Here are ten random meditations on Sydney.

1)   The shops open at 9am. Have you ever been in a department store at 9am? It’s quite a displacing sensation. It feels as if you got up to go to the shops rather than getting up and deciding to go to the shops. It’s not right. There are other things that don’t feel right when you’ve just arisen from your nightly slumber such as seeing a jazz band, wearing black tie or eating oysters.

2)   The largest department store in Sydney still has customer announcements: “Good Morning Customers, we have terrific savings in men’s haberdashery today with many named brands 50% off” The old lady making these announcements was persistent, if a little confused as to the correct pronunciation of Hitachi (top marks for retrying on-air though) and I could tell from her delivery she was convinced that blu-ray was a typing error on her script.

3)   Most people in Sydney are employed by the security industry. Not security as in police offices or armored vehicle personnel but “you can’t come in here wearing that” type of security. Bouncers if you will. They are everywhere and at all times of the day – bars, restaurants, store entrances and so on. They are the ever-vigilant protectors of dress code and gaggles of somewhat classless girls. As we all know, their real job is to balance your spending potential with your trouble quotient; we seem to be welcome everywhere.

4)   The girls here are victim to cheap high street fashion. Same problem happens in the UK when all the affordable retail outlets are inundated with cheaply made, “night out with the girls”, trampy partyware. Things are bulging out in the wrong places, seams are crooked and the only decent fit is the one I will have if that girl hitches up her stupid strapless dress over her boobs one more time. Girlfriend, get a better fitting and tasteful outfit or better fitting and tasteful boobs – either appears to be fine in Sydney.

5)   Talking of boobs, topless bathing is quite acceptable on Bondi beach.

6)   Talking of Bondi beach, they have the most fantastic swimming club called the Ice Breakers. The swimming pools are right next to the ocean and the waves occasionally splash into them in a pleasing almost choreographed fashion. The clubhouse juts out from the cliffside, affording amazing views of the whole beach and bay from the ultra-chic top level bar. They serve the general public although the general public rarely goes in because it costs $17 for a gin and tonic. The also serve Pimms. I had two and charged the bill to my expense account. I am Mad Man!

7)   The Australian dollar is taking performance-enhancing drugs. It is so expensive in Sydney that my credit card creaks under the weight of its burden. There are 95 Aussie cents to the US dollar so you might as well call it parity but that’s where the parity ends. I sneeze, it costs $10 and I can’t even expense bodily convulsive explosions. Now, I fully understand that the three of us (Snr. Dir. Biz Dev, VP of Operations and little old me) might only be frequenting the more exclusive of establishments be we secretly know that we’re not even at the second to top tier of Sydney dining. We’re just trying to have a decent meal whilst suffering the hardships of being away from our home and loved ones. If such suffering is only abated after a third bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, then so be it. Oh the humanity of it all.

8)   Hanoi and Sydney are sister cities in traffic madness. There are more cars than road space and just like Hanoi, your right to be on a certain piece of road is governed by the fact you just placed yourself on that certain piece of road. Lots of locals cycle and cycle lanes are ubiquitous. These cyclists are insane, nobody cares for them and they don’t care for themselves. At least in Hanoi the cyclists are in packs of several hundred, there’s safety in those numbers. Here they are the bi-pedal urban kangaroo that bounces out into the middle of the road mesmerized by the oncoming headlights. Some city cars still have ‘roo-bars so ensuring neither marsupial nor bi-cycle will damage the front of your BMW.

9)   Lots of guys in Sydney lift a lot of weights. Big biceps, perfect pecs and a triangular torso stuffed into a skin tight t-shirt. I guess if the beach and the nightclub were your two main social activities, Darwinian theory would say that your chances of mating are higher if you look like you could beat someone up for both ogling your girl and stealing your break. At Sydney’s top nightclub, Hugo’s, I stood wondering if I might have a better chance than the local males because I look completely different than every other guy there. Perhaps some innate and buried desire for genetic diversity would surface and I would be considered suitable breeding material for a passing female. Then I realized the best I could hope for was a vicious mauling from a passing cougar.

10) Population density in Sydney is huge. Seattle is small town America in comparison. Kings Cross on a Saturday night is an overcrowded, oversexed human zoo of mardi gras proportions. The Manley Ferry on a Sunday afternoon is equally as chunky although it’s the under fives feeling queasy rather than the under twenty fives. Chinatown smells and old Asian ladies push washing machines across busy intersections. This is exactly what a Chinatown should be. The gay district, Darlinghurst, is just plain nasty.  That too, is exactly how it should be. I don’t believe reflex anal dilatatio (look it up) should feel at home in the gentrified, commoditized and commercialized gay neighborhoods of the Passive Northwest. Every city street at any time seems to be teeming with life darting in opposing directions but moving in concert. Sydney is the great barrier reef of urban existence.

So, my time here comes to a close. My plastic camera is not a reliable source of documentation. Its temperamental and inconsistent nature yet again leaves the words on this blog as the sole journal. Most of these meditations were made under the influence of less than wholesome stimuli and I must give credit to my colleagues who may either have planted the seed of my acerbic commentary or spoke the original nuggets of comedic observation that I may have plagiarized for this essay. If nothing else, I owe much to one of them for ordering yet another round of drinks and more to the other for signing my expense report “no questions asked” – I hope.

And so, first, an apology. What a way to leave our loyal readers. After all we’ve been through together, the ups and downs, highs and lows, ins and outs and I (we) leave you hanging somewhere in New Jersey lamenting dead relatives. That was not the way we intended to honor you and for that we beg your forgiveness. There is/was a method to the madness however. I wanted the last entry in this travel collective to be the denouement, drawing together the sights and smells of our adventures into a neat little package with a pretty bow on top. But this task caused great consternation and ultimately frustrated failure. Perhaps you could draw your own conclusions but, apart from that being disrespectful to you, we just didn’t think you could do it. It’s not that we underestimate your capacity for understanding and reason, it is that we have come to note that our travels are just too big for encapsulation. We have not come to terms with the shear width and breadth of them ourselves yet, so to expect our family, friends and casual voyeurs to formulate a precis of our voyages goes beyond the reasonable. Nevertheless, we live in a summarized society so, with apologies proffered but no retractions offered, here is the superlative list we all crave:

1) Distance traveled: 96,180km/59,764 miles
2) Continuous overland distance traveled without flying: 30,979km/19,250 miles
3) Highest elevation gained on foot: 4610m/15,124ft
4) Lowest elevation gained by swimming: 24m/78.74ft
5) Number of countries visited longer than one night: 23
6) Number of photo’s taken (and kept): 5137
7) Number of words written on our blog concerning these adventures: 104,544

And so on… and on… and on some more after that. Oh, but what a let down. The summary of the whole two years into bullet points loses its heart and soul. 5137 pictures – how boring. Would you want to sit through them all? Nope, me neither. What does a mile mean? A Nepal mile is a lot different than a USA mile. No, my friends, the reason why this last entry has been so long coming is that I’m quite literally unable to write it. It’s not emotion, although there has been plenty of that around here just lately, it’s just a complete inability to form my thoughts into words.

Today, I decided to take the plunge. This is my last day ‘off’ before returning to work, before returning to the normality in which we all exist. It has been slowly creeping back yet has not been wholly unwelcome. Some shopping, some decorating of the condo, a cat, a car and a regular Christmas have all made successful inroads to my road-hardened heart. But now, on the eve of being served the largest slice of normality pie (a la mode), I decided that enough was enough and this last entry must be written.

And here it is:

It still doesn’t say anything. I still can’t do it. Good grief David Browne. Here’s some random brainstorming formatted into a list, perhaps you can make sense of something:

• • So that is what Mongolia looks like.
  • Sarah rocks the world and puts all naysayers who ever said anything condescending or disparaging about her ability to do this, to shame. I am proud of her and you should be too.
  • I miss it.
  • I don’t miss it.
  • I have a lot of photos and a bunch of them I’m really quite proud of.
  • We wrote a lot of words and we’re proud of them too.
  • The world is generally poor.
  • The world is generally happy.
  • The USA is generally the inverse of the last two statements.
  • The USA is truly great but not because of the previous statement.
  • My understanding of the world is inversely proportional to my knowledge of it.
  • Will I ever do this again?
  • Technology reaches everywhere and everywhere people’s lives are better for it.
  • The developing world’s food is wonderful, yet its wine leaves a lot to be desired.
  • Seattle’s ethnic restaurants are really quite authentic in everything but price.
  • Souvenirs are overrated.
  • Merrell make the best trail shoes in the world.
  • Never take clean drinking water for granted.
  • Squatting to use the toilet really clears things out.
  • We need to allow goats on our public buses, it lends the whole operation a sense of community.
  • Sacrificing goats in front of a 737 should be recognised by Boeing as an official maintenance procedure.
  • China is not at all scary.
  • Russia is.
  • I Am-sterdam.
  • Amsterbeth is Amsterdam.

So there we are my dear friends and family. The night before it all comes to an end. I can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. Is this it? Is this Pee Wee’s Big Adventure? Sure, we’ll take vacations to the weird and wonderful but a vacation, as we have discussed, has different goals than those of extended travel. I have traveled my entire life, big travels too, but I’m nearly (almost, sort-of) forty. Is this the part in the movie where I settle down, get a Golden Retriever and wait for the urge to buy a two seater sports car to kick in? I don’t know and neither do you and that’s part of the adventure too I suppose.

Nah – you know, from that last paragraph to this I’ve made up my mind. Fuck it! Life’s too short to hang around waiting for Death to come around with the check and in his over-familiar way say, “I’ll be your cashier when you’re ready. No rush, take your time.” (Liar!) Dine and dash, my friends, dine and dash.

The Acceptance Speech
Wow, we don’t know what to say, We’re flabbergasted. Firstly, we’d like to thank the academy for voting us the recipients of the Dave and Sarah Travel Award for 2007/2008 but we couldn’t have done it without the following people:

Nancy – For the being the post office, business manager and car rental agency.
Jackie & Ken – For giving me back my bedroom for probably way too long. It’s nice to know the feeling of sharing a bed with a girl whilst in my parent’s house still feels the same.
Amsterbeth – Hey, what else needs to be said?
Nina, Steve, Beth & Graham – The UK taxi service and proprietors of the best Bed and Breakfast in Lightwater, Wokingham and Padstow.
Amber and Chadwick – Buddy Holly Lives!
Hugo – My best photographs are all because this crazy Dutchman stubbornly refuses to use a digital camera.
Rachael Evans – Bring it on, we’re not scared anymore.
Patti & Leslie – We didn’t completely mess it up. That makes us very happy.

My paternal grandfather was a huge Hungarian man whose skin turned a deep leather red in the summer. He had a deep, bellowing laugh and was the life and fun of every party. He would yell out “Buffongoola” and called his mates “Mongolian porkchops” – whatever any of that meant. Everyone knew and loved Al, he was extremely popular in the Hungarian and eastern European communities of New Brunswick, New Jersey and was one of the boys in clubs like the Eagles and Knights of Columbus. He was an extremely hard worker, was smart with his money and provided well for his family. My grandparents had a little bungalow on the Jersey shore where I spent all my summers growing up. Their back patio was the best patio of all because the party was always happening there. Beers were always in the cooler, something was always on the grill and at the center of it all was my grandfather.

Unfortunately, he also had a mean and angry drinking problem, was an abusive father, probably a distant husband and, when there wasn’t a party going on, generally instilled a paralytic fear in me. He yelled at me once for something silly and I literally peed my pants right there on the kitchen floor. Our interactions from the time I was five mainly consisted of talking about the weather. During those summers down the shore when I was little, he would walk me to the post office once every couple weeks to mail a postcard home. Once I was old enough to walk myself, he didn’t really know what to do with me anymore and we tended to just avoid each other for most of the season.

He had quadruple bypass surgery in the fall of 1991. Though the surgery itself was a success, there was a mishap in the recovery room and he never regained consciousness. He died on December 12th of that year. I can’t say I ever missed him after he died. Some of my happiest memories are from my summers down the shore but also some of my very worst and most scary memories are of his traumatic drunken episodes. To be frightfully honest, my life was a little more peaceful after he died. For reasons too complicated to explain here, my parents and I did not attend his funeral. My grandmother moved down to Louisiana to be near us and from there on, I had no reason to visit New Jersey anymore and didn’t give thought to ever visiting his grave.

That was 16 years ago, though, and many things have changed since then. My grandmother has now passed away, my relationship with my father has grown distant and my connection to the entire rest of my father’s family has, for all intents and purposes, ceased. The disintegration of family ties began when I was a child and was out of my control but making peace for myself is totally in my control and as the years have gone by, the more I have yearned for it. When David and I began planning our road trip across America I felt a strong pull to finally make the trip to my grandfather’s cemetery, to stand where my grandmother had stood and also as a grown woman, say goodbye and let it all go.

My mom made some calls for me and was able to find the cemetery name and address and my grandfather’s plot details. I had butterflies in my stomach as we drove into the old neighborhood. First we drove past the house my grandfather built and my father was raised in. Then, as we drove on to the cemetery, I thought back to how my grandmother had described to me the grand procession that took place on the day of the funeral – hundreds of cars, mourners from all reaches of the huge Hungarian community. I expected the cemetery, then, to be beautiful, perhaps with a tree lined entrance, manicured grounds, even regal looking. In reality, the grass under the blazing sun was as parched and tired as the few oldies shuffling through the headstones. Everything, the paved paths, the grass and headstones, the chain-link fence and even the visitors that day, all looked like they had had their day and were all now a little forgotten.

We set out to find St. Joseph’s section but quickly realized that none of the sections were actually labeled, they simply blended one into the other and we’d arrived on a weekend so there was no grounds’ keeper to assist us. Determined not to have made the trip in vain, we began walking the rows, starting in the newer looking sections and making our way to the old. We spent probably two hours in the blistering sun and I grew so desperate I began saying out loud, to who I have no idea, “I’m trying to do the right thing here. Please don’t let us leave without finding this …”.

Finally, I walked over to an elderly man tending to a grave to ask if he knew where St. Joseph’s section was. He was probably in his 80’s, small in stature, a little bent over, cute in his oldness. He didn’t know where the section was but began explaining how just about everyone he knew, most of his family and friends, were buried in this cemetery and he came regularly to visit them all. It took him a couple of hours to get to each grave. He seemed a little lonely and talkative, a dangerous combination in the burning sun and as I shifted from one foot to the other wondering when it would be polite to excuse myself and consider my search sadly over, he happened to ask the name of the person I was looking for. I told him my grandfather’s name and instantly I could see something sparking in his memory. It was like I was taking him back to a better time, I could almost here the music begin to play in a dance hall from George’s past. It turned out this very nice man, George Soborvak, not only knew my grandfather but knew my great uncle, my great grandmother, my entire family. He remembered the bar that my family had owned, he was in the Eagles with my grandfather and his brother, “the boys” he called them. “Big fella, that Al”…..”what’s the name again?” Poor George remembered so much from so many years ago but had to be reminded of the name I was looking for once very 10 seconds or so. George felt terrible that he couldn’t help me, perhaps he’d not been to the funeral or maybe he’s been to too many others since then to remember where this one grave might be. He felt certain, though, that another “boy” from the group would be able to help- Greg somebody, who was actually Hungarian (George was Czech) and two years younger so was bound to remember better. Though George mentioned several times that he needed to get home or “the missus” would be angry, he insisted on driving by Greg’s place to seek help and off he went. I stood stunned by this chance meeting. George was more a connection to my family and to my past than seeing a headstone would ever have been. He had been standing next to me in the flesh, remembering and speaking names and places that I never expected to hear spoken out-loud again. He was proof, a wonderful reminder that my family had held a place in the community and that there had been good times. I smiled at the thought of George excitedly sharing at the next Eagles’ meeting that he’d met Al Lukacs’ granddaughter. “Remember Al? Man, we had good times with him. We haven’t thought about him in a while…” That the memory of my grandfather would bring a few minutes of good times for a group of old boys would make me happy if I had any confidence that George would remember our encounter long enough to tell someone about it. But what was more important to me that day was that George, in his sweet and tender way, seemed more a grandfather than my own had been. In that way, he allowed the memory of my grandfather to bring ME some good times for a few minutes.

George came back to say that Greg had not been home. I still haven’t seen my grandfather’s grave but now it doesn’t matter. The grave represents his death whereas George represents his life, a much more fitting tribute than a cold lump of granite.

Consider this: the United States of America is a giant restaurant bill. You know, the piece of paper the server puts face down on your table at the end of your meal, and as she does so she performs that neat little trick where she puts a crease along the middle of the bill so it has a handy little ridge by which to pick it up. Am making any sense here?

The crease is the Rocky Mountains, they run from Canada down to New Mexico, creating a continental sized ridge that would be quite handy if some trans-dimensional being needed to pick up the USA to see what’s underneath. OK, that’s too much symbolism. Or is it? You see, I never thought the Rockies would be very symbolic to me. In fact, I didn’t really know where they were. I mean, I know where they are but just like any great natural marvel, you might know where it is from a book but you never can really know until you’ve been there. The symbolism of this whole g’damn trip slapped me in the face at 11,312 feet above sea level as the little red Santa Fe, despite a V6 engine, was huffing and puffing up the side of a mountain. There, at the top of Monarch Pass, is the crease they call the Continental Divide. Any river that starts to the east of that point flows into the Atlantic and any that starts to the west heads downhill, all the way to the Pacific. To the Pacific and to home, my friends, is where we are heading. This is it. Just like when you push your snowboard over the edge of the drop, you have no choice but to go where gravity takes you.

Now, I know that having a little red Santa Fe with a V6 engine means we can defy the laws of gravity and, if the truth be told, we have used it to do so in order to visit the best of New Mexico, but the fact still stands that we can not defy the pull home. It is inevitable we will be home sooner rather than later. The closer we get, the more momentum we have and the faster we’ll arrive. As I sat there on top of that mountain, posing for a self-timer picture, I realized that every crappy picture I take from now counts double, every stop is to be savored and each mile is more important than the last. Of course, each of the 54,124 miles we’ve travelled so far has been important but these last 1400 are special because they represent all the ones that came before it. The USA is as fantastic a place to travel around as any of the other countries we’ve visited. It’s ironic that this country holds a position of responsibility to our trip in the same manner in which it does to the rest of the world. But equally so, we must make sure the lure of a long left home doesn’t taint what it can offer. If anything, these last two weeks will cement the success of the whole trip. If we come out of this smiling we will have beaten the odds, silenced the naysayers yet proven nothing to anybody but ourselves because we having nothing to prove to anybody but ourselves. In Dutch, the restaurant bill is called the ‘rekoning’, so here the continental divide is the crease by which we can flip over our reckoning. Enjoy the ride downhill, we may never do this again.

(We’ll probably do this again)

If I were a twenty year old rock’n'roll star who was about to die in a tragic airplane crash somewhere in the middle of a corn field, I think I would choose Iowa in which to do it. Clear Lake, Iowa is famous more for a tragic day in February 1959 than it is anything else including the lake regardless of how clear it happens to be. I’m a bit of a Buddy Holly nut. I’m not sure why, I’m not sure it even matters why. I just am. You can ask two of my friends: Amber and Amy. Amber was born in Iowa and not too far from Clear Lake and Amy comes from Lubbock, Texas, the birthplace of the great bespectacled one. Within seconds of befriending them both nearly (and separately) eleven years ago I pounced on them with questions and trivia about their prodigal son. And so, with great enthusiasm, we met with our good pals Amber and Chadwick in Minneapolis with the idea to head south, to Iowa, to Amber’s family farm and, most importantly, via Clear Lake and the Surf Ballroom.

This isn’t really a post about Buddy Holly; you don’t know that yet but you do need a little background info so I’ll keep pretending it is. Buddy Holly, Richie Vallens and The Big Bopper played their last show ever at the Surf Ballroom on February 2nd 1959. The heating on the tour bus was broken and several musicians were reporting frost-bitten fingers. Holly decided to charter a plane to fly him and a couple of band members to the next show in Fargo. The guitar player lost a coin toss to Richie Vallens and Buddy’s bass player (Waylon Jennings) gave up his seat to an already sick Big Bopper. The plane left Clear Lake in the early hours of the 3rd but quickly crashed in white-out conditions in a corn field a few miles out of town. That was, I believe, “the day the music died” (now try getting that song out of your head).

But, as I said, this isn’t about Buddy – he is just the catalyst that led me to discover heritage, hospitality and the heartland.

Heritage is something the Americans try to preserve only after they’ve already destroyed it. Unlike the Europeans, although it could be fairly said they understand it more by accident than design, however it’s the design that helps them out. i.e. every great European leader believes their empire will last forever so designs and builds structures that can quite literally last forever. This is not how the Americans build empires. Forever squarely stands in the way of progress and progress is the engine behind the economy and the economy is what is supposed to make the poor rich but only seems to make the rich richer. Nothing in the US is built to last because nobody wants it to. And so, this brings me on to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa whose saviour, its patron saint, is this 20 year old nerd of a musician who happened to meet his untimely end a few hours after playing one of thousands of shows the venue had already seen. During the 1920’s to the 1950’s the US was full of these provincial entertainment venues. The list of people who played the Surf is as famous as those who played Carnegie Hall, The Apollo and The Grand Old Opry combined. But then, so was the artist list for every other ballroom in the country, it was a matter of geography. Before the age of air travel, musicians toured by slow bus and if a chance to earn money en-route between big cities was there, then they would take it. Almost all of those ballrooms were pulled down to make way for progress when the airplanes began to fly over the Clear Lakes, Fargos and Rapid Cities of the mid-west. Had Buddy not died that night, the Surf Ballroom would just be a footnote of a footnote, pulled down long ago. But, people love Buddy and the people of Clear Lake love people who love Buddy. Never before have I seen hugs and handshakes from a venue manager to his visitors. A genuinely warm greeting filled with honesty and integrity. We were given the tour, shown the movie and when I expressed admiration of a piece of art on the wall, our host ran to his office to look up the telephone number of the local artist who drew it. All for free, bar the voluntary contribution we gave them to help keep the doors open. If it wasn’t for this unremarkable building with a remarkable past then Clear Lake itself would have had no reason to pull up its socks and open its arms to curio-tourists like ourselves. We went to their locals’ only bowling lanes for a Bud, the locals’ only Half Moon restaurant for dinner and the next morning to their little coffee shop with horse saddles for seats – everywhere people were warm, polite and genuine. Heritage only comes alive with hospitality otherwise you’re just looking at a cold, old building.

The next morning we got in the car and drove the five miles out of town and walked the half mile or so through a corn field to find the precise point that Buddy bit the dust (or snow in this case). The spot may only be marked by a simple memorial but it’s been lovingly adorned by the fans. I love the way pop music moves people to write on the walls of Abbey Road studios or leave mementos at Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris, or, in this case, cover Buddy’s marker with plastic toy cars and other 50’s memorabilia. Buddy lost his trademark glasses in the crash but he can still see thanks to the thoughtfulness of one fan who brought an extra pair, just like the originals, and placed them on the marker. As an aside, the original glasses were re-discovered just last year, they’d been lost in storage at the coroner’s office since 1959 and are now back with his widow.

Speaking of corn and cornfields, our next stop was Amber’s family’s farm(s). But first, we had to stop by Grandma D’s (Amber’s favorite grandparent) for dinner. Grandma D is nearly 80, she has a working vintage pinball table in her basement, can tell you the price of an acre of farmland or a bushel of corn and will whoop your ass at cards given half the chance. (Actually, I won the game we played but I think she let me win, those Iowan manners wouldn’t let her do otherwise). Home cooking country style – lots of fresh farm produce and butter. All of Amber’s family farm for a living including her Uncle Ron who gave us a ride on the biggest tractor I have seen in my life. It has four wheels in the front and four even larger ones at the back all driven by 18 gears and controlled by a computer. He’s pretty proud of it. I might get one when we return to Seattle – it’s certainly a head turner and a snap to park but only when you own three thousand acres. Iowa farms produce mostly corn and soybeans. I was curious to debunk the myths us city folk have of modern farming so I peppered Ron(ster) with questions. Here’s some interesting factoids to ponder over when you next pour a bowl of cereal. The tree-hugging hippies would like you to believe that most corn/soy production in the US is going to bio-fuels which are under fire for not being as efficient as we think. According to Ron, most actually goes to livestock feed. That feed makes our pigs, cattle and chicken plump, juicy and ready for the BBQ. A acre of crop grow-able farmland is now priced at a record $6700. That doesn’t sound a lot but an acre of land to a farmer is equivalent to a window-box to us urban-dwellers. You can’t graze more than two cows per acre out here. A bag of corn seed is now $300, another record high. A farmer can sell a bushel of corn for about $5. It weighs about 56lbs. Your box of cornflakes weighs about a pound and costs about $3 from the supermarket – that means that somewhere between Kelloggs buying a bushel from Uncle Ron and me spooning it into my mouth that corn has gone from 8.9 cents to $3 per pound. Oh – and one more fact: pigs really really smell bad!

Iowa has to thank Buddy Holly somewhat and so do I. Without him, Iowa would have been just another flat state on the way back west. Now I have a bunch of great memories from the most unlikeliest of places.

(If you like Buddy Holly or are just simply bemused as to why a young English lad like myself does, stay tuned for the report of our trip that was hours out of our way to see the little recording studio where the magic was made)

Dave Says:

We promised ourselves that if we were going to spend time, and therefore considerable expense, touring the USA then we must work hard to treat it with the same bug-eyed wonderment we did with the rest of the world. Well, promises are made to be broken and although this one is relatively intact at the time of writing, it will soon enough succumb to the return of the familiar, erosion of the novelty and ridiculousness’ death march towards the norm. So, before I am sucked back into the vortex of the US here’s a quick stream of observation and, of course, gross generalization of 300 million people.

Firstly, and this is a theme I will keep returning to in many guises with no offense meant to anyone I know or don’t but… the food portions are just so damn big. This was apparent to me on our first afternoon in NYC and our first afternoon in the US for 22 months. After ordering a light lunch of a Santa Fe Wrap from a deli in Queens, I almost dropped the plate under the shear weight of so much food. It was super-sized. 1000 miles into the country and this has continued unabated. At first we banded around the concept of splitting entrees across the US (believe me, some are big enough to split across the US) but we don’t always agree on the same food – besides Sarah’s single child complex kicks in and she accuses me of eating more than my fair share. We now lightly self-cater breakfast and lunch so that dinner is always digested on an empty stomach. This is the only way to deal with it – I have not the will power nor the kahunas to order an appetizer as a main course. I wish others could though. Americans are big. Most are physically big in the same way the Dutch are physically tall, but many hang a lot more than they should off those big bones. This isn’t a uniquely American problem although eight year old children that are so big they can’t walk, is. The New Jersey shore was full of these poor kids, waddling down the boardwalk or resting, out of breath, on a bench. Now, I know that poor Johnny has a glandular problem and unfortunate Jenny has a genetic trait inherited from Grandma but, please parents, take the pizza, slushies, ice cream, candy, coke, elephant ears and pork rolls out of the chubby fingers of your clinically obese children before I come along and pop you one on the nose because I truly believe you are abusing your children. It makes my blood boil – they are just kids, they know no better and you should! Arghhhhhh… Oh dear, I’ve gone off on a rant already… sorry… back to light hearted observations.

In fact, back to the deli in Queens. All of a sudden I didn’t have to order what was on the menu board in pretty pictures. No longer did I have to point, use dumb English and wild gesticulations. I could use those damn useful things called ‘words’. I can form sentences such as “May I have the Santa Fe Wrap please.” I could also do that most American of things by adding, “Could you please hold the onions, add extra tomato and just a little mayo please.” In a manner of speaking that was probably too much speaking. New Yorkers dispense with this West Coast niceties of “may” and “please” and “could” and just say “Hey. Can I get the Santa Fe, no onions, extra tomato, easy on the mayo.” Just as well, because not everyone on the serving side of the counter knows much more English than that. So, in a way, ordering in New York was like being in an English speaking country that doesn’t need to speak much English. And that, my friends, is the tone of American English – it is efficient, instant and uniformly consistent. I am using myself as the yard stick here because I seem to have re-acquired my English accent. Folks don’t initially understand my turns of phrase and foreign cadences. They treat my assertion that I come from Seattle with suspicion but are too polite to outwardly question me. Sooner or later the penny drops and I have to tell them where in England I come from. A pointless act however because many only seem to know London, Liverpool and Edinburgh (which is technically and actually in Scotland). But, darn if those Americans aren’t just so pleasant to talk to. They seem to be genuinely interested and are not afraid to take as long as it takes to do nothing but talk to a stranger about nothing in particular. Three times today I had random conversations with random people and, I have to say, I was charmed off my feet.

Now, I do have to admit that I think I’ve found a flaw in the American psyche. They seem to be a little obsessed with war. Let us now put aside conversations about the meaning of freedom and how it relates to warfare – I have much to say about Americans and their sense of freedom, where it comes from, why it’s important and why it doesn’t really exist but I’ll leave that for the great plains of the American West where freedom takes on a different meaning. For now, let’s just take the pure act of war – killing a fellow human for the gain or protection of another. We have spent a couple of days in Gettysburg where many of our fellow tourists were shopping for Civil War memorabilia and demonstrating their micro-knowledge of battles and campaigns and then today, at the beach, we stumbled upon a full blown D-Day re-enactment complete with full and accurately uniformed Germans. It’s not the wars that strike me as odd, it is widely agreed that both were ‘just’ wars, but why do Americans feel it necessary to relive them? Re-enactments are meant to be very accurate – every last detail matters and they should be as realistic as possible. Why should anyone want to recreate a time when hundreds of thousands of its best and brightest died (or were dismembered) trying to kill (or dismember) people just like them as they tried really hard not to die (or be dismembered) themselves. Some would say it’s to honor those who made the ’supreme sacrifice’ but that’s the job of beautiful and peaceful military cemeteries. Re-enactments are there to celebrate the glory of war – the only thing glorious about war is NOT dieing (or dismembering). This country seems to be a little obsessed with sending its young off to die and then celebrate their honor. No other country I’ve ever visited puts signs on the highway to “pray for our service personnel” or offers “20% discount for active military” – not even the Chinese. So America, stop celebrating war and start giving 20% discounts to the kids who work hard in school and parents who can’t afford health insurance.

And so, speaking of kids working hard in school: we were in a bar the other night and the TV was tuned to ESPN and showing the Little League World Series final. For those non-Americans in my audience, the Little League is 13 or 14 year old kids who play baseball and the World Series final is a national competition between teams of Little Leaguers. Here I have some mixed feelings. Good for the kids for achieving something as great as playing baseball for a national prize but then shame on parents, teachers, schools and ESPN for putting so much pressure on such young shoulders. We all grow up too quickly without adding potential humiliation or hollow promises of greatness wrought by national television. Can you imagine some of the conversations that went on in suburban kitchens between over-zealous and projecting dads and their impressionable and emotionally delicate sons? Kids need time to be kids. It’s okay to dream about being A-Rod but nobody but A-Rod should suffer the pressure of actually being him. I haven’t seen any other country offer its young up to the mercy of its bar flies, amateur pundits and wager making adults.

I hate American TV.

I love American TV.

I love that Americans can turn anything into a mildly amusing tourist attraction. I have seen Elvis perform in a vacant building lot, the world’s largest crayon, an entire city that thought it was Las Vegas circa 1955, hot dogs, neon, lighthouses and mummified cats. I have also seen ordinary Americans make the products I enjoy in conditions I would not. When my office closes for a few days I still get paid – when the factory closes, these people do not. They do the same thing day in, day out to make the things we use in our free time. There are many more of them than me. They keep the country running, I don’t do much good for anyone in my professional life.

I have a feeling though that most of these people use their free time to ride Harley Davidsons. I wish they wouldn’t. They are loud, big and dirty – and so are the bikes. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be an act of rebellion but there are so many of them and they are all uniformly bland that a real act of rebellion would be to ride up to them on a Vespa scooter with a French flag flying.

Stars and Stripes. It’s a pretty flag, no doubt about it, but it stands for something. Too many people fly the flag as an ornament, hanging it from balconies, motorbikes and picnic tables. They have shorts and shirts made from it and some are tattooed with Old Glory. It’s not a decoration – it symbolizes all that is good and, equally, all that is bad about the USA. Patriotism can be honorable but it’s a very thin filling sandwiched between giant cuts of fanaticism and ignorance. Neither Russian or the Chinese people fly their flag so often and the Indians will quite literally set themselves on fire to show they love their country before they’ll attach their flag to their garden fence. Only the Canadian backpackers display their flag with more pride but that’s only because they want to tell the world that they’re not Americans.

The political conventions are running right now and all the rhetoric from the politicians illustrates everything this country aspires to be. The American experience is unique and unique to all those who experience it. It is rare to have such an opportunity to rediscover one’s home – the good, the bad and just the plain silly.  

Dave says:

The Atlantic Ocean is pretty darn big. We’re two days in and have just left the coast of Ireland. But then, we are going only about 25 miles per hour. As I look out the window it seems faster but who cares ‘cos we’ve stepped back to a time when most things didn’t go much faster than 25mph anyway. The airplane is a flash-in-the-pan novelty and the train, although essential, has become a tedium and best suited for the lower classes. It is impossible for one to drive a newfangled automobile across the Atlantic so an ocean liner is the only reasonable and, let’s face it, civilized way to reach New York.

I’m writing this whilst comfortably ensconced in the aptly named Chart Room, toasting the return of the decent Gin and Tonic and listening to the string quartet do a fair rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. So please, join me as I throw journalistic balance overboard, and tell you about the more quirky side of this most civilized nautical pastime.

The ship is full of people. 2,800 of them who paid and 1,200 who are being paid. Contrary to public opinion, not all the passengers are old, some are young by comparison or perhaps better described as less-old. I’m a little confused as to the physical-ableness of most of these passengers. Walking appears tricky. Some folk are gently ricocheting off walls and others are walking with sticks and canes including those handy dandy walking sticks that fold out into little stools, essential I would think if you are post 70 and on an ocean liner the length of 58 double decker busses. There are wheel chairs, shuffling, and much handrail holding. This mass sea leg instability could be rooted in three separate but mutualy compatible theories. Number 1: All the independantly wealthy but physically infirm retirees of western Europe and the USA simultaniously decided to cruise the QM2. Number 2: Although sailing calm waters, the motion of the ocean is upseting 80 year old inner ears or, and my favourite theory, they are all a little bit tipsy. Wisely Cunard have priced their alcohol at a reasonable and fair price and they offer various retro themed cocktails-of-the-day to entice those who normally religiously follow the directions on their blood pressure medication to throw caution to the wind, relive their youth and order a second Singapore Sling. Of course, another theory could be applied to the older American gentlemen: the weight of their shirt pocket is pulling them off balance. By the time they’ve stuffed in both long distance and reading glasses as well as one or two pens, the map of the ship and the daily entertainment schedule the strain on the back may be too much and they find themselves staring at the floor as they walk. But that was just a snipe of an observation, it is lovely to be back to civility where people say mornin’s and after you’s and begging your pardons.

Of course, the passenger roster is more varied than my previous ranting would imply. Children are abound and fortunately, just like the dogs on deck 12, are kept separate from the general population. Scores of preppy entertainment staff whose job it is to balance the fine art of keeping the youngsters occupied whilst not letting any fall overboard is worth my ticket price alone. From a nationality standpoint, there are two Koreans, four Russians, surprisingly only 12 Dutch (although they are so damn big, they take up three decks each), a smattering of unimportant countries, 632 Americans, 664 British (much to the chagrin of the Americans) and 1100 Germans (much to the chagrin of the British). The Brits are certain the Germans are going to reserve all the sun loungers at 6am and are still pissed that German U-Boats sunk other Cunard liners during not one but two world wars. Only this week the British Daily Mail ran a full page report on British segregation at German holiday resorts. It appears the Germans won’t let the Brits swim in the same pools or use the same bathrooms as themselves. The threat of another German invasion is obviously causing tension on this most British of boats. The Germans, as always, are quietly confident – they have numbers on their side and a smug certainty that the British made Rolls Royce engines that power this ship will one day be replaced by Mercedes (or even worse, Volkswagon, or, even worse still, Skoda now that they are owned by Volkswagon).

The Cunard Line have a long and proud tradition of, well, tradition. Four of the six nights of dinner require formal dress, black tie and the whatnot. We are, I’m sure, the only people whose luggage came aboard in rucksacks. Not having had much call for a tuxedo in Mongolia, this trip required a little scrubbing up on our part and a couple of well executed evening dress purchases. And, scrub up we did. We look dapper and our youth, devilishly good looks and thrift store chic make us the belles of the ball. Most of our fellow passengers also turned out well but a few are titanical disasters in North Atlantic cruising fashion. They say that a tuxedo never goes out of style but I beg to differ. It should be required by federal law to purchase a new dinner suit every ten years. Our age and taste dictate changing the width of waistbands, collars and trouser cuffs; stuffing is what one does to a turkey at Thanksgiving. And ladies, this is the most luxurious Ocean Liner in the world today, it is not appropraite to knock-up your gown on your home sewing machine especially if it’s made of glitter ball material and you’ve made one hip of the dress larger that the other causing your butt to appear as if it’s sliding down your leg. Also, perfume only makes you smell good when it’s subtle. When it causes eyes to smart you’ve gone overboard and probablyshould go overboard. Oh, and should you have too much fine wine over dinner and decide to dance your heart out at the night club whilst swirling and twirling that kelly green ballgown, please have the decency to wear panties. Again, these are observations of the few, the many also scrub up well and there is nothing to beat the elegance of the older passengers who, when they were our age, wouldn’t have dreamed of not dressing for dinner. Somehow my generation believes that fleece and flip-flops are appropriate for fine dining. Ah, the youth of today, hooligans and delinquants one and all.

I met the Captain last night. I shook his hand. I offered Sarah $10 to ask him that if he’s shaking our hands then who’s driving the ship. She wouldn’t. I grinned like a monkey. I think it’s the ultimate in service that the captain of the largest ocean liner afloat should take time to shake the hands of the couple who probably paid the least to be aboard it. However, we did have to wait in line for the privilege so I guess we’re not his most important guests. He asked us where we came from and offered a small amount of chit-chat although nothing in the conversation shed anymore light on who actually was steering the boat at the time but the Atlantic is large so I guess we weren’t going to hit anything for while.

Events yesterday caused a little stress in our relationship. It probably caused a little stress in most relationships on board because the ballroom dancing lesson for the day was the jive. Everyone wants to learn to dance. I say everyone, but really I mean every woman. Every man wants to make every woman happy so is forced to attend the class. To learn this tricky little number the couples are split up – woman to one side of the dance floor, men to the other. As the women are shown their dance steps they look radiantly happy. In their eyes are the dreams of romantic twirling, sweeping, swooning and swishing to Frank Sinatra’s only shipboard engagement, Belini cocktails and Mills and Boon walks on moon-lit decks. In the eyes of the gentlemen is fear. Fear and the reflection of the ship’s clock as we count down the minutes to the end of the class and the beginning of an afternoon of eating, drinking and napping. Women are creatures of inate pschyic abilities and many of us were busted for disingenuous dancing. I escaped by the skin of my teeth and my reparations were relatively small; others, I fear, were not so lucky.

The QM2 offers a chance to take a step back in time. As nostalgic as it may be and as far removed it is from most immigrant’s steerage class experience, it is still magic. Love it or loath it, Cunard have it down. It’s like Disney for grown-ups, a chance to believe we are all princes and princesses for six short nights. Most will not travel this way again, it’s expensive and, like the best of wines, should only be enjoyed on occasion lest it spoils our taste for the everyday budget vino or heaven forbid, a decent customer service experience on an airline. As children our imagination can fly us to the moon but as adults we are grounded in the hum-drum realities of our own making. Sailing the Queen Mary 2 unleashes an imagination that wanted nothing more than to be free in the first place and everyone deserves that at least once in their lives.

I always felt that in order to maintain any shred of backpacker credibility, I was obliged to apologize for our having purchased passage aboard the Queen Mary 2. Our laundry list of justifications were all, in fact, true statements. We did, over a year ago, make an earnest effort to book passage across the Atlantic on a freighter. All freighters that make the iconic route, Southampton to New York (a necessity for many symbolic reasons) were already booked even back then and much to our astonishment, freighter fare would have been nearly double what we would pay for the worst cabin aboard the QM2. In order to keep our overland dream alive, we begrudgingly booked the cabin. At the time, it sincerely did not fill us with joy and we certainly never considered paying the nominal upgrade fee for the 2nd to worst cabin on the boat much less a window cabin. We were backpackers through and through and wanted our circum-ambulation of the globe to be bohemian, in the spirit of Jack Karouac. Jack would never have crossed on the QM2, probably even if he had had the money, and we felt as though we were committing some sort of betrayal.

I now know this was rather short-sighted of us. It wasn’t entirely the six days frolicking upon the largest and most luxurious adult summer camp on the sea that has me convinced we could not have made this voyage on any other vessel. The other reasons did not begin to become clear until we were well underway.

I let go of my obligation to apologize the moment the ship came into view from the backseat of David’s parents’ car. She rose 23 stories above the water, commanding full attention. The docks ahead of us were a flurry of activity preparing for her departure. On board, in fine traditional, we met our friends Gin and Tonic in front of the brass band and found a place along the 7th deck railing. Unfortunately, some things have changed since the glory days of ocean passage and due to security restrictions the only people waving us off were the dock workers……and two small people down below who had found a secret place to stand – David parents. Seeing the two of them and knowing that they were seeing us was so exciting I almost fell overboard from the thrust of my waves. As the ship was pulling away, it truly felt as though we were leaving the land of the familiar for a new, unfamiliar land. And the brass band played. We think that the story of our 20 month adventure magically made its way to the Cunard shipping company and in the spirit of those who’ve crossed before us, they tipped their caps our way and upgraded us from steerage class to a window cabin on the 5th deck. Our room and in fact the entire beautiful ship had us in love and awe.

Our six days at sea were a constant reminder of Dirty Dancing. Each night the Entertainment Department presented a gala or a ball of one theme or another and sharing the dance floor with impeccably dressed couples expertly gliding across the floor cheek to cheek in waltz’ or tangos were, indeed, single women being entertained by staff dancers. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a Baby in the crowd who had found her way out of the corner and into a backstage crew party where the action really happened. There weren’t any wig trying parties on the itinerary but there were scarf tying, napkin folding and hat decorating classes. The urge to join in was infectious and David and I did so with zestful and wild abandon. We learned to waltz, jive and rumba, we attended lectures on the Hollywood legends Bette Davis, Gene Kelly and even Clint Eastwood. We were entertained by a New Yorker cartoonist and comedian, we attended astronomy lectures on the birth and death of stars and enjoyed the ship’s planetarium shows. I went to the movie theatre three times, we had what I insist is the most spectacular view from any hot-tub on the planet. We walked miles around the decks, ate gloriously presented food, saw broadway singing and dancing shows and dressed up like royalty every night.

Sometime around day five the feeling onboard began to shift. An excitement grew, it was almost tangible, as our daily onboard newsletter began talking of our arrival into New York and the USA. It was about this time that our route took us a mere 15 nautical miles from the resting place of the Titanic. We learned all about how a sister ship to the QM2 was the one to come to the rescue of those passengers who could be rescued. As we thought about all those who had made this passage before us, the immigrants from Europe who were about to bravely begin new lives in a brand new country, the celebrities and royalty who made the crossing on the original Queen Mary, and even those who sailed upon the unsinkable ship and never made it to that dock on the lower west side of Manhattan, the sense that all 3,000 of us onboard were apart of something special grew.

To see the Statue of Liberty, you have to get up at 5:30am on arrival morning. I was up at 3:45. I was too excited to sleep. I slipped out of our cabin, grabbed a cup of coffee and stepped outside into the already warm air coming off the coast of New York. It was pitch black, no sign of land just yet but our monolithic ship had gained a little friend, a small US Coast Guard boat with blue and red lights flashing was escorting us in. At some point the ship made a turn and there she was before me, the lights of New York. The smell of the city rose above the water. Something in the moment proved too much and as David walked up behind me and joined me in seeing the US for the first time in over a year and a half, I got a little choked up.

An NYPD helicopter circled us as we drew closer to the city. We slowly and smoothly glided under the Varrazano Bridge with mere feet to spare – I think everyone out on deck drew in a gasp in astonishment. To think of all the people who saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time and the enormous uncertainly that laid ahead for them, the neighborhoods they would go on to create and populate, the traditions they brought over and would pass on, the delis and restaurants they would open and the families they would build, like mine, was almost too much.

The sun rose over the New York skyline and it never looked so beautiful to me. And then, our six days at sea were over and it was time to disembark and start our own American adventure. We passed through US Immigration, our last of many many checkpoints, each of us US citizens. David had waited a long time to use that US passport of his and, we’re happy to say, it worked.

I want to love Russia. I really do. It however, is stubbornly refusing to love me. In my formative years, tales would race around the playground of how one could become a millionaire by stuffing fifty pairs of jeans in your suitcase and jetting off to Moscow. There the luxury starved Ruskies would pay ten times your wholesale price for a chance to dress like you. Throw in a Beatles cassette and they would treat you like a tsar (when they liked the tsar that is). Well, now the Ruskies don’t need my jeans and I can’t help but think they’re treating me like the tsar when they didn’t like him. Short of me and my family being taken into the basement, shot and then disposed of down a well, our Russian hosts couldn’t be more icy.

The problem starts before you even get here. Just asking to come in is not a welcoming process. The visa application is long, expensive and filled with such bureaucratic twaddle. Supporting documentation for a visa application consists of: official letters of invitation from government registered and approved tour agencies, proof of hotel (government approved) reservations and payment, proof of health insurance and if, like us, you are applying outside your home country, you need proof that you are a legal resident of the country from which you are applying. Oh and then you pay a $120 visa application fee which is basically just a tourist tax to sit on top of all the fees you paid to a fictitious tour agency to generate all the fictitious paperwork required.

Russia is not altogether alone when it comes to tricky visa applications but unlike those other countries, the troubles don’t end when you actually cross the border. In Russia, the government must know of your whereabouts at all times. The migration card given to you on entry must be stamped by a government official or government registered hotel within three days of you turning up in a new city. This process also costs money. The hotels charge you even if they are officially registered and if they’re not, because they’re a hostel or homestay, they will charge you for the service of going down to the government office on your behalf. Of course you pay them because the office could be miles away, closed for lunch or other ‘technical breaks’ and, for a system designed exclusively to track foreign visitors, none of the forms are in English nor is there an English speaking clerk (at least that’s what we were told when we questioned the $15 registration fee). Failure to register your visa or displaying unaccounted for gaps in your paperwork will cost you a fine of up to $80 when you leave the country or, if you’re unlucky enough to be stopped by an over-zealous cop looking to make up his fine quota, this could happen on any street corner.

Once you’re all official it’s time to go site-seeing. And boy, what sites there are to see. We think. We wouldn’t really know because our budget won’t stretch further than one site a day. The Russians have been taking lessons from the Indians and are double pricing for tourist activities. Double pricing is tourist speak and means there is one price for the Russians and one for the foreigners. For example, one of the best museums in the world charges $4 for Russians and $15 for us. Everyone does it and not one attraction is less than $10 for us and is sometimes as low as $1 for the locals. In India, this is annoying but understandable. The average wage there is pennies but here in Russia where their standard and cost of living is comparable to the rest of Europe, we are finding it a bitter pill to swallow. We could easily spend $50 a day just on museums and the such like, but without them, there’s not a great deal to do.

But that’s OK. As everyone says about everywhere they go: “…and the people were just so lovely.” Not so in Russia. There’s been a few exceptions but generally they have been most unhelpful, miserable and not even happy when they have gotten our money from us. English is hardly ever spoken to us even by the young people in the tourist industry although we know they have rudimentary English skills. It’s not that we need it (most countries we’ve visited are not English speaking) but it can save confusion and time if we have at least a couple of words in common. Instead, the Russians, like the French, seem to want to make us work for our dinner and then shout at us for whatever procedural infractions we may have caused. They do have a word for ‘thank you’ but never appear to use it. I have now stopped using it too. It was my only word in Russian, but now I’ve struck myself mute. Now, I know that they have a reputation for being a stoic bunch, even the guidebook says it, but it’s been three weeks of non-stop miserable interactions with the local people and it’s wearing really thin.

It may very well be that we’re both tired. European civilization is just a few short days away, our home country a few weeks away and home, home, home a couple of months distant but in sight. We’ve been on the road for 19 months and we should be careful not to let our fatigue ruin what should be an enlightening experience. But then I look around and notice others also experiencing the same Russia as us and that makes me feel sorry not for ourselves or other tourists but for the Russians. If the Russian government doesn’t make it easier for tourists and businesses to come here then they won’t, and currently they don’t. They’re all going to China and India instead where the young people are all becoming amazingly proficient in English, tax breaks are being offered for foreign investment and tourist infrastructures are being built. This mighty nation of Russia, the largest country in the world with an amazing landscape, bountiful natural resources and a hearty constitution will find itself at the bottom of the heap. The G8 conference was in Japan last week and I believe in the not-to-distant future the G8 may be become the G9 with India and China replacing Russia. Admittedly, it’s a long stretch to correlate tourism with global power but I’m of the opinion that the way a country treats its international tourists reflects how they wish to portray themselves to the world; either with the open arms of economic (if not cultural) integration or the crossed arms of isolationist suspicion. Those two attitudes when applied towards tourism have exactly mirrored our personal experiences of each country we’ve visited with those we read in the New York Time’s International section.

It is a sad day when I have to write a blog entry that isn’t quirky and light hearted towards the country I’m visiting. We are all different and the acceptance of those differences is what makes traveling hard but fun. Perhaps the Russian psyche has worn off on me. So, as one of Russia’s famous 19th century poets, Alexander Blok, once cheerfully said, “She did devour me, lousy snuffling dear Mother Russia, like a sow devouring her piglet.”