415 Days Later

Well. We are havıng a hard tıme tryıng to fıgure out what to say on thıs day -- for those of you who don't already know, today ıs the last of thıs trıp. Tonıght Laura and Paula wıll put me on a traın bound for Budapest where a job and home awaıt, whıle early tomorrow mornıng they are gettıng on a plane headed for Phıladelphıa (by way of Chıcago, because we are stıll ınto sufferıng ın the name of savıng money).

Our last week ın Turkey has been spent drınkıng Turkısh coffee, eatıng delıcıous hot(!) helva, faılıng to become accustomed to the call to prayer that domınates the cıty for a few mınutes at a tıme fıve tımes a day, and vısıtıng the Hagıa Sophıa. Yes, the Hagıa Sophıa was ıncredıble ın ıts sıze and desıgn and most ımportantly allowed Jess a proper forum to dıscuss her newly learned archıtectural terms (as her teacher I enlıghtened her on such topıcs as squınches vs. pendentıves, groın vaults, and spolıa). I wıll, however, remember Istanbul most fondly for the people we have met whıle beıng here. Not sınce our Yoga teacher certıfıcatıon program way back ın Indıa have we been ın one place for such a perıod of tıme and had the opportunıty to make so many frıends. We have been made part of a lovely Turkısh famıly wıth a mother who overfeeds us and reads our fortune ın the graıns of our coffee, a 13 year-old son who may be on the ınternatıonal playstatıon cırcuıt, and an older son who has acted as our ambassador and socıal dırector.

It has ındeed been the best way to brıng thıs trıp to an end -- gettıng used to the ıdea of beıng ın one place agaın. We thınk ıt wıll be a bıt strange at fırst. The thıngs that we are excıted about range everywhere from real towels to ıce cream to sweatshırts to adorable babıes named Henry, and havıng these thıngs at our dısposal all at once wıll be overwhelmıng. Clearly, there wıll be some reverse culture shock ın effect. Yet, we are ready to be ın one place and are lookıng forward to all the adventures that the comıng months wıll brıng.

Thanks for keepıng up wıth us on our blog. It hasn't always been so thorough or up to date, but perhaps that ıs because the amount of tıme spent bloggıng about our travels ıs ın ınverse proportıon to the number of adventures and awe-ınspırıng experıences we have had along the way.

PS. For Marcus -- fınal tally: us 400, world 15. We wın bıg tıme.

We won't be eating turkey on Thanksgiving, but we will be IN Turkey. Who wins?

We realize we have been terrible at the whole Blog writing thing as of late. Let's just say that we think that perhaps the traveling has finally caught up to us. It only took 13 months.

We are still having the most fabulous time. After Albania, we hopped a very schmance bus to Thessaloniki, Greece. Ah, we have come so far since the 4 day bus extravaganza that happened just one year ago while traveling from Peru to Santiago. Compared to that hellish experience, this bus was pure luxury. That is, if you consider luxury to be watching very loud and poorly produced Albanian music videos for 6 hours straight. Thankfully, we see everything as a cultural experience.

Greece proved wonderful. We were staying with a university student who quickly taught us how to score free food from the dining hall, and free internet from the library. We were also in Thessaloniki for the start of the annual international film festival. The MC of the event is a favorite of this group - director Werner Herzog. Alas, I am constantly reminded just how unique Los Angeles is for the film industry everytime we go to film events. At the Herzog exhibit for example, the projectors were not working. The PROJECTORS were not working at a FILM festival. Despite minor setbacks such as the one just described, Greece was still magical and a great place to celebrate my 24th birthday. Yikes how did I get so old? After borrowing 20+ apples from the dining hall, Laura managed to make the most delicious apple crisp to celebrate the day. We also visited the local bar, complete with local Greeks. We like Greeks. One of the pictures is of Laura and the beautiful view over center Thessaloniki out to the ocean.

Onward to Istanbul we went. We were greeted by a very proper city, and a very welcoming family. Good thing I met a real Turkish momma, because I proceeded to come down with a mysterious illness (I am refusing to fall victim to the swine flu hype) but recovered in no time thanks to delicious hommeade tea, and no end of mysterious herbal compresses. Turkish momma also has some fascination with trying to make me fat. This is a fact she states to me every morning as she plunks rice and salad and eggs and vegetables galore in front of me - too skinny! I am ok with the situation. Especially when she gives me ice cream at the end of Sunday brunch. This is the way to my heart so take note all.

We have seen some of the sights, but not any of the big ones yet. For now we are satisfied wandering in and out of small mosques, and generally losing ourselves in Istanbul. We have more than a week here still, so we are taking it slow.

We wish everyone in the states a very happy thanksgiving! Laura and I are determined to make this one better than the last. That shouldn't be too hard considering last thanksgiving consisted of cream cheese and orange soda in a bus station. We have plans to cook proper holiday food, and any suggestions are welcome. I should mention that besides the picture of Laura and the view, there is a picture of us in Tirana (capital of Albania) at some sort of world record setting thing. The record was the largest mosaic ever made out of paint brushes. Yeah. We don't get it either, but the mosaic was of MJ, and we do get him.

Love and kisses to all!
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In a flugon

Here we are back at the trekking - overlooking the biggest fjord in southern Europe in Kotor, Montenegro.

It has been a while since we have traveled in anything than the most standard modes of car, train, and bus. Now, however, we are in Albania which means things aren't quite as easy and I must say that the change is welcomed. At the moment I am sitting front and center in a mini bus as the driver pays equal attention to the woman talking on my right as he is to the winding road he is navigating. The location of the bus stop was a total mystery as is the tin foil wrapped food that was just flung onto the dashboard.

Albania is beautiful as I am just now getting the chance to see - we are in the midst of a mountain range (maybe the Balkans?) and I am seeing the leaves change color for the first time in two years. Beautiful, yes, but also disorganized and covered in garbage. As we have only been here for one day there is much to learn, but this is what we have so far - Albania was under intense isolationism led by a paranoid leader who thought Maoist communism was too lenient of a policy. Physical remnants of this recent historical period cover the landscape - low lying, UFO-shaped cement bunkers. The then dictator thought it better to build said bunkers for all of his countrymen in case of attack instead of allying himself with a more powerful country (any really). Supposedly these bunkers are virtually indestructable as people have been unsuccessfully trying to level them since 1990. Since then it seems as though Albania is doing pretty well - it is now the 2nd poorest country in Europe (sorry Moldova) and its capital city Tirana certainly seems to have the modern amenities of other major cities.

We are now in Albania after a short time in tiny and beautiful Montenegro and a bit more time in Serbia and Budapest, Hungary. While in Serbia we were educated on what really happened when Yugoslavia disbanded/fell apart mostly by a German woman whose farm we were working on for 2 weeks. After the death of George we needed some time to come up with a new plan so we headed to yet another wwoofing venue outside of Belgrade to once again plant little lettuces and general toiling in the fields. The farm was nearly sustainable and so it was very interesting to see how they use everything they have to feed themselves and their animals while accruing very few expenses (this is in part thanks to their refusal to heat our rooms).

I am going to stop blogging now as we are off the bus and I just slipped on an orange peel, yes actually, and should go clean up.
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The problem with mobile blogging...

Although the photo on the last blog of Paula and David Bowie serenading each other on her birthday is nice, I wanted to put a photo up all of the girls at our candlelit cooking class.

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One year anniversary (plus a few days)

As unreal as it may seem, a full year of travel has passed by for us. Using the term 'passed' makes it seem like someone has died or we haven't been conscious of what a rare, incredible experience we have made for ourselves. Thinking back on what we were thinking, feeling, and doing a year ago is a comedic endeavor - we actually had no idea what we were doing. We were terrified of spending any money which meant a lot of aimless wandering and empty stomachs. We still do not like to spend so much money and firmly believe that wandering around a city is often the best way to get to know the place, but suffering is unequivocally out of our lives. In fact, we are pretty good at this whole traveling thing by now, but were very happy and grateful to have a 2 week reprieve from our lifestyle as my mother and later on my sister in law came to pamper us.

The benefits of my mother's arrival proceeded her by exactly 10 kilometers. That is to say, George gave up at that spot and my mother was able to quickly lift our spirits through her motherly comfort, dry white wine, and clean clean beds. Our two weeks in Portugal and Spain were action packed.

We drove through landscapes covered in olive trees as far as eyes much better than mine could see, went to a flamenco show which was surprisingly impressive, toured beautiful Moorish buildings, gawked at Las Meninas(!) and Guernica(!!) on the SAME day, and got to the bottom of Spain's 20th century history, to name a few.

On my mom and Katie's last day with us we took a cooking class in Barcelona. It was a great experience the whole way through. Our instructor was a soft-spoken woman who knew of Amma our favorite Hugging Hindi Saint and wore sequin covered sneakers - two points to her. She then tells us that we are going to learn to make the group's three favorite Spanish dishes - gazpacho, tortilla espanol (a fancy omelette filled with potatoes), and paella. While Katie and I are blanching tomatoes, the power goes out. Although this delayed our cooking and prolonged our 'starve', we happily imbibed in the fully stocked refrigerator's supply of wine in the impromptu candlelit kitchen - thankfully only the eating was ahead of us! It was a wonderful conclusion to a lovely two week 'vacation' from our usual traveling.

Due to George's death, we took the opportunity to change around our plans for the next month or so. A day after the Fox ladies returned to the States, we boarded a plane to Budapest, Hungary. The city is beautiful and all, but honestly we are having a tough go at it. We have had a huge shock to our systems as we currently find ourselves in the first properly cold weather in a year and a half. Within a few days we will be in Serbia on a bio-dynamic, sustainable farm just as we were at the same time last year in Argentina. My hope is that in the past year I have become patient and calm enough not to have a near breakdown this time around while picking burning, fly-covered weeds eight hours a day in the fields. Progress reports to follow.
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George was euthanized.

Worth noting: here we are waving hello to the homeland as we overlook the Atlantic on continental Europe's most Western point, yayer.

So yesterday morning we woke up at 5 am in order to make it to Lisbon in time to meet my mother and commence two weeks of comfortable beds, bountiful beakfasts, and flowing wine amongst other things. The drive into Lisbon was easy, maybe too easy as we are accustomed to getting hopelessly lost at least once on every drive, which of course means that something is bound to go wrong. 10 kilometers outside of Lisbon we pull up to the toll booth and as my foot is firmly on the brake, George starts to roll backwards. As we are blocking the morning commuters into Lisbon, we push the car out of the way, or at least try to when a man jumps out of his car and says in accentless English, 'do you need some help?'. Thank god for Canadians. After our new friend made a call to his mechanic, we saw George towed away and told by a man with no front teeth and a pinache for flirtatious lip movements that George was dead - he conveyed this to us by clasping his hands together at the side of his head and pretending to sleep after trying to make engine work. Moral of the story, George is legally dead and being compressed into a small block to be sold by weight - we are in mourning. Thankfully my mother has arrived and we are already enjoying the luxuries and comforts of having some mothering.
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Mission accomplished!

I feel a bit like a Pilgrim setting up a charter in New England, but, yes, we set out with a mission to go around the world and we have done just that. Well, mostly. We left the United States from the Western edge of the Atlantic Ocean and are now situated on one of Europe's farthest westward reaching Atlantic coastlines, but aren't done yet! We have been in Portugal for only a day now and we enjoy it thoroughly so far. Portugal has always been a bit of a mystery for us. At this point we are fairly well traveled and have met many other travelers from every corner of the globe, but until yesterday I didn't know a single Portuguese. It has been rationalized to us by the mere fact that the entire nation is just a touch larger than the population of New York City, but with slightly less spending power and thus traveling abilities. So, yes, Portugal is great, as was our far too quick jaunt through Spain and France. In France we were lucky enough to meet up with two of our friends from the good old days in the Australian camper can - Laurene and Olivier. It was so nice to see some beloved familiar faces despite being a bit shocked that we have been doing 6 months of continual traveling since last seeing them. After visiting them in Lyon, we had a few days to explore the Basque country on both the French and Spanish side and it was not only a beautiful region, but it seems as though the people there have a heightened awareness and appreciation of the beauty of their land and culture that seemed to make it a very nice region in which to live. The reason we are moving quite quickly through this area of the world is that tomorrow we are meeting my mother in Lisbon for two weeks of travel through Portugal and Spain (yes, George was invited too) that is sure to be a lovely time and a long anticipated reunion!
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