Reminiscing....

It struck me today that I've been gone from home for a while now. So I began to think back what I was doing in the recent past:

1 week ago, I was having a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner with my fellow cruisers on the Nile, heading toward Aswan. (This was my first major holiday outside the US.)

1 month ago, I was touring Auschwitz in Southern Poland.

2 months ago, I had just finished going to the Arctic Circle the day before and just found out that my original cell phone wasn't working. Hard to believe it was almost two months ago that I left Helsinki. I remember it as relatively warm, but saw on the weather that it is freezing now along with the rest of the countries I visited before Turkey.

3 months ago, I had just come back to Copenhagen from Soroe and was about to head off on my first train trip on my own to Helsingoer. Sweden, Norway, and Finland seemed exotic, distant, and a little initimidating back then.

4 months ago, almost every aspect of my life was in complete upheaval as I tried to finish packing, planning, preparing, moving my stuff into storage, and leave my work in a stable state so I could travel.

5 months ago, Elisa had just left for Yakima the week before, I was completely swamped with work and exhausted from moving to a new apartment. It was starting to dawn on me that there was no way I could get things prepared to leave as planned by July 14.

6 months ago, I had decided just 9 days before to travel to Europe (Thanks, Michelle, Luong, Troy, & Elisa for convincing me to do so!) and was busy making plans and preparations.

It's a Small, Small World

Today after visiting Jerash, we travelled to Salah al Din's (aka "Saladin") castle in Ajlun, Jordan. From the top of the castle we could see the lots of hills and mountains in the smoggy background. My guide Samir pointed in one direction (top photo) and told me that in that direction the mountains in the background were in Israel. (And, if the conditions were clearer, I could have seen the Biblical Sea of Galilee.)

Then he pointed in another direction and told me that you could also see part of the Golan Heights in Syria (middle photo).

The bottom photo is of me at about the highest accessible point at the top of the castle.

Six Semitic Degrees of Separation

Today I learned from my Jordanian guide Samir that the hotel I'm staying at, the Amman Radisson SAS, was the site of the infamous 2005 suicide bombing of a wedding ceremony arranged by crispy fried former terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi (MHREIH).

Speaking of "ole Zarqy", on the way from Amman to Jerash today, we passed a road sign indicating the turn off to head to the Jordanian town of Zarqa. This is the town whence "Zarqawi" derived his nom de guerre since "al Zarqawi" essentially means "from/of Zarqa" in Arabic. ("al misri" -- the egyptian -- is another one you see from time to time.)

Samir was a happily surprised when I asked him if that Zarqa was the same one that spawned Zarqy. Evidently this indicated a greater awareness than most of his charges have.

Out of Africa

This afternoon I leave the hospitality of Hosni Mubarak's Egypt after a week's stay in Africa and fly back to Asia. I'll be flying into Amman, Jordan to be a guest of King Abdullah and Queen Noor for a few days. Egypt has been fun. I have seen the pyramids, the Sphinx, the citadel and grand mosque of Muhammad Ali, Memphis, Luxor, and Aswan.

I had fun on my tour and was with a warm and friendly group of ten other Americans for all but my first night. They made the tour a lot more fun, especially my only Thanksgiving out of the country and away from any school, friends or family.

Thank you to my tour guide Ahmed, and fellow tourers Heather & Martha, Jack & Pat, Joe & Pam, and Carol, Steve, Kathleen, and Alexis for their delightful company and for helping me feel at home in the middle of Egypt!

Crab Crossing

On Saturday 24 November, our group took a 6 am flight from Aswan to Abu Simbel to visit the two reconstructed temples there on the shore of Lake Nasser close to the Sudanese border. Along the way, we crossed the Tropic of Cancer (23° 26′ 22″ N). (Our guide Ahmed said that groups that go by bus to Abu Simbel get certificates documenting the crossing.) So that makes Abu Simbel the farthest south I've ever been, since none of the Continental US is below the Tropic of Cancer. And it also means that in the last two months, I've gone from my farthest east (Moscow) to my farthest north (the Arctic Circle) to my farthest south with Abu Simbel. At present, my plans don't includeany more personal geographic extremes in this extended tour.

I See Pyramids!

I got my first brief look at the pyramids on the morning of Sunday 18 November as we drove from Giza back over the Nile to downtown Cairo to tour sites there during light Sunday Cairo traffic. The picture on the left is of the tallest one -- the Great Pyramid of Giza.

I have hundreds of pictures of mosques and ancient sites in Egypt. Due to my work schedule and intermittent Internet availability, it may take a while before I get them posted.

In the meantime I'll let this whet your appetites.

Welcome to Egypt!

On Saturday 17 November, I flew from Istanbul to Cairo. I arrived at the Cairo airport near sunset and actually saw the sun as a big orange-red disk over the horizon due to all the dust in the atmostphere. A representative from the tour was in the secure area waiting for me and walked me through the visa and passport process, which was very efficient and only cost $15. On the ride back to my hotel, it was fun to see all the Arabic signs, billboards, and license plates. (The one to the left is 512173.)

The hotel I stayed at was a little tourist compound near Giza on the west side of the Nile. (The pyramids were huge tombs and west was associated with the setting sun and death in ancient Egypt.) It had a gym, several restaurants, ATMs inside, and armed guards at the gate.

Less fun, and a reminder that I was in the third world, was the state of my room's toilet. Seems someone had gotten sick and the janitor hadn't noticed and cleaned the side. (The main part, though, appeared clean to be fair.) Needless to say, I had to request a recleaning.

The rest of the tour was fun and free from any such hygenic problems.

Joe Six Pack, Meet Joe Camel

How did I celebrate Saturday 10 November 2007? By taking my very first ride on a camel! Pictures here courtesy of fellow tour member Brian. Thanks, Brian!

Arbeit Macht Tot

Here are pictures from my tour of the infamous Nazi death camps Birkenau and Auschwitz near the village of Oswiecim, Poland.

Krakow

Here are some pictures of my stay in Krakow, Poland between 27 -31 October.

Malbork Castle

On my way back from Gdansk to Warsaw on Friday, October 26th, I stopped for a few hours to take pictures of the famous castle in Malbork, Poland -- about an hour's ride south of Gdansk.

Gdansking Just As Fast As I Can

In late November, I spent two days in the city of Gdansk (aka Danzig) in northern Poland. Here are some pictures from my stay.