalem. Jess was pretty hungover as well. We had a very late flight (1:30am) to Stockholm through Riga, and no hotel room to sleep off our hangovers in. We did still have a rental car though, which we decided to keep for an extra day and head back to Tel Aviv to hang out for the day. I hit a wall a couple of hours after I woke up and spend the rest of the day hurtin' for certain. Nothing eventful happened all day, we just hung out in bars or on the beach with my trying to put the boots to a massive hangover with all sorts of shit (and failing miserably). The trip to Sweden WAS eventful though.

On the way to the airport, we had to fill up the car with gas. We finally found a gas station, where the guy kept telling Jess he "love love loved him" as he filled up. Apparently it was the only thing he knew in English. Then we got to the craziness known as Ben Gurion Airport.

First off, everyone has all their bags scanned and searched before you can even check in. The chicks doing it were really frustrating, just picking people out of a line who seemed like the least work. Even though I was at the front of the line, the girls picked a person behind me four times before begrudgingly letting me come forward. After a 10-minute search, I was actually escorted to drop my checked bag off, then escorted to the check-in counter. Next was security. The "immigrant" line (gooo racial profiling) was long and right when Jess and I got near the front, the machine broke. But they wouldn't let us out of that line to join another, we had to stay in that one because it was the immigrant line. When one guy flipped out and tried to go to another line, everyone with guns went bonkers and he was forcibly returned to the back of the bus with us.

It took over an hour for them to fix the machine, then we had to actually go through. They screened my bag (which had already been searched before) and took every single thing out of it to screen in a smaller machine. It took about 15 minutes per passenger. Two and a half hours after we arrived at the airport, we were finally allowed to go to our gate. Thank fuck we got there early. To top that off, I was somehow issued a window seat for our five hour flight, which was not happening. I tried to sit in it but fuck that, there was no room at all. I was quickly moved to a comfy aisle seat next to a cute girl, which made things better. So did the double screwdriver I ordered from the flight attendant, who actually laughed at my request since almost everyone else was already asleep and I was the only one who asked for anything at all on the entire flight.

Our day in Sweden was mostly uneventful other than the usual - cold weather and really hot women. And a huge stuffed Swedish moose, which made us laugh for some reason. We ate in a Boston-themed bar and watched a Canucks/Avs game on tape delay, even though we wanted to watch the Sweden/US world juniors game. It just wasn't on anywhere. Other than that we just checked out the old town for most of the day. Jess was flying home the next morning, so I grabbed as many pics as possible from him at the airport before he left. I still had four more days, which I was using to take a jaunt to Austria. After laughing at the pics on the flight while downing some 2 euro beers (Air Berlin bitches), I arrived in Vienna.

Vienna was a trip. I had always avoided it because I didn't think it was all that great. I was totally wrong. The city has always been rich as hell (the center of the Habsburg Empire) and it's a beautiful place, full of amazing architecture and huge buildings. I was staying right on the edge of the Innere Stadt, or center of the city where all the cool shit was. It had food stands all along the river near my hotel, and they sold beer! I was kinda disappointed at the lack of pubs since it's more of a coffee culture, but I still definitely enjoyed my two days of exploration. I had one more full day to kill and figured I had seen everything, so I thought I'd go to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, which was about an hour away. My hotel concierge dissuaded me from that though.

"You don't want to go there. Slovakia is not a nice place. Bratislava is the biggest not nice place there. If you want nice, go to Brno. It's in the Czech Republic, about two hours by train. Very nice. Many cheap beers!"

Sold!

Vienna has the best metro system I've come across in Europe so far. It's super efficient, comfy, and cheap. After taking it to the train station and typically getting lost trying to find the damn thing (it was on the floor above the metro station dammit - that was a 10 block walk for nothing), I was headed for(the backwaters of) a new country. The train was empty, and the skirts of Brno looked pretty shitty. Once we arrived though, I was impressed. Walking around and checking out the cool architecture only enhanced that. After a pub stop where beers were a stupendous 1.20 Canadian for a 20 ounce pint, I was pretty much ready to move there. I had taken out around 50 dollars in Czech currency for my 6 hours there, and struggled to spend 9 dollars. Seriously. I went to 3 bars, had lunch, bought a tourist book, and got a red bull at the train station. 9 dollars. Total. If there were more than 3 people in the city that spoke English, I never would have left. I still have 41 dollars in Czech Korunas at home though because I can't fucking exchange them anywhere. And I've been back to the Czech Republic since then too, I just forgot to take them. Go Tim.

My train back was delayed and I was a bit worried since I couldn't read the big board and none of the announcements were in English, but I figured it out. After returning to the hotel, the concierge was shocked that I walked a whole 1km back from the metro. He told me I could have changed lines and come out right beside the hotel. I told him I didn't mind the walk. He said I was "Canadian crazy". Uh, okay.

*side note - I'm in the Tampa airport right now. They have Yeungling on tap here. That's all sorts of cool.*

The next day I took the train to the Alpine city of Salzburg. The train station was hilarious - as I sat waiting to leave, I watched an old man waiting beside the next track with a kid running around up the way a bit. I couldn't figure out what the kid was doing at first, but it because obvious quickly - he was chasing pigeons. He managed to scare one enough for it to fly directly into the back of the old man's head, which scared the bejesus out of him and led to him yelling at either the bird or the kid. Or both. I couldn't really tell which one because I was laughing so hard. The lady sitting across from me saw it too and was laughing. Everyone else on the train thought we were crazy.

The train ride was amazing though. Cruising through the center of Austrian mountains in winter is highly recommended, even if I was a bit snowblind by the end. I was staying about a half hour walk from the Old Town, which was great going downhill but sucked coming back uphill. It's compact, but definitely one of the nicest Old Towns I've seen in Europe. It's basically set right at the bottom of a massive mountain, and full of character. I really liked it.

Aaaaand that was pretty much it. I had one more night back in Stockholm, where I stayed in the airport hotel. It's like, IN the airport. You come down the stairs and blam, you're standing in the middle of terminal 4. It was typically pricey, but I liked it. Blondes everywhere. I watched the Seahawks playoff game until like 4am, then passed out a happy man. This was one of the best trips of my life. I really fell into road life on this one, and it was very, very hard to adjust back to the real world when I got home. I did though, and have gone on a bunch of trips since. Perhaps I'll write about them someday. If I had a longer connection and more Yeungling, I could probably write about them all right now. But the insanity of New Orleans awaits.

Middle East, Part 8 - New Years in J-Town

Shabbat is the stupidest thing of all time. I've mentioned this in previous blogs (that I wrote like a year ago - fuck off, I'm slow) that New Years Eve happened to fall on Shabbat so we weren't even sure if anything would be open. Earlier that day, we got kicked out of a bar at 4pm for the start of this crap and it didn't end until sundown the next day. Not much was open for NYE, but Dublin's was. That's the Irish bar that was up the street from our hotel. And it was certainly one of the more memorable NYE's of my life.

We got there really early since we figured it was gonna get busy. It didn't for a long time though so it was basically us and a cute, big-nosed bartender. We were ordering jager on the rocks for some weird reason (I think it was on special), but it was pretty good. A drunken Santa showed up and started dancing on the bar and singing which annoyed the shit out of us, except for the fact that all the waitresses were dancing as well. We were watching the world juniors on Bitch's phone which somehow got the attention of a Brazillian Jewy chick whose name I still can't spell to this day. They talked about all sorts of stuff while I talked to the bartender girl and stuffed various Israeli beers in my face.

By the end of the night we were completely blasted as expected and the bar was packed. Things ended strangely though. Our bill was like 200 bucks, twice what we thought it would be. After the bartender flipped out when we dared to question her, we found out that she had been giving us DOUBLE jagers all night. Ohhhhh. That explained the bill. And us sacking up enough to challenge her on it.

I didn't have enough coin on me so I had to go to the bank machine outside. For some reason, two tiny Jewy guys decided to not let me out of the bar. It was absolutely packed so I had to try and push past them, but they combined resources to block my way for no apparent reason. And they wanted to fight, which was hilarious. They were both about 5'3, and even though I explained I just needed to get money, they wanted to go. I ended up getting tired of their shit and just pushed them outta the way and walked out. The bouncers stopped them from coming after me outside, which was welcome. Problem was...I had to come back.

When I did get back with my money, they were still there, and still angry. I had two choices - fight my way back in and back out, or tell a (different) doorman what the deal was. I chose the latter, and watched the dude (who was smaller than me) swat them outta the way like flies and glare at them until I came back out. Jess was with me by this point, but had no idea what the deal was. He just followed me and my escort out of the bar. And went to the Old Town shitfaced for some reason, with that Brazillian jewy girl. I was too pissed off to follow though, so I tried to buy more beer at the store. It's right there on the shelf, but you can't purchase it after 11pm. Fucking fuck. So I just went and passed out.

The next day featured mild hangovers, but nothing too bad. We decided to go check out Masada, an old fortress on top of a cliff. You get up there by cable car. Jess was planning on going all along, but I'm a big baby about heights so the whole cable car thing scared the shit out of me. I ended up tagging along, which led to a couple of humorous situations.

The GPS was wonky once again, but we basically knew where we were going. After stopping at a gas station featuring a dude offering camel rides in the parking lot (camels rule), we got down there. We were waved into the parking lot without getting our car searched because we were white, and we paid up and got on the cable car. It wasn't so bad for me until the very top, when it arrived with a big thud and you had to step out on this little precarious platform that featured a 500 foot drop on every side. I involuntarily blurted out "JESUS CHRIST!" to which Jess replied "They don't like him here man." That got a chuckle out of a few people on the cable car at least, and me.

It was very cool to check out though, other than a walkway up to the site against a rock face that featured a huge dropoff on the other side. I stuck to the wall like glue while Jess made fun of me. Bitch ended up taking a bunch of pics and turning them into this massive panorama that's on his wall in his new place.

On the way back we stopped at a beach where Jess paid a shitload of money to go float in the Dead Sea, and played with the camels again back at the gas station (the like fries - go figure), then headed straight to the bar since the dastardly Shabbat was finally over. It was called Mike's Bar, a pseudo-American place (same franchise as the one in Tel Aviv), and we soon made friends with the customers and barman. A dude from Manchester who sounded just like Michael Bisping; a South African/jewy bartender named Barry; and various American members of the Israeli army and Air Force. And these dudes were about as racist as possible, which was seemingly good to go in Israel. Or at least they said so. "It's okay here!" was their mantra.

The air force dude just kept saying "You can't trust Arabs!" while the military police guy told us he was raised Irish Catholic in the southern US  until he was 14, when his dad suddenly came home one day and said "We're moving to Israel for my work. We're jewish now." He told us all about the battles between the "ragheads" and the "penguins" that were the worst to deal with. We had no fucking clue what a penguin was, and discussed it while he went to the can to no avail. Finally we asked Barry. "They're the ultraorthodox jews, the ones that hate everything, even us. They're called that because they wear all black and waddle around town. They look like penguins." Jess and I laughed at that for the rest of our trip.

We ended up staying there all night and getting totally blasted with this crazy cast of characters. The last thing I remember was Barry making me an MP, which he said contained 5 types of alcohol in a big glass. It was blue. I asked what the mix was, he said "Curacao". I said no, the mix...like, juice, pop? He said "Curacao". No wonder it's the last thing I remembered that night. Jess said I just took off on him and left him there with the group, which now included his Brazillian Jewy chick friend who was a former employee of that bar and had stopped by. I woke up just as hammered as I was when I went to sleep. That's only happened to me a few times in my life, but I was still flying.

I'll finally finish up this thing with one more blog covering out last day in Israel, one day in Stockholm, and my three days in Austria.

Middle East, Part 7 - Road Trippin and J-Town!

Jordan was awesome, but it was time to get back to the Holy Land. This is harder than it appears. There's a border crossing to the north that would have put us pretty close to Jerusalem, but apparently if you didn't cross that particular border to get into Jordan, Israel won't let you take it back across. Weird? Welcome to Israel. So, we were stuck heading back south to Aqaba/Eilat, then five hours north to Jerusalem. It's all good though, because it ended up being pretty awesome.

After a two hour ride in a ghetto cab and a pretty simple border crossing, we headed off to rent a car in Eilat since we didn't want to fuck with flying or taking the bus (see part 3 - Anatomy of a strip search). It was pretty easy to figure out, except for the whole "being told to intentionally break the car rental rules" thing. You're not allowed to take rental cars into the "Occupied Territories" (aka West Bank). East Jerusalem is considered a part of that to them. And to get to West Jerusalem, you have to go straight up the coast, then turn left and...go through East Jerusalem. How did the lady explain this to us?

"Just don't get into an accident there."

Uh, okay?

The drive north was actually pretty cool. Maktesh Ramon is a huge crater that is constantly changing colors. The salt pans south of the Dead Sea are pretty eerie. Masada was closed (but we'd be back). Once we got closer to Jerusalem though, things got weird. A few random checkpoints where we were just waved through without even talking to them was odd. Then we came to the point where we had to turn left...it was pretty easy to spot, considering the gigantic scary fucking gate blocking our way from going any further north. The West Bank is serious business.

The GPS was tripping us out too, because it's programmed to avoid West Bank areas as well. So it kept saying we were going the wrong way the whole time. It wanted us to go completely across the country, so even when we were 30km from Jerusalem, it would tell us we were 470km away and constantly said to turn around. "Recalculating!" gets really fucking old after 20 or 30 times.Yup, Israel's weird. We didn't need that bitch though, we found our way ourselves dammit (well, Jess did...anyone that's read my blogs knows how much I suck at directions).

Once we got to town and finally found a hotel with available rooms, we...spent 40 minutes driving in circles on one way streets trying to find the hotel's parking garage. Israel's wei...yeah you get it. Our hotel was full of teenagers over from the US, which was annoying, but whatever. The streets were full of people and there were bars up the street, so it was tough to complain. We hit up an Irish bar for a bit, but took it pretty easy on night one in the town that Jess immediately dubbed "J-Town". Did anyone else call it that? Nope. Did we care? Nope. J-Town it is!

The next day was a major lesson in how much of a contradiction Israel really is. We woke up and immediately headed down to the Old Town. It's the old (duh), massive walled city that WAS the city of Jerusalem until the 19th century. The land has been continually inhabited for over 3500 years, and the current city walls are almost 500 years old. It's divided into four quarters (Christian, Muslim, Jewy, Armenian), and full of narrow "streets" that basically constitute one huge, awesome maze. It's full of amazing sites including the famous Western (or Wailing) Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and one of the most important mosques in the world. And we were only allowed to see one of the three, which is dumb. Here's a pic of a typical street, and a view of the Dome of the Rock from far away:

Old city street, Jerusalem.

Dome again.

We started out in the Christian quarter, then made our way down to the Muslim Quarter and explored a bit of that, before we were turned back by a bunch of soldiers. Apparently only Muslims are allowed in most of the Muslim quarter, so we had no access to the Dome of the Rock or the Mosque. At first we thought it was ridiculous that the Muslims would lock everyone else out of their area...but we learned the truth a little later.

So, it was off to the Jewish Quarter, and the weirdness continued. The various quarters have been traded between Muslims, Jews, and Christians many times over the years, so some of their original buildings lie in other quarters now. We came across a tour group of American Jewy kids, and 30 seconds of the bullshit the tour guide was spewing had us laughing in amazement:

"We (Jews) live and let live. When we took over this mosque and turned it into a synagogue, we respected Muslim tradition by leaving...uh...that thing they usually have on top of mosques up there. See, it's still there...whatever it's called."

"Okay kids, it's lunchtime. There are a bunch of restaurants down this way. Remember, NO MATTER WHAT, you are NOT to step foot in the Muslim Quarter. You WILL have troubles."

These are a bunch of American kids with no outward signs of being Jewish. They look just like us. There's no way they'd have any trouble in the Muslim Quarter because a) no one would care in the open section, and b) 95% of it is closed off anyway. So, what the fuck is the dude talking about? All he's doing is instilling fear and distrust in a bunch of kids that don't know any better. But there was nothing we could do, so we just laughed and grabbed some lunch ourselves. While we were eating, Jess was reading something official on the Old City on his phone, and told me something that annoyed/amazed me even more:

"Wow man, you know how we weren't allowed into the Muslim Quarter? It's not the Muslims that are stopping us. Apparently the Jews require it, for the safety of tourists and Jews. They're actually Israeli soldiers that turned us back."

The Jews actually let people think the Muslims don't want anyone in their quarter when it's them keeping people out instead. Dumb.

After we got back to the hotel, things switched back to the funny via Jess. We had to wait a while for the elevator with a bunch of Jewy kids. Once it finally came and we all got on, one moron kid was way too close to the door and it kept opening back up when it would try to close. This happened about four times, and the stupid kid started yelling at some other kid at least 30 feet across the lobby, saying "Stop messing with the elevator!" It opened and closed two more times before some elder came over and pushed the kid further inside. Jess was steaming by now, as was I, but he dropped a line that made me bust up laughing.

In an elevator full of Jewish kids, he points at the moron and says "THESE are the chosen ones?" Classic.

I'll wrap this up for now (I'm in Hawaii and about to go for a walk across Waikiki) and finish up J-Town in another blog later.

Middle East, Part 6 - Petra

I really need to finish these up. The trip was 15 months ago. This is bad. And, as my brother just reminded me, "your blog indicates that you may have disappeared somewhere in the middle-east!" That made me laugh and motivated me. I shall be lost in the desert no longer!

Last you heard from me, I was leaving Wadi Rum. Our next destination was Petra, one of the grandest places in the world. We had arranged transport with Obeid but when it came time to pay Nail for it, Aaron the Asian guy from Richmond said "Nah, don't pay for that. I have a rental car and we're headed to Petra. You guys can just jump in with us." Sweet!

The drive three-odd hour drive there was pretty uneventful. The roads are in perfect condition, but there was barely any traffic and little to see. I sat in the front and BS'd with Aaron about living in Amman while Jess and Peter were passed out in the back. Once we got to Wadi Musa (the town that surrounds the Petra site), we took forever to find our hotel due to the crazy hills and roads there, but we eventually located it. Peter and Aaron didn't have a room reserved like we did and went inside to see if there was something, but unfortunately there wasn't.

Next was the awkward moment where you offer money for the ride, but you're never sure if you're offering enough or not. We were extremely appreciative for the generosity though, so we offered the same as it would have cost us if we had taken Obeid's ride. Aaron wasn't having that though. And after actually getting a Russell Peters joke (he was probably the only other person in the entire country that would have understood one), he completely denied our attempts at payment with a hilarious line:

"Naw man, don't worry about it. You're fellow Canadians, I can't take your money. If you were Americans or Leafs fans though, it'd be a different story!"

I only regret that I forgot to get his email address. Super cool dude, and a reminder of makes traveling so fulfilling. You never know when you're gonna meet a genuinely nice person, and it's inspiration to try and do the same kinda stuff for the people you meet in your travels. Ya know, unless they're from Toronto. Fuck them.

We were there early, so we dropped off our shit and headed immediately over to Petra. For those of you that aren't into the nerdy shit Jess and I are, Petra is one of the most well-preserved ancient cities in the world. It's about 2600 years old, and people have lived in the caves around it until just recently. I had seen many pictures, but they don't come close to doing the place justice. Part of the fun is the insane stuff to see, but another major part is just dealing with the culture and how they exploit tourism. It's pretty damn funny sometimes.

First off, it was 50 dinars (about 70 bucks) to get in. Seriously. I knew approximately what it would be, but I was still blown away. The top area where you buy tickets is surrounded by souvenir shops and places to buy food and drinks. All ridiculously overpriced, of course. Once you go through the gate, you can choose to ride a horse down the first section, or just walk. It's about a kilometer or so, all downhill. No horse needed! Downhill is easy! That'd bite me in the ass later, since I didn't have a return ticket.

Here's a sample of the first part:

Rock houses, Petra

Other than that pic, the first section looks at a bunch of rock caves and carvings and stuff. Pretty interesting, but nothing compared to what came later. Eventually you hit a level section with people everywhere, trying to rent you a horse, donkey, or camel to ride down further. This is where the Siq begins. It's a narrow passage between sandstone cliffs that rise about 500 feet on either side, and it winds down to the next major section.The sandstone walls are amazingly colorful, and it's funny watching people have to continually jump out of the way for the camel caravans.

Yes, camel caravans.

If you're too lazy to ride a camel, you can jump in a chariot and have a few camels pull you around. It sounds amusing, but it's way funnier to watch from the outside because the Siq is really, really narrow. When one comes up/down and makes a shitload of noise on approach, a bunch of people have to press themselves against the wall like they're stuck to it so they don't get hit by the chariot. This happens every minute or so, so it takes a while to get through there since it's half a mile long. Here's what the Siq looked like:

Continuing down the Siq, Petra

It's totally worth it though, because the bottom rewards you with one of the coolest things you'll ever see - the Treasury.

It's been 15 months since I was there, and I got goosebumps just thinking about the first time I saw it when emerging from the Siq. I could come up with something flowery and colorful to explain it, but I'll go with "fucking amazing" instead. Obviously I won't be writing for Lonely Planet anytime soon. Anyway, see for yourself.

Your first view of the treasury as you exit the Siq

The treasury. Amazing experience to stand in front of it.

After hanging out there for a bit, it was time to continue down further into the actual "city". It opens up a lot when you head down a little further and there are temples, houses and all kinds of things that extend up the hills on either side. Jess climbed a few and checked out the tombs while I sat around and laughed at the cafes ripping people off for pop and stuff. And I watched random animals annoy white tourist folk more than the people selling souvenirs. The people/animal watching was awesome. Here's what the tombs looked like from where I was hangin out:

Royal tombs, up the side of the mountain

Once we finally got the very bottom, we had three choices - turn around, take a donkey to the monastery, or grab food at the all you can eat restaurant. The bastard trying to sell us on the monastery thing made us both laugh with his sales pitch though - "You want trip to monastery? (Points at Jess) We get you donkey! (Points at me) We get you...really big donkey!"

After grabbing some food, we decided that I was gonna be way slower than him going back up (remember, it was all downhill, so now I gotta go like 5km back uphill...yeah, I know), so he'd do the donkey/monastery thing and I'd get a head start back to the top. I could have got a camel to take me back up, but fuck that - I was on a mission (and I didn't want to hurt a poor camel). They are quite possibly my favorite animals in the world!

Camel!

Anyway, I was gonna walk up that sumbitch dammit. And, despite being accosted by probably 50 Arabs with all different varieties of animal transport, I fucking made it! 15 minutes before Jess. Even though I had a 75 minute head start. Shut it, assholes, I made it! Mama did it! The best part was right near the top, when some young kid came up to me and said "Your hat! I'm from Vancouver too!" and insisted on shaking my hand and pointing me out to his family. Small world. We Are All Canucks.

Jess said the donkey ride was along cliffs and it was sketchy as hell (and his "guide" turned out to be a kid), but the monastery was amazing. I never saw this and he'll give me shit for posting his pic, but...here's the monastery:

On the mountain above the monestary

Pretty sick, eh?

After heading back to the hotel and cleaning up, we decided we needed a drink. Yes, we were in an Islamic country and all, but we were in a major tourist destination and finding a bar is never hard in places like this. Our hotel told us the best place was back at the entrance to Petra in a rock cave, and said they'd arrange a "taxi". The taxi turned out to be some dude in a big Chevy Avalanche, but he was super nice and only charged us like a dollar. It was all tourists inside, but this time it was Jess that was wearing the handy clothes to meet people. Some cute girl from Connecticut saw his Hartford Whalers hoody and was so surprised to see it, she had to take pictures and talk to us all night with her friend. That wasn't terrible.

So that was Petra. It ended up being absolutely amazing and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to go back, even with the steep entry fee and the Hike of Death. One of my top five travel experiences, no doubt. If you're ever in that part of the world, you need to put your preconceptions aside and just go. Jordan is an amazing country in general, and I can't wait to check out the rest of it someday.

Now that I'm motivated again, I'll get around to writing about the rest of the trip soon. My next blog will cover sketchy cab rides, funny border crossings, driving in Israel with lying GPS bitches, drinking during shabbat, epic New Years hangovers, Penguins vs. ragheads, and much much more. Jerusalem was totally awesome and completely insane at the same time.

Middle East, Part 5 - Wadi Rum

I know this all happened like a year ago, but I'm slow okay? Not that kinda slow, assholes. My writing job has taken up all my extra time. Luckily I've scaled back my workload now, so I have time to catch up on these. Believe me, they're piling up. It also helps that I'm on a train between Edinburgh and Leeds (via Durham), and I usually get the most travel writing done...when I'm traveling. Odd how that works.

Side note - I originally wrote these as Facebook notes, so that's where all the pics are. It's a huge pain in the ass to flip them onto here, so you're just gonna have to live without them. Unless you're my Facebook friend. Then you probably don't care.

Anyway, I left off long ago at the point (see part 4) that our ride showed up take into the desert. Specifically, Wadi Rum. First off, Jess needed Jordanian Dinars, so we stopped in the border town of Aqaba. What we did see of it was really nice and modern. Its a resort town as well due to it proximity to the Red Sea, so I probably shouldn't have been surprised. But I was. So there.

After the brief stop, we headed off to the Wadi Rum visitors center, which looked pretty cool. It was up on a hill at the edge of the desert, with a couple of crazy rock formations. We paid our fees, and let's just say we weren't in Kansas (or civilization) anymore. We were directed to a ratty truck by our fully decked out Bedouin, and told to climb in the back. There were two other people in the back already: an English dude and an Asian guy. I took my seat, cross-legged on a spare tire, and we began the crazy journey into the legit desert. And we got a pretty huge non-desert related surprise pretty much right away.

The Asian dude saw my hat and said 'Are you Canadian?' in a clear-as-day Canadian accent. Whoa. 'Yeah, were from Vancouver.' 'Dude, I'm from Richmond!' Nuts. His name was Aaron, and he was studying Arabic in Amman, the capital of Jordan. His English buddy Peter (the other guy) had never been to Jordan before so he was showing him around. Aaron had already been to Wadi Rum before, so he ended up being a big help for some of it. And came in especially handy later.

The desert landscape got crazy pretty quickly. There were loads of tiretracks going every which way, and no road. It started out pretty barren, but soon we were amongst crazy rock formations and outcroppings. Jess and I were pretty much in awe of everything immediately. We were also cold as hell, because the wind was nuts. I had to take my hat off pretty much immediately so it wouldn't blow away.

After probably 20-25 minutes of passing jeeps, rocks, and the occasional camel, we arrived at our camp. Our driver, who ended up getting dubbed Uncle Mo, didn't speak any English and Obeid (guy who I arranged the trip with) wasn't even there. In fact, we never saw him. Instead we were greeted by his son Nail, who spoke good English and turned out to be pretty hilarious. The layout of the camp was pretty simple. There were two main tents, both probably 60-70 feet long any probably seven feet high. One was where the family lived, the other was sort of like the living area. It had carpets all over, a few tables, a small fire pit, and stuff to lean against when sitting down. On the floor. The rest of the camp had a few 20 by 20 tents spaced out up the hill a bit, and a bathroom. With modern plumbing. Odd, I know.

We were invited into the main tent, where we met some Americans that were just about to depart. We BS'ed with them about the desert and stuff, and they're the ones that actually gave Mohammed his nickname. He sat with us and served tea, which I had never actually tried before in my life before that. And it was AMAZING. According to Jess its just tea leaves and a shitload of sugar, but it was awesome. He made it in the baby fire pit, and served it in these tiny cups that were probably only 2-3 ounces. I think I had about 7 cups in a half hour. Hey I'm a pig, leave me alone.

We dropped off our bags in our tent (walking uphill in sand blows) then headed out for our jeep tour with Mo. Aaron didn't come because he had done it before, so it was just me, Bitch and Peter. Peter turned out to be a pretty strange guy, but nice enough. Jess and I were trying to figure out how Aaron and him were friends, since he was easily 30 years older and walked with a cane. He kept seeing animal shapes in the clouds and asking me and Jess about them, which confused the shit out of us. 'Look, its a raptah!' Really? A dinosaur? No govna, its a fucking cloud.

I was planted back on my spare tire, where I sat cross-legged (Indian style) for the whole 3.5 hours, other than the few times we got out to inspect stuff. A French family that had arrived in camp was in the jeep behind us, driven by another dude we never saw again (and didn't speak English anyway). The trip was absolutely insane and amazing though. We'd drive through ridiculous landscapes that were constantly changing, then stop for a minute where uncle Mo would stick his head out the drivers side window, point at something, then say something unintelligible. Turns out he was saying the names of rocks and places (EVERYTHING in the desert has a name) but we didn't figure out what the hell he was on about till we were almost done. Oops.

Huge rock cliffs, hundreds of meters high (complete with rock climbers), all in different shades of red, orange and brown. Due to erosion, the same rock formation would change colors two or three times as you looked up. It was all pretty ridiculous. After coming across a gigantic circular rock on top of a tiny one that looked just like Stewie...

So cool.

I was officially hooked. Between rock bridges, a desert store surrounded by angry camels, and the haunting quiet of the desert...I was pretty sure that this was the coolest place I would ever see. Jess agreed. Peter would have too, if he would have stopped seeing wildebeests and tortoises in the clouds for 30 seconds. What the fuck?

Following the epic desert sunset we got back to camp, and it was dinner time. They cook their food in this metal contraption that's buried under the sand. We didn't know that though, so when Nail went to dig it out, he asked us to help and said we needed to dig up his grandfather and move his body. Obviously we didn't believe him, but it was still pretty fuckin' funny to find dinner down there instead. After chowing down, Uncle Mo brought over his little daughters, probably five or six, who danced around and played a tamborine thinger while Nail played a cool improvised drum and we drank tea. The girls were super cute, and it was all pretty entertaining. The funniest part was Nail constantly responding to his vibrating cell phone and texting people. "The modern bedouin," the Frenchman said. We laughed.

The next morning was ominous. The sky was angry, completely unlike anything I expected in the desert. It was dark, cold, and even rained briefly. We had breakfast and headed back to the visitor's center, thoroughly impressed with the entire experience. And it only got better from there, in many ways.

Check back in October 2013 when I write the next chapter!