My walkabout: A most unplanned adventure

Traveling Mouse

2009-01-12T17:10:00.003+02:00

It has recently come to my attention that it has been over two months since I posted. So first of all, I would like to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving, merry Christmas, and a happy new year!!

After doing tech for a local production of Cinderella, I was lucky enough to make a friend in the theater world, and now I am working in a theater. It's a bit challenging as it's all in Turkish, but it means that my turkish is improving all the time. I've also moved from the asian side to the european side. It was exactly six months from the time I left this summer until I had my own place. And as much as I love traveling, I realized that every so often it is important to have a room of your own. A kitchen is also a good thing.

Once again I came to Istanbul unemployed and homeless, and once again I have found an amazing life here.

I've started a new project - The Traveling Mouse I'll still be posting ocasional updates, and when I start traveling again I'll be posting more regularly on this website. My new project is travel stories aimed at teenagers, although I hope anyone can enjoy them. There will be a new story every monday. If you have time, let me know what you think.

Election night 2008

2008-11-05T20:08:00.001+02:00

At home with strep throat, I didn’t get to go to an election night party. I started watching CNN at 3:30 pm. However, as the first polls weren’t going to close until 1am Turkish time, which meant that I had a darn long time to watch CNN before anything started to happen. I watched their little backstage bit at least five times, and during the breaks instead of beer ads, watched every board of tourism east of Germany and west of America try to convince me that they had the most beautiful woman, beaches, etc. Either that, or it would be wise of me to get an MBA or go to a leaders conference in Dubai. Lying on pillows on the floor with dogs, I watched, waited, and hoped beyond hope, knowing that I had sent in my absentee ballot a week and a half before from Germany. At 5:30 I decided that Obama was going to win and went to sleep. Had I known that they were going to call it just half an hour later I would have stayed up. As it was, a friend and my mother called and woke me up at 6am to tell me Obama had won. Payback, my mother told me, for all the times I had woken her up to tell her UNC had won. And, as if to prove the two things are important enough to wake someone up over, Franklin Street was rushed after McCain conceded. Basketball and Obama. The two things worth staying up til 5:30 in the morning to watch from abroad. And, lying there with strep throat, as things went Obama’s way, I was much happier to be here now, than four years ago, sitting in the library at 2am with a broken heart, writing a paper the night before it was due, checking the returns online, and having my first fight with my mother in years as we watched the world fall apart wanting to cry.

This time I wanted to cry. For joy

Marathon and Halloween

2008-11-02T14:38:00.002+02:00

Istanbul, Turkey

Since returning to Istanbul, I am mostly just living. However, I no longer have my own place, and so I’ve been staying with various friends. And at this point I think I would like to say thank you to everyone who has put me up, and helped me on my way from the end of the festival to now.

A huge thanks to Rich and Jim, who gave me the gear, advice, and inspiration to hike the west highland way. Thanks to everyone I met on the way, to Daniel, Graeme and Karen for hosting me in Glasgow and showing me how fantastic the city is. To Tom and all his fellow assistant wardens for amazing food and adventures in St. Andrews. To Sarah in Manchester for taking me in at the last minute. To Lou and Olly for also giving me a place to stay at the last minute, for the hugs, and just generally being wonderful. To Charlie and Tiffany, for the awesomeness and fun of sunny Wales, and to Webster, for the birthday party and fold out sofa. But that’s only in the UK! Thanks to Ingo for having the amazing exhibition, to Buck, and amazing CS host, and Marko, for giving me my own space for two days. And in Istanbul, thanks to Hande, Collette, the dogs, Amy, the cats, and Brienne for putting me up so far. You all are absolutely amazing!!

And now after that short break, we return to Istanbul. I was exhausted after my flight here, and didn’t really do anything until Monday, when I went to the Kapili Carsi and the book exchange to visit people. The exception to that was to participate in the Istanbul Marathon on Sunday, October 26. It’s the only marathon in the world that spans two continents, and if you do it properly, it involves running 42 kilometers. There’s also a 15 kilometer fun run. But being much more the walking type than the running type, I participated, along with about 150,000 other Istanbul’lus in the Halk Korsusu, or the people’s course. It was about 6 kilometers from the Altunizade bridge on the Asian side, across the Bosphorus bridge to the European side, and then to just past Besiktas. It’s the one day a year that you can walk on the bridge, which explains why so many people turned up in the pouring rain. Usually, Turks are afraid of the cold and rain, convinced that they are going to get sick. I guess the other motivation was that if you had a number, you got a metal and a t shirt at the end. I didn’t have a number.

I guess the walk across the bridge could have been more amazing had it been clear and sunny so that it was possible to see Ayasofia and all the other historic mosques. And it would have been nice not to be soaking wet, through the three layers I was wearing. It took my shoes nearly three days to dry out. But it was amazing to walk across the bridge, and to look back and see the sea of umbrellas and hooded people being me. Sometimes people would feel inspired and run past, but mostly people just walked. I’ve never seen so many turks in one place before.

The other exciting, or perhaps not so exciting event was Halloween! Turks have not really gotten into Halloween yet, but some of the other foreigners had organized a party in one of the bars in Taksim. So after a three hour meeting (over amazing Thai food) on how we were going to make the pumpkin to carriage transformation for Cinderella, speech bubbles winter panto, we put on our Halloween gear. I had managed to scrape together a witch costume, with a skirt from Hande, a hat from Amy, and some green makeup from Sharon. I also had my own converse, and purple and black striped knee socks. Walking from the Galata tower nearly all the way to Taksim square (a 20 minute walk) I got an incredible number of stares. Some people just looked. Some said something about Halloween. And one girl stopped us and asked if we were going to a Halloween party. She was really excited and wanted to come as well.

There were some good costumes – a guy dressed as a belly dancer, Sarah Palin (she won the costume contest, hopefully the only thing she will win!), Penny from Hairspray, and a storm trooper. Sadly there was no pumpkin carving, but I did make a pumpkin pie instead.

Germany

2008-10-26T14:19:00.003+02:00

Due to technical problems of my computer hating the internet, photos coming soon!

Berlin

Arriving at the bus station with no reservation for a place to stay (no different than usual) I headed to the main train station and attempted to find tourist information. Most things in Berlin and Germany generally seem to be quite well signposted, but in this case I followed the signs for 700 meters, and when I got to where the tourist information should be, there was another batch of signs. The one for tourist information pointed me back 650 meters in the direction I had just come from. Something to work on Berlin, if you want to encourage happy tourists!

I took the u-bahn to the hostel I had stayed at the other two times I was in Berlin, but it was full. And so I spent a very hungry and tired hour on the internet obsessing about hostels, and decided to go with the Mitte backpackers hostel. They had space, it was all good. Dropping my stuff, I tried to wake up, brushed my teeth, went and found food, and for lack of anything else to do, wandered to Ingo's gallery. I hadn't told him that I was stopping by, and when I looked in I saw mostly photos I recognized, but no Ingo. The guy looked at me a bit strangely, and I was going to leave when Ingo came out. It was so nice to see him again. I realized how much I had missed him. I went in, looked around, helped a bit, and got in the way a bit. We took one framed photo and a print to the framer so she could swap out the prints, because the new one was better. We also went to the bindery to pick up the art book that Ingo had made for the exhibition.

After leaving, I wandered about a bit, and when it started pouring went back to the hostel, made some pasta, read some, and then crashed around 10 and slept over 12 hours. Amazing what some sleep can do for you. The next day I wandered about until I was meeting Ingo at 3. We went for amazing sushi and walked through Mitte until we parted ways so he could get ready for the opening at 6. I kept walking, and visited the Maur (wall) park. As you walk through the park on the left side where the wall once was, now there is nothing. It is separeted from the park by a fence, and is clearly still a sort of border area. From one of the plaques I read, perhaps they are keeping it that way as a sort of memorial.

The opening of Ingo's exhibition was the first art opening I had ever been to. When I got there it was still pretty empty, but it seemed that everyone else showed up at once soon after that and Ingo ran around stressed and tryed to talk to everyone. I had a fantastic time. I got to see Thies and Antje, Marko, Jorn and Filiz, as well as meeting Thies and Jorn's cousin, who was a bit crazy, and very funny. He tried to teach me how to say "I love stuffed tigers" in german, as well as other things. After a few hours in the gallery, the celebrations moved to a nearby bar. There was some food, and everyone drank a lot. At the end there was dancing.

The next day I met Thies and Anje for coffee, which turned out to be ice cream. They had just finished their berlin internship, and were leaving for Hamburg to start classes early the next morning. And then I took my things from the hostel to go stay with my lovely couchsurfing host, Buck. He has one of the most amazing, crazy flats that I've been in. As he puts it, it's beautiful, if you like dilapidated beauty, and I do. After talking a bit, we went over to his friends' house, and I stayed while he went to study german. The friends - Adam and Paul took me with them to see a band that some of their other friends play in, called the cowboy killers. It's a banjo guy who also plays kazoo, a guitar and harmonica player, and for that night, a bass. I guess they normally have a washboard player, and a drummer. The guys reminded me of people back in Chapel Hill. A bit funny to go all the way to berlin for american folk. The band was awesome though.

The next day I wandered around Kruzberg, one of the main Turkish neighborhoods in Berlin. I walked into a bakery, and asked for manti in Turkish. The guy looked at me and went off on this long string of german. I tried to explain that I didn't understand, when one of the german turkish guys sitting in the shop, who actually knew Turkish, stepped in, and told me the guy didn't have what I wanted. A little bit further on was a doner shop. So I stopped inside and asked if he spoke Turkish. Of course he said. Every donerci speaks Turkish. So we had a bit of a discussion. He told me he thought obama would be elected and then assasignated. And then he gave me free Baklava.

I finished my wanderings around Kruzberg, and went to the Kruzberg museum, which has a history of all the different groups to live in the area, and of migration to berlin and germany more generally. Returning to the flat I then went off to meet Buck at the karmenoya, where he and his friends were supposed to be having a reading group. Except when I got there I felt a bit out of place because everyone seemed to already know eachother, and I saw no one there that I knew.

Minutes later though, Buck showed up on his bike, with another bike in hand. They had just moved the location of the readinng group to where I had walked from, and so he thought I could ride a bike back. Having not ridden a bike in a city ever, I freaked out a bit, and told him he should go ahead because I would be a bit slow. Once I got on the bike though, it was amazing, although I had a bit of a hard time with the backpeddle breaks. The reading group was fun - much better than any english class I've ever taken.

I left Buck's house on Monday to meet Ingo at Marko's house. Ingo works mostly nights, so after falafel, it was time for him to nap. Later on we visited his friend and got ingredients for a bit of a strange dinner - mashed potatoes, hot dogs, guacamole, and pickles. It was fantastic though. We topped it off by watching the new indiana jones film and sharing a pint of hagan daaz tiramisu ice cream.

After breakfast the next day (I miss breakfast with Ingo!), Ingo departed for his parents, and I spent the next two days enjoying the solitude of Marko's flat and not going out. Thursday was my last day in Berlin, and I met Filiz, and at a wonderful lunch at her flat that she had cooked for me, before walking along the canal and visiting the swans. I also got to have coffee with Sarah (on a grand to do her dissertation research) and Ben, before heading back to have dinner with Marko, hear about his trip to paris, and then fly to Istanbul.

My flight left at 3am, but for some reason they thought I needed to be there two hours ahead of time. It was the only flight leaving at that time, and we all just sat around in the waiting place. The flight was very empty - I got an entire row to myself. Somehow, the budget airline fed us breakfast, and then I got to lye down for an hours sleep. I woke up for the landing, which made the whole extreme red eye flight seem worth it. It was perfectly clear, and still dark as we flew over Istanbul, and I could see all of the bosphorus, the bridges, Kadikoy harbor, and everything else. I felt like I was looking at a map. What a beautiful sight.

Sadly, it took me two and a half hours on the bus to get from the airport to Kadikoy, just as long as my entire flight from Germany to Turkey. I was back.

Tea, scones, and a long bus ride

2008-10-25T23:28:00.004+03:00

London

I woke up late, and Pi the cat showed me to Webster's room. After a bit of waking up time, we took the train to richmond, to the tea house, called the tea box, where webster works. Yes it was his day off, but we went there anyways. It's a really cute place, with a green theme, chandaleers and cool wooden tables. And I had my first proper tea the meal, although perhaps a bit early to really be tea the meal. Green tea, a ham and camembert sandwich, followed by more tea, a blueberry scone with lots of cream, and half a brownie. All of this was eaten very slowly over maybe three hours in a proper tea house like maner.

After concluding we couldn't eat or drink one more thing, we returned to Webster's house, and Webster's dad attempted to solve the puzzle of why my computer wouldn't connect to the internet. It turned out to be an unsolvable puzzle. Later that night I took what should have been two tube trains and ended up as four to liverpool street station to meet nick (another awesome c venues person). Concluding rapidly that there was nowhere to go at liverpool street station, we headed back to the tube to camden town, home to many more pubs, as well as shops, and in my opinion, a much cooler place. Apparently there was a major fire recently, but it was dark and I couldn't really tell. We had some beer, and talked about c venues, life, the universe, everything. It was really great to see him again.

My return to kew only took two trains. The next morning I got up early to see Webster off to work, hung about, packed my bag, printed my ticket, and then once again took everything on the tube, and lugged it to Victoria Coach Station. This time, not for a megabus, but a eurolines bus (gray with no markings) to Berlin.

And so began the 21 hour journey to Berlin. I was sitting next to a german woman with purple hair who spoke very little english. Getting out of london took forever and a half, and then we continued on to dover. There was some confusion about which lane we should be in, and our diver had to back the bus about 500ft, out of the lane he was in. At which point the other driving jumped out, and stood in traffic with his hand out, trying to get all the semi-trucks to stop so that the bus could merge. In Turkish style everyone on the bus stood up to watch and perhaps offer advice, and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. We then waited in this line for a bit as the boat docked and the other cars drove off. And then we all did burst out laughing, as the woman telling cars to go had to walk up to a van and wake up the driver who had fallen asleep. The woman looked a bit startled, confused, and a bit embarassed. I hope she didn't realize she had an entire bus watching her.

The boat ride took a bit over an hour, and as we were still in the UK, dover was covered in mist. The white cliffs at dover are very impressive though. And standing on the top deck I realized that I had been on the ferry from Dover to Calais once before, and that it had been 10 years ago. 10 years!! It made me feel old. I stood outside on deck most of the time to avoid being sick, and as the boat approached calais reboarded the bus. It was nearly dark by this time, and everyone started trying to sleep. At lille I got my own seat, and sometime later in the night the seat accross from me emptied and I could put my feet on it and lay down more or less. We stopped about two hours outside of berlin so our drivers could have breakfast, and then we were in Berlin. All things considered, I think I slept more than I usually do on buses.

Sunny Wales

2008-10-25T22:23:00.005+03:00

Swansea, Wales

I was determined to get to the borough market before I left london, and so Saturday I packed and went with lou, olly, and all my stuff including wheely suitcase to the market. It's a food lovers dream. For lunch I had a wild boar sausage with cranberry sauce, greens and mustard - absolutely amazing. It's like a super gourmet farmer's market with lots of jams, olives, meats, baked goods, fish, vegetables, you know, a market, except that it's in a nice area of london. And suitcase in market - not a good idea.

After not much time in the market, I had to say goodbye to lou and olly, and headed off to victoria coach station once again to catch the megabus to cardiff, and from there walked accross the center to get a bus to Swansea. I guess the bus area is not in the nicest part of town, and it was a bit empty when I walked out in search of charlie. I soon found her and we did that running to each other thing that happens in the movies. And then we walked to her house, and up the hill, or as I am told, mountain.

After being fed and meeting her sister, we headed out to meet some of Charlie's friends and go to a ska/punk/regee gig. I hadn't really been properly out to a show in a long time. Yes there was music at the fringe, but somehow that seems a bit different. The second ska band and the american guy playing regee were the best. Beer was served in plastic cups, which was confusing, as when you squeezed the cup, the beer spilt, and by the end everyone was dancing. I felt like I fit in fairly well with my blue hair. After the music finished we went to another bar with lots of girls in very short skirts trying to get the attention of guys that didn't look so impressive, and then went home. We were all hungry, and so Charlie's roommate Mali, who works as a chef at TGIfridays all day, made us pasta with cheese and egg. Never has pasta been so good.

Sunday Charlie had to work, and so Tiffany, the other roommate, photographer, and girlfriend of Mali and I went to the three cliffs on the gower peninsula. Tiffany is french, and has a french car, and so while it seemed much more normal not to be sitting in what is usually the drivers seat, it meant that she was sitting on the outside of the road as she drove and not the inside. She warned me that it had been a while since she had driven on the left, but there were no issues, and we arrived safely.

I was really excited to see the gower peninsula, because Rich's story from "Driving Helicopter Syle" was about going to the gower peninsula with his family. Granted he went to rosili and the worms head, but it was still the gower peninsula, and the weather was amazing - not a cloud in the sky. I remember one line from his story distincly - "and if it was a sunny day, and i'm told that there are sometimes sunny days in southern wales..."

The walk to the three cliffs was nice, and once we got there it was absolutely beautiful. We sat on the beach to eat lunch and watched the rock climbers, and
then walked to the end of the beach. The tide was coming in by this point, and we had to walk through a gap in the rock as the water was getting deeper and deeper. By the time we got through the water was past my knees.

On the way back to the car we picked brambles, not enough for a pie, but enough for a brambly apple crumble. We got back just before charlie, and hung about in the house. Adam, Charle's boyfriend and another friend showed up and we had dinner and my first attempt at a crumble. The top was good and everyone liked it, but for some reason the fruit didn't cook.

The plan was to have a bondfire on the beach, and so eventually we drug ourselves out of the house (okay, so I may have pushed a little). After finding firewood on the beach, and Adam dragging up an entire tree trunk, we attempted to make a fire. And attempted. And attempted. And used up all of the newspaper, then all of the scraps of paper we could glean from our bags and wallets, and then finally the lighter died. The answer from the welsh was firestarters for next time. On the way back Charlie gave me a tour of the rest of swansea by night, visiting the bar where she works on the way.

My last day in Wales I visited Charlie on her lunch hour, and we had the amazing brittish version of the baked potato in memory of the kupir we shared in istanbul. This potato had beans, butter, and loads of cheese. Welsh cheese. We sat in castle square, and then charlie got me welsh cakes. Fresh welsh cakes with sugar. I will dream about them for months to come. Returning to get my stuff I took the bus back to cardiff and then the megabus back to london, arriving at 7. Then there was the tube to hammersmith, where I found Webster and his friend Jake.

And this was the reason I had returned to London - to help Webster celebrate his birthday (part I). We went to an indian resturant, I met lots of his friends, was offered a civil partnership so I could get a visa to stay in the country and had amazing food. This was followed by a bar and then with my suitcase to webster's family's fold out couch.

London

2008-10-24T20:33:00.014+03:00

London

Olly and Lou's spare room reminds me of a cave. The bed is in a nook, and it's incredibly dark with the curtains shut, which means it's an incredible place for sleeping. Saturday morning I slept really late, and then lou and olly made a traditional english breakfast, complete with the baked beans. Yum! I spent most of the day sitting in their living room, learning how to use the program picassa and downloading my photos. In the evening Olly went out to meet Tammy, Lou went to see a possible show for next year at C Venues with Andrea, and I wandered the south bank, walked accross the thames twice, and distracted in a book store. The amazing thing about the UK, is that the books are all in English, meaning that I can read whatever I want when I go into a book store.

After their show was finished I met Lou and Andrea in the bar of the BFI, or Brittish Film Institute. It's a pretty happening place, with velvet arm chairs and lots of well dressed people. John soon joined us, and we had a great remeniss about C Venues. Later we met Tammy and Olly, and just got to this amazing Japanese resturant before they stopped serving. It's the only japanese resturant that I've been to that doesn't have sushi. I put my ordering power with the others, and we shared everything, including really good rice, quail, chicken, lamb chops, amazing egg plant, bacon and asparagus, and lots of edame. It was an absolutely amazing meal, and the food was also incredibly cute. It's a good thing that the trains to clapham junction run later than that tube, because we didn't get back to their flat until after 1.

Sunday, in typical brittish fasion, was a rainy day, perfect for hanging about and going to museums. We had breakfast together again (of the less cooked variety), and after some a pep talk about the need to get out into the world, I headed out into the world. I went to the free museums near prince albert hall, spending most of my time in the science museum, although I did pop into the natural history museum. As one who reads every bit of every exhibit (something that really annoys some people), it took me a long time to get through two exhibits. The main one I looked at was a history of steam power and the steam engine. They had collected old steam engines, bits of old machines, and each stage also had a computer terminal with animations of the workings of the engines and information about the key players. It was absolutely facinating! The other exhibit I visited was a history of plastic, which was also pretty darn cool. Further proof that I am a true nerd. That evening I helped Lou make curry, and rediscovered how fantastic a vegitable the parsnip is.

I woke up in the morning to sunshine! and remembering William's photos of Kew gardens, thought I would try to see them. With a week travel card (an amazing deal if you are going to be in london for a week!!) that was only good for zones 1 and 2, and not realizing i could top it up to go to zone 3 (you can top it up) I got off at the last stop in zone 2, and started in my way. I walked through the center of Chiswick, and then through a very boring stretch, before I crossed the river, and entered Kew. I think the best word that can possibly describe Kew is cute. It's extremely cute. The tracks for the underground, which at this point goes overground sort of splits the small center into two.

I did find the gardens, but at 13 pounds for entrance, with only two hours remaining, and no flowers at this time of year, I decided it wasn't worth it, and being the daughter of a historian, did what any logical person would do, I decided to check out the national archives. When I got there I was given a packet about how to go about conducting research if I wanted to. Instead, I checked out their museum. I found it really interesting - the importance of the archives and documents. Especially interesting were the exhibits on who gets to see what documents and how that changes politics, society, etc. In addition, the museum hosts the doomsday book, a land survey from the 10th century. I think it's the oldest book found from the UK. Just shows the importance of geography - the oldest book from brittian is about place.

Leaving the national archives I took the thames path along the south bank of the river. It runs through the forst, making it seem really hard to believe you are in a major world city. It seems as if you are in the middle of nowhere. I walked all the way to hammersmith, crossed the bridge, and took the tube home to have Olly's pasta and sauce for dinner, followed by watching stardust. Or maybe we watched that sunday. Things run together when you're having fun.

Tuesday I decided to return to the science and natural history museums. I went on a guided tour of the botany bits of the museum, which included behind a the scenes look at where they press and store all of the plant samples that come in. Back in the science museum, I visited some other exhibits. In the evening I ended up once again
meeting Lou, Andrea and John for the Royal National Opera's production of Swan Lake. We were in the upper stalls at the side on the top, which meant that we couldn't see the back drops or a bit of the action on stage left, but it was still a fantastic performance, and the music was wonderful. It's such a good show for the oboe.

Wednesday was the most beautiful day so far, and I walked the south bank, and basically went nuts with my camera. The clouds were perfect, the sky was amazing, the views were fantastic, there were lots of art students out working on projects, and two guys were making living rooms out of sand on the beach. One was just finishing as I got there, and he was sitting on his sand couch watching his sand tv, and hoping that people would toss some money down to him.

I walked all the way to St. Pauls, but I got there just as it was closing for mass, so didn't go inside. Instead, I went to the nearby tourist information, and asked likely one of the wierder questions that they get - do you know where I could buy corn tortillas? The guys had no idea, but said that there were some latino stores in the elephant and castle shopping center, so I headed there to have a look.

There were no corn tortillas in the elephant and castle shopping center. The shopping center is a mall that has fallen from popularity. The top floor is bingo. On the ground floor is Tesco, Iceland (a very discount supermarket) and Boots. There are lots of other random stores, and one latin american deli sort of place. The area outside is full of stalls selling clothing and random other stuff, with a few food stalls as well.

Giving up, I went home to make enchiladas with flour tortillas. Webster came over for dinner as well, and much fun was had by all. The four of us managed to finish off two trays of enchiladas and four avicados worth of guacamole. I also had my first amaretto, which unlike most alcohol tastes just as it smells.

Thursday I decided was my day to visit Greenwich. After attempting to do some cleaning in the kitchen, which was a bit of a disaster from my cooking the night before, I headed out late. I also wanted to visit the docklands, as they are supposed to have canals, and also have changed a huge amount in the past 10 or 20 years. So I took the Docklands Light Rail (DLR) for a tour of the docklands on my way to Greenwich. They had a reputation for being run down, but now it's all tall buildings, posh stores and offices. The canals are pretty, but it may be the area of London that is most changed. Not interested enough to stop I headed all the way to Greenwich. The area is cute, and after a bit of walking I found the park where the observatory is.

I went first into one side, but really wanted to visit the side with the prime meridian, and so went back to the center, at which point I was told it was 4:31, and that we had past last enterance time. They wouldn't let be back into the area from which I had just come either, which was very annoying. And so I did not get to see the prime meridian as it goes through the royal observatory. But the park was really nice, and the view from the top of the hill was fantastic.

I walked a bit more in Greenwich, took the pedestrian tunnel under the Thames, and then headed to north london for dinner with Rashmi and Subir. They live on the same road as they did when I visited them nearly four years ago, but in a different flat, which they own. Apparently the view is fantastic during the day, but it was night. Subir had made a chicken dish and a vegetable dish, the names of which I have forgotten, but they were both amazing. We talked about chapel hill, and politics, and watched some BBC, which was my first TV news in a long time. They said they were thinking about getting online booking for their spare room, as it was in such high demand. I told them next time I was back I would go to their site and book a few days. Going back to south london I learned how to top up my oyster card, before begining the long journey back.

For my last day at Lou and Olly's I actually woke up at a decent hour, so that I could go with lou to the c venues office to help for the day. My job for the day was to read through all of the duty logs, and to see which companies overran their time slots, and by how much. Not the most exciting of things, but it was nice to do some work, and be back in the c venues world for a day. And that evening lou and olly went out, and I visited the fresh and wild store - really whole foods, where you can get corn tortillas, refried beans, and north carolina salsa. I got a frozen burrito and some ben and jerry's, and ate it while watching Dirty Dancing and Singing in the Rain. Fantastic.

Going south

2008-10-20T00:29:00.008+03:00

Glasgow and Manchester

From St. Andrews I headed back to Glasgow. Daniel was packing to return to the US and Sandra was off on holiday. Highlights included the glasgow green, the lighthouse, fajitas and more sucessful brownies with Graeme. And walking and walking down by the river on my own.

I left Glasgow Wednesday for Manchester with the lovely MegaBus. If you haven't heard of megabus, it works similarly to the budget airlines. The first ticket is one pound, and after that they go up from there depending on demand. So, especially if you can plan a bit ahead, it's a great way to travel cheap. And I hear it's already begun in the US. I arrived in Manchester around 4, and wasn't meeting Sarah, a friend from the festival until 10, so I had a lot of time to do something with. None of the guys from the bus station dressed in their neon yellow high vis could actually were from manchester, but they did tell me that there was no left luggage in this bus station. So I followed the signs to tourist information. They told me that there was supposedly left luggage at the train station, and that there was a free bus to get there. They also did what tourist information does best and gave me a free map. The woman proceeded to circle almost everything on it as a point of interest, especially cicling the northern quarter - known for it's artsy nature. Perhaps it was the blue hair.

The bus to the train station was packed, and I kept having to get off with my bag to let people out. The first time, the driver didn't seem to realize that I wanted to get back on and almost drove off without me. I did find the left luggage, and was thrilled to be rid of my bag, although I was still carrying my pack with laptop. Following the advice of the tourist information lady, I headed to the northern quarter, which was very cool, but sadly, it also started to rain. I went to a cafe, had tea, and hid for a couple of hours. By the time I left the cafe it had stoped raining, but I still had a few more hours. I walked in the direction with the most people, and soon found a tesco. Buying a bagel, I proceeded back into the street, and, feeling rather homeless I squatted next to a building and made myself a cheese sandwhich bagel. Just when I had finished a woman came up to me and asked me where I had gotten it as it looked good and she wanted one. Should go into business.

My wanderings led me to the nightlife area, a very disnified passage, and a large wheel. Apparently an IRA bomb went off in this area, destroying buildings, but injuring no one, and so they have been able to redesign the area. I met up with Sarah a bit later, and we took the bus to her flat. She had been at the greyhound races, and had won 10 pounds. We had time for a short reminiss about c venues, and then it was time for sleep. In the morning she went off to work and I went back to the center of Manchester feeling just a tad worried about my complete lack of plan.

I had been hoping to stay with a friend of Tom's on her canal boat, but it seems that this was not to work out. I visited the library where I did the large amount of paperwork necessary to secure my absentee ballot (as north carolina is now a swing state!) and then visited a rather old and famous library, which looked exactly how a proper library should look in my mind. Or, at least definetly how I expect the library at hogwarts looked. And it's still in use for the university. I bought a bus ticket to london, wandered around more, and called Olly who told me it would be fine if I stayed with them tonight, at the very last minute. Returning to the train station I got my luggage exactly 24 hours after I put it in, returned to the bus, or rather coach station, and took my second megabus in two days.

London was another five hours, and then it was two stops on the local train to clapham junction. It was fantastic to see lou and olly again. It was going to be my first time having a bed in a room to myself in weeks, to have some space. And Lou and Olly are amazing. I got there at the end of a dinner party, and after giving them my bottle of wine with the prettiest label, I sat down, was given risotto, and was so happy that I wanted to cry.

Pi(e) and dumplings

2008-10-17T14:40:00.008+03:00

St. Andrews

After all the excitement in Glasgow, I headed back to Edinburgh for a day to return the camping gear that I now think of as mine, and to be reunited with my computer and suitcase. It was great to see Rich again as well. I put all my photos on the computer, which caused my camera battery to die twice, and got to sleep in a proper bed in a room to myself, a rare occurance.

The next evening I took the bus to St. Andrews and was met at the bus station by Tom and his friend Vikash. As I have hosted two guys named Tom on couchsurfing, let me clarify. This is not the cycling Tom currently in Iran, but the one who is now back from Iran and studying Iranian history at St. Andrews. Not only is he studying, he is an RA, or as they call themselves, assistant warden. Which means that he and five others take turns being on duty and dealing with fire alarms and drunk first years in the dorm. But instead of having to live in a dorm room, they get flats in the dorms. As he visited me twice in Istanbul, I thought it was only fair that I called on him in St. Andrews. St. Andrews is known for two things - the university, and GOLF. Golf being the more important of the two. In the middle ages they had to ban golf as it was getting in the way of the far more important archery practice. In addition to many golf courses, there is a ruined castle and a ruined cathedral.

I spent five nights in St. Andrews, all of which was amazing. I think the most amazing bit was the last day, where Tom and I went out in search of wild blackberries, or brambles, as it is scotland. We walked to the trailer park, and after hopping over the fence found many. We had not thought beyond finding the brambles however, and hadn't brought a sack. So in a feat of amazing engineering which has not been repeated since, I managed to take off the bottom of four layers without exposing myself. The bottom layer was black so I was hoping it wouldn't stain. With my shirt tied up as a sack, we proceeded to completely fill it with brambles in a short time, and only a few scratches. My hands, however, had turned completely purple.

Tom had to return home, but I wandered around town, and then had the most scary tesco (a grocery store) experience of my life. Back in Tom's flat I stressed about finding a circular pan to make my bramble pie, before realizing that this could be a square, and therefore very nerdy pie. Instead of making the traditional lattice I wrote, perhaps at Tom's suggestion, Pi(character) r squared(character) on the top. Because as we all know after taking geometry, pies are no longer round, pies are square.

After finishing the pie I helped Tom's flatmate Yaning finish making the 200 or so dumplings that she was making. The other assistant wardens came over and we sat on pillows (bits of my bed really) on the floor of Yaning's room and ate dumplings until we couldn't move. And then we ate more. Sometime later the pie was done, and Katy and I decided that it needed cream. So we walked to Tesco for a much less scary tesco experience to get cream and custard. And it was a really good pie.

Other highlights include yet another freshers week. Because I was hanging out with all postgrads, they are a little bit more classy than freshers, and so I went to several receptions with free wine, which was exciting. I also went to Katy's birthday party, where she had a giant fudge doughnut we had picked up earlier as a birthday cake. It was amazing. St. Andrews in general is a quite foody town. There is an amazing cheese shop, several delis and bakeries, a butcher, and did I mention the amazing cheese shop? The brittish do make some amazing cheeses.

Then there was the night when Tom, Vikash and I went to the beach with a mostly full bottle of whisky. Let me share this advice - never drink (accidentally or on purpose) more than a brittish male, especially a former rugby player. It did end up that a guy from northern cyprus came along the beach with two friends, and we had a very strange conversation in Turkish.

Most of what I did in St. Andrews looking back was talk, discuss politics, eat good food, drink wine, walk, and hang out. A very good life indeed.

Return to Civilization

2008-10-16T19:09:00.006+03:00

Glasgow

The next morning I woke up absurdly early, found myself once again on the school bus, spent an hour in a coffee shop in portree eating a breakfast scone, and then boarded the 7 hour bus back to Glasgow. Part of the trip followed the way, and it was a bit depressing to drive a bit that had taken me a day to walk in half an hour. And a guy sat down next to me, and it took me a few minutes to recognize him as someone who had stayed in my hostel in Fort William. It's a very small world.

Back in Glasgow, I met up with Daniel, the guy from Tenessee that I had met on the walk. He had returned a few hours earlier from Inverness. I got a real shower with a real towel and real shampoo and it was amazing. We had the rest of my cheese and salsa, and then Daniel's roommates showed up - Graeme and Sandra. Graeme is from Scotland and is studying audio visual engineering at Glasgow Uni. Sandra is from Germany and is an architect. Later some of their friends showed up and it turned into a party. I spent the night on my first couch since the end of the festival - very comfy, in a lovely red nook behind the table in the kitchen. It was a bit on the short side though.

I hung out there all the next day, enjoying being inside and having electricity. That evening I walked accross Kelvingrove park to stay with Karen, whom I know through the festival. It was the end of freshers week at Glasgow, and so Stag (Student Theatre at Glasgow) was putting on a showcase to entice first year students. A note on this freshers week thing - in the UK, when people go to uni, at least 95% of them are 18 or over, meaning that they can legally drink. And so there is a week before classes begin where first years (freshers) move into the halls and then have lots of university sponsored orientation events, and get horribly drunk. Something we US freshman completely missed out on due to stupid alcohol rules.

Anyways, the showcase was fantastic and I got to see more people from the festival and got invited to the party they were having the next night. And people tried to talk me into staying to perform in the first show of the season.

Saturday, I visited the Kelvingrove museum in the morning. The building is amazing - it looks like a cathedral - but apparently was built for an event like the worlds fair. I focused mainly on the exhibits relating to scotland. The most interesting was about Charles Rene Mackintosh, who designed a huge number of buildings in Glasgow, specializing in tea rooms. I think he is most remembered for his distinctive chairs. Then I met up with Karen and I walked to Byers road - one of the shopping streets of the west end. I continued a wander into town while she returned home to do work. The party that night was great - with a theme of 1999 and lots of decorations to match. Theatre parties everywhere seem to be fairly similar. Perhaps a bit drunk, I discovered the wonder that is chips and korma sauce.

Discovering once again that a lot of cheap wine isn't good for one's head I was a bit slow in the morning, then walked into town and to the cathedral. The cathedral was nothing spectacular, but the cathedral museum, St. Mungo's had an absolutely fantastic photography exhibition on of iraqui refugees in Syria and then in Glasgow. I stood there at the end in tears, and really wished they had a catologue of the exhibition.

Having heard about the huge cemetary called the necropolis, I walked up to the gate as a large group of people were standing there. A woman asked me if I wanted a tour and so I said yes. 2 hours later I had walked all over the cemetary, and knew more about the people burried there and the symbolism of different head stones than I would have thought possible. The guides, with their very dry glaswegian humor, were great.

I returned to Karen's and then crossed Kelvingrove park again to stay with Graeme. Both Daniel and Sandra had gone to Germany. We visited an amazing tea shop just behind their flat and then wandered the west end. And I concluded that I really like Glasgow.

Adventures in Skye

2008-10-07T13:58:00.012+03:00

Portree, Uig, Dunvegan

When I woke up the next morning, the rain had stopped and the cow was still mooing. I packed up my stuff, headed back to the road, and watched the bus to portree drive past me as I walked to the bus stop. Turns out that if I had stuck my hand out the bus would likely have stopped because it's a rural road, but I didn't know that. So I walked to the visitors center for the castle I had passed the day before, asked the guy in the garden shop lots of questions, and sat out front waiting for the bus.

I took the bus to broadford, with the intention of exploring. It had not yet sunk in how tiny all of the places in Skye are. I was dropped off in front of the co-operative grocery store, and bought supplies. And then I had a quick walk around, and realized there was nothing to see here, and that I would be best continuing to Portree. So I got on the next bus, but didn't have enough money. I was going to wait for the next bus, but the driver took all the change I had and told me to get on. Then, when I got off the bus he handed me a ticket and change. I gave him a funny look and he said he had just put me into the system as getting onto the bus at a later point on the route. And so he was giving me change! It was one of those moments that reaffirmed for me the kindness of strangers.

Portree is nice enough, although their main square has been turned into the island bus station. The town is very cute, and full of cute shops and resturants. I visited the Skye Batik store, where they told me to put my pack down and handed me coffee. Reading the information sheet, skye batiks had originally been produced in skye, but because it took so long for things to dry, people were buying their batiked items wet and taking them home to dry. So they moved the opperation to Sri Lanka. Being a good world citizen, I wanted to make sure they treated their workers okay. I asked, and the guy told me it was his wife and her family working. "I wanted to exploit them" he joked, "but my wife wouldn't let me." Probably makes for happier workers if they get to sit in the sun, than working with fabric that refuses to dry in skye.

I wandered down to the harbor, where one couple was fishing, and wandered around the rest of the place. And then got on the 3:30 bus to Uig (apparently pronounced ooig). The first stop was the Portree High School, where I discovered that although this bus was public transport on the surface, it was actually a school bus. It was soon filled with uniformed kids aged 12 to 16 or 17, and, sitting there with my big backpack, my now green hair tied up in a scarf, I was something to be ignored. Evesdropping on their conversations, it made me glad to have finished high school.

I ended up getting off the bus at the Quaraing. The lady at the batik shop told me it had an amazing view, so once again I found myself hiking up a large hill with my heavy pack. The view was indeed amazing, although it would have been better if it was less misty. I thought that scotland in general was a green place, but Skye can make there rest of scotland look practically brown. As I was standing at the top pondering the walk down, an older man walked down from the ridge to where I was standing, and asked me if I'd like a lift down to the road. The same woman in the batik store had told me that hitchhiking was an acceptable method of transit on skye, especially on roads where buses did not run, so I accepted his offer. He told me that he had walked to the Quaraing. Apparently it's actually a rock formation, inside of which is absolutely flat. I couldn't have walked it that day, however, because by the time I was on the ridge, it had been covered in fog. He and his wife were English, but came up to Skye every year for holiday. He also told me that the cattle auction had started the day before, and most calves were being sold. The reason for the all night mooing suddenly became very clear - this mother had lost her child.

Back down at the bottom I waited for the last bus of the day. While I waited I went down to the sea side, and was passed by a group of cattle. Back on the road, I watched as this group of cattle ran up and down the road, followed by guys in small farm vehicles. After about the fourth time, I asked one guy if this was cow exercise day. No, he told me. We're separating out the mothers from the young. They had already put one calf in a separate pen, and it's running mother kept trying to escape the group to go to her calf.

It turns out the bus I was waiting for was only going to go half of the remaining distance to uig before it stopped for the night, but the driver did let me on, and then I stood by the road and watched as he parked his bus and went home. With no good camping area nearby, I did something that will frighten my mother, and stuck out my thumb. After about 20 minutes a car stopped. The guy told me eventually he would be going to uig, but he was taking the long way. A minute later another car stopped. It was a german couple, also going to uig. They rearranged their stuff, and managed to fit me into the car.

I asked the guy if he had trouble driving on the left, and he said now. Not that it was a problem on this particular road, as it was a single track road. His wife was on sheep spotting duty though, and kept yelling sheep, sheep. She was a doctor and he was an engineer, and they had hired a car to explore scotland for a couple weeks. As we came to the west side of the island, the sunset was absolutely spectacular, and so they pulled over to take photos. They drove me all the way to the camping site at uig, I thanked them, and then they sped off to find a B and B.

The camp site wasn't exciting. Uig wasn't exciting. It was getting dark, and I set up my tent, made dinner, and then visited the pub, which like the pub the day before, was empty. Determined to find some life I walked past the pier where the ferries to the outer hebridies depart from, and back toward the main road to portree. The only sign of life I found was two boy playing with a ball in the middle of the road. I turned around, went back to my tent, and slept.

Waking up to another cloudy but dry day, I visited the Skye brewery, tried this drink called kyte, which is microbrewed ginger beer with 1% alcohol. Mine was also made with tayberries, so it was tayberry kyte. And then I caught the bus back to Portree. My plan was to go to Dunvegan, but there wasn't a bus for three hours, which would have put me in Dunvegan too late to see anything. And so I tried the hitchhiking thing. Walking to the edge of town, standing next to the post office, I waited. But everyone kept pointing to the post office. I found out later that I could have gotten a lift with a postman if I had asked. But I didn't know.

And so I started walking. Half an hour later, a car with two old men stopped and offered me a lift. They had seen me walking when they drove into town as well. The guy who was driving, told me that he is a crofter with 80 cattle and 200 sheep. His friend works as the gardener for a hotel out in the middle of nowhere, and so the guy takes his friend into town once a week so he can buy groceries. He told me how there used to be grocery vans. One company would come by on a monday, another on a wednesday and another on a friday. Nowdays, he doesn't even bother to milk his cows anymore, he just buys milk at the grocery store. And people don't want to live in the country anymore. They are going to build lots of new council houses up at portree. People want to live in town.

He let me off on the road to Dunvegan, and I tried my luck one last time. 20 minutes later a car came toward me and stopped. I was a bit confused, until they explained to me that they were going to Dunvegan, but there had been a police car behind them and they couldn't stop. So they had turned around to come back and get me. I got to sit in the back with my pack and their very friendly black lab named Jake. They were surprised to see me hitchhiking, saying that when they were young they had done it all the time but now things were different. I said that I had been told it was okay on Skye, but wouldn't do it anywhere else. The woman had been in the brittish equivalent of the peace corps, and they both had some good stories. They gave me a ride all the way to Dunvegan, showed me the campsite, and then let me off in the center of town.

At tourist information the woman advised me not to wild camp, and so I walked back the direction I had just been, to the campsite, put up my tent in the wind, and walked back into town to have a look at the castle. The castle at Dunvegan is the McLeod clan's. It looks impressive from the outside, but sadly, they redecorated at the end of the 18th century, and the inside is a bit too frilly for my taste. The history bit was interesting, and the gardens were very nice. And it was my first castle of this journey, so it seemed about time, as I had been in scotland over two months. And I had a camera epifany in the gardens.

Checking in both pubs, I came to the conclusion that perhaps bars are alive during weekends on Skye, but every pub is empty during weekdays. I returned to my tent, cooked my emergency ramen noodles, chatted to the guy running the campsite, who turned out to be a postman. He told me there used to be postbuses on Skye, but they had decomissioned the last one this summer. And then I spent my last night in the tent.

Difficulties with Laundry

2008-10-06T22:02:00.008+03:00

Fort William to Skye

I have to say, fort william isn't a very exciting place. And they don't have a launderette. The largest town in the highlands (second to inverness, the only city in the highlands) and they don't have a launderette. I got in a bit too late to do my laundry the night before, but thought I'd be able to do it on my own the next day. And so my washing hunt began.

I checked out of the hostel, had more cheese and salsa sandwiches, wandered around a bit, and went into the big hotel to ask if they had ideas on where to do my washing. They said there was a launderette in the next village up, but it was closed onsundays. But there was a hotel three miles the other direction that had a laundry room, yes she had used it and was sure I could use it.

She gave me the wrong time for the bus out there, and I just missed it, and thinking I was going to malaig and maybe sky today, I wanted to get on with things, and not wait another two hours for the bus with a trash bag full of my very smelly clothes. So I found a taxi to this hotel. I paid the guy a very large amount of money, got out of the cab, went into the hotel, and the guy said, yes we have a laundry room, but all of our dryers are broken. At this point I wanted to cry, but the sun had managed to come out, and so I sat outside reading for an hour waiting for the bus to take me back.

At this point I found internet somewhere, and did a futile search for launderettes anywhere near malaig. None. And so I came to the logical conclusion, about four hours and 10 pounds on transport too late. I could stay at my hostel for another night, and do washing. And so I sheepishly checked back in, then went out, now too late for anything to be open, I got the most amazing scone, and as the place was closing, sat on a bench, eating my scone from a Styrofoam box, writing and trying to make sense of my life.

A couple came up to me, wanting to know where I got my food. It's that way, I told them, but it's closed now. As was everything else on the street. But they found food somewhere, and returned to the bench next to mine, to eatchinese, and give their dog water. They were headed to inverness.

My clothes actually got clean! There's nothing so good as burying your face in freshly washed and tumbled dry laundry, still warm. I ate canned tesco soup, watched brave heart, went out for half an hour to hear music in the local pub, and then collapsed into my bed.

Once again having to leave the hostel by 10, I had more salsa and cheese sandwiches (see a pattern?) and then went to the train station. The train that was leaving formalaig was the Jacobite express, pulled by a steam locomotive. Similar rolling stock was used for the filming of harry potter, and they filmed it on this very bit of railroad. The company has used it as an excuse to make it's prices way high, and so I settled for photographing the train as it left, and then taking the next train on the same track.

The steam engine was so cool!! As it pulled out, I took a photo every second. For a train nerd, it would make a super cool flipbook. And the ride itself was absolutely amazing. A conductor kept telling the group of older people near me about the landmarks along the way, and so Ieavesdropped and saw the viaduct that features in harry potter. This is one of those railways that doesn't go along the road, but
instead goes straight through the mountains, ending inmalaig. It's also called the road to the isles.

I spent all of 15 minutes in Malaig before deciding it wasn't exciting and that I should get on the boat for skye that was about to depart. And what do you know, but it started to rain. After ditching my pack inside, I stuck my camera underneath my raincoat, and headed to the top deck. It was very misty, but clear enough to be able to see the outline of land in front of us.

As the boat was landing I returned inside to put my camera away. I set it on the seat next to me and then heard a woman ask "bubenim fotograf makinesim mi?" ("is that my camera" in Turkish) "benim" ("mine") I automatically answered. She had a bit of difficulty comprehending, and so asked in English.I once again aswered in Turkish. She and her husband were from Izmir, and in scotland visiting their son and his girlfriend who live in Aberdeen. The son is an engineer working with BP. We chatted and then they insisted on introducing me to the son and girlfriend. It was slightly awkward, and only succeeded in making the girlfriend feel bad about not knowing more turkish. The son said they would like to give me a ride, but there really wasn't space. No problem I said, I'm going to camp around here tonight.

It was pouring as I walked into the one shop by the pier. It's a shop of funky clothes andjewelery , and seems a bit out of place out by the sea in the grey mist. The women inside told me that they actually do a lot of business with people going to and from the boats. I was no exception, and bought a bag to replaced my much loved and completely worn out bag that I bought in Marrakesh, almost a year and a half ago.

The woman inside told me that there was not much to do in town, a pub, that's it. She thought people sometimes camped in the woods a bit up the way because she had seen fires there sometime. And if I walked about three miles up the road there was thegaelic collage, and sometimes they had events there. I decided to try my luck with the town, as it was much closer. The town consisted of a run-down hotel with tiny and completely empty bar, tiny shop, and a few houses. Stepping back out into the pouring rain, a bitdisillusioned, I began to walk north along the road. I passed the armandale castle, home of some clan, and a bit farther on saw a trail leave the road. I hiked up it, and in the first clear spot I got to, pitched my tent. Thank goodness for the lack oftrespass laws in scotland.

It was only 4 pm at this point, and I spent the rest of the day hiding inside my tent, reading, and for the first time, used the enormous porch on my tent to cook. Earlier in the day I had stopped into an outdoors store to get more methylated spirits for my stove. Reading the bottle I discovered that this noxious purple liquid is mainly used to clean glass, and has a very highVOC rating. But, some clever person had invented cans of green jelly made of high quality sugar alcohol that burned to leave only water and carbon dioxide, left no trace, was absolutely amazing, etc. This was my first time using it, and to me it smells just as bad as methylated spirits, but in a different way.Nonetheless, my conscience was eased by the promised environmental qualities and I breathed through my mouth.

At some point late in the evening the rain mostly stopped, and as I fell asleep I listened to the mournful moo of a cow, which lasted all through the night.

West Highland Way - the end

2008-10-05T21:52:00.013+03:00

King's House to Fort William

The next morning my shoes were marginally dry, and it promised to be a lovely and dry day. The day promised to be a hike, as I would be climbing the devil's staircase, the highest point on the way at 500 meters.

The first few miles were uneventful, walking along through the moor, looking at the mountain the guys I met the night before were at that moment climbing. The sun was out an I was happy. I kept looking back, and the king's house took a long time to disappear from sight.

And then the way started to climb. Gradually at first, and then it zig zaged up, up and up. I would get to one of the points by telling myself that once I got there I could stop for a minute. Then I would continue on to the next turn. And the next. And the next. As I staggered to the top I saw thegermans making their picnic lunch, and the south africans who were returning from climbing up the ridge on the side to the view point. Since I have this very strong drive, for some reason, to always get to the highest places to get the amazing views even though I amafraid of heights, I started up this bit. A few minutes in though, I decided that I wasn't carrying my pack up. I took out my camera and money, thinking it was too heavy (at 40 pounds) for anyone else to want to carry it.

The non-existent path to the top was extremely boggy and muddy, but there was indeed a fantastic view at the top. Sadly though, it was too cloudy to be able to see Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Brittan. It was my first time using a self timer on a camera, though, which was very exciting.

Back down at the top of the pass, I ate my lunch, yet more cheese and tomato sardine sandwiches, but was forced to walk as I ate it, so that themidgies would leave me alone. Somehow they had managed to get to the highest point on the trail. Horrible creatures. From that point on it was mostly flat and downhill. I walked along the side of a valley, with lots of sheep. It was very green, and there were lots of waterfalls. As the path started to go downhill, it was very rocky, and a bit difficult to walk.

This path eventually came to an old building related to the aluminium works, and the path turned into a gravel road and entered into the woods. With no more rocks to pick my way over, I widened my stride, and went flying down that gravel road that seemed to go on forever. Walked through the woods, and for a bit beside huge pipes that were bringing water into the town ofkinlochleven for use in the aluminium smelting. I also passed some bikers that were making their way up the hill, which made me feel very victorious in having the devil's staircase behind me.

I entered the town, the biggest place I had seen since visiting drymen on my second day, and who did I run into but the germans. I was thinking to go to the grocery store, buy food, and wild camp, but I was so exhausted that I decided to stay in the campsite. The town, and campsite were full of whitewater kayakers. This was the weekend where they were letting water out from the dams on two different rivers, and so the kayakers had turned it into a festival. I once again made more pasta 'n sauce, while the sunset light the entire sky neon pink, and to celebrate being back in civilization, had some cider as well. Sadly, thekayakers were not exhausted from walking, and were not the quietest. The also had some of the most massive tents I've seen in my entire life. Like the harry potter flat tent that could likely sleep 12.

Grumpy after not getting to sleep until after 2, I tried to get up early my last day, knowing that I had 14 miles ahead of me. Fortunatly it wasn't raining, and I packed up my gear, headed back to the grocery store for things I had forgotten, and headed out of the town. It was good to get back to the middle of nowhere. Sadly though, having climbed down into the valley yesterday, almost to sea level, from the 500 meters, meant that I had to now climb back up the other side of the valley.

At first it was through the woods, and then on the flat. I thought it might have actually have been more difficult than that devil's staircase, but I made it. It flattened out, and sometime later I stopped to have my last lunch on the road. Completely sick of sardines, and having been able to visit the store, I had moved on to cheese and salsa sandwiches.

The way was mostly flat for the rest of the first half of the walk. I passed some ruined buildings, walked on the side of another valley, kept passing and being passed by this same couple, trying to keep my feet dry, and scaring sheep. The walk seemed to stretch out forever. But at least it wasn't raining. Then, I got into what I thought were supposed to be forestry plantations, but all of the trees had been newly cut down, and the place looked like a war zone, and more than a bit creepy. I passed the cairn marking a major turning point in thejacobite wars I think, and then came upon a sign telling me that I had only 6.5 miles remaining.

And it started to rain. This was definitely the lowest 6.5 miles of the journey for me. I was quickly wet. I was tired. I was hungry. My shoes were wet. I was walking through a landscape that seemed unfriendly. And I just wanted to be done. I walked through dense forest, across some very high stiles, though more vast tracts of chopped down trees,reminiscent of the larax, through more dense dark and creepy forest, and stopped to eat my last emergency snickers bar.

Then there was a detour with unclear signs. And I ended up on a gravel road
I wasn't sure was right. Then on a paved road, passing theben nevis visitor's center. It was pouring at this point. I didn't think the rain would stop, the road would stop. It was a horribly anti-climactic end to mytrans formative walk. I saw the bridge where I knew it ended, but it took me a moment to spot the sign. As it was raining I couldn't photograph the end, but I did kiss the sign, and almost cried for joy. And then I walked to the center.

Asking a couple for directions, I was guided to the bank street lodge. Outside was a sign that said no vacancies, and as I entered she was just telling someone on the phone that no, they were completely booked. But, miracle of miracles, they had one female spot left in a dorm. The only spot in the whole place. Once again, I was so happy I almost cried. I ran totesco to buy soap, and the woman at the desk lent me a towel for free. It was the most amazing shower, but everything I had was wet and stinky, and I ended up having to wear my shorts with waterproof trousers over them out to find food.

I had the steak pie I had been dreaming about all day, and some belhaven's best ale, almost fell asleep at the table as I waited for the check, and then collapsed into a real bed, with a real blanket, in the complete darkness, able to sleep flamingo style properly for the first time in 9 days.

I did it. On a whim, inspired by wikipedia, I walked over 95 miles in my amazing trainers with only one small blister. I ate 10 candy bars, spent 10 nights in my tent, 6 of them wild camping and 3 in campsites. I had four tins of sardines, and was wet, cold, hot, grumpy,frustrated, exhilarated, overwhelmed, inspired, proud, tiny, powerful, and very happy.

West Highland Way - Rannoch Moor

2008-09-30T16:54:00.006+03:00

Tyndrum to King’s House

The next morning I woke up to a stop in the rain. None of my clothes had dried however, and so I put them in the dryer before I left. There is something amazing about clothes right out of a tumble dryer. I guess it’s because I’ve gotten so used to hanging up clothes to dry. On my way out of town I stopped for food at the last market for 28 miles. With three tins of sardines, tuna, dried pasta, cheese, and more chocolate bars I was ready to head out. I also bought some waterproof over trousers.

Tyndrum marks the beginning of the Rannoch moor. By some it might be considered bleak, boggy grass, heather, hills, and little stream cut across the land. I thought it was absolutely beautiful, and kept having to turn around and look in all directions as I walked. As you go over a small hill, the view always changes. It is very empty though. Walking through I had this feeling of complete insignificance, and at the same time of great power. I had already walked over 50 miles, and was carrying everything on my back. I could do anything. And yet, in the cosmic scheme of things, I am tiny. Maybe this feeling was helped by the fact that I’ve been reading Sophie’s World along the way.

From Tyndrum northward, the way mostly follows an old military road, making it much easier walking than the banks of Loch Lomond. The seven mile walk to Bridge of Orchy was one of the easiest sections of the way I think. It was mostly flat, and mostly not raining. I got there much faster than I expected. The first thing you see when you get to Bridge of Orchy is the train station, followed by the town, and last, the bridge. I guess before they built the bridge, everyone had to go miles around, because people weren’t able to ford the river, and building the bridge made the route over the moor much faster. The village is very small and cute, but they are selling the primary school. I wonder where the kids will go to school now.

Just after I left Bridge of Orchy, the weather took a turn for the worse. It’s only two miles to Inveroran, but it seemed as long as the previous seven miles. The path is basically up over a line of hills, and then down the other side. I think the view at the top could have been amazing, but by the time that I got there, I was completely enclosed in fog. I sat at the top, on the cairn, needing a break, but freezing and soaking wet. I think it was sheer will power that got me down to the inn at Inveroran.

Just past the inn is a grassy spot next to a bridge – a free camping spot. When I arrived the Germans from the night before were already there, as was the group with the dogs. Everyone tried to get their tents up as quickly as possible, and then we sat in the wind and rain and cooked dinner. I love my waterproof trousers!! On the other hand, my raincoat had long before soaked through, and wasn’t doing much good. Eating the heaviest things first, I had rice and baked beans.

And then we all went back to the inn to sit in the warm and the dry and drink. The Germans had a plan to try all the whisky on the list. Sarah (the American with the Germans) and I taught them how to play the game bullshit, which was pretty funny. The dog walkers gave their dogs corona. And by the time we left the rain had mostly stopped and our things were drier.

The next morning the rain held off until I got my tent down, but then started off again. I was cold, my raincoat was still wet, and I was grumpy. I was going to do the eight mile hike to king’s house and it was going to rain the whole way and everything was wet, and it was gray.

There was a break in the rain, and I sat down near some trees hoping that they would block some of the wind. No good. By the time I finished my sardine and cheese sandwiches (mmm) I was freezing. Thank goodness for chocolate bars. I averaged one a day on the trail.

But then, as the rain continued, the sun came out behind my back, and I saw the most beautiful and perfect rainbow of my life, just in front of me. And soon it was a double rainbow. And I couldn’t help it. All the grumpiness vanished. And then there was the sunshine on my back. I just wanted to jump up and down and smile.

That rainbow kept me going for the next couple hours. And then in the distance there was another rainbow. And then another. And another. And as I once again got to the top of a pass and started down, I could see my destination in front of me, bathed in sunlight. The king’s house hotel was actually a bit farther on than I thought, and the last twenty minutes of my journey were also accompanied by a rainbow, but this time without the rain. And every time there was a rainbow, I would have to look at it every few minutes, to see how it changed as I walked.

The king’s house is a famous hotel, and is especially popular with climbers. A river goes past the king’s house, and out back, next to the river is free camping. Among clouds of midgies I set up my tent, and then headed into the climbers bar to read my book, drink tea, and charge my phone and camera battery. The chairs inside the bar were absolutely amazing.

Returning to the outside I cooked my oh so exciting dinner of pasta ‘n sauce (dried and all in one packet, perfect for backpacking) mixed with tuna and walked around the whole time to avoid the midgies. Back in the bar I started talking with two guys that were planning to climb one of the nearby mountains the next day. According to them, all of the greatest climbers have been Scottish, including the first guy to climb Everest. They pointed out all the photos on the wall. And the place has a climber’s bar and another bar because climbers apparently have a tendency to get drunk and rowdy. Although that night the bar was extremely quiet.

I visited the other bar for a bit, and met up with the Germans once again. Also spent some time talking to the South Africans I had met up with on the banks of Loch Lomond. Proving once again, that once you see someone on the trail, eventually you see them again. They were very happy to see me in one piece, as they were worried about me picking my way over rocks in the rain that day. I had some amazing bread pudding in custard, returned to the climbers bar for a bit, and then went back out to my tent to stuff paper in my shoes in an attempt to dry them out and then slept.

West Highland Way - Loch Lomond

2008-09-25T14:28:00.009+03:00

Balmaha to Tyndrum
I awoke the next morning to a rainbow over Loch Lomond. While I was sitting eating breakfast, Andrew and Scott from the day before passed me. Sitting there I had my first real experience with midgies, horrible little bugs that look like gnats, but swarm and bite. And while the bites don’t itch immediately like mosquito bites do, they do end up itching for days. But worse than the physical pain, is the mental pain of having swarms of insects in your face, flying up your nose and into your eyes.

I spent the entire day walking along the shores of Loch Lomond. Not that it’s right by the shore – there’s a lot of up and down and walking over rocks and such. I had decided that I wasn’t going to stop for lunch until I got to Rowerdennan. Not being the fastest walker, I was passed by many people on the trail. And I stopped a lot to for views of the lake and such.

I got to Rowerdennan after two, and sat down by the lake to eat my lunch. Today’s lunch was refried beans and cheese on pita bread with an apple. I then went into the inn, and had some tea and a scone and ran into Andrew. He had decided that he couldn’t manage to finish the trail because his feet were so bad, and so his girlfriend had come to pick him up. The first case of someone walking to fast and not being able to finish. Made me feel better about being slow.

I left Rowerdennan, and started out on the very wide, gravel road that lead to inversnaid. They never paved it though, and so it’s not possible to drive from Rowerdennan to Inversnaid. If you want to go by car you can drive up the other side, and then take a boat over. Apparently at this point the road splits into a high road and a low road, but I never saw signs for the more difficult and scenic low road, and so stayed on the high road

I saw very few people on the path. There was a family walking the dog, but after that it seemed that I was not on the same schedule as anyone else. One of the loveliest places I passed was a bench, overlooking the lake; with one of the most beautiful inscriptions I can remember seeing. There were also waterfalls along the side of the path every 10 meters or so, and I think that I stopped to look at every one of them.

It was beginning to get dark, and I hadn’t found a good place to camp, so with a burst of energy I continued on the smaller trail after the road bit ended, to find a lovely clearing down by the lake. The first thing I did was to take photos as the sun was setting. But as I started to set up my tent, I was besieged by midgies, and in complete madness I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before, I started pulling things frantically out of my pack, searching desperately for the midgie net I had been lent. I can’t describe the feeling of immense relief once I put the net over my head. Unfortunately I got a huge number of bites on my hands, and on the strip of my lower back between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my trousers.

I had a delicious supper of baked beans and rice, and then called Ian to wish him a happy birthday. My baby brother is now 21 and no longer needs me or anyone else to buy him alcohol. I spent a long time just looking into the darkness toward the lake as the light faded, and then went to sleep.

The next day it took me a couple hours to get to inversnaid, and it was getting to be a bit foggy and a little drizzly. Up until this point though, the weather had been fantastic, especially considering I was in the highlands of Scotland. Inversnaid is a posh hotel, with nothing around it except a nice waterfall. Not one of the more exciting places I’ve been, but I did have a cup of tea and a sandwich and charged my phone and camera battery once again before heading off to inverarnnan.

My guide book told me that the first half of the trail from inversnaid to inverarnnan was the hardest bit on the west highland way, because it involved lots of ups and downs over rocky trail. And just as I set off, it started to rain, making the trail very slippery. I guess I must have been on schedule with everyone else at this point, because I kept getting passed by people and then passing them again. One group in particular were all originally from South Africa, but now lived in many places in the world. They were a bit worried about me.

Halfway through the difficult stretch, which was also amazingly beautiful, I sat down to finally eat my lunch, and as I was sitting there, cursing the midgies, a guy came up to say hi and took off his pack to take a break. His name was Daniel, and he was from Tennessee, and hiking the way by himself as well. In fact, he was planning to walk all the way to Inverness. He waited for me to finish, and we started walking together. We finished the difficult bit, and got to the easy bit. We visited the bothy at Duane, a hut that had been renovated, that was a free place to stay for walkers. You were just supposed to make sure that there was wood there for the next visitors to use in making a fire in the fireplace. When we got there, two Scots were just leaving, having made a fire to cook their lunch on. The end of Loch Lomond is an amazing view. There’s a small island at the end called “Island I Vow” or something like that.

I walked with Daniel all the way to Inverarnan. He’s a very cool guy. Did a degree in sustainable development in Glasgow, and after graduating from a Scottish university, you can have a two year work permit, so he’d been working in Glasgow for a bit over a year. After having three and a half days mostly on my own, it was really nice to have someone to talk with.

He had also been lent equipment, but there was a small part missing from his stove, and so he hadn’t been able to use it. After passing stopping a bit in Inverarnan, visiting the shop to get food for dinner, and having some beer, or in Daniel’s case a half pint of Guinness and a banana, we left the campground. While there, I ran into Matt, a guy who had passed me while I was climbing Conic hill. Funny how half the people you see on the way, you see again.

We decided to camp somewhere further on and less than half an hour later it started to pour. After Daniel ran through a bog, we found a camping spot next to a bridge, by an old wall that was falling down. We had an amazing feast, which included quesadillas, scones, macaroni cheese, baked beans and tea. It was also my first experience with waterproof trousers – Daniel lent me some for sitting on the wet ground. And I have to say, waterproof trousers are an amazing thing! For the first time in a long time the clouds cleared, and with no light pollution, the stars were absolutely fantastic. I think I even saw the Milky Way.

The next day I was up and ready before Daniel, so I headed off, and he caught up with me about an hour later. As he caught up to me I ran into a couple of guys that I must have seen on the trail about five times before. They gave me some coffee and I stopped to chat with them. They had been walking together every year for ten years. Sometimes other people joined in, but they were always part of it. This year they were walking the whole way to celebrate 10 years of walking, and also the 50th birthday of one of the guys.

We walked to the turnoff to crianlarich, where we sat, had lunch, and exchanged contact details before Daniel sped off on his way to Inverness. As I watched him walk out of sight, it started to rain, and rained and rained. I was soaked by the time I got to Tyndrum. The walk wasn’t very exciting, but did go past the site of an old lead crushing plant, a site where to this day nothing grows from the poison that was leeched into the soil.

I was thinking to walk on past Tyndrum, but as I got to the campsite I was so cold and so wet that I stopped. I walked into the common cooking hut, to find lots of wet people trying to get warm, and we all instantly bonded. And, inside, I found Matt for the third time. Something about the way brings you back to the same people over and over.

I borrowed shampoo, had an amazing shower, and then discovered that I had been using my stove wrong for the past days. I played Uno with a group of Germans with one American woman, had some cider, and enjoyed being surrounded by a group of people all evening.

West Higland Way - the beginning

2008-09-23T17:03:00.009+03:00

Glasgow to Balmaha

I left Edinburgh a bit late, and arrived in Glasgow about 6. My plan - to wander around and find a hostel, dump my stuff and then explore the city. In my experience there is usually at least one hostel very close to the train or bus station, and I was going to find it. After wandering for two hours, I gave up and asked, and was directed to the Euro Hostel. The Euro Hostel as it turns out, is the typical hostel for capital hopping americans, and all the dorms were full. Not wanting to pay 20 pounds for a place to sleep I decided to head for Milgavnie, where the way officially begins.

At Queen Street station, who should I run into but Karen, a friend from the Fringe. It's a small world to be running into the only person you know in a city at the train station. She offered her floor, but said that it was perhaps better to just camp at the beginning of the way. In scotland there are no laws of trespass, so unless you are damaging a farmer's crops, you can basically camp anywhere.

And so I got on the train to Milgavnie. At 9pm on a Thursday night the town was complely dead, but I could tell that it was pretty posh. The first sign for the way was directly outside the train station, so it was pretty easy to find my way to the beginning. It was dark by this time, but the beginning of the way was on a paved path with street lights, so I set off. A bit later I found the community center for the area, and went inside to ask the old scottish men inside for camping advice. They told me if I went a little further on I would get to a place where it flattened out. And so I walked until where the street lights ended in a park, walked just outside the range of the light, and set up my green tent for the first time, in the dark. Thank goodness for head torches.

The tent isn't very difficult to set up. The poles are color coordinated, and have little tabs on the tent so you put the right pole in the right place. Except some designer wanted it to be pretty, and so there is a purple pole, and then two blue poles, in slightly different shades. Why one of these blue poles couldn't have been neon yellow, or something a bit different I don't know. This design flaw aside, the tent is well engineered for scottish weather. You put up the rain fly first, and then clip the inner tent to it. So if it's pouring you get the rain proof part up first. There's a sort of porch as well, over a third of the tent actually, so that you can stick your pack there and do your cooking, and everything will stay dry. As a two person tent though, it's a bit large for one person.

Anyways, it wasn't raining, and i had no problems in my camping, except being woken up by curious dogs in the morning. I had done my food shopping the night before in Glasgow, but needed an adaptor so I would be able to charge my camera along the way, and so headed back into town. And then when I went to take my first photos, the battery died. So I ended up spending a couple hours reading in a coffee shop while charging my camera and phone. Only at around noon did I get the photos of the beginning monument and set off on my way once more.

Turns out it was a good thing that I went back into town, because I had veered off the way a bit the night before. The beginning of the way is in several parks. As it moves out of the glasgow area, it goes through lots of farmland. This involves opening lots of gates and then closing them again. Lots of cows, sheep, and these overly hairy cows with very long horns. The path was easy, and mostly flat, but getting used to my 40 pound pack took a bit of adjusting. Much of the path was actually an old abandoned railroad. I passed a distillery, and was given lots of advice by various old scottish men.

At some point the trail led out to a paved road. I kept walking, until dusk, when I passed the first campsite, near the village of Drymen. I camped near two belgian girls that I was to see again and again on the trail, as well as two guys that had passed me not once but twice on the trail that day. I had my first go at using the stove, made some pasta and sauce, and fell asleep.

Still trying to adjust from my festival schedule of going to sleep at 5am, I didn't manage to get up until well after 8, to an empty campsite. I discovered the glorious invention of peanut butter on hobnobs, and then set off. I detoured into Drymen, to have a look at the place, as I was told it would be another 70 miles before I saw a town of that size again.

Walking through the woods outside Drymen I met some guys from Edinburgh - Andrew and Scott. Andrew was already walking funny from blisters, and this was their first day. They were using the travel lite service, which transports your bags along the way for you, and so were walking much faster than I was. I walked with them for an hour or so, until the beginning of conic hill, when I decided that I needed some lunch, and had a picnic.

Conic hill is the first major hill of the way, and the path seemed to be doubling as a small stream. Going up was slow, the top was misty, and going down was even slower. A heavy pack isn't so bad going up, but going down, it really messed up my center of balance, making it much easier to fall. So I inched my way down this hill, until I got to some rock stairs that had been built in.

Balmaha is a tiny place, the center of which seems to be the oak tree in, a hotel, returaunt, and bar with a tiny shop next door. It's also the first point on the way which is on Loch Lomond. I met up with Andrew and Scott again, as well as the guys from the night before to have a pint before walking a bit out of the village to camp on a hill above the loch, complete with beautiful sunset.

leaving Edinburgh

2008-09-04T16:36:00.002+03:00

On Sunday I watched the most amazing fireworks I have ever seen, set to music of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra playing in Princes Street Gardens, compmlete with a firworks waterfall over the side of castle rock. It was celebrating the end of the international theater festival, or really, the people of Edinburgh having their city to themselves again.

After cleaning of flats, and helping to organize stores, I finally left C Venues housing tuesday morning, and still with no plan, went to stay with Richard the first. Richard the first, because he was the first richard that I met in my travels in 2005. The room that was neon pink is now white, and the hall is being redecorated, but other than that his flat remains close to the same. I mentioned that I wanted to do some camping, and he got out a map, and started suggesting places. He suggested Inverie, the most remote pub in scotland, and while the internet provided little information on how to walk there, wikipedia led me to fort williams, and then to the west highland way. And, at that moment, I decided I would walk it.

Richard kindly provided me with a pack, tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and compass, and last night took me to meet his friends Jim and Sally. Jim has climed all the Munros (mountains) of scotland, and the two of them lent me a map, head torch, and midgie net, as well as giving me lots and lots of advice. This was followed by the best macaroni and cheese ever (with peas, broccoli, capers and olives), cider, and conversation until 2am.

Today I take the bus to Glasgow, and tomorrow morning I will begin this 95 mile, 7 day walk through the highlands of scotland. Hopefully I'll get some sunny days, and it will be my first opportunity to really use this new camera I got before leaving the US.

taking the long way round

2008-08-30T19:19:00.002+03:00

Edinburgh, Scotland

I'm back in Edinburgh after three and a half years. The first time I was here was only a few weeks after I started this blog back in 2005 for my six months of life changing travel, that also seem to have gotten me addicted to travel. I've just spent the last six weeks at the Edinbugh Fringe working for C Venues. I performed in a show called "Driving Helicopter Style Three-Quarters of the Way to the Moon" which was an absolutely amazing experience. I spent the rest of the time volunteering as a senior swing tech, working four days a week outside in a place known as the urban garden, and two days a week inside in a more traditional theater space.

We created 17 theater spaces in a week and a half, one of the most amazing experiences of my life so far. At this point I don't feel as if I can put into words all that has happened in the six weeks. I can say that I got very little sleep, loved everyone I worked with, now have blue hair, and have quit my teaching job.

I am once again starting september with no idea of what the next year holds. Perhaps I will return to Turkey to teach private lessons. Perhaps I will continue with theater. Perhaps... Although a bit scary, I'm excited to once again be steping out into the unknown, in some senses homeless, in some senses with more homes than I could count on both my hands, with belongings on three continents, ready to continue taking the long way round.

And now that the festival is over, I will try to post more often about where I am and what I'm doing.

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

2008-06-22T05:47:00.009+03:00

And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

I am now undertaking the serious task of being a tourist in my own town. It helps that I've been away for a year.

Weirdest things so far
*Drinking fountains, with water you can drink out of
*You can drink the tap water
*Dollars are bills, not coins
*Free refills
*Cars that stay in their lanes
*Cars that stop for pedestrians
*Driving for the first time in a year
*Grocery stores
*Even small children speak English
*No one cares about football, of the soccer variety

Highlights
*Burrito with pork! and guacamole
*Sushi
*Cheese, cheese and more cheese
*Cheese grits
*Carrboro farmers market with delicious cheese
*Contra dancing
*Tukey's victory over Croatia
*Seeing my friend's baby

so what happens now?

2008-06-19T00:26:00.000+03:00

Unlike a tall tale, in this story the moral goes first. The third time’s the charm. Double checking can get you into trouble. Always triple check!!!

Because when I looked at that piece of paper for the third time I saw that the arrival time in Munich was 9:30, and that my flight was actually departing in five minutes. Not thinking, I ran to the check in desk to ask what I could do. Unfortunately, planes are not trains that you can hop onto one minute before they depart (and I have done that). And because my ticket was a frequent flyer ticket, using three different airlines to get home this was not going to be easy. That and the fact that I had not slept and had not eaten anything in a long time. After Turkish Airlines was very unhelpful I burst into tears, called mom and William, and then pulled myself together. The Lufthansa people were even more unhelpful than Turkish Airlines, refusing even to open my itinerary on the computer.

And so I found a pay phone, and for the first time used that pay phone card I had bought so very long ago. After calling Ian, I spent a long time on the phone with USAirways. Yes they could get me home eventually, but I would have to pay a change fee, and they would also have to redo my flights to Scotland. What stupidness! I was cancelling, but then they couldn’t rebook me on the same flights. And so now I fly into and out of DC.

Luckily, Liz is still with her family in Manassas, and she is going to pick me up at the airport. Unluckily, I had to pay another $130, and I was going to need to be at the airport the next morning at 4:30. As William said, I guess I really wasn’t ready to leave the airport. After making my plans I went in search of food. On the down side I couldn’t get anything to eat for an hour. On the bright side the place had free wireless internet.

I decided that I was staying in the airport, because it would have been too hard to get back the next morning, and wrote something to that extent on facebook. And so later a worried Collette called me, and I reassured her I was fine, although feeling more stupid than I thought possible.

Around 5, my friend Katie called me. She had also been on facebook. I live right next to the airport she said, and I have the car today, I can come get you. Bored and exhausted, I said yes, and by 6 I was in a place with a bed, a TV, a friend, a cat, and real food. We talked, watched phantom of the opera, had soup and dolma, and I slept. Sitting now in the Munich airport, I have many many miles to go. And likely won’t even be home tonight, as the drive from DC takes 4 or 5 hours. But I do feel like I am ready to go home now, and incredibly lucky to have been taken in for the night. And, after my friend Amy called me worried last night, I have to say that facebook is incredibly pervasive, and well, it can have a positive effect once in a while.

But always triple check!!!

A moment of unbelievable stupidness

2008-06-19T00:24:00.000+03:00

I’m not sure where to start, where the craziness of the last day began. I think I could put it down to the fact I was sick for the entire month of May. The upside – I learned the word for tonsil. Perhaps because I got too tied up doing both the set and the lights for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And then after that was over got food poisoning. All three of them resulted in me not seeing anyone for over a month, including my mom and William who got there in the middle of all the craziness.

And so the two weeks of June before I was to leave were absolutely crazy. I tried to see everyone, and mostly succeeded. I spent the weekend in Saray at my friend Huma’s family’s summer house, near the black sea in the European bit of Turkey. We fit 14 of us into the house, grilled a lot of chicken, some of which was a bit too pink to be eaten, went swimming, watched as the neighbor’s house caught on fire and people frantically ran around waiting for the fire department to come, and generally had a fantastic time breathing village air and doing nothing.

When I got back on Monday my couchsurfing friend Tom started staying with me. He stayed with me the first time on his way to Iran to hang out and learn Persian, and now they had told him he could no longer renew his original visa, so he would have to leave the country to get a new one. Told the easiest place to get a visa was Istanbul, he took a 48 hour bus, only to find out it was going to take much longer than he thought. And so he was staying with me again. My friend Cat was about to leave for the states, and so the three of us spent most of three days together, walking, attempting to not die while biking on the islands, and eating/drinking.

My German roommates left Thursday night for two weeks on the black sea coast. I had to say goodbye to Cat on Thursday as well, and then Tom took the train to Bulgaria Thursday night. I had very little time to feel lonely however, as Friday I went with mom, William and the students along the golden horn to Eyup, and was then taken out to a wonderful dinner. I’ll spare you the details. And somewhere in there I finished the school year, playing lots of Taboo, Jeopardy, and giving away American candy to most of my kids, who thought that was the greatest thing ever.

Saturday was frantic shopping at the bazaar, saying goodbye until September to friends there, trying to spend as much time with mom and William, and having another wonderful dinner, this time in Tunel. I feel like I am making up for all the parents weekends I never really had in University since I was living in the same town as my family.

Mom and William left early Sunday morning, and I went to the Moda Cay Bahcesi with my roommates to eat borek, drink tea, and watch the view, which, this morning, included dolphins. In good brunch form we stayed two and a half hours, and then I ran off to return my Joseph CD to Eric, the fellow Asian side person of my show, who gave me rides, advice, and lots of help, and then to Taksim to see Joanna, who was in the US, married her Turkish fiancée, and then, a week into their honey moon, decided that they should not move back to Turkey, but should stay in the US. And so she was back to get the cat. Although she did mention that if McCain were to win, they might give up on the green card for the moment and move back to Turkey. At 6 I was back on my way to the Asian side.

I got to the house to find that Ulas and Orcun had gone off to find our kittens. Half an hour later they came back with one of them, saying that next weekend they would get the other. I guess that kittens hadn’t wanted to be caught, and had been running away. The one they brought was orange and white, terrified, adorable, and a very good diversion from beginning to pack. Already feeling like I didn’t want to leave Istanbul, this just made it harder.

And then it was time for football in Bostanci at 9:45. Turkey was playing the Czech Republic, and they were tied in the group. The winner of this game got to advance, and if the game was a tie, it would go to a shoot out. Tension was high, and people got increasingly frustrated as the Czech goal keeper, who we dubbed bumblebee, kept saving all of the attempts that Turkey kicked his way. Sixty minutes in and the score was 0-2 Czech Republic. And then Turkey scored, and again, and again. And then the goalkeeper got red carded for hitting a guy in the head, and one of the regular players had to become the goalie, because all substitutions were used up. But there was not enough time left for the Czech Republic to take advantage of the situation, and Turkey won. And I won – I had predicted the score to be 3-2, and won an Efes Pilsen, Turkish team shirt. After the first three games, everyone I was with had a t-shirt, and the guys at the bar just loved all these foreign women who were so into football, that they took photos with us.

Traffic was absolutely insane, people hanging out of cars, sitting on cars, standing on cars, running down the street, and all of them were waving Turkish flags, even the covered woman who broke off a tree branch to make a pole for her flag. So it was that returning at 1, playing with the kitten until 2, I began to pack at 2. That and wait for my laundry to finish drying. I was not just packing my things for the summer, but packing up everything else in my room to leave in a corner, as someone else will be living in my room for the summer.

On double checking my ticket a few days ago, I realized that my flight was not at 7, but at 9:30, and so was able to take public transport to the airport. I left at 6, got a taksi to the iskele, took the fast sea bus across the Sea of Marmara, and then the airport bus from there. After going through security, I opened my itinerary for that third look and took off running.

My first fight in Turkish

2008-05-15T12:58:00.004+03:00

The next day I enjoyed a shower in a shower with an actual bathtub (in my house you shower onto the floor), and then we had a lovely breakfast in the garden. Afterwards we took the dolmuş back to Denizli. The first thing to do was to attempt to cancel our train tickets and get bus tickets instead.

So we went to the ticket office in the train station. We went to the woman and explained that we wanted to cancel our tickets. It said on the back of the ticket that with last than 24 hours notice we would be penalized 20% of the fare, but would get the rest back. We gave her our tickets, and my card. But she wanted a recipt. I said I didn't have one, but I had the tickets and the card and your trains are always 4 hours late but you haven't changed the schedule and you need to give us our money back. After calling in her supervisor, she said if I got a copy of my passport she would give us the money back.

So we walked accross the street to the bus station, where we bought tickets back to Istanbul, and, after asking them for a camera, which Cat corrected by asking for a photocopy machine, I got a photocopy of my passport. Back at the train station the woman got out a binder, wrote this long thing on the back of my passport photocopy, and then tried to run my card. After one try, she decided it didn't work because it was only a bank card, not an actual turkish credit card with a chip in it. To fully explain herself she got out her credit card with chip to show us. We explained that we had bought the tickets with my card, and if their machine wouldn't put the money back on it it was their fault. She said it was too bad. No she could not give us cash.

By this point we were really mad. We went outside the office, and then went back in to ask her if she could put the money on her card because she had one and give us cash. No she said, that is forbidden. But if we found someone else with a card she could put it on their card and they could give us cash. So we walked out and started to ask. At the station cafe they sent us accross the street to a bakkal. At the bakkal they gave us a funny look and sent us to a lokanta. At the lokanta we got a funnier look and they sent us to another lokanta. At this lokanta the guy actually understood what we wanted, and took out his wallet to show us that his card was the same as mine, without chip. After asking one more time we realized that this was not Istanbul, most people didn't have credit cards, and if they did they were not going to give them to a couple of foreign girls. We went back, determined to occupy her office until she gave us the money. We called some people to get advice and went back in

To find that the shift had changed. We gave the tickets, my card, and the passport copy with letter to the new guy behind the counter. He tried to run my card, it wouldn't work. He called in his new supervisor, who ran Cat's american credit card through until it worked. Easy. No problem. It was possible all the time.

After winning our fight, we felt tired but victorious. And we had the problem of what to do with 10 hours in Denizli. Conclusion - there is nothing in Denizli. We at some doner, walked around with all our stuff, wasted an hour and a half in the internet cafe, sat for two hours in a pastane after eating not so good profiterol, found the cool market area after it was entirely closed, and then finally walked to the place with the famous Denizli roosters. When we got there there was only a statue of a rooster and it was pouring. We ate some food, sat in the place as long as possible, and then returned to the bus station for our overnight bus.

Arriving in the morning, I changed in the teacher's bathroom, ready to start my monday morning after not sleeping on the bus.

Pamukkale

2008-04-28T13:53:00.007+03:00

Deciding that we had been in Istanbul for too long without getting out, and that we needed to be tourists for a bit, my friend Cat and I decided we needed some K/Catherine Zamanı - K/Catherine time, and so we headed off for Denizli and Pamukkale on the 5:30 train Friday evening. I had bought food at the deli, Cat had brought a bunch of American junk food her mom had sent over, and we were set to go. Two hours into the train ride, a couple of guys got on. One was a naval officer, the other a student of geology. From the beginning the naval officer, ufuk, monopolized the conversation, and likely due to some of the weirdness involving heirarcy in Turkey, we heard very little from the student, Uğur, during the trip, although he did often try to feed us.

I fell asleep early and was expecting to be woken up a bit before 9 as we were entering Denizli. I was woken up at 9, but it was only by Ufuk coming back into the compartment, and then later by the conductor wanting his sheets back. It was only just before noon, three and a half hours late, that we finally arrived in Denizli. Not thinking about the ride back, we just wanted to get to Pamukkale. On our way into the dolmuş we were harassed by two different guys, and feared for the worst. When we arrived in the village below Pamukkale (which means cotton castle) however, it was dead. Almost no life. The restaurants were all completely empty, and as it was just past noon, I had expected them to be full of people eating.

We walked around, very hungry and falling apart, before getting some lahmacun at the recommendation of a guy who seemed nice and was running a sort of tea garden that had no food. The lahmacun was good, and it made both of us less grumpy. While sitting there, we looked in the guide book and decided on a place to stay. After asking directions from a couple of old guys, we were met halfway down the road by a guy on a scooter from the venus hotel. They must have called him, although we were perfectly capable of getting their on our own. The place was a large pink house with balconies, a great garden, and adorable rooms, and so we decided to stay.

Emptying our backpacks slightly, we returned back to the enterance of pamukkale. We walked up a sort of gravel road for a bit, and then reached a sign instructing us to take off our shoes. So now the list of places you may not where shoes in Turkey is Mosques, houses, and Pamukkale. Pamukkale was formed by lots of hot calcium loaded water ran accross the hill, and as the water cooled the calcuim fell out and coated the rocks. It created lots of pools called trasterverines, which are amazing. They used to be full of water, and the place used to be even more white, but with a huge boom of tourism in the 80s and 90s, much was destroyed. Now they have taken sharp measures to try to protect the area, including making people take off their shoes. We we walked up the hill, making little ouch noises as we stepped on tiny ridges of calcium. At the top it was much more red, hopefully from bacteria or algae. At the top were also hoards of tourists from tour groups. Most of them are brought in to the north entrance, so that they do not walk up the hill. At the top we sat down by some running water, and stuck our feet in. It's warm and full of calcium and supposed to be healing.

Pamukkale is not a new formation. The romans also had the opinion that the waters were healing, and so they built a city at the top of the hill. The city is named Heropolis, and the ruins there are amazingly well preserved. My favorite bit was the theater. It's a huge amphitheater that is mostly intact.
Unfortunately, they did some restoration work, and now you cannot get to the stage. I had heard that the acoustics were amazing, and really wanted someone to be standing on the stage saying things, to see if I could hear them. It would be really amazing to put on a roman play there.

In addition to the theater was the main road, a holy pool, with the remnants of columns that is now full of swimming germans and russians, a temple of apollo, and a spring that lets out poisonous gasses. There is also a very impressive cemetery. I guess not all the people who came to the city were cured. Some of the tombs were on the white calcium pamukkale. The poppies were in full bloom, and I am positive that Cat got tired of me saying, so pretty, çok güzel. Yes, I know there are many other adjectives I could have used.

On our way back to the village, the place was much more quiet, as most of the tourist groups had gone home. It also got cold as the sun started to go down. We sat for maybe a half an hour with our feet in the warm water, until an official looking guy took out the dam, and the water slowed to a trickle. There was also a policeman with a whistle and a big stick that was attempting to keep people in a certain area, and coming after them if they passed the line or if they wore their shoes.

The bad part of having our feet in warm water that long was that they were much more sensitive to all the ridges and gravel on the way back down. But the sun was setting, and it was spectacular. By the end we were both wearing our coats, but had our pants rolled up and were carrying our shoes. Against the background of white it was pretty funny - like being barefooted in the snow.

We returned, exhausted, and a bit sunburned to the hotel for dinner. The food was fantastic! The best mercimek çorbasi ever, salad, a plate of different vegetables, and then kebab. At the end I thought I was never going to get up. Cat also befriended a dog named fındık (hazlenut). She was small and black, while the large white dog was named Çilek (strawberry). We ate sitting at a table in the garden.

Intending to just go up and watch TV and sleep, we got distracted talking to the guy who ran the hotel. He convinced us to stay for tea, and told us that he had had 400 tourist girls, but was now engaged so we didn't have to worry about him. However, his brother was there, who had studied Ottoman at university and had never been with a tourist girl, and had I had a Turkish boyfriend yet. That should have tipped us off, but we stayed, had instant pomegranate tea, and the cousin showed up. The brother's name was Yusef, the cousin Bekir.

We sat in the main room, discussing university, the various merits and disadvantages of the american and turkish university entrance system, and the system once you enter university, basketball, football, being a teacher, etc, and then they suggested that we go see the lake and pamukkale light up at night. Cat and I wanted to see it, and put our stuff upstairs, giving them time to discuss. They concluded that it was far to walk, and therefore they should take us on the motorscooters. And now I am afraid I have also gotten Cat addicted to motorcycles/scooters.

Anyways, the seemed to have thought it was a date. The whole thing was very amusing, and good turkish practice. Yusef, the guy who picked me, told me I was cute and asked what I thought about him. I told him I had not decided, which got a laugh. And then we turned down an offer to go to the disco and went to sleep.

Adventures in Art

2008-04-01T12:23:00.000+03:00

I feel as though ever since I got to Istanbul I have been surrounded by photographers. There are of course my two roommates, but I we have also had numerous guests. Charlie is a photographer, as is Filip. Orçun's friend, another photographer is currently staying with us.

Ingo, in particular, has really helped me to expand my idea of art, and of beauty. He takes objects most would consider trash, and sees the beauty in them. Plastic on a building being restored, trash on the beach, wrappers tied to a tree for wishes, a dirty dish rag, all of it can be beautiful if looked at through Ingo's eyes.

I have watched him take numerous photos, but two of his photos have involved more adventure than the others. The first was nearly two weeks ago. I somehow ended up with a four day weekend, and so we spent Friday exploring Üsküdar. Mostly this just involved walking and walking. We visited an old abandoned mosque, and found the theater. Ingo had mentioned that he wanted some motor oil for a photograph he was working on, and as we were walking we passed a car shop. So I decided I would just go in and ask.

When we walked in the man in charge was on the phone but he motioned us to sit. I think he was a bit surprised when I chose the chair closest to his desk, instead of letting my guy take it. When he got off the phone I started my question, the same way I have started many requests - Thıs is a really weird question, but do you have some motor oil we could have. Not really knowing the word for motor oil, just the word for oil I managed to convey what we wanted. I explained right away that Ingo wanted to use it for a photograph because oil looks so colorful when you put it on water. Although I am sure they were thinking the whole thing was highly amusing, they were polite enough to agree with me, and a short while later a guy came back with some slightly used motor oil in a plastic water bottle.

Then we were offered tea. The only thing was apparently the boss man didn't realize that they were out of tea when he offered. So we sat and I tried to converse while we waited. I remember discussing cars. They all agreed that Mercedes, or just German cars in general were the best cars. Of course we discussed the weather. Football. What I was doing in Istanbul. How all Turks want to go to the US but here is a weird american girl that came to Istanbul to work. When we were just about to go the tea was ready, and the boss man sent out one of the other guys to buy some biscuits. So there I was, surrounded by guys, drinking tea and eating biscuits in a car repair shop with half a bottle of free motor oil in Ingo's backpack that they would not take any money for. Ingo has finished the photograph now. Always better to have a story to go with the photograph. And I am sure we provided the amusement for the week.

Adventure in art number two. This weekend Ingo and I went to the first of the prince's islands - Kinaliada - which means Island with Henna, perhaps named because of the red sandstone that they mine from the island. The island is much different from the other islands. The others are covered in pine forest, but this one is covered in very dense short vegetation - mostly bushes. Perhaps it burned, perhaps it is due to the stone, the wind, I am not really sure. We set out with my backpack full of picnic food, Ingo's full of his camera, and walked. Two hours and half of the island later, I decided we had found the picnic spot and I was not going further until I had eaten. Ingo had to go look around the corner, but when he spotted some plastic blowing in the wind decided that this could be a good picnic spot, and then he could take a photo. The spot was beautiful - a view of marmara and not a house in sight. Well, unless you looked around the corner to see the sprawl of Istanbul.

The food was fantastic, better because it was eaten outside with a view. I think picnics definitely make my top 10 list of favorite things, perhaps they are even in the top five. So food finished, I looked at the view and Ingo started the business of photography. It was only when I saw him pick up the object that he was photographing that I told him he needed to photograph it in the air - not on the ground. It was a tree branch, sort of resembling a harp, that had gotten tangled in white plastic. As I held it and looked up it felt very might like I was at a wedding and holding a veil in the air. Before, all I would have seen was old dirty plastic. Ingo tried to photograph it, but concluded the spot was not right.

So we walked down the hill we had climbed before I declared a halt for the picnic, and then started scrambling up this slope that was covered in medium sized rocks (not very small rocks) It was sort of like the place was just waiting for an avalanche. Up we went, climbing over purple rocks, red rocks, striped rocks, rocks with lichen. But that spot wasn't good either and so we left the backpacks and went all the way to where some short trees were growing. Ingo went first and I followed with the veil and tree branch harp. At one point Ingo yelled my name and I looked up to have a rock tumble past where my head had been a second before to instead hit my food before thundering on.

Ingo put his object in a tree and I sat there and kept the plastic uncaught. Occasionally Ingo would move to get a better angle, and every time he did, I found a small avalanche go past me. The worst of it whacked me in the elbow. But neither I, nor Ingo, nor the camera tumbled down the hill, although we all tried at one point. Sitting perched on the hill, defying gravity, the plastic looked amazing against the blue sky, water and the trees. A police car drove past on the road below, saw us and stopped. One can only guess what was going through their heads. They waited a while, and then we breathed a sigh of relief when they drove on again.

Inching my way back down on my butt, I thought I might be crazy. But turning around and looking back, the plastic blowing in the tree still looked beautiful.

My First Earthquake

2008-03-14T20:54:00.000+02:00

I am happy to report that I have survived my first ever earthquake. It occured at 20:53:32 on Wednesday, March 12 while I was in a cafe eating soup with Ingo and was 4.8 on the richter scale. I didn't feel a thing. I actually had no idea until a teacher asked me about it at school the next day. Anyways, Istanbul is located on the North Anatolian fault, which is similar to the San Andreas fault in California. I any future earthquake exeriences are like this one.