Escape from the City... Stories from the Eastern Mediterranean tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-05-09:/blog/?domain=bexter 2007-06-29T16:21:23Z Bexter img/travel-blog-feed.png İstanbul, not Constantinople tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-28:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=11&entryid=68644 2007-06-29T16:21:23Z 2007-06-28T15:28:30Z Our Greek adventure came to an end on Tuesday when we took a ferry from Samos to Kuşadasi, Turkey - the resort capital / cruise ship paradise of the Agean coast. Entering Turkey, we all have the privilege of paying a €10 port tax AND purchase a €15 entry vısa, for whıch we had to surrender our passports. Wouldn`t you guess that the machıne was down, so they sent our passports ınto the center of town to scan ... Our Greek adventure came to an end on Tuesday when we took a ferry from Samos to Kuşadasi, Turkey - the resort capital / cruise ship paradise of the Agean coast. Entering Turkey, we all have the privilege of paying a €10 port tax AND purchase a €15 entry vısa, for whıch we had to surrender our passports. Wouldn`t you guess that the machıne was down, so they sent our passports ınto the center of town to scan them while this hoarde of 15 backpackers waited ın the practically deserted terminal. (All the day trippers from the cruise ships had to leave their passports all day while they were in town)

When we eventually got them back, we were a bit worried that the guy from Hotel Sezguın who was to pick us up would have left, but as soon as I brought out the brochure he approached us. And as soon as he approached us, a cop car approached him and began shouting! Apparently in Turkey (contrary to most every other country we've been to) barkers aren't permıtted to approach you at the ferry or bus station enticing you to stay at their hotel or pension, and the police were angry! They asked another man to ask us ın English if we were "customers of this man" ...so much drama ın just 1 hour in the country!

We checked into our hotel and promptly jumped into the pool to cool off. We met quıte the collection of Aussies staying at our pension and one of them showed us where the best gyro pıtas ın town were found, as well as these delicious Turkish pides (basically pizzas) made right when you order them for only 2.5 Lıra.

Because the weather was so hot, but forecasted hotter the next day, we decıded to head to Ephesus that eveniıng to avoid the bus tour groups as well as the sweltering afternoon heat. Such a good decision! Only about 20 km away, we took the local transport minibus to the Roman ruins at Ephesus and explored the grand town still very well preserved - even when compared to many of the places we've seen so far on our inadvertent tour of the Roman empire. The grand theatre was stunning, but the facade of the Library was majestic! One of the only buildıngs still intact - you can see that this was an exemplary city! Two thumbs up for these ruins.

That night we had BBQ prepared at the pension by the Turkısh proprietors (veggıe for me...) and then spent the next day basically avoiding heat exhaustion wandering through the market and hanging by the pool before our overnight bus to İstanbul. Let me say one thing on Turkish bus service: CLASSY! The staff dressed wıth crisp white shirts and bowties, and in the middle of the journey, they came down the aisle with a cart and served cake and tea and coffee...just like an air hostess...now that's service!

Once in İstanbul, we tried to take the metro to the Sultanhammet area where our hostel is located, but the system was too confusing for us at that hour of morning/exhaustion, so we opted for a cab after a failed attempt to transfer about halfway there. OOPS! Our cab driver must not live ın İstanbul, because he had no idea where we were going. Permit me to make a comparison: the Aya Sofia (Sultanhammet neighborhood, where we were staying) is to İstanbul as the Empire State Building is to New York Cıty. Tell me how someone would be able to get a cab driver's license wıthout knowing how to get to the most popular monument in the city!? It was actually sort of funny, Sarah and I in the backseat with our crappy Lonely Planet map trying to direct our cab driver while he pulls over every 2 minutes to ask a fellow cab driver how to get to the Aya Sofia (and of course, they all laugh at him)...one cabbie saw us in the back with the map and asked ıf one of us spoke French, so I told him where we wanted to go and he gave our driver explicit directions - which he promptly forgot.

It was pretty funny.

At lunch, our waiter asked ıf all american girls are so lovely...and then offered us free turkish tea anytime because he wants to "practice his English" (we also encountered this same line about 3 more times in the course of the afternoon...) We managed to see the Aya Sofia (built by the Emperor Justinian) and the Blue Mosque today - they are both so amazingly ornate, and it was my first time ever entering a mosque - quite a grand introduction. But Sarah and I were the only tourists smart enough to dress covering our shoulders & knees and bring along scarves...we didn't look as silly as the men who had to wear skırts of scarves provided by the staff to ensure modesty.

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]]> Minotaur tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-23:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=10&entryid=67889 2007-06-23T15:19:10Z 2007-06-23T15:19:10Z Post-Athens, we hopped a hydroplane speedboat to Crete - Athens' port (Pireaus) was surprisingly easy to navigate, contrary to various reports such as Globetrekker [sidenote: if you don't watch Globetrekker on BBC, then you should. That's the entire reason we went to Tunisia in the first place...] We were in Chania in less than 4 hours and found a great little pension in the heart of the old town, grabbed some dinner and the next morning slept in (finally!) rising to ... Post-Athens, we hopped a hydroplane speedboat to Crete - Athens' port (Pireaus) was surprisingly easy to navigate, contrary to various reports such as Globetrekker

[sidenote: if you don't watch Globetrekker on BBC, then you should. That's the entire reason we went to Tunisia in the first place...]

We were in Chania in less than 4 hours and found a great little pension in the heart of the old town, grabbed some dinner and the next morning slept in (finally!) rising to drink real british tea on our grapevine shaded terrace before heading to the beach. We met another New Yorker staying with us at the pension, and spent a few days hanging out together - the next day tackling the famed Samarian Gorge hike: 13 km from the crest of the mountains to the Libyan Sea on the south coast of Crete, passing through a steep stone gorge that is at the narrowest point only 3.5 meters wide. We meandered down the trail early in the morning in hopes of escaping the worst of the day's heat, and managed to reach the sea in less than 4.5 hrs - the trail taking us through switchbacks, then dry riverbeds and even through portions of the river where we had to hop stones to cross. We spent the night in the sleepy town of Agio Roumeli before heading back the next day to Chania and then to Iraklion (not much to see here...) where we will catch the ferry tomorrow to the island of Paros.

Today was really hot, but we had to hit up the Minoan palace of Knossos, featured in our 10th grade lit book: the King Must Die. What can I say, we're dorks.

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]]> "Bad train roads" tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-17:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=9&entryid=66768 2007-06-17T08:36:51Z 2007-06-17T08:36:04Z We decided to take the adventurous route from Ohrid to Greece, which routed us to Bitola on the Macedonian side of the border where we hopped in a cab that drove us across the border and into Greece. Our cab driver, however, was being very difficult and tried incessantly to convince us that it would be such an uncomfortable 6 hour ride from Aminteo to Thessaloniki on the "bad train roads" that he should drive us there for only ... We decided to take the adventurous route from Ohrid to Greece, which routed us to Bitola on the Macedonian side of the border where we hopped in a cab that drove us across the border and into Greece. Our cab driver, however, was being very difficult and tried incessantly to convince us that it would be such an uncomfortable 6 hour ride from Aminteo to Thessaloniki on the "bad train roads" that he should drive us there for only 65 euro - seriously?! We weren't so keen on that idea, so we demanded that he leave us to take the train where we got on the mini train for inter-city transport (very posh, though) and were in Thessaloniki in 3 hours, for 7 euro. HAH

Thessaloniki is a really big city - a port town lined by a long seaside row of swanky cafes. We even found an english bookstore, which we were in dire need of, as Sarah reads so fast and between the two of us, we've finished all the books we have and are now carrying around 3 each just waiting to find a book exchange. Dinner was very tasty at a local taverna, but not so tasty at 1:30 in the morning...note to self, don't eat stuffed peppers that have been sitting behind the cafeteria counter all day...ugh!

The next morning we got up early and pranced back to the train station to catch the 11:38 train to Athens. But when we got there, we found that all the trains for the whole day were full. Unlike Italy, where they'll sell you a ticket anyway, we were stuck. Not really rellishing the idea of a 7 hour bus ride, we decided that we had to suck it up and take the bus rather than hang out for another day, so hot and sweaty we made our way to the next station. Luckily there was a bus leaving in just an hour, so we enjoyed some cocas and realized just before getting on that we should eat lunch...unfortuntately we weren't allowed to bring they gyros on the bus, so after only a few bites, we had to toss them out and board the bus with empty tummies.

The upside of Greece being yet an hour ahead (now 7 hrs ahead of the east coast) is that the sun goes down around 9pm, so when we got off the bus at 8:15 in Athens, it was only early sunset and we made it to the hostel with no problems. After a quick splash on the face and a change of clothes, we ventured out to explore the busy neighborhood of Psiri, but not before a bite to eat at Goody - quite the diverse menu fast food joint.

On Saturday, we took our time trying to see things while staving off heat exhaustion (mind you, 33 C is pretttttty hot) and visited the National museum, the flea market and held off on the Accropolis until as late as possible to avoid the high noon sun. But what a view!
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]]> Not really a tourist location... tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-17:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=8&entryid=66700 2007-06-17T08:37:30Z 2007-06-17T08:14:22Z We decided, that since we're already in the area, we might as well swing by Kosovo, because, Hey, when are we ever going to do that again?? We managed to pass an entire day in Podgorica waiting for the bus, and I will say this much - thank you America for providing toilets at all transportation hubs, because the "piss holes" provided in many of these eastern countries are not so pleasant (read: literally, just a hole in the ground, ... We decided, that since we're already in the area, we might as well swing by Kosovo, because, Hey, when are we ever going to do that again??

We managed to pass an entire day in Podgorica waiting for the bus, and I will say this much - thank you America for providing toilets at all transportation hubs, because the "piss holes" provided in many of these eastern countries are not so pleasant (read: literally, just a hole in the ground, and often not too clean). We hopped on an overnight bus to Prishtina, Kosovo and were only briefly stopped by UN Border patrol who had us deboard the bus and bring out our lugggage so they could rifle through it (though they never seem to want to search through our backpacks at any of the checkpoints we've been through) and yet they did not stamp our passports!!! (we were very disappointed)

Arriving in Kosovo at 4 am - wow. We met the only other passenger who was a bit out of place, and spent the next 4 hours drinking tea at the cafe until it was a reasonable hour to call the hotel we had found in the guide book. It's not all that kind to show up to a guesthouse with no reservation at 4 am...

We found a room and took a long nap before hitting the town, so to speak. Prishtina is the capital city, and also the headquarters for all of the international organizations - seemingly every other car to pass by was a white Toyota 4Runner with UN painted on the side, or some other accronym for some other org... As it was Sunday, there wasn't really all that much to see or do, but we grabbed a sandwich at a cafe and were surprised to hear so much english being spoken. Just like the white cars, nearly every other person you pass seems to be there for some governmental purpose or other. And fittingly, we spent a good deal of the evening chatting with some Brits at the expat pub.

After Prishtina, we jumped a bus to Skopje, Macedonia - only a few hours away. It was our first experience with the cyrillic alphabet, and surprisingly we didn't have all that much difficulty deciphering street names and such. It was also our first encounter with really good Greek salad: thank God for good feta cheese! Skopje is a rather modern city, and our highlight was tracking down this restaurant celebrating Tito of the former Yugoslavia (picture a cardboard cutout) and former comunist paraphernalia.

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In order to escape the super heat, we headed to Lake Ohrid which shares a shore with Albania. The weather was so much better here, and we stayed in a comfy guesthouse in this comfy town, walking everywhere for a day and a half. It was really relaxing to just hang out, eating greek salad (which we will not tire of) and sipping cocas (coca light... soo good!)

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]]> The World's Newest Country tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-09:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=7&entryid=65377 2007-06-16T17:35:52Z 2007-06-09T12:44:56Z Montenegro is BEAUTIFUL! The mountains are looming and majestic at the same time, most covered with lush green encroaching on the sea: clear blue tranquil water. There are not very many tourists here, and in just a few days, we've managed (somewhat accidentally) to see much of the coast and now the capital city. We took a bus from Dubrovnik to Kotor, circling aorund the bay of Kotor which looks more like a gigantic lake because the water ... Montenegro is BEAUTIFUL! The mountains are looming and majestic at the same time, most covered with lush green encroaching on the sea: clear blue tranquil water. There are not very many tourists here, and in just a few days, we've managed (somewhat accidentally) to see much of the coast and now the capital city.

We took a bus from Dubrovnik to Kotor, circling aorund the bay of Kotor which looks more like a gigantic lake because the water is so peaceful and the shore is more of a gentle docking space than a beach. Our bus was stopped for an hour while they blew off a part of the cliff where they wanted to widen the road. We piled out of the bus and waited on the shore, the bus driver jovially faked pushing Sarah into the water!

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We stayed in Kotor, an old walled city whose wall climbs up the cliff behind the town in an almost silly fortress, but we found the town really rocking on a Friday night. We stayed in this single lady's home who insisted on making us chai (tea) nearly every time we saw her, and when Sarah coughed she brought out a trove of vitamins. Needless to say, she spoke no English, and we no Serbian. The only real problem was that she didn't have any sinks that worked, nor a bathtub...so we haven't showered in 3 days...

We spend a day in Budva on the beach - also a fortress city but it is now very much a tourist town hosting a folk music festival starting this weekend. The beach was really refreshing though and we took advantage of at least some water to rinse off in.

On the bus back from Budva...oops...we went in the wrong direction and ended up 2 1/2 hours waiting to get back to Kotor. There was a wild lightning storm over the sea which was torrentially downpouring, which caused an accident, which caused us to wait again in the bus for about an hour (a budding trend...)

This morning we left bright and early to head to Podgroica, the capital city up in the mountains, to catch another bus. But upon arriving we found our next bus doesn't leave until 9pm tonight, so here we are passing another day in Montenegro. The people of this country - though we've had a bit of trouble communicating- are so warm and jolly, and the coast is amazingly beautiful!

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]]> Diving in the Adriatic tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-07:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=6&entryid=65064 2007-06-16T17:34:43Z 2007-06-07T10:19:47Z We encountered only a small snafu on our trek from Italy to Croatia: we got on the wrong bus (3 times) between the Ancona train station and the ferry terminal (stazione marittima as we learned after a few failed attempts at direction). The ominously black sky opened up on us as we disembarked the second wrong bus....and the torrent was pretty bad. We were soaked through to the bone, an ... acropolis_011.jpg

We encountered only a small snafu on our trek from Italy to Croatia: we got on the wrong bus (3 times) between the Ancona train station and the ferry terminal (stazione marittima as we learned after a few failed attempts at direction). The ominously black sky opened up on us as we disembarked the second wrong bus....and the torrent was pretty bad. We were soaked through to the bone, and still had to find our way to the ferry. A kind Italian man who spoke not a word of english - which nicely complemented our lack of Italian - asked us why we were standing at that particualr bus stop, it was nowhere near the terminal. Then he helped us find the right bus and we managed to forge our way through the downpour to the terminal (Sarah had to go barefoot because flipflops and rain don´t really work).

The ferry was way more ghetto than our first experience in Tunis, but it got us to Split, Croatia the next morning, a little worse for the wear and very tired, where we promptly sought our hostel and had quite the surprise upon being led up a staircase to a very drunk woman´s private guesthouse (note: this is 7:30 am) before we realized that we were on the wrong side of the courtyard. The hostel was next door! We took a nice nap before we hit the town.

Split is a lovely town paved in white marble (which I quickly learned is the case for much of Croatia´s old towns) which can be quite blinding in the sunlight. The town was built within the walls of the former seaside palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the Middle Ages. Way cool.

The next morning we took a hydrofoil to Hvar Island where Sarah & I met up with 3 girls from San Luis Obispo that we went to Jr High & High School with...we arrived early and ran into them in the town square just as they were renting a little motorized skiff to tootle around the islands. We spent the afternoon attempting to navigate via the postcard of the harbor that the boat guy had given us. Thank God Sarah knew how to deal with a boat, or else we would have crashed into some of the swanky yachts docked in the classy resort town harbor. Our only incidents here were that we dropped the little anchor a little too far off the coast of the island we hoped to sunbathe on, and found it stuck under a rock.....The next 30 minutes passed with numerous attepmts swimming down to try and release it, but found it was far deeper down than we had thought. After all rubbing our patron saint of travels: Sarah´s Nefertti pin, Michelle dove from the boat down at least 30 meters and released the anchor!!! Glorious day! Topped it off with an evening a cappella concert of Croat men singing in the Franciscan Monastery.

We found Hvar a really nice town - really really swanky with lots of civil servants vaccuuming the streets for trash which was depositied in trash cans that lowered beneath the sidewalk...woah. But this was also early in the season and we saw everyone fixing up their beach bars etc. for the crowds to roll in in the next few weeks. We found a nice quiet beach with empty reclining chairs and took a dip or two in the ocean. The construction is crazy, and we were both glad to have seen Hvar before it became the craze of the Adriatic and completely unaffordable/devoid of local flavor. We also had a run-in with a Borat impersonator...AWESOME!

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An early morning ferry took us to Dubrovnik (it ended up being an 8 hour ferry - OI VEH!) where we have been for the past 2 nights. It is an amazing town with an unbelievable history as a powerful merchant town rivaling Venice in the middle ages (then known as Ragusa). Unfortunately, in 1991-2 the Stari Grad (old town - which is so beautifully situated on the water with an entire city wall intact which we walked around at sunset...breathtaking!) was bombed to shreds when the Serbian-Montenegro remains of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) attacked the city. Now it has mostly been repaired and returned as the tourism capital of Croatia, teeming with cruise-shippers, although we did find a nice local swimming hole on a rather tranquil bit of ocean cove where all the locals sit drinking beer and playing cards in their speedos between dips in the salty ocean.

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Today we are off to Montenegro - the world´s newest country - which is just down the coast. Pretty sweet!

See the itinerary of this trip, and details about each destination.

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]]> Italia tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-06-01:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=5&entryid=64010 2007-06-01T07:06:02Z 2007-06-01T07:06:02Z Our tour of Sicily took us to Catania and Taormina on the Eastern side of the island, before heading up to Sorrento (Pompei & Herculaneum) and then Rome. Catania was an accident, as our train didn't continue to Taormina as we had thought (found this out on the train, of course) but we ended up in a great hostel and saw a tour of the city via a taxi from the train station. Taormina is an incredibly adorable ... Our tour of Sicily took us to Catania and Taormina on the Eastern side of the island, before heading up to Sorrento (Pompei & Herculaneum) and then Rome.

Catania was an accident, as our train didn't continue to Taormina as we had thought (found this out on the train, of course) but we ended up in a great hostel and saw a tour of the city via a taxi from the train station.

Taormina is an incredibly adorable town on the top of a hill - winding streets, a myriad of gelato shops, pricey shopping and a Greek ampitheatre. It was a beautiful place, but our "hostel" was so far out of the way down and up winding streets, we were happy to be there only one night. The beach Isola Bella is down the hill, accessible via sky gondola, and was the first time since Tunisia that we could relax on the pebbly beach.

An overnight train (where we scored sleeper beds even when we only paid for seats!!) took us to Napoli, where we promptly got on another train for Sorrento. Don't really want to spend much time in Naples, please forgive me. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the preserved cities of Herculaneum and Pompei. The former is much smaller and less known, but they actually allow you to walk right into the homes and businesses, see the frescoes up close, and wander the streets rather leisurely. We did a little eavesdropping with a Senior tour or two (when between Sarah's little German and my French we understood a bit...)

Now we are in Rome, and leaving today for Croatia. We've certainly managed to meet some fellow backpackers and in fact spent a few days heading in the same direction.
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Rome is so busy, but so beautiful! After the ruins we saw in Tunisia and Sicily, I'm really glad to see the true opulence of the heart of the empire. And also checked another country off the list - passed into the walls of the Vatican, even if only for a few snapshots. We're going to have to chow on some more gelato and pizza before we leave...not sure what kind of delights the Balkans will offer for vegetarians...

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]]> Guidos tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-05-27:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=4&entryid=63141 2007-06-01T06:52:46Z 2007-05-27T14:27:51Z Sorry that internet is rather sparse on this voyage so far... Our Tunisia travels have summed up quite nicely after our visit to the amazing Colliseum at El Jem - its a Roman colliseum rising out of the desert between the oceanside resort town of Sousse and the commercial port of Sfax. It was extra cool because we could climb the stairs and see everything from the highest perspective, looking out across the flat and very hot horizon. ... Sorry that internet is rather sparse on this voyage so far...

Our Tunisia travels have summed up quite nicely after our visit to the amazing Colliseum at El Jem - its a Roman colliseum rising out of the desert between the oceanside resort town of Sousse and the commercial port of Sfax. It was extra cool because we could climb the stairs and see everything from the highest perspective, looking out across the flat and very hot horizon.
tunisia_to_roma_002.jpg

In Sfax we stayed right in the heart of the medina walled city; I felt a bit like Aladdin with the souk below my window where vendors sold just about everything beneath striped sheets hung between buildings to shade the walkway.
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We took a bus to Douz "the Gateway of the Sahara" and spent a few days with a Bedouin hotelier named Kamel who took us off-roading in his associate"s Tacoma and arranged for us a day long Camel trek complete with traditional Bedouin meal and bread baked in the sand. Super awesome, except those camels burp really loud and have flatulant problems. Our dromadaire guide Bechir was very cool and taught us how to write our names in Arabic. (PS we will be finding Sahara desert sand in everything for the rest of the trip Im sure)
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But the nasty heat made us decide to detour from Tunisia and head early to Palermo and Sicily instead of going to Naples later this week. We have had some really crazy overnight transport stories (met an awesome Santa Claus-esque Frenchman on the ferry from Tunis to Palermo, Jean-Louis, who test drives cars for Citroen - just made a solo super trek through North Africa over the last 2 months!).

We have been soaking up Agrigento (SPECTACULAR Roman temple ruins), Catania and now Taormina, and also soaking up some splendid gelato and pizza...but its true that this is the motherland of the Guido- met some on the Train yesterday, for sure!

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]]> Arrivée tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-05-19:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=3&entryid=61690 2007-05-30T20:22:08Z 2007-05-19T14:15:01Z I can scarcely think of any better welcome to a North African Muslim country after 15 hours of transit than to arrive sans baggages aka Alitalia didnt board my backpack on my flight from New York and though we arrived on the 17th in Tunis, I didnt get my bag until this morning (3 days in the same clothes - way to travel light) - right before we decided to move on to the seaside town of Sousse... Tunis was a ... I can scarcely think of any better welcome to a North African Muslim country after 15 hours of transit than to arrive sans baggages aka Alitalia didnt board my backpack on my flight from New York and though we arrived on the 17th in Tunis, I didnt get my bag until this morning (3 days in the same clothes - way to travel light) - right before we decided to move on to the seaside town of Sousse...

Tunis was a very bustling capital city full of both obnoxious men and very kind and jovial types like the reception people at Hotel Marhaba - a lovely little pension that our Rough Guide marked as safe for women travellers. We had a little double room for only 15 dinar (1 Dt is roughly 90 cents or so) It was a delightful little place in the very heart of the souk (bazaar market), only a few blocks from the train depot, fresh market and next door to an amazingly cheap little restaurant where you could eat an entire meal of way too much couscous for 3.5 dinar. yummmmmers

The metro was an experience, we also saw the Musée Bardo and ruins of Carthage. This trip is going to be a whirlwind of the Roman territories.

So much more to describe and this is such a slow internet connection with a french/arabic keyboard which makes typing very tricky (always typing z instead of w or a...)

Today we arrived in Sousse which is incredibly lovely and still standing are the ancient walls of the city and the mosque just down the road from our next cheap and amazing hotel, and delicious pita sandwiches...(more to come later with a better computer connection )

suffice it to say that sunbathing on a beach in Tunisia = treacherous on a Saturday with throngs of 12 year old boys subtly (rather, very obviously) trying to edge closer and closer...We were saved by some older guys who were clearly also enjoying the view but much more tactful and told the little pests to scram...hahaha

Off to climb the Sousse Ribat tower and catch the sunset atop our roof terrace (AWESOME)

tomorrow to El Jem and onward to Sfax

ps they have Coca Light here : )

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]]> midnight packing tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-05-16:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=2&entryid=61186 2007-05-16T12:09:14Z 2007-05-16T12:09:14Z Miraculously, I got packed and moved yesterday with a little friendly help from my two Romanian movers sent by the moving company for FREE! But by the time I began to assemble my backpack I of course realized a few things I wanted were now across the river in a climate-controlled cubicle. So I continued the exercise in sleep deprivation by running around Manhattan with my roommate looking for a drugstore open at 12:30am (which proved to be a ... Miraculously, I got packed and moved yesterday with a little friendly help from my two Romanian movers sent by the moving company for FREE! But by the time I began to assemble my backpack I of course realized a few things I wanted were now across the river in a climate-controlled cubicle. So I continued the exercise in sleep deprivation by running around Manhattan with my roommate looking for a drugstore open at 12:30am (which proved to be a particularly amusing late night enterprise) in hopes of finding socks (which proved fruitless, but we did elicit some zealous encouragement from the graveyard shift hardhat types working on the street). This morning I'll make one last foray into the wilds of Kmart before we hop the subway to the airport. So that's about it....ciao until I can track down some Tunisian internet providers.

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]]> Start the Engines tag:travellerspoint.com,2007-05-13:/blog/?domain=bexter&thisblog_entryid=1&entryid=60279 2007-05-13T12:43:05Z 2007-05-13T12:39:16Z Just finished the whirlwind of Graduation : ) and now I'm faced with the task of packing up my life. I need to fit the next 2 months into one backpack, but also my apartment into a few boxes. I'm moving out of my cozy little East Village closet and into a storage locker in Williamsburg. I'm saying goodbye to a number of friends who are leaving the city while I'm gone, celebrating the last of ... Just finished the whirlwind of Graduation : ) and now I'm faced with the task of packing up my life. I need to fit the next 2 months into one backpack, but also my apartment into a few boxes. I'm moving out of my cozy little East Village closet and into a storage locker in Williamsburg. I'm saying goodbye to a number of friends who are leaving the city while I'm gone, celebrating the last of the college days, and taking care of all the loose ends for travel.

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Sarah and I are getting pretty stoked ... we take off on Wednesday, leaving behind the increasingly sticky New York City for the equatorial burn of Tunisia. I've got some sunscreen and my Reefs, antibiotic ointment, bandaids, and Lonely Planet. This will be quite interesting....

I will attempt to keep a pretty accurate itinerary on this site (just for you Dad) but can't promise anything elaborate. There is a travel map, but as you can see - once we hit Greece, we don't really have much of a plan yet. But that's the way adventures are born.

Start the Engines remains copyright of the author Bexter, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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