Greece in Four Weeks

I never understood how Eol was such an important god, actually I didn't understand why he was a god at all. That is until now, when we left the island of Mykonos on a BlueStar Ferry. It is the biggest boat we've ever been on, but the wind is so strong that everything is trembling. Anna, the owner of our hotel, repeatedly told us over the last week that we are lucky, they didn't have one good day all summer. We had two or three days without wind, it was uncomfortably hot, but, when the wind blows, it is almost cold and it is certainly unpleasant.

Sunset in Mykonos

Little Venice (so they say...)

Street in Mykonos

House in Mykonos

Visiting the grandparents at their hotel

We came to Mykonos to meet with my parents. It was decided 6 months ago, my father had a conference and the major event was my mother's special birthday. It was also a defining mark on our trip. All the broad strokes and sometimes even the daily details have been set up until September 30 - we left the last ten weeks up in the air, not to think or plan anything about it. Ten weeks sounds like a lot, but it is a painfully short period of time. Every now and then we had a short conversation about the subject, just listing some options but making no decision. It was in Prague, on September 8-9, that I finally found a good way to put the question. By any account, we had a good trip, we were lucky, we saw a lot of amazing places, what do we still want to make this journey complete?
I had individual discussions with the children, we spoke out loud and I decided that Italy and Egypt would have to make our list. There are so many countries in the world, so many appealing destinations, but on a trip like ours, focused on learning history and culture, these two cannot be missed.

It was decided. Then, the next question was how to get to Egypt. From Europe, the cheapest option is to take EasyJet to one of the touristic resorts on the Red sea. Either Hurghada or Sharm-el-Sheikh. The first is on the continent, relatively close to Luxor, the second is in Sinai, with easy access to St. Catherine Monastery and even Petra. The departure can be from London or from Geneva. I found a cheap flight on November 13 from Geneva. That left us with 6 weeks from September 30. We voted to spend three extra weeks in Greece and three in Italy. Then we would fly from Rome to Geneva and go to Egypt from there. We would get a little taste of Switzerland and meet another family friend that we haven't seen in ages.

Schematic representation of our Greek segment

This is how we came to make our schedule for Greece. After the first week spent in Mykonos what will we do? We wanted to visit Crete, Rhodes, Santorini. We wanted to go to the Peloponnese and maybe back to Athens. We have very good friends there, Cristina and Dan, and we wanted to meet with them. I was shocked to see the high prices for ferries and that made our schedule. We cut off Rhodes. To get to Santorini we took a slow, cheap ferry to the island of Syros. After one night there, another slow ferry would take us further.

So what's in Syros? Nothing really, except the most fantastic Greek city anyone can imagine. Ermoulaki, where we spent our only night, is centered around the little port, has a great neoclassic agora and little streets of marble that go up the hill. It is beautiful. We saw it Sunday in the afternoon when it was quiet and we were alone, we saw it at night and next morning when it was busy and crowded. We loved the full moon over the bay, the gyros at a local restaurant and the baklavas bought for dessert from a specialized store. It saved us money to make this deviation, isn't it the perfect combination?

Neoclassical square in Ermoulaki

Marble streets

The port in Ermoulaki with the full moon

Ermoulaki

Santorini doesn't exist. The name is used for tourists, a mispronunciation of what Venetians called Saint Irene. The real name is Thyra. A small but fantastic destination, the island is what's left of the cone of a volcano that exploded in 1700 BC. The western side is rough and abrupt, the side of the caldera that is now submerged. The eastern side, with some mild slopes and beaches was left for next time. The capital of the island and the main destination is the city of Fyra. The iconic images of Santorini are taken 20 kilometers away, in the small village of Oia (pronounced EE-ah). Almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1956, the village was rebuilt to make it even more picturesque and attractive than it was before. It is crowded and very touristic, but even so it is the place to go at sunset and is enjoyable nonetheless. It wasn't a good sunset, but we were glad we made it. We took a taxi to get there and came back on a very busy bus. The girls, squished in the aisle between the chairs, started some conversation about our RTW trip with some Indian couple from Australia. As they were pushed back by the crowd, they continued the conversation with the people sitting in the next rows, while their mom was left to answer more questions from the Indian gentleman. An amazing rolling conversation, maybe there were 20 people listening and progressively getting involved. I was happy when the bus got stuck in traffic and they let us get off.

Approaching Santorini

We thought we had a chance to catch a beautiful sunset...

Oia after sunset

Next morning we visited the center of Fyra, the archeological museum, the Orthodox Cathedral and the promenade full of tourists and stores. I bought some local wine and pistachio. It never rains here, it is the driest place in Europe, but there is a mist in the morning air that waters the plants and makes them have a special, unique taste. It's great! By 4 pm we were in the port waiting for our connection to Crete.

View from below and 

View from the top

We only had six nights in Crete. Next time we must stay longer. The largest Greek island and the second in the Mediterranean after Cyprus, it is a world in itself. The geography is defined by the high mountains in the center with valleys and gorges leading to small isolated beaches. The island has a very long history, starting with the Minoans 3500 - 4000 years ago and being occupied by (almost) everybody, even Egypt in 1840! It only united with Greece in 1905, recognized as such by the rest of Europe only in 1913. Tortuous roads, old people, beautiful vistas, good touristic resorts, some amazing beaches and a unique culture make it a very attractive destination. We had a little rented Peugeot with only basic functions, not even a radio. The one time I had to put gas, an old haggard little lady filled our tank, that was an awkward but almost mystical experience of blending the modern and the old of this land.

This is a poster from a bus station, I am not the only one who came up with this metaphor for Greece

The first couple of nights we spent in Heraklion, the capital, we had to visit the Knossos palace and the city itself. After the palace and the archeological museum, Ileana took the kids and returned to the hotel. I kept going, visiting the rest of the attractions, the museum of Crete, the thousand year old Orthodox church, the Venetian fortress and the touristic center.

Almost 400 years old, the Morozini Fountain in the center of Heraklion

Venetian fortress in Heraklion

Next morning, we picked up our car and hit the road. We stopped on the northern coast, in Rethymno and Chania (Hania), smaller towns with Venetian fortresses, lots of history, picturesque ports and little streets. And an American movie crew that was blocking streets, forbidding traffic and making everybody nervous. That was in Chania, in the old port, we even saw some Hollywood star walking away angry after a verbal fight with the director.

Hania

Street in Hania

Before the end of the day, we turned south toward the mountains. We were going to the Samaria Gorge. Yes. We got this too, another attraction, another most something, another must. We were not disappointed, we again tested our limits and somehow got through. It is considered the longest gorge in Europe, like going all the way from the top of the Grand Canyon to the base, just at a smaller scale. The park starts at the top of the mountain and winds down for 16 kilometers to sea level. The width of the gorge varies between 150 and 3 meters with vertical walls that soar up to 500 meters. At the end of the park a simple cafeteria serves the best ice-cream in the world. From there, after another 3 kilometers on the road you step in the Libyan Sea. The start and finish points and everything in between make for a great overall experience. There are no roads to connect to the rest of the island. There are many gulfs on the Southern coast of Crete and the way to get from one to another is by hopping on a ferry, going left or right. The Samaria Gorge ends at Agia Roumeli, a tiny village with a couple of restaurants and a black pebble beach. A refreshing bath comes free for the exhausted hikers. We took our ferry and got to Soukia. From there we took a bus for an hour to the meeting point where the hotel owner was going to retrieve us. It was getting dark and we were climbing on the tortuous road. The driver has done that several times a day for thirty years. But among the travelers there was a restless twenty something French girl who had questions. She moved next to the driver, they started to talk and I sensed trouble. His ego swollen by her attention, he showed her every trick he knew. Please, if you're an attractive young lady out there and you value life (yours or others) - never talk with a 50 year-old Greek driver.

Entrance to the Samaria Gorge

Everybody is ready to go

KriKri, the protected, endangered goat from the park

Samaria Gorge, close to the finish

Leaving Agia Roumeli

We spent two nights in the mountains at Omalos and had the chance to see a little bit of the traditional Cretan way of life. The hotel owner had a thousand sheep that he and his father were milking twice daily, by hand. He showed us the bunker where the cheese-wheels were aging on countless leveled rows. His mother and his wife were covering the kitchen and the hotel maintenance. The rest of Europe thinks that Greeks are lazy and they spend all their life playing backgammon or cards and drinking coffee or ouzo...

The road to Omalos

Exari Hotel in Omalos

The fifth night was open. We had a general idea of direction, we wanted to see more of the Southern coast of Crete, but we had nothing arranged. It could have never worked better. After crossing one hundred mountains and valleys, on various twisting roads, we stopped in Plakias. A large beach at the end of a gorge, apparently Eol is going crazy all summer so the village is underdeveloped. For such a fantastic place, there is a moderate number of hotels and not too many tourists. We badly needed to use the bathroom, we stopped by a cafeteria. Aren't we lucky! The hotel above them didn't have any room for that night so we kept looking and we found a fantastic apartment, with a nice pool, across the street from the beach. They took us in. I could have stayed a whole month, but we had a plane to catch. We asked to stay a little longer and they let us until 4 for free. Since we arrived early, we had two days to go to the beach, rest and refresh. For me, Plakias will certainly make a top 10 list for this trip. Then we went back to Heraklion and next morning we took a short flight to Athens. We had no schedule and two weeks until our next flight to Italy.

Plakias, view from the top

The beach at Plakias

Cristina and Ileana have been best friends for 35 years. Dan and I got in the picture more than twenty years ago. We last met in 2006 during our short stop in Athens, it's been a very long time. Phones and emails can only cover so much, we were really excited to see them again. They live in a small apartment, somehow they squeezed us in and it was great to spend as much time as we could together. It was the first time I met their daughters and our children connected easily. Their youngest one, age 16, took out our girls to experience the night life. I was told to relax, this is Athens, nothing bad can happen. I never found out how it was, nobody asked for my permission or my opinion...

They took us out to dinner for a traditional Greek meal, one of the best meals I ever had. I loved kokoritzi, it is something made of sheep intestines and it is delicious.

There are many amazing things about our friends, but the most surprising was to have them ask a million questions about our trip. It is the fate of all long term travelers that people ask a couple of polite questions, they ask which place someone liked most and move on to their mundane daily subjects. We expect that and we understand it. Here it was different, we spent many hours talking with them about every aspect of our trip, it was a joy for us to be able to share, but it also caught us not prepared enough. We shared stories, movies and pictures and they still wanted more...

Athens is a huge sprawling city of four million, but sometimes there is not enough room for everybody. Angela Merkel, a German prime minister, decided to come here the day after our arrival. The city was preparing for dramatic demonstrations, strikes and blocked traffic. The subway was stopped, buses were not running, the government banned any manifestation in the center of the city, which of course made people angry and more determined to come out. We didn't wait for that. After hours of discussions with Dan we made our plan. They gave us their car and we took off on a few busy days all over Greece.

Rocks at Metheora

Olympia Stadium

Amphitheater at Delphi

First we went all the way to Meteora, 300 km North of Athens, safe and quiet. From there we came back South toward Delphi, then we went West to Olympia and finally arrived on Friday evening in Ermioni. This is a small village in the Peloponnese, 200 kilometers from Athens, our friends have a little house there and they waited for us to spend the weekend together. Then they went back to work in Athens and left us in their house for "however long you want." With their car!

We stayed almost a week. Most of the time inside or on the porch, the children worked hard at their school subjects. Ileana and I tried to put some order in our blogs and pictures. Sometime in the afternoon we got in the car for a short ride to some beach. We ate pomegranates from their tree ten times per day. And yogurt and olives and grapes.

Two of the beaches around Ermioni

On the porch

Solving math problems

The little port of Ermioni

Again and again, time flies too fast. We had to leave, and the day we returned to Athens was really busy. We stopped in Epidavros, Nafplio and Mycenae and only made it late at night, after an impossible schedule. For what we did in all these places read the following post "A History of Greece through Our Travels".

The last two days were left for Athens. It is not enough to get to know the city, but we did cover the major ones. We visited the Acropolis and the new Acropolis Museum, and I took a few more hours by myself to reach some places that interested me. Sunday, my wife "abandoned" us, she took off by herself to another island, I took the kids to the Ancient Agora and the National Archeological Museum and we were done. Almost. I invited them to see the Sintagma Square, the historical place of Athens, the site of the Parliament and all the violent demonstrations of the recent or more distant past. They didn't want to go being cautious and tired and hungry. Walking toward the subway and talking about the pros and cons we arrived at a place with guards in historical costumes and pigeons. I gave up, "let's get home." By the way, "you spent the last five minutes in Sintagma Square, that's the Parliament and that's the place where the protests usually take place." It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, as I expected Greeks are too smart to waste their weekends with public manifestations.

It's peace and quiet at the Parliament on Sunday

The Greeks have their quirks and most annoying of all is the passion for defacing and destroying road signs. In some parts, like in Crete, they shoot bullets in the signs, most other places they paint over it or put stickers over the meaningful information. Driving can be fun at times, for hundreds of kilometers I was going 40 km over the speed limit, but I was the slowest one. The roads alternated between nice modern highways to country roads with varying width, anywhere between one or five lanes (total) within a couple hundred meters. Not that any lane lines were ever painted. It's just a little example but for me a powerful metaphor for life in this country. There is a sense of wilderness and freedom lost in most other developed countries where rules, regulations and threats of fines and jail keep people in check. We all accept that corset as the price we have to pay for civilization, assuming the others are so bad that we have to tell them what to do. But in the country that invented civilization that is never in question, they seem to leave people live their lives. Somebody would argue that because they are like that they now have all the economic problems. It's not that.

Greece was over. We really really loved it and it was fairly hard to get going again, another destination, another flight, another country. There is some excitement when that happens, much less this time. Cristina waived behind the airport bus and after we lost her sight we watched each other and smiled.

Bye bye and thank you!

We don't give shots to Jewish priests

We don't give shots to Jewish priests, but we do a lot of other things. We've done something significant for our trip almost every day in the last two months.

Before the end of June, I called a travel medicine clinic in the area. I talked with a nice secretary who took all the information and needed a few minutes to find some slots on their schedule. When I called back a half an hour later she informed me that they decided to change the price from $50 per consultation to "$130 or $150 after July 1st and we don't have any opening until then anyway." Obviously (!), all of us had to have a consultation even if we go to the same places and we have no medical issues of any sort. I made one appointment only, thinking we could apply that information to all of us (we cancelled in the end). We couldn't cover everything there anyway "because Ioan is under 12 he needs to go to a pediatric clinic." The contacts I was given wouldn't see him because he was not their patient and they really didn't know much about travel shots.
We decided to take the matter in our hands. We learned, there are plenty of resources on the internet and we are both doctors. I liked the MDTravelHealth.com. I work in a public health clinic, they give immunizations to people and pets, they have some records of our immunizations. So can we get hep A? "No, because you have insurance you have to go to your primary doctor!" "my doctor doesn't do this", "I know, find another doctor" then "wait a minute, you're a doctor why don't you order the vaccines?" Without getting into too many details, psychiatrists don't usually do immunizations, but -  if I ever decide to start doing that -  I did set up everything, including Friday Fedex deliveries. But it wouldn't have been cost effective for us.
Thankfully one of the doctors at the Primary Care decided to help us and we got 10 shots, unequally distributed from the youngest to the oldest. We covered the hep A and meningococcal vaccine (kids only) and we will stop here. Ileana contacted travel clinics around the world inquiring about their services. At some point one of the girls heard her mispronouncing the word rabies as rabbis and starting picking on her "We don't give shots to Jewish priests!" We decided that we will get the rabies ($35), typhoid ($20) and the yellow fever ($40) in Kathmandu. The rabies are 3 injections and will end up costing $105 compared to $900 here. The yellow fever we don't need until Africa and it would have been $300 here. Per person. We might still get the typhoid here even though it's tough to beat their price. We will get the required booster for hep A at the right time, in Bangkok. A couple of weeks of hard work but we think we figured this out.

The Sony Alpha SLT55 in action

I would hate to be a security guy at Chase following my credit card charges. It seems that they stopped blocking the card for suspicious activity (thanks!). Maybe they improved their software to accept charges from Hawaii, New Zealand, Japan or New York in the same day. Anyhow my credit limit wasn't high enough for this past month so I payed them back several thousands every few days. Overall we spent $12000 since last post. We bought some real gems, the best camera, the newest MacAir, a nook. We sold our older camera, will sell the laptops that we have now and get pretty much even. Comparing my old MacBook Pro with the new Air, you'd never imagine how much 700 grams can weigh. Ileana and the kids got their sandals and some shoes. I got a couple of hard drives and I am trying to figure up my data backup plan. We got another three headlamps. We got trousers, a special trip to REI in New Jersey. We'll always be grateful to Kendra, she spent several hours looking for five pairs of pants and in the end was more excited than us that she found what we needed. She was enthusiastic about our travel plans. She heard about Rolf Potts and his travel around the world with no luggage. "Do you know the vest he had? We don't carry that, but it's pretty cool!" "We have five of them" said Ioan calmly.

We spent the last couple of years researching our luggage for this trip. We hardly bought any new clothes all this time, no electronics, no nothing, except for the trip. Now we have a long list on the white board and we cross items every day. Ileana finished her shopping at Icebreakers, she knew what else we needed. We followed them since last spring and got the items that we wanted during their biannual sales. With the last one, we got some gloves, hats and other pieces of clothing. I did the same thing with Scottevest earlier and got our vests with a 40% discount.

Moving on, we got the first travel insurance. It is perplexing to some of my patients and coworkers, how can you quit work, do you have enough money to pay health insurance? The answer is no, I wouldn't have money for health insurance in USA. It might cost $1200-$1500 per month for my family. It would probably carry several thousands in deductible. Going abroad, I bought the first five months of insurance, travel, health, etc. all for the nice sum of $510. I got it from Worldnomads, the most obvious choice. I was even able to get a coupon for 7% discount. "Sorry - because of federal regulations we are unable to honor that in USA." They offered to donate my $35 discount to one of their humanitarian projects, and now I am glad to support the Teacher Training Program, Solu Khumbu, Nepal. I am sure that the American Congress in its infinite wisdom has a very good reason for denying discounts for international travel insurance. Apparently there is a law in France that forbids stores from offering sales except for a couple of days per year. They all have the sales in the same time. Are the French politicians even smarter than the American ones?

Visas! Another one. I am sure that there is a good reason for those as well. On my reading list, "The Travels of Marco Polo." I am curious how much he had to pay for his China visa. The Chinese pay back to the Americans, adjusting the cost according to the Department of State fees. When they raise it, the Chinese raise back, but it should be noted that they are nice. The Americans take the money first and they keep the money even if they don't give the visa. The Chinese would charge at the end, before they hand you the passport. It costs $140. The rest of the world pays $45. The burmese, vietnamese and north-koreans get it free. There is only one exception: Romanians pay $70 for one entry, $100 for double entry. Not the main reason, but it feels good to be Romanian, second in the world after USA! For those who don't know, a visa is a nice colored printed stamp that gets affixed in the passport. It makes you feel special, a better person altogether. I remember getting the first visa for America 15 years ago. After standing in line for many hours in a freezing winter weather, I got to the interview, passed it and got my passport. My frozen, wet feet didn't hurt anymore. That stamp made me feel above most other people in the room... Back then I believed that! Sadly, I don't feel like that anymore. I had to pay $540 for the privilege of being allowed to spend my money and my time visiting a corner of my planet with my family.

Happy Birthday! See you in Penang.

There are agencies that would charge $50 per person to take the passports to the Consulate. We skipped on that, choosing to make it a 30-hour trip to New York City for my 44th birthday. We visited the Metropolitan and had lunch in the park before going to REI in New Jersey. In the end Kendra told us that we have to go to Penang, Malaysian restaurant, around the corner. We had Penang Satay, Vegetable Dumplings, Pad Thai, Beef Chow Fun, Chicken fried rice, Pulut Hitam. There was a time in the past when I wouldn't have tried anything exotic like that. That time is gone too. I asked the waiter for whatever is their specialty and enjoyed it without any hesitation. We will be in the real Penang in February and we'll compare.

We booked and payed accommodations in the most expensive cities that we'll visit. A nice apartment by the beach in Sydney and a 2 story house in Central Tokyo.  The apartments that I got in Sydney and Hawaii are cheaper than one room in the hotel in my village. The house in Tokyo costs less than the cheapest hostel there. Then I also bought the tickets for the bus from Kyoto to Tokyo. Buying now I could get seats on the standard bus, it will be a tough night but the price for 5 of us is less than 1 ticket on the Shinkansen. They even had reduced prices (by 2.5%= $1.3) for students,  and by 5% ($2.5) for my son as a child under 12.

I decided to end my little romance with an obscure chinese low budget airline. They wouldn't release their schedule for October, even lead me to believe they'll stop flying the Ibaraki-Shanghai route. There is a straight 4 hour flight from Tokyo to Beijing. The direct flight is between $800 and $2400 for an economy seat. We took the $2400 seat paying in British Airline miles plus $80. I only got 4 tickets so far, I need more miles and I'll get those in a few days as reward for all my other expenses. We took the chance that we might be separated with this, but I am sure it will work out fine. We chose to do the right simple thing despite the aberration of China Japan air connection. Of course I also bought some regular plane tickets, a couple flights in Hawaii in March and a flight from Guilin to Guangzhou in January. We are going to Canton! Unbelievable!

I got a $50,000 loan from my retirement account and some new credit cards with 0% interest, one of them for 21 months. Getting the money for the trip is pretty much done. My bank, "the world local bank" decided to sell all its business in upstate New York. The sale would be final when we'll be away and I don't know how I'll be able to work with the new bank. They would have been useless anyhow, they charge 3% for any foreign transactions. I found one bank that doesn't do that but I had to travel 100 miles to show them my green card. They wouldn't allow opening the account online because I am not an American citizen. So I did it. There was a time when the bureaucracy and idiocy of all these things would have affected me. Not any more. I don't know why, but it feels good. I don't care. It's not worth my nerves. I am going on with my plans because I am doing what I have to do. Nothing can stay in our way, we are doing the right thing. The kids are laughing, joking, they are happy, they are excited. Maria is the first one in the morning to get to the board and change the number of days left. Ioan said "I cannot wait to go around the world." Ileana and the kids will return today from the church summer camp and we will get on the last straight line, 50 more days, nothing else until we leave. That's it.

In an unrelated matter, Steve Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO. The Thomas Edison of our generation. People talk about his genius and his achievements. From little that we know about him I think the most impressive lesson is how he chose to live his life and the man he has become. Going again over his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, he uses the world love 10 times and death 6 times. Do what you love. "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." He ended quoting Stewart Brand: "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

We'll do.

A step

We managed to go and buy sandals. Those who know us remember that shopping is not our favorite way to pass the time. We don’t like the material, the color, the fashion, the store, the crowd, and in general, we lack patience. In Ithaca there is this shop where they sell Birkenstock sandals. What is so special about these sandals? They are manufactured in Germany! Besides that the sole is made from cork (makes them light) and follows the natural curves of your foot (makes them really comfortable).

Ithaca, rush hour. I follow the instructions on the GPS and arrive on a small street with restaurants, agencies and in between them, our “Fontana’s Shoes Store” with two large windows full of different kind of footware. We entered and a young lady greeted us. She invited us to sit on chairs and measured our feet. We explain what kind of sandals we would like (podiatrist recommendation) and while she goes back and forth bringing us different models to try, we look around ourselsves with large eyes, like children in a candy store: so many models, and some of them look even elegant. We don’t lose time and start asking questions about the other brands. Naot? The sole is made from a mixture of cork and plastic. Teva? Just plastic and it’s not as rigid as Birkenstock’s. We sit on our chairs and she adjusts the buckles on the straps, brings different models for the girls because the narrow one is better for them than the normal one. Do you have a different colour? And what’s the difference between the soft footbed and the hard one? It has a thin layer of latex foam that helps the foot adapt easily to this kind of footware. She helps us one at a time and we get up from our chair, walk around the store paying attention to our toes, heels, to the straps, the way they rub the skin, the sole and all those mounds that we could feel under it. The girls are looking at each other, talk in Romanian, they laugh and they are wondering if they really look like twins. Ioan waits patiently for his turn, paying attention to every detail of the process. For him they have only three models, but just one is good on his feet: Keen.

We make our minds up. Four boxes are on the counter.

We take a deep breath... now we need water resistent, all-terrain shoes for the girls and they have to try them with their orthotics. Luckily our help knew what the store could offer us and brought two models for each girl (Ioan didn’t have his orthotics with him). They picked the one that suited them best. Maria was happy because she will not have to shop for trekking shoes for a long, long time.

After two hours, with a headache, but happy we left the store carring six boxes of shoes.

Neun und Neunzig

I found out what the song is about. Growing up in a communist Romania, I turned 17 in 1984. It was probably the first year of dancing, clubs and interest in music hits. One of the best songs of that year was Nena's "99 Luftballons" and ever since the number 99 has a special significance for us. The song it's a fantasy about children who release a bag of balloons in Cold War era Berlin, soldiers think it's an incoming weapon, trigger a nuclear war and in the end one of the children stands in the rubble of the city and finds a single remaining red balloon (wikipedia). It was a protest song, I guess, we didn't know but we loved it.

There's still some room in these bags for a few items.

Ninety-nine days until we leave. We almost finished the luggage, we are ready. Six bags lined up, just a few more items to add.

We had several setbacks and turnarounds but the general attitude is that no matter what it will be fine. Just realized that the China visa will limit us to 30 days at a time. Considering that the time in Tibet is already tight there has to be some sacrifice somewhere. Still trying to get to China from Japan, I found a mysterious airline that flies from an obscure Tokyo airport to Shanghai. We didn't want to go to Shanghai, but we'll take it. It should save at least $1000 for the tickets, but it is another city, another stop. What do we cut?

We bought our tickets from Australia to Hawaii. Eleven days, two 10-hour flights, another expense, two more crosses of the Equator. We'll be there at the end of March and back in Sydney on April 1st. Don't ask why, it could be a never ending discussion. Why do we need borders and passports?

So we swapped Hawaii for New Zealand's Northern Island. What would you do? We'll take it and have a fabulous time.

I booked the campers. Apparently this is the way to go in New Zealand and Australia and for us it is surely the cheapest accommodation. But it's more than this, it is one major attraction for all of us. Two weeks in New Zealand, supposedly giving us the freedom to not plan ahead. Two weeks in Australia, two bookings, a 4WD for Uluru that should let us get off the sealed road and a fancy camper that should take us to Darwin. With a pretty tight schedule we couldn't wait for an unlikely deal at the last moment, just got the early booking discount.

No further plans after Kuala Lumpur on June 1st. I tried to believe it, I said it out loud, shared it with everybody and it didn't work. The word "Paris" has some special power over me, I feel it in my chest, I choke and my knees melt. And more. AirAsia had another sale, we thought for a few minutes and we'll be in Paris in June 2012. It was one of the options in the first place, Paris, London or Johannesburg. It's all about visas, embassies and flight connections. Don't get me started.

I'm wondering if I'm over-planning. I never bought a plane ticket at the last minute, I would love to go to the counter and get whatever is left, any destination available, just go. I will do it at some point, but for now it's just not realistic. I made a lot of reservations and our schedule is filling little by little. Almost all of the hotel bookings are for the cheapest price in a great location with free cancellation. Almost all the plane tickets are for a fabulous price and non-refundable. We'll just forfeit something if it doesn't work. I'm not over-planning, there's just so little time left and I really don't want to spend this trip looking for Internet and accommodations. I already lost a great apartment in Kyoto by a few minutes. Only ninety-nine days. I have to learn German. Neun und Neunzig.

This is the English translation of the song:

German Text: Carlo Karges

Translation: Hyde Flippo

Musik: Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen

Have you some time for me,

then I'll sing a song for you

about 99 balloons

on their way to the horizon.

If you're perhaps thinking about me right now

then I'll sing a song for you

about 99 balloons

and that such a thing comes from such a thing.

99 balloons

on their way to the horizon

People think they're UFO's from space

so a general sent up

a fighter squadron after them

Sound the alarm if it's so

but there on the horizon were

only 99 balloons.

99 fighter jets

Each one's a great warrior

Thought they were Captain Kirk

then came a lot of fireworks

the neighbors didn't understand anything

and felt like they were being provoked

so they shot at the horizon

at 99 balloons.

99 war ministers

matches and gasoline canisters

They thought they were clever people

already smelled a nice bounty

Called for war and wanted power.

Man, who would've thought

that things would someday go so far

because of 99 balloons.

99 years of war

left no room for victors.

There are no more war ministers

nor any jet fighters.

Today I'm making my rounds

see the world lying in ruins.

I found a balloon,

think of you and let it fly (away).

Why Facebook

I love Facebook. Maybe for the same reasons as most other people. I love that I hear from long lost friends, people who completely disappeared on the other side of the world. I love that I can see what my daughter is reading, what the other one is listening to, what video clips my nephew discovered and so on. Our children's friends and our friends' children share funny pictures and stupid tests. I can share an article on The Economist without having to send emails around. I can easily find out what Shakira did yesterday...

But mostly I love that I don't really have to work on this. I can screen through hundreds of posts in a couple of minutes and I don't have to click delete or like or send a reply. When the mouse reaches the bottom of the page it loads more posts. Nobody really expects me to get back to them and they don't need to get back to me.

Why then have I sent tons of posts around, begging friends to vote for our page "Noi6 Around The World?" Apparently if I get 25 likes I can get an userID for our page. I don't know how that would make things different. The Facebook page should help as a feed reader. We have a blog at http://noi6.blogspot.com. Today it has 700 days since the first post. Ileana started a separate blog at http://dejurimprejur.blogspot.com. I still don't know how we will use our blogs. Ileana's is in Romanian only to make it easy for our family members who don't speak English. They wouldn't know how to use a feed reader, they might not remember to look for new posts and would definitely be put back by the mixture of English and Romanian. On my blog I will mix English and Romanian and hope that the English readers will put up with it. But everything will be linked on Facebook. We might post every day or every week or every now and then. We try to keep it slow at this point, despite making a lot of progress in our plans, still nothing is happening, we only leave in 135 days. On the other hand, on Facebook I can post short, quick updates. I spend many hours reading about travels and I run into other interesting resources. Facebook could be a perfect vehicle to share that. I don't want to increase my number of friends there and I don't want to decrease my privacy settings. Having a page accessible to everyone would keep things separated. Having a two way communication with people posting on our wall or sharing pictures is another possible benefit. And in the end, I am sure that there will be some family that will get inspired to follow their dreams after reading our notes. On Facebook ;-)

We decided early that we need to document our thoughts and keep track of how they evolve. A diary is good for that and nobody needs to read a diary. But in the 21st century nobody writes for the drawer. Everything is out there and we should feel comfortable with that. But of course, we don't. We need to learn how to overcome our fears and our nature. We have to share the wealth of information accumulated and what more will come. We read thousands of pages of family blogs regarding family travel for a year or so around the world. Sometimes we discovered links to some blogs that were kept private. It was frustrating and hurtful. What do they have to hide? We felt cheated when some stopped updating their sites and sometimes when they would only put updates every couple of months. They should keep their end of the bargain. I subscribed to their blog and they should keep me posted. At least on Facebook.

We are going to travel as a family around the world. It is something special. Everybody knows this. Especially if I define "special" as being other than usual. Hopefully it would also be "special" in the way of "something distinguished by some unusual quality and being in some way superior" (Merriam-Webster definitions). Even being able to dream of this proves how lucky we are. But we probably wouldn't be here if it wouldn't be for some others who did it first and proved that can be done. They came back, better, stronger, happier. And as far as I know everybody said "I would do it again in a heartbeat!" They shared their experiences and wrote books about it. They started programs or joined organizations that promote travel. Some never stopped, continuing to travel in open ended fashion. They feel that travel makes them better people and makes this world better. I cannot agree more.

[Paragraphs self-censored because they were too serious][...] After a couple of days I got the Facebook userID and now we have a direct url http://facebook.com/Noi6RTW. We can print it on a business card.

I estimate that I told more than 300 of my patients that I am leaving in October. I estimate that 99% of responses where positive. Explaining to them I understand better why we have to do it. People are happy for me and for my children and praise me for doing this. My leaving will affect their life, sometimes dramatically, but they respect my right to do what I feel I have to do. Some people remembered similar experiences with their parents and how much it changed their life. Always in a positive way. Some people wanted to do something special with their children but never got to it. A lot of people said "you only live once." (!?) Some people say that they will travel vicariously through us, maybe on this blog, maybe on Facebook...

Fifty Tickets In 24 Hours

Three months after deciding the departure day. Less then five months until we leave we find ourselves closer and closer, sometimes too close. We bought the first tickets for an amazing price, breaking our trip in two, Asia until February 29, then New Zealand and the rest. In March I bought the first leg of our trip. Another great deal, taking us from New York to Osaka. In April I bought another three tickets, from Kochi, in the South tip of India, to Kuala Lumpur, then to Guilin, Hong Kong, Macau and back to Kuala Lumpur on January 27. It was a quick and impulsive decision, but we wanted more time in China, we wanted Hong Kong, we initially wanted to avoid the Chinese New Year. Then we realized that we actually want it in the craziest, busiest, most crowded place we could imagine, so we will be there for it. That wasn't anymore a time to look for cheap tickets, I think I justly assumed that the closer it gets the higher the price so we got the tickets and even reserved 2 rooms in Hong Kong for 3 nights and payed for 2 nights in Macau! Then we took a long break. We bought more things for the road, we bought some books, we read some more and went on with our life. We kept talking about it. We answered some questions, took some decisions, postponed some others. We are stuck (for now) trying to decide how to get from Tokyo to Beijing. Considering that the cheapest one-way direct ticket is more than $2000 (even more for return ticket), I have to come up with an alternative.

People ask me if I am excited. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I explain that "travel is the saddest pleasure", at least planning for it. This is a quote from Paul Theroux, I will read something by him at some point. It makes sense. With the whole world and "all the time" to see it, we find ourselves constantly making sacrifices, eliminating things, giving up on some dreams. Every yes for a destination involves a no for several others. Deciding to go to China a second time means no Laos, Burma, or Northern Thailand. No Vietnam. Going to Xining means no Chengdu and so on. More days in Tokyo means no to Hiroshima and South Korea. So I explain it sometimes, but I'm not sure if I get my point across and I wouldn't blame them, nice problem to complain about. We set some dates to break our trip in different stages. Then we break it further apart, leaving room for decisions on the road. Anything could change at some point and we just need to know our options. How can we tell if we'll survive India? How long should we stay there? We all are very excited, very eager to discover it and a bit scared. How long should we stay in Nepal? Every extra day there would take a day away from India. So we decided not to decide anything. We'll cross Himalaya on December 3rd and then six weeks later we'll have to catch a flight 2200 km away. That's 1340 miles by air, but it will be much more and much slower by land. We are all confident that we will make it somehow.

Last week I started to hear rumors that AirAsia is having the yearly sale. Tons of tickets for 10 cents for travel from February 6 to June 20, 2012. We had to decide quick on a day to leave Australia, that being one of the most expensive tickets. We did that and starting Monday night I bought 50 tickets in 24 hours. I also worked for 12 of those hours, slept for 4 and else. After getting the Darwin to Bali ticket on May 8, I decided to buy a ticket from Penang to Kuala Lumpur on February 29. Then I had the "great" idea to try to fly from Bali to Yogyakarta, no direct connection, but who cares. I bought tickets from Bali to Jakarta, then return Jakarta - Yogyakarta. After another hour or so, I decided that we really don't want to spend any time in Jakarta so I got tickets to Singapore, one year from today. Initially they were $2.42, but until I made my mind they were gone. Finally I found 4 tickets for that price, and got another one for $25. It was enough for the evening, it was after 2 am. I went to bed still trying to solve some puzzles. Next morning at 7, I bought tickets for Thailand, leave Bangkok to go to Krabi (February 8), return on February 22 to fly to Penang. I went to work and when I got home I bought the tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Funny, the tickets were listed as 7-8 cents, but the final cost with all the taxes and convenience fees was $215. Still a good price for 5 tickets. At this point Ileana said STOP! I was done anyhow! I got 50 plane tickets for a little over $1500. Average of $30 per flight, that's a decent price especially considering that most of it is in fees. $200 of that is just the luggage cost, for just 2 bags.

Overall an amazing thing, we now have 15 flights bought and still plenty of open dates in our calendar to make our plans as we please. There are some missing links, three more mandatory flights, two optional ones and we are set with the air transport until June 1st. The first 230 days of travel. After we are done in that half of the world, assuming that we want to go on, we will most likely move to Africa. I'll write more before that...