It’s been a pretty big year since my last blog post. Traveled to Santa Barbara (saw Dana and Carolyn) and Tokyo, bought a new house next to Kitty-Kat, decent summer including an injury-free season with the ‘Shrikes, went to Idaho for Grandma’s 90th (plus 1/2) birthday, managed to get to north of the Brooks Range (Barrow) after years of strong resistance, and aquired a beautiful and fantastic live-in dog-sitter for El Toro Guapo. Last week, Rachael and I passed the one-year mark of dating. Lots of good things this last year and a lot of good things to look forward to!

Last year was the first year that I had not taken a winter holiday in a long time – or at least been somewhere new and different, if not warm and sunny. Last winter ended up being pretty long and hard, so I decided at that time that I needed to ensure that I go somewhere to recharge my batteries with sun and warmth. The warmth and sun I chose was Kauai! Definitely warm and definitely sunny! Very relaxing and needed.

There were some definite highlights. Snorkling with a sea turtle (wish I had an underwater camera), seeing a number of humpback whales, a 5-month old monk seal, some nice day hikes, and camping on the beach. I’m already starting to look forward to the next winter holiday (especially now that it has been so cold this past weekend).

Humpback Whale, South Coast Kauai

Monk Seal, East Coast Kauai

The rest of the pictures can be seen in my image gallery.

I guess I have to admit it, although I do not want to, that I am now 40 years old. The 40th one is one I think I will remember for quite a while though. After leaving La Fortuna, we traveled north back into Nicaragua to Pearl Lagoon. The travel was quite long as the infrastructure is very limited and included an 8.5 hour bus ride to El Rama, and 2 boat rides (with waiting for the 2nd boat made for another complete day of travel).

The 2nd boat ride was pretty amusing as the boat kept on breaking down. We were the last boat to Pearl Lagoon from Bluefields, so there was not a lot of help to be found either. On the boat was a live chicken and a very funny family. After the fourth or fifth time the boat broken down (along with the sun setting), the family kept eying the chicken and making comments about having dinner. The family (along with all the people in Pearl Lagoon ) speak Creole – a mix of Spanish, English, and a bit of this and that – all spoken with a Jamaican rhythm and tone (sometimes I am able to understand most things spoken, other times absolutely nothing) – which made for a lot of laughs. The 2nd part of the boat trip became a bit choppy which was also a bit unfortunate for one of the family members that had very large boobs that were jiggling uncontrollably. A few jokes and comments made for some more good laughs.

On Tuesday, we walked to the town of Awas (located about 30 minutes away by foot). The people in the town speak Miskito. There are only two villages in which the people speak the language – maybe 100 people total. The town was pretty nice, but we met one pretty annoying person, so we left a bit earlier than planned.

For my birthday, we got on a boat and went the the Pearl Cayes. A very tiny set of islands about an hour from Pearl Lagoon in the Carribean Sea. We spent most of the time on an island that takes about 10-15 minutes to completely walk around. Upon arrival, the guide said ´ Welcome to paradise.´ – it does not get much more true. A lot of time was spent in the sun, swimming, snorkling, eating fresh shrimp, and fishing, all at a very slow and relaxed pace. New Year´s Eve is celebrated much differently there as well with most people going to church and singing Christmas songs with wild enthusiasm. Midnight came and went with all people still singing in the church. However, after church, there was a huge dance for the community that lasted ´until the sun comes .´ Needless to say, I did not attend the dance.

Yesterday was another long long travel day back to Managua. It started out at 3:30 a.m. to catch a 4 a.m. bus back to El Rama. However, the bus driver was out partying (really – as we found out later) celebrating New Years and failed to show up at the bus. After waiting for an hour, we were told that it was not very safe for us to be there alone and that we should wait for the bus at our hostel (and the bus would blow the horn telling us that he was ready to go). Well the bus driver showed up and left without blowing the horn leaving us. Many people were commenting that ´he did not blow his horn .´ In retrospect, I am glad we did not get on the bus with a drunk guy (along with being the only ones on the bus). After realizing our bus was gone and the next bus did not leave for 24 hours, we wandered to the dock to see if a boat was leaving – the response was, ¨Mon, this is a holiday. There ain´t no boats coming today. Sit back and relax.¨ (that is paraphrasing). On the way out, a person said that a boat was coming (just by chance) and that we should hurry and get our luggage. We made the boat and then immediately caught another back to El Rama. Then we took a long and scary 5 hour drive in taxi (costing only $30 (US)) back to Managua. I was not so sure I was going to survive the taxi – a few too many tire squeals going around highway corners and a few times the brakes had to be slammed immediately before slamming into a speed bump – ´I did not see that one coming´. I was very happy and a bit frazzled upon reaching Managua.

We are in Managua for the weekend and are to begin the volunteering on Monday. I have posted a few pictures of this last bit of travel here.

I hope everyone had a safe and good new year celebration!

The past week has been at times quite funny and at times quite strange and stressful. First the funny. Last week, I sent a package to Alaska that cost 572 (Nicaraguan). I completely overwhelmed the system. Using stamps, the post office lady started with the lowest dominination (0.25) stamp until she was out, then the next lowest, and so on. After about an hour, she finally had calculated the number of stamps required to send the package. The end result was that my box is completely covered in stamps (literally). It will be amazing if the package arrives in Alaska (but I will not be surprised either).

Now the strange and stressful. On Saturday, we set off for Costa Rica to spend a few days in order to get a new visa. The border crossing into Costa Rica is completely chaotic and wacky. After crossing the border, we waited some 3 hours to catch a bus to La Fortuna (near a big volcano and wetland/wildlife preserve). The big twist to the story is that Mareike´s backpack was stolen on the bus (with everything important including passport and money). After this discovery, we got off the bus in a complete dump pretending to be a town, visited the police, got some really bad dinner, and had a really bad night sleep. The only nice thing about the town was the police. Early the next morning, we headed off to San Jose to get a new passport and get stuff figured out. San Jose is just like any other American city – could be located anywhere. Denny´s, McDonalds, KFC, etc etc. Anyway, to make the story a bit shorter, everything is pretty much resolved and we made it to La Fortuna. We will be here for a couple of days – today walking around the volcano and tomorrow maybe paddling through the wildlife preserve. We´ll see. Still no definite plans yet – typical I guess. If I had to guess that we will be back in Nicaragua by the end of the weekend.

I will try to get some new pictures up again soon.

Until that time!

Following Edward to his European layovers, I found myself in Istanbul this past weekend. Ed is on his way to a couple of the *-istan countries to study a bit of language and exploring a bit over the next 5 or so weeks. We also met up with Ela, a friend that I met playing frisbee in Potsdam. Ela is now an exchange student that has been in Turkey for about a month (taking language classes) and had just arrived in Istanbul about 10 days ago. She is now on holiday and decided to spend a couple days with us exploring parts of the city as well. We were very lucky that she had been there long enough to figure out public transport system and know the basic layout of the city. This made our lives much much easier.

Istanbul is a very large (> 10 million people) sprawling city. I think it is one of the cleanest cities I have been in a long time – if ever. The older parts of the city (near the water) is very touristy, but unlike any other city I have been in. The outside areas reminded me of the hills outside of Los Angeles – areas like Riverside, Palmdale, etc – stripped away hills filled with row after row of apartments and townhouses and malls and ‘modernization’ that all looks the same to each other and every other suburb in the world. I found Istanbul (the old parts) to be a pretty amazing city. Very European, full of beautiful people, crazy loud, crazy traffic, full of cats, generally friendly people, hot, at times very different, and full of energy.

On Thursday afternoon, Ela met us at the airport (Ed arrived from Fairbanks about 45 minutes after I did) and we headed back to our hostel (The hostel was very nice. I wish we had a bit more time just to enjoy breakfast and enjoy the view of the water. I would stay there again if I ever get the chance to return). After grabbing a quick snack, we headed toward the Beyoglu district. This was a fun place. Tons of people on the street, bands playing everywhere, lots of music, horns, noise, energy, and life. It is actually the type of place I was very much expecting Bucharest to be, but wasn’t (at least we couldn’t find it). Ela called a friend and got directions to a local restaurant and was completely unmarked. Directions – go to the shoe store on the corner, turn left until the tobacco store, across the street go into the building with an elevator, and go to the top. No signs, no numbers, that’s it. It as a bit strange. But we ended up eating on top of a roof with very good food and friendly service. Beer is expensive though.

Friday morning came and we were unexpectedly awoken by church prayers being blasted over a system of loud speakers at 5 a.m.! We were there during Ramadan, but apparently the happens every single day. I am not sure if it is the worst or best alarm clock I have ever experienced. I guess I would call it the worst just due to the time, but if it was an hour or two later, it would most definitely be the most effective one. At breakfast, we saw a large ship with big guns, a helicopter, and flying an US flag come floating by. I found myself wondering ‘what the f$§k is that doing here?’ I then realized that the country of Georgia is fairly close by… I still wonder though. After breakfast, we met up with Ela and went on the big tour of Istanbul. We started off with the Blue Mosque, then the Mosaic Musium, then Aya Sofya… All this before lunch.

After lunch we went to the Bizaar districts of Istanbul, hitting the spice market, the Grand Market, taking a ferry across to Asia (I have now stepped foot in Asia!) to Kadikoy, then back to Beyoglu district to the tower to watch the sunset.  I found the spice market pretty amazing and the Grand Market very overwhelming.    Kadikoy was a very cool district with a university feel to it.  Lots of young people, alternative shops, nice market, lots of cafes, etc.  The tower at sunset was very crowded, but it had a nice view.

Saturday was a short day.  We were all a bit lethargic.  I am not sure if it was because of our crazy schedule yesterday or just the weather – it was hot and muggy.  Something seemed to suck the life out of us.  We ventured into the Topkapi Palace and wandered around for a few hours.  It was pretty nice – full of gardens, lots of tile work (very nice), etc.  There were a lot of people there – too many for all of us and our morning mood.  After a pretty bad lunch (especially for Ela and her vegi pizza), we went to the Basilica Cistern – an underground cavern for holding water – still in its original condition.  The Cistern was very cool and good way to end the trip.

I really enjoyed the weekend. I wish I had more time there.  If given a chance, I think Istanbul could become one of my favorite cities.  It was very big and crowded, so maybe just for short bursts, but still very very cool and worth many many return trips.

The one bad thing are these things. They are eveywhere.  I found out the hard way that they are quite painful on the shin when you are not paying attention!  I cracked my head a couple times in the hostel as well.

The rest of the pictures can be found here.  We took a lot of pictures – 260-something.  I managed to narrow it down a bit, but still a lot there.