I'm glad Dave took 23,000 photos... that's right...Dave took 23,000 photos. That is 23 thousand, twenty three thousand, two three comma zero zero zero photos. That averages out to about 64 pictures a day. He never was without the camera. He took it everywhere. I think he is glad not to be taking pictures all day long. I'm so thankful for all those photos because just when we have the thought of hmmm, did we really...all we have to do is look at those pictures. Memories are wonderful but the sad truth of them is that they do fade. So the pictures help remind us in an instant of what we did and what we are so proud of having accomplished.

We came up with a list of questions for ourselves to help share our experience. We are truly going to miss traveling and writing in this blog and wanted to thank everyone who traveled along with us on "The Trip" via this blog. We were thrilled to be able to share the experience.

Twenty One Questions

1. Favorite Country?
Dave - Greece
Lynette - New Zealand

2. Favorite Experience?
Dave - Come on, can I really be expected to pick just one!!!
Lynette - Hiking in the Himalayans in Nepal

3- Scariest experience?
Dave - Every morning for about a year before the trip when I woke up and thought, "what the heck are we planning to do, are we crazy!"
Lynette - China where we got into that unmarked van that eventually took us to an overnight bus to Yangshuo. It
turned out fine but for awhile there I was rather terrified.

4-How many visits to foreign doctors?
Dave - Twice. Once in India for a stomach bug. As expected the facilities were not up to Western standards. I was terrified that I would contract something from the needle when they drew my blood. Once in Nepal for a fecal test due to inability to shake the stomach bug from India.
Lynette - 2 (1st in New Zealand where I picked up some horrible rash all over my back, stomach and arms. We
have pictures but we spared you all from this horribleness. Just thinking about it makes me start to itch!
The Doctor did not know what it was by the way. Just gave me some fortified cortizone cream and it went away
eventually.
2nd in Australia where I busted up my left foot after falling off a surf board. Xrays only cost $50 Aussie dollars just so
you know.

5- If I had to live somewhere we visited it would be?
Dave - Aus, NZ, Berlin.
Lynette - New Zealand

6-How many countries visited? - 22 (I consider Hong Kong a separate country from China)

7- Types of transportation - trains, planes, automobiles, vans, buses, rickshaws, tuk tuks, bicycles, scooters, boats,
camel, and there were more.

8-Most attractive people? - Italians!

9-Worst toilets? - China in the rural parts

10-What are you going to miss the most about traveling?
Lynette - figuring out train and subway maps, and experiencing new places and food consistently
Dave - Being able to experience what this wonderful world has to offer without worrying about making a daily income for a whole year!

11- What did you miss the most about home?
Dave - Consistent Western standard shower facilities, and free refills on soda.
Lynette - My own bed

12- Most unfortunately named currency? - The Dong (Vietnam)

13-Favorite beer - Tennents in Scotland and Berliner in Germany

14- Poorest country? - (Its a Tie) - Nepal and Cambodia

15- favorite food experience? - Greece for both of us

16- Best weather? - Greece (if you go to Greece go in September!)

17- Best animal experience?
Lynette - Riding Camels - I love Camels
Dave - Seeing Pandas in China (not in the wild)

18- Breakdowns?
Dave- I started to freak a bit on Ha Long Bay, Vietnam after slicing my finger open on the boat ladder and realizing that we were drifting around in the middle of nowhere and if something serious happened to us we would have a very difficult time finding our way to land quickly. When I showed my wound to a boat attendant who didn't speak any English thinking that he'd rush to get me a first aid kit he instead just handed me a half used packet of kleenex.
Lynette - New Zealand (first country). The reality of it all really hit me hard right at first. I had about a week of crying fits before I started to settled down and really start to enjoy the experience.

19- Most surprising?
Dave - How well run foreign airports and airlines are run compared to the U.S. Our worst flying experience out of 22 countries was trying to get out of the States at the beginning. Thai Air was the best.
Lynette - How accepted the US dollar is internationally. In Cambodia the ATMs dispensed US dollars not the
Cambodian currency.

20-What did we learn?
Lynette - We learned, discovered and experienced many things. We learned how accessible the world is, how poor many countries are, how fortunate we are. We learned how important America is and that in order for the rest of the world to succeed America needs to succeed. We learned that people really truly want to like America and they definitely like Americans. We did our best to counter the "ugly American" stereotype by being on our best non-obnoxious behavior. We were NEVER, not even once treated badly due to being Americans, in fact it was the opposite in some cases.
Dave - I learned that I can hold my bladder much longer than I thought I could.

21- How much did it cost? We weren't telling a lot of people about how much it cost us. But then we thought, who cares? So, here it is...we originally budgeted $50,000 but it ended up costing us around $75,000. That averages out to $207 a day.

Now here are some photo highlights from the trip. Since we took 23,000 photos it was very difficult to choose a small selection. So to make it a little easier we picked only photos with one or both of us in the shot. I guess its kind of proof we were actually there. We probably have enough photos to keep posting a trip blog every month for the rest of our lives even though we aren't on the trip anymore, but I'm sure no one wants that, so this is it, the last batch. They are in no particular order.

Thailand:

Italy:

Greece:

Greece:

Greece:

Greece:

Fiji:

Vietnam:

Vietnam:

Vietnam:

Vietnam:

Italy:

Italy:

Thailand:

Thailand:

Switzerland:

Nepal:

Nepal:

Nepal:

Malaysia:

India:

Nepal:

Greece:

Greece:

France:

France:

China:

China:

Cambodia:

Germany:

Australia:

Australia:

Australia:

New Zealand:

Italy:

England:

India:

India:

Italy:

Cambodia:

China:

Final stop, Scotland on New Year's Eve

Final thought:

Please travel. It really is as easy as deciding where to go, saving up the money and then buying the ticket. You can easily figure out what to do once you get there. Ask yourself one question - what country/place have I always wanted to go? Then, go there. Not sure how to do it? Ask me - I'll tell you. I'll help you. I'll go with you.

Till we travel again, Dave and Lynette

Reflections remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We plan on doing another more extensive blog with some more in depth questions/answers about our trip but here are a few fun facts we wanted to share.

How many flights we took: 44

How many airlines we used: 31

How many Hotels/places we stayed: exactly 100!

How much money we spent: We'll never tell. But lets just say we went a bit over budget.

Here is a story that we didn't share earlier...

Dave and I decided to rent a scooter while in Koh Samui in Thailand to explore the island. We rented a scooter once before in India and Dave drove us around no problemo. Well, we were coming down the lane to our hotel while it was raining on the scooter. The lane had these speed bumps every so often that were impossible to get over without hitting the under carriage of the scooter and as we went over the last speed bump we hit it a bit askew and because the ground was slippery with rain it sent us both flying off the scooter. Dave, the gentleman, tried to use his body as protection so I wouldn't hit the ground too hard. However, we both unfortunately did hit the ground in various ways and ended up with no broken bones - thank goodness - but with lots of bruises, cuts and scrapes. I have a small scar on my left ankle to remind of the incident. I sort of look at the scars I acquired on the trip as involuntary tattoos. Maybe I can show my grandchildren some day my old scooter scar from Thailand.

We're baaack! remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We participated in the opening of Hogmanay the other night, which was a torchlight procession of over 1000 people lead by a bunch of bagpipes and guys dressed up as knights carrying large medievel looking torches and axes. We walked through the center of town and then up to the top of a hill where a huge bonfire was lit and then we were treated to the best fireworks we have ever seen in our lives. We felt like we were a part of this ancient tradition and it was a very memorable event to be a part of.

Dave said that it felt like we were in an angry mob marching to kill Frankenstein's monster.

Here is the big wooden bonfire structure in the shape of the Scotland lion mascot. Looked more like some alien demon to us though. But we didn't say anything.

Here it is once the bonfire got going, with the axe wielding knights in the foreground.

On Tuesday we took a tour where we went into the highlands of Scotland. The highlands are magnificient. We went past where they filmed part of Harry Potter - Prisoner of Azakaban (not sure what part but we'll watch it again when we get back home), various castles and monuments, and more beautiful mountain scenery. We also visited Loch Ness and searched for ol' Nessie and we saw her! We really did and we have the picture to prove it.

See! We were surprised to find out that it actually wears a hat, probably because of the cold weather.

The Sofie Star in Highlands of Scotland!

Aren't the highland cows cute with their hair over their faces? Apparently they aren't good for anything but posing for tourits' photos.

We have been in Edinburgh since Christmas Eve and so spent Christmas day here also. We are staying at a bed and breakfast so we did get breakfast on Christmas day which was nice. Lunch and dinner however turned out to be a bit of a challenge. We set off around 2 p.m. to find something to eat and were having no luck finding a place that was open. We did find one place that claimed they had ham and cheese sandwiches and soup so we went into the small pub and ordered. Unfortunately the soup of the day was tomato (not a fan) and to make a long story short - they ran out of ham so we just drank our drinks and left still very hungry. We walked on and on and much to our delight saw a light in front of a restaurant. Jimmy Choos Chinese Buffet! Not only were they open, they were very busy. It seems we were not the only ones trying to find someplace to eat on Christmas day. We could not stop comparing our Christmas dinner to the one in the movie "A Christmas Story." We did indeed have some Chinese turkey. We stuffed ourselves over the next 3 hours so we wouldn't have to eat again till morning. They did have sliced regular turkey, which Dave tried but it was that processed gelatinous kind so not very good.

Christmas morn at the bed and breakfast:

Here's Dave celebrating Christmas Scotland-Style at the Chinese restaurant. These doohickies are a big deal here, I guess during the holidays. You pull the ends and the middle breaks open revealing goodies inside such as a paper crown, balloon, and a small paper scroll with jokes printed on it.

Here are some photos from the Edinburgh Castle that we visited:

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And some shots from around town.

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So today is the last day of our trip. Its really strange to think that we will be back home tomorrow. It hasn't really sunk in yet that its over, we are kind of numb to it right now. We are sure it will start to sink in over time though. So we hope to post another blog sometime after we return home to write about our thoughts on the whole crazy year.

We have a long day of travelling tomorrow (two flights and a 4 hour layover, approximately 13 hours in total) but hopefully it will all go smoothly. We will be in Ohio for a while before heading back to Florida.

Thanks to you all for following along on our journey.

Lynette and Dave

Edinburgh, Scotland - Our Final Stop remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We hadn't planned on going to Switzerland but we are so glad we decided to. It turned out to be one of the most picturesque and beautiful places we have visited. The mountains were stunning - especially with the snowfall on them. Switzerland really was like a winter wonderland. We took a 35 minute cable car ride to the top of Mt. Pilatus and the views were breathtaking. There is just something about Mountains. I could stare at them all day. I feel the same way about the ocean. The best is when they are combined and you can see water and mountains together. Those are some of my favorite places. Somehow it just feels special, like they are blessing you with their presence. I always feel so lucky after seeing sights like these because they are natural. Man didn't build the mountains or the ocean - it is that beautiful all on its own.

This shot is great because you really get a sense of how high we were because you can see the buildings of the town below in the lower left corner.

The Sofie Star in Switzerland:

A few more shots of Lucerne, Switzerland before we left for England:

Now we are in London and London is not a winter wonderland in fact it has been unseasonably warm here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining as we have really lucked out with some great weather in a place that is known for the exact opposite. We have even seen the sun shine and in 6 days it has only sprinkled on us twice! I know I have said this before but one of the great things about being in Europe during the off season is less people and lower prices. We went to Westminster Abbey a couple of days ago and didn't have to fight the crowds that are usually there - it was great. Same thing goes for Windsor Castle - less tourists - less lines. Yippeee!

Some photos from London:

I can not lie, it has been absolutely fabulous being in a country where English is the primary language. Although, we have to keep reminding ourselves of that fact since it has not been the case since Australia back in Feburary and we keep on forgetting. It has been nice because a couple of times since being here we have been asked some questions by some stangers and we are actually able to understand them and give them an answer instead of looking confused and saying "English." London is a huge spread out city and you really have to use the transport system here to get around. We bought something called an Oyster Card which allows us unlimited trips on London's mass transit system including the underground (subway system but they call it "the tube"). I read in the guide book that London's subway system is the oldest and most derelict in the world and I believe it. There are delays constantly but we eventually get where we are going.

We have been busy seeing all the famous London sites including Big Ben, The Parliament Building, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Notting Hill, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, where Margaret Thatcher lives, the British Library, King's Cross Station - Platform 9 and 3/4 (if you don't know why this is famous then you'll just have to figure it out on your own. Here's a clue - it is magical!).... We have one more day in London and plan to see the Tower of London, Millennium Bridge, the big football-shaped glass building and St. Paul's cathedral (where Princess Di got married). Hopefully we will get up earlier than we have been so we can see all these things before it gets dark.

Yesterday we took a day trip to see Windsor Castle which is where Queen Elizabeth spends most of her time when she is in the London area. It was cool. We also saw Stonehenge. Apparently we visited on one of the 2 most important days for Stonehedge - Winter solstice. We didn't feel any special energy or anything but we did see a bunch of campers and a tepee for people that had woken up early to see the sun rise and see if the aliens who built stonehenge returned. Well, they were disappointed once again, better luck next year. We almost didn't get to see Stonehenge because our bus wouldn't start after the lunch break. They eventually did get it started and we made it through the rest of the trip, thankfully. The driver never turned off the bus again though. He just kept it running while we were visiting the attractions.

Our day ended in the town of Bath. This town is used a lot when they film those period dramas like "Pride and Prejudice" because it has retained its achitecture. We visited the roman baths in Bath. The romans when they ruled England built a huge temple and bath complex around the natural hot water spring found here. Much of the complex is in ruins but there also was a lot that survived. They found quite a lot of interesting artifacts like curses people carved on some metal substance and threw into the spring hoping that the goddess Minerva would help them out. The curses were pretty funny because they said things like "curse thee whoever stole my gloves may their eyes fall out." Ok, that is not a direct quote just giving you a rough idea what they were like.

Stonehenge:

At the Roman baths:

Windsor Castle:

We have also enjoyed watching British television. Wahoo - it is in English! One cool thing that we ran into while walking around the city the other day was a CNN reporter doing a spot in front of the Zimbabwe Embassy. There was a bunch of people singing and dancing with signs. They have been gathering there once a week since 2002 and will continue to do so until Zimbabwe has a free election. Anyway, we saw the reporter do the report and watched him for awhile and took a picture. The cool thing is the next day while watching CNN we actually saw the report.

Our next and last stop is Edinburgh, Scotland. We fly there on the 24th to celebrate Christmas and New Years. It should be a fun end to our trip.

London, England remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Before leaving Munich we hit the famous Hofbräuhaus for a few beers served in mugs as big as my head. And with the size of my Buckley noggin that's saying a lot.

Chug, chug, chug....

Things got a little fuzzy for Lynette after she finished hers. But don't worry, she did not have to use the "throw-up sink." Which is fortunate because there is only one located in the men's restroom. - Seriously.

We took a bus trip up to Neuschwanstein, Germany for a tour of the castle there. My Disney mates back in Florida can correct me if I'm misinformed, but this is the castle that was the main inspiration for Disney's U.S. park castles.

Isn't this a magnificent photo?

That's because its a photo I took of a postcard. (Just to avoid any copywright issues I want to reiterate that this original photo was NOT taken by me. It was on a postcard.) Our view when we visited wasn't nearly as spectacular because when we got there we found half the castle shrouded in scaffolding for repairs! Oh the humanity!!!

Nevertheless we did get some great shots.

Our last stop in Germany was a relaxing week in Schopheim at Lynette's Great Aunt Hannah's place. It was a delight to spend time with her and to experience a small German town. Other than accompanying Aunt Hannah to a fun "party with the old people" as she put it, our days were spent lounging around eating fatty foods like bratwurst, pastries, candy, and beer.

At the party:

Here's Lynette and her aunt fixing up something good in the kitchen...with lots of butter of course.

View from Aunt Hannah's before the snow:

View after the snow:

We are now in Switzerland and WOW is it beautiful here. It is worth putting up with the cold to experience what a winter wonderland this is. The city of Lucerne where we are now is one of the most, if not thee most, beautiful cities we've seen so far.

There is no missing the fact that its Christmas time here in Europe. Germany, Prague, and now Switzerland sure don't hold back on the Christmas spirit. Decorations, and little Christmas villages are everywhere. Here's a few shots:

Prague:

Germany:

Switzerland:

After Switzerland we are off to London. If anyone knows someone who lives there and could put us up for a couple nights let us know. Its expensive there!

Can't believe our trip is almost over. Just 3 more weeks. We'll try to get a few more blogs in before the end.

dave and lynette

Farewell Germany, Hello Switzerland remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had heard wonderful rave reviews of Prague and about how gorgeous it is. But when we walked out of the train station we were a little let down. Our bus ride from the subway to the hotel didn't make us feel much better either. The town, at least where we were, was pretty run down and looked like any other dingy graffiti-ridden city. But we knew that our hotel was far from the Old Town which is where the tourist draw is and where all the beautiful old buildings were. So we were looking forward to getting down there, but it was late when we got into town so we hung out in our hotel doing some reading and writing and then turned in.

The beauty of Old Town didn't disappoint when we finally got down there the next day. We went to the castle and church up on the hill where we got a great view looking over the city.

View from the castle:

Afterward we came down through some narrow cobble stone streets. The sun was setting, which it does at the early hour of 4:00, and the old street lamps went on. It was really gorgeous. We saw that a tavern offered "mead" which we just had to try since you always see people drinking it in medieval time movies. The waiter didn't know what we were talking about and kept thinking we were asking for "meat" which we thought was strange because it clearly said "mead" out on the sign. But fortunately, after much back-and-forth, he finally understood what we wanted and said, "oh, honey wine!" So we learned that mead is just another name for honey wine, as if just "honey wine" isn't cool enough or something. We tried it and Lynette said she'd never have to drink it again, not a big fan. She likened it to a liquid form of Halls cough drops, which I thought was a pretty good description.

There is a great old stone bridge across the river with sculptures along its walls. We passed across it several times during our few days in Prague. And every time we saw something different.

View of the castle and cathedral from the bridge:

There is a huge astronomical clock on one of the towers in the Old Town. On the hour the little doors above the clock open and you can see little statues moving by inside. And a skeleton on the outside bobs its head while ringing a bell in its hand. We didn't even know about this clock and its little show, but we found out later its a huge tourist site. We walked by it several times for the first few days we were there but I guess never at the top of the hour. Then on our last day we happened by and saw this huge crowd gathered out front looking up at it. It was 5 minutes til so we figured something was going to happen and stuck around for the show. Supposedly the clock is said to be the most over rated tourist attraction in Europe. And granted, I guess it is nothing SPECTACULAR so maybe if we had known about it and came there specifically to see it then it might have been a little disappointing, but since we didn't even know it was there we thought it was pretty cool to see. That's the upside to not doing any research beforehand.

We thought the story of the clock was rather interesting. Supposedly, "way-back-when" (not sure exactly when) the king wanted to do something grand and beautiful within the city to set it apart from others and to make it special and unique. So he commissioned a wise clock maker to design and construct the huge astronomical clock with its fanciful display. Once the clock was completed it was a huge success and people came from all over to admire its beauty. But the king realized that if the clock maker could build this one then he could also build ones in other cities, making his city not so special anymore. So to prevent this he had the clock maker blinded! (How wrong is that?!) But the clock maker eventually got revenge when many years later he was able to get up into the tower. He glided his hands across the clock workings and flipping some kind of mechanism brought the gears to a halt. No one saw what he did and could not figure out how to turn it back on. So it remained out of commission for over a hundred years until finally another wise clock maker was able to figure out how to get it working again, luckily for us.

We were in Prague for Thanksgiving, but as I'm sure you can guess, they do not celebrate this American holiday there. So we missed out on any turkey feasts. Instead we went to the laundromat and got some much needed washing done. Later we did get out to a nice place for dinner but had some tastey pork ribs and some good Prague beer instead.

Some other shots from around Prague:

a tower of books at a Prague library:

Cemetery:


Door:

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So from Prague it was back on the train to Munich. So we are now back in Germany. We left too early from Prague to partake in the hotel's breakfast so we just had enough time to grab a danish on the way to the train. The ride was to be 6 hours and most long train rides have a food car so we figured we'd head there later for lunch. But once on the train we learned that there was no food car on this trip. So we ate what now seemed like our pea sized danishes and by the end of the 6 hour journey we were starving. Luckily all sorts of food stands and cafes awaited us at the Munich station and we quickly gobbled down some fantastic bratwursts.

We sure have had some great food on this trip and this continues to be the case here in Germany. Tonight for dinner I had what I can only imagine would classify as the largest pork chop known to mankind. It said "jumbo chop" on the menu but I guess I didn't really know how true that would turn out to be. It is served with fries but I actually ordered an additional small side of pasta which ended up being absolutely unnecessary. I should have known when the waiter began to walk away after I ordered the chop and then his eyes nearly bulged from his head when I stopped him and asked for the extra pasta dish, as if to say "this boy can eat!" or "this boy doesn't know what he's in for!" But of course he didn't warn me. Anyway, this thing came out and it was the size of the plate, literally! But it was so good, fried in a golden brown breading. Not at all healthy, but Lynette and I have put any concept of a healthy diet out the window for this trip. So when we return home you may notice a bit more strain around the button on our pants. I was not able to finish the jumbo chop and barely made a dent in the pasta, but I assure you I gave it quite a go.

Here's just a few shots from Munich. I'll put up more later. For now I have to go to bed. Good night.

Thanksgiving in Prague, Now Munich remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Both Dave and I have been completely surprised by Berlin. Honestly, before visiting if you asked me my thoughts on Berlin I would have said Hitler, the wall, East-West, "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.", etc., etc. That is the reason I wanted to come here to see the wall and other remnants of that time in history. All of that history is obviously still a big draw but it is also a fun vibrant artsy place that is really easy to be in. It feels like Berlin puts out a welcome mat for any type of person who visits. It is a big city with about 4 million people in it but it is safe with very little violent crime. It makes walking around fun and carefree and allows you the freedom to explore anywhere. It also is one of the cheapest Western European cities, so we have been loving being able to eat good food for less money. For example on the cost difference, the internet that I'm using right now in Berlin is 1 euro ($1.25) an hour and in Venice, Italy it was 8 euro ($10.00) an hour. It seems like it is a place that attracts people from around the world. We took a walking tour the other day and our guide was from Chicago and originally planned on spending 4 months in Berlin and ended up liking it so much that he has now been here for over a year. Also, the hotel (Circus Hotel) we are staying at here is by far the best hotel we have stayed at on this entire trip. The staff are amazingly friendly.

Even though it has been cold, windy, wet and now snowy we still have been able to get around the city and see a lot of sights. As I mentioned earlier we took a walking tour which turned out to be one of the best things we could have done since our guide was extremely knowledgeable on German and specifically Berlin history. On the tour, we saw a small portion of the wall that still exists in the city center. There is a larger portion that we saw today in the eastern edges of the city but in the downtown area there is about 100 meters of the remaining wall left there. The tour also took us to a huge Nazi office building that the allies missed when bombing and the site of Hitler's bunkers where he committed suicide. The underground bunkers do not exist anymore as they were filled with dirt and water by the communists but still it is harrowing to even stand on the ground above where they once were. We also saw the site of the book burnings where there is an underground memorial of empty bookcases and a building which is actually a museum where Hitler gave a lot of speeches. We also saw "Checkpoint Charlie" the place where the US military checked people going into and out of East-West Berlin. They call it Disneyland Berlin now because everything at Checkpoint Charlie is a fabrication. Nothing of the actually checkpoint building or signs announcing that "You are now leaving the American Sector" still exist. The tour ended at the Brandenburg Gate which is where Reagan gave that famous "tear down this wall" speech. For a bit of silliness our guide also pointed out that this area also is home to the most expensive hotel in Berlin called Hotel Aldon which is where all the famous and rich people stay while visiting Berlin. People like, Michael Jackson and his family, awhile ago when he thought it a good idea to dangle his baby over the ledge of his 5th floor hotel balcony. We took a picture of the balcony.

Little Christmas shops and villages are popping up all over Berlin right now. Yesterday we came across one that had snow sledding on inner tubes. Dave and I decided to do it and had a blast sledding down a fabricated snowy hill in the middle of Berlin.

Afterwards we had Gluhwein which is warm red wine a lot like Glogg that they served in Copenhagen, just without the fruit and nuts. I love seeing the little Christmas villages and shops with their lights and warmth. This is a definite bonus to travelling in Europe this time of year.

The German food is absolutely delicious. We ate at this incredible German restaurant twice because we liked it so much. Also, prepare to be jealous friends and family from Bucyrus (Bratwurst capital) Ohio - We have had authentic delicious German Bratwurst two days in a row! And it was delicious. I mean really really delicious. Like "I feel sorry for Carle's" delicious.

Me enjoying a bratwurst and some Gluhwein at one of the Christmas villages:

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Dave enjoying one of his favorite beers so far - Berliner Pilsner: (the Germans know their beer)

England versus Germany
Go Deutschland!
The last thing I want to write about is our football (soccer) experience. Our hotel had secured some tickets for the Germany versus England game at Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Dave and I thought it would be cool to see a soccer game and so decided to buy some tickets. We didn't know that Germany and England have a massive rivalry that dates back decades. Or that the game was completely sold out. The game was what they called a "friendly" but that didn't change the fact that they are huge rivals and that each team still wanted to win very badly. Or the fact that the Berlin police department brought in reinforcements from all over Germany. As soon as we arrived at the stadium there were people everywhere. Turns out Olympic stadium holds about 75,000 people and since it was sold out they were all there. It also turns out that Olympic Stadium is the same Olympic Stadium built by the Nazi's for the 1936 Olympics and where Hitler got all pissed off when Jesse Owens kicked butt and won the 100 meter dash beating the two Germans. When Berlin hosted the World Cup (soccer) in 2006 they debated tearing it down but instead decided to keep the structure and gut and redo the inside. We learned all about the history of German soccer from the owner of our hotel. They remember games all the way back to 1966 and 1974 that they pass along generation to generation. When we entered the stadium it was breathtaking and knowing the history of the place made it even more memorable. A large section of the old stadium remains and the place where Hitler sat during that Olympic event where Jesse Owens won is now just a cement block. But you can still see the spot, as shown with the arrow in the below photo, as a reminder of the atrocities of the past. Unfortunately, Germany lost the game and was subjected to song after song by the very song-loving England fans. It appears that those English lads have a song for everything that happens in a soccer game.

Photos at the stadium:

Those sections made of concrete are from the original stadium and that arrow shows that infamous spot from history.

We are sad to leave Berlin since we had such a good time here. However, as always we are also really excited to see our next destination which is a place I have wanted to go for a very long time - Prague!

Here's Dave with a few more photos.....

Hello, Dave here.

Here in Berlin there is a great memorial to the Jewish people that died during the Holocaust. Its of course controversial because its not a traditional looking memorial, but we loved it. It has no names or markings on it of any kind. Its basically a city block filled with rows and rows of huge concrete slabs set into the ground at different heights. the ground also rises and dips as you walk through. So towards the center you go up and down as you go deeper and deeper and the slabs rise above you higher and higher. Apparently the designer of the memorial said that it is not symbolic or representational of anything. It was designed to create various thoughts and feelings about the Jewish experience as you go through. And in that it definitely succeeds. Some words that came to mind for us were suffocating, lost, menacing, wandering, on edge. This photo only shows about one tenth of the whole memorial.

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The Reichstag, German parliament building. In 1933 a fire broke out destroying the main hall. The Communists were blamed, accelerating a political witch-hunt driven by the Nazis that helped them seize power.

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A new modern dome was added to the building not long ago to replace what had been lost during bombings of WWII.

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We went up into the interior of the dome for a view of the city, as well as this view down into the parliament house. You can see the blue chairs down inside. (geek alert) The inside of the thing made me feel like we were inside the warp core on Star Trek's Enterprise. I had my eye out for the dilithium crystals.

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This long remaining section of the Berlin wall has been turned into an open air art gallery. Its an ongoing work of art as people add their own touches. I would have contributed but I forgot to take my Sharpie. Here a shot of Lynette braving the cold and snow to enjoy the art.

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They have left a 2-brick path throughout the city where the wall used to stand and has now been removed. Lynette has one foot on the west and one foot on the east:

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Our time in Berlin has been a great learning experience.

That's all for now.
Till next time.
Lynette and Dave

Berlin remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Just as beautiful when the city comes to life at night:

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Lynette had read that if you try to take photos in the Red Light District you may very well find yourself and your camera being thrown in the canal. So you can imagine I was a bit weary. While I was not gutsy enough to get any pics of the scantily clad women-of-the-night advertising their goods from their windows I was able to snap off a few of the area:

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Its a town filled with some great and sometimes quirky artwork.

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We met up with some friends in Copenhagen, Denmark and they showed us around their great city. We had a great time seeing the beautiful sights. One night we went with them to a dinner party with some of their friends. It was so nice to sit around and just chill with some cool people and have some great food and drinks. It was just like being back home, they made us feel like part of the gang. We learned a bit about Danish food, mostly that its delicious, and they put us to shame with their recollection of American movie quotes. It was kind of surreal at times to sit there during an uproarious conversation where we didn't understand a word. But they spoke in English for us most the time, and very graciously translated otherwise.
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The Sofie Star with Hans Christian Andersen, a native of Copenhagen and writer of many a classic fairytale:

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Hanging by the harbor:

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Pics from the park:

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Takes from the tower:

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Scenes in the city:

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It gets colder in every country we visit now and in Copenhagen it got dark at 4:00 PM. Lynette and I have both been shopping for coats, hats, gloves and scarves. I'm also sad to say I finally had to lay to rest my amazingly sturdy hiking shoes that I've had since the beginning. They have held up wonderfully for having been worn almost every day for 10 months. And actually if it were not for the powerful odor they began to emit they probably could have made it to the end. Besides, since we are mostly doing modernized cities now its nice to get some less adventurey and conspicuous footwear.

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Here, Outside Copenhagen in the town of Helsingor, resides the castle where Shakespeare's play Hamlet is set. Its a very majestic old structure overlooking a picturesque ocean view.

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Will catch you up later on Germany. Take care.
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Dave and Lynette
dbuck242@yahoo.com
lschimpf@gmail.com

Catching up on Photos remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The evening of the U.S. election we were in Tours, France. We had decided to stop in a pub for a few drinks, (actually we've done that most nights since in Europe but that's besides the point.) Anyway, it was early (around 6:30 PM) so we were the only ones there, except the bartender of course. After ordering our drinks we noticed a huge American flag hanging behind us on the wall. We thought this was strange - afterall we were in France. The bartender noticed our reaction and pointed at an even more surprising poster they had hanging up with the images of Obama and McCain. Apparently, as he explained, they had held an election of their own earlier, there in the bar. He showed us the shoe boxes with slits in the top for the ballots, one box for American voters and one for French. The results showed that the Americans voted for Obama by about 65% and the French voted for him by an even larger perecentage of around 90%. At this time it was only mid-day back home so the real voting still had a long way to go. We went to bed that night in nervous anticipation. It would have been useless to stay up for the results because we would have been up until 7 AM the next morning - France time. When we did wake up it was like Christmas morning because we knew that, barring some issue with hanging chads or the like, we would already have a new president. We couldn't wait to find out who it was so Lynette flicked on the tube. But unfortuately we had to land in the country during the election that has the worst English friendly television of anywhere we've been. They didn't even have CNN at the hotel like a lot of other places have. So of course the announcers on all their news programs were speaking French and they dub over anyone who is speaking English. We watched for a bit but we saw no difinitive proof of who the new president was. No shot of Obama or McCain smiling with a big "The Winner" sign below him. Just shot after shot of French dudes with a microphone blabbing on in nonsense. I couldn't bear it any longer so I went down to ask the hotel manager. With my still crusty eyes and mashed bed hair I went down stairs like a child anxiously going to see what Santa brought, and hoping it was not a big chunk of coal in my stocking. When I found the manager I asked if he happened to catch the news and knew who the new US president was. I will leave out what my response was when he told me who won so as not to give away my political affiliation. This is not a political blog and I don't want to push my views on anyone. But I'll just say I sped joyously up the 3 flights of stairs and panting heavily gave Lynette a big high five when I reached the room. Throughout the next few days whenever we told a French person where we were from, such as with our castle tour guide, they didn't hesitate to immediately say "congratulations,"without even knowing or asking who we favored in the election.

Much earlier in the year we had heard from some French tourists that strikes are very common in France. For rather minor things in our eyes the people will strike simply in order to keep the government in check. And they will do this in somewhat extraordinary ways like driving really slowly on the highway or gathering in the road to hold up traffic for hours. They laugh at images on TV of U.S. strikes with a few people walking harmlessly in a small circle with picket signs. They don't see how this can be useful. Here in France they will create great disruptions to create the most amount of inconvenience to people. In this way they apparently get a much swifter response to their cause. We unfortunately got to experience this in action when the train line employees went on strike while we were in Tours. There were huge delays which turned what should have been a 2 hour trip for us into a full day event. And it definitely doesn't help that France doesn't do any announcements on the trains or in the stations in English like most other European countries do. It was quite a stressful day.

We were sad to leave the wonderful cheese and croissants of France but Amsterdam had its own great cuisine that we enjoyed. One restaurant we went to was called "Moeders" which means "mother" where the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with framed photos of mothers from all over the world. You can bring in a pic of your mom and they will hang it up. All the dishware in the place is different and mismatched because apparently on opening day all the customers brought their own and they have been using it there ever since. We ordered an extraordinary meal which was a variety of different traditional Dutch foods. We loved it because it reminded us of home. It had roasted beef with gravy and three different kinds of potatoes, apple sauce and a bunch of other good things.

In Amsterdam we visited the Rembrandt House which to our surprise didn not have any of Rembrandt's paintings. But it was cool to see where he lived. We did eventually get to see some of his works at a museum in town which was great.

We also went to the Van Gogh museum which is one of both mine and Lynette's favorite museums so far. It was fantastic to see so many of Van Gogh's works in one place. You really get a sense of his development over the years. For being a self trained artist he sure grew a lot as an artist which really shows his genius. Unbelievable that he finished 900 paintings in his short 10 year career.

We also visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam which was quite an emotional experience.

We are now in Copenhagen, Denmark. We arrived 2 days ago. We met some people while in Australia who live here so its cool to swing by and check out their town and meet up with them.

Yesterday Lynette and I took a boat tour of the harbor area. Its a bit cold here now but it was still a cool ride. We saw a lot of the beautiful old architecture the city has to offer along with some cool modern structures as well. They have a lot of old wooden sail ships here and we saw some real live modern day Vikings. Actually they were Navy officers aboard the battle ships which were docked in the harbor but whatever. I didn't think I'd get much reaction from them when I waved as we passed by but to our surprise they all turned and gave us a big wave and a smile. Quite friendly chaps.

So far we have learned that the Danish make really good danishes - go figure. We also experienced a traditional Christmas time drink called Glogg which consists of hot red wine with cooked nuts and fruit bits in it - quite tasty. Another thing that is popular here is the hot dogs which they put all sorts of toppings on. I've had two so far and am going for another one for lunch today. I might try the one with bacon on it.

No photos this time unfortunately because I haven't been able to find a computer with a connection for my camera but hopefully soon.

Dave and Lynette

France Holland Denmark remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The other night our friends served a traditional French meal which was delightful. I can't tell you how great it feels to be staying and eating meals in a real home for a change instead of a hotel and restaurant. Tonight we had fondue which apparently is a very common meal in French homes during the winter. It was very tastey. I did not know this but "fondue" actually means "to melt." Makes sense.

Let's see, what is there to say about France that you don't already know from all the movies or shows done about the place. Oh, here's something, the restaurant servers (so far) are not all snobby and difficult like I had always been lead to believe they were. I'd always heard that they will often pretend not to speak english or will be very rude and such. But we have actually experienced quite the contrary. They have mostly been extremely friendly and helpful, and always speak english as soon as they realize we are foreigners. Which is pretty much immediately by the look of me. And if they have any doubt it quickly vanishes as soon as I open my mouth and try to utter a mangled "Bonjour." You may be wondering how a simple word like "bonjour" could be mangled but I manage it.

Here some photos of just a few of the many moods of the Eiffel Tower:

And here's me and the Sofie Star together enjoying the view of the tower:

It decided to rain the day we had planned to go to the Eiffel Tower but the weather here hasn't been too great lately so we figured we probably wouldn't get a better chance. And we hoped that with the bad weather most people would stay away and the line to go up wouldn't be too bad. But we were wrong and waited an hour and a half. (I'd hate to see it on a nice day.) It rained lightly on and off while we waited in line and about a minute after getting up to our viewing point on the second level of the tower it started to pour down. So we took cover and it quickly passed. Then it was still cloudy but we had a great view of the city, accompanied by a few rainbows.

Here's us on the second viewing level of the tower which is about half way up. We could have gone to the top but it just looked too precarious up there. Even though the tower has been there over 100 years and was built very sturdily, the fact that it was only intended to be a temporary structure for the 1889 Universal Exposition freaked me out. I could just imagine the rivets finally giving way and all popping out just as we got to the top. So I decided the middle level gave us a sufficient view of the city.

Notre Dame Cathedral:

I guess its no secret who the French want for US president.

The spectacular stained glass at Sainte-Chapelle:

Arc de Triomphe:

Going up the stairs to the top of the Arc:

Lynette deep in concentration at the Musée d'Orsay art museum:

Amongst other things at Musée d'Orsay they have some great impressionists' work including that of Monet, Gaughin, and Van Gogh which were great to see:

I've always wondered what was inside that big glass pyramid at the Louvre. In case anyone else was wondering here's a photo. Beneath the pyramid, underground, is a big modern entrance hall where you buy your tickets and can enter the 3 different major wings of the museum by way of separate escalators.

Inside the Louvre:

The Mona Lisa is one of the masterpieces hanging at the Louvre, but I'm sure you've all seen photos of the Mona lisa before. So here is a shot of the crowd looking at it and taking pictures of it:

This statue was NOT at the Louvre but I thought it was interesting.

On Saturday we will be leaving Paris and going up to Tours, France to check out some castles.

dave & lynette

Cold But Beautiful Paris remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The day before we spent a large portion of the day in the Uffizi gallery. This gallery is really famous for its massive collection of works from the Rennaisance. It has a ton of masterpieces including two by Botticelli - "Birth of Venus" and "Spring." This is another museum where lines get really long but for this one we reserved a ticket so we could bypass the line which worked nicely. We also went to the Boboli gardens which has this gorgeous view over the Tuscan countryside from one side and then on the other side a view over the city of Florence. You can just imagine those rich people back in the day walking around those gardens and stopping for a chat or a picnic.

The place we stayed at in Florence was a "budget" accomodation in an old building right in the center of town. The first two nights we stayed at this hotel our room actually had a view of the Duomo. The hotel didn't have any double rooms available for the 3rd night but after talking to the hotel owner we sort of convinced him to convert a single room for us. He was kind of embarrassed to do it because he said the room was so small but he stuffed another single bed in there for us. Dave and I thought it must be the size of a closet from the way the hotel guy was acting but when he showed us the converted single room we weren't even phased since it was about the size of a hotel room in Hong Kong! So it was quite fine for us.

Italy has made us feel a bit underdressed however since fashion reigns supreme here. We are definitely getting tired of our worn old clothes over and over and they are definitely starting to wear thin in areas. Black is the universal color though. If you are in black you could pass for a local. Believe it or not, while in Rome, Dave and I were approached by an Italian girl in the subway who asked us for directions in Italian. When we said we were sorry in English she looked a bit embarassed. I'm not sure what Dave was wearing but I was wearing all black. Black never goes out of style.

Here is Dave with some photos.
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Hey, this is Dave with some photos.

This is the beautiful Duomo:

Some shots of the inside of the dome.

This is the view of it at night from our hotel room.

Lynette admiring the view from our elegant hotel room (before we moved into the converted single.)

Feeling a bit rebellious I let loose my long pent up artistic expression.

Here's the view from the Boboli gardens that Lynette mentioned:

Isn't this a beauty? And the landscape is pretty great too.

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We are now in Venice. It is very expensive here. I mean VERY expensive. Especially after we convert to the US dollar. We try not to think about it too much so we can enjoy ourselves but it can be hard. After the conversion a large Coke at a restaurant the other night would have cost about 15 dollars. - and no free refills. Needless to say I didnt get one. We are still debating on whether we should do the gondola ride since it costs 80 euros for 40 minutes which is about 100 dollars. The city is absolutely beautiful though and we've had some great food. We'll try to post some photos in the near future.

dave and lynette

Florence, Italy remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Here is a list of all the things we saw in Rome...

The Colosseum, The Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain (at night), Borghese Museum (please go here if you are every in Rome), Spanish Steps, Keats House, Trevi Fountain (daytime), the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the 3 fountains in Piazza Navona, about 5 or 6 churches that I don't remember the names of, various obelisks, lots of monuments and old buildings, Vatican City including St. Peters and the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, the castle near St. Petes, the Pope.

We saw the Pope! Every Sunday at noon he gives a blessing and a bit of an address to the people who gather at St. Peter's square if he is in town. Lucky for us the Pope was in Rome and so we actually went to St. Peter's and heard him speak - in Italian mostly but he did say a little bit in English. There were a lot of people there so we couldn't really see him well. He was about the size of a peanut to us but they had large screens up so we could see him better. After blessing all the people in attendance, he got into a little car - "the Pope mobile" - and drove through the audience but again not close enough for us to get a good look at him. We could make out the top of his hat basically. We greatly enjoyed the opportunity to see and hear the Pope in person and definitely something I didn't expect I would ever experience.

The Sistine Chapel was a major highlight of Rome also. Dave said it was one of the highlights of his life to see it in person. The thing about going to a place like Rome is that you get to see the actual painting, sculpture, and frescoes by people like Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Bernini, and on and on. It is hard to wrap your head around the concept that you are actually looking at Michelangelo's frescoes that he did with his own hands - things we studied in our classes in school, and are popular to most people in the western world. We are now in Florence and experience a whole new set of classical works of art. We hope to post some pictures of that in the near future.

---Hey this is Dave with a few photos:

Colliseum

The Sofie Star is still in one piece and it made its way all the way to Rome! (unlike the backpack that Lynette bought in Nepal and was forced to finally lay to rest yesterday) Here it is at the Colliseum. (For any newcomers who missed the Sofie Star explanation way back when- My niece Sofie made me this craft piece before we left on the trip and I thought it would be cool to take it with us and photograph it going around the world.)

I was particularly excited to see the Pantheon. Its amazing how old this thing is - from ancient Roman times. Centuries later, during the Renaissance the building was not looked on with much affection. At one point the Pope almost decided to demolish it but instead just melted down the Bronze which covered the coffered ceiling and used it for an emmense sculpture centerpiece inside St. Peters Church. The dome inside the Pantheon with the huge hole in the top is quite a sight to see in person. Here is a shot of the front of the building:

The Bronze sclupture for St. Peters Church was sculpted by Bernini. This is a guy I learned a bit about in art history class in college. But to me all those sculptors kind of blended together back then. However, to see the works of art in person I now have a great appreciation for Bernini's work. We saw three of his most famous marble works at the Borghese Museum in Rome. His "Rape of Persephone," "Apollo and Daphne," and "David" (not to be confused with the famous Michalangelo's "David") are some of the finest artworks I've ever seen in my life. I can't believe what this guy could do with marble. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos. But it doesn't matter because I've seen photos of them before and its just not the same as seeing them in person. My jaw actually dropped when I walked into the room and saw the "David" sculpture.

Here's some photos from around Rome:

Another artist I now have a greater appreciation for is Raphael. Lynette and I agree that his "Transfiguration" painting somehow goes beyond just being a painting, its an experience. You ARE allowed to take pictures of the artwork at the Vatican Museum but this piece was in such a dark room that the photos came out kind of blurry.

But I do have a photo of another Raphael painting that I was excited to get to see in person, "The School of Athens" fresco mural at the Vatican Museum. I've always loved this painting and to see it in person and actually be in the place where Raphael painted it was great fun.

Here's one of the amazing ceilings inside the Vatican Museum. this place was decked out with all kinds of ornate decoration and art works.

After the Vatican Museum we went over to St. Peter's Cathedral. Here's a couple shots of the inside:

Here's some shots of it the next day when we went back to see the Pope:

If you look close at the bottom of the large central doorway you can barely make out the Pope's white umbrella.

Here's a shot of the church at sunset.

That's all for now. Should have some stuff from Florence soon.
(Please excuse any type errors, artwork title errors, and historical errors. I was going by memory and didn't have time to look up to verify.)

Ciao!
-dave & lynette

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Greece has been like something out of a dream for Dave and I. We had just come from China which was the biggest challenge of all of the Asian countries we visited but also the one we both will remember very fondly. It is where we took that "a bit too adventurous" overnight bus where they smoked and played loud Chinese music on the radio. It is where a little boy of about 8 years old asked us if he could help us when we were stopped at midnight at some rural restaurant where there was a pig stable next to the toilets and Dave and I obviously looked a bit out of it.

The most challenging in China had to be when we decided to go to the rural village of Pingyao. This was supposed to be the most well preserved walled village in China. The day started with a mad dash to the airport on a airport bus that we almost missed due to a story for another time. Our flight went fine but the airport we landed at was small and there was no information desk and we didn't see any bus station or taxi stand. We eventually found a group of people standing outside and realized that this was the makeshift taxi stand and got in line. We realized quickly since we had been travelling in Asia a lot that people were cutting in line. This is totally a standard practice in China. You can not let your guard down for an instant or someone will try and cut the line. The weird thing is that no one seems to get mad about it. It is just the way it is. Dave manuevered his way in front of a guy who was trying to cut us off and scored us a taxi! Go Dave! He actually has gotten really good at cutting and blocking, etc. We showed the taxi driver the chinese symbol for train station in our chinese phrase book and off we went. Our driver dropped us off in front of the train station although it took us awhile to actually find it since it isn't like it had a sign that said "Train Station" in English on it. We felt uncomfortable immediately since the town of Taiyuan is not a tourist destination and we have never felt more different in our entire lives since everyone stopped and stared at us. We had gotten used to some stares since this is extremely common in China. Little kids pointing us out to their parents. Teenagers elbowing each other and then knodding in our direction. But in Taiyuan, a dusty town where we were only in to catch a train out of, obviously really was not used to foreigners. After roaming around aimlessly for awhile I see a sign that has a question mark on it. We go up to the booth and we say "Pingyao." The person was very nice and wrote something down in Chinese and pointed us in the right direction.

Again with the help of some locals who could guess at where we wanted to go, we found our way to the ticket booths which were mobbed with people. Dave asks a guard for help and he proceeds to cut to the front of a huge line to help us. No one batted an eye. He helps us get our train tickets to Pingyao. Again, without his help I'm not sure where we would have ended up. We then are directed to the actual train station where we wait for our train. It felt as though everyone in the massive waiting room just stopped when we entered. It didn't take long after we set our bags down to draw a crowd. Groups of people were standing around us and one man had me take a picture with his young daughter several times. Most people just stood and stared at us. It got to be so bad that security had to intervene and break it up and we were moved to the VIP waiting room even though we just had regular ol' tickets. Pretty crazy experience.

We ended up on a crowded train sitting across from two extremely nice students. One of which knew a little English. We were so grateful to be sitting next to them instead of some old man who would have just sat and stared at us the whole time. They helped me buy water from the vendor and made sure we got off on the right stop and gave us some handy advice such as Pingyao was known for their beef. This turned out to be great advice because we tried it and Pingyao did indeed have really good beef. We arrived in rainy Pingyao exhausted with our nerves shot after a really trying day. We still had to make our way to our hotel and it was raining and dark. As soon as we left the train station there was a rickshaw driver that knew where our hotel was and took us there (for an extremely overpriced amount) but we just wanted to get there. We whizzed through the darkness and rain and at first the town was like any other dusty town in China but then the rickshaw pulled into the walled city portion and all that changed. It was incredible, like going back in time, and when he pulled in front of our hotel we were welcomed by the warm and incredibly hospitable owner. Dave and I were beyond thrilled. The hotel was an old fashioned Chinese courtyard house that had been converted into a guest house. The rooms had traditional Chinese beds and was full of character. It was like a little oasis and we immediately relaxed. We had made it through one of the most challenging and difficult travelling experiences we have had.

But now we are in Greece and all that is in the past. Greece is like a little heaven on earth I think. We are on the island of Mykonos right now. This is the most popular of the Greek islands and the most busy. It gets 1 million visitors a year and half of them come in August! We are visiting the Greek islands at a perfect time since visitors are few and prices have been slashed (but still expensive.) The Greek islands have been a great treat. We have loved every minute. We have stayed on three islands and each one is different than the next. But all have those adorable white washed houses and churches. We have spent a fair amount of time hanging out on the beaches and the beaches are also different island to island. On Santorini there was a beach with black sand and one with red sand due to the volcanic rock. Paros had beautiful beaches with clear calm waters with huge wind carved rocks jutting from the shore(my favorite beaches). Mykonos beaches are busy with bustling bars and restaurants and the most people we have seen. All of the beaches do have one thing in common however, you are likely to see someone either nude or without their top. It is not uncommon to see a Mom and Dad with their kids next to a couple completely in the buff next to people in normal swimming wear next to several topless sunbathers. Everyone just gets along fabulously. Those crazy Europeans (young and old) just do not care if you see all their bits and pieces, nor do they care if they may be a bit too plump for those speedos or that g-string bikini. We love their seemingly lack of body conciousness but being Americans it still does not stop Dave from pointing out every nude or topless sunbather and me going "where?" and looking.

Yep, life in Greece has been awesome and I am willing to say that there is not a soul alive who would not find something to love about Greece. Although, we do know that that something will NOT be Greek showers since they are small squares that leave water all over the bathroom floor and are not large enough to bend over and pick up the soap without sticking your rear out of the offical "square" that is the shower stall. But that aside it is incredible. Please, buy your plane tickets now. Book your hotel. Go to Greece. Go to Greece.

We have a few more days in this lovely place before we move on to Italy. We fly to Rome on October 8th and I would say that we are equally excited about going to Italy.
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This is Dave here. Just thought I'd throw in a few photos.

Here is Lynette at the beach. Those fleshy objects in the background to the right of her are two of those nude sun bathers she mentioned. But in case you can't tell Lynette decided to stay clothed.

And this is me at the beach. The water was absolutely freezing, (my arms were frozen in this up position) but I mean come on, this was the Aegean Sea, I had to.

Most of the churches in the towns are pretty small, the ones with the white walls and blue domed roofs like I showed in the last blog. But we visited this large and very old one in Paros that was beautiful.

This is a smaller room off to the side of the main cathedral. There's a creepy skull and cross bones carved on the floor toward the bottom, I'm guessing to mark someone's tomb. I've never been to a church before where there was a dead dude buried inside, at least not that I'm aware of. - Pretty eerie.

One of the things you see a lot of in the churches here are these tin artworks where the faces are cut out and painted.

Some of them look really strange because the faces are small and so dark from their age and a bit pushed in so it just looks like a bunch of holes where the heads should be.

Here's one of the many absolutely extraordinary sunsets we've had the pleasure of seeing here in Greece.

There are tons of cats on the islands. They are everywhere. Here's a tiny kitten that I heard squeeking softly from the bushes.

Here's one looking for lunch:

This one is into the art scene:

And this one greeted us at our guesthouse in the mornings:

Another animal you can catch strolling the streets here in Mykonos are pelicans:

Yes, I'm sorry, this is just a photograph of a bicycle but I loved the patterns of the stones in the wall and walkway.

Lynette at our regular breakfast spot here on Mykonos:

Me feeling stoic during our visit to the ancient ruins on the island of Delos:

Below is a shot from the dock on Paros. Our guesthouse was only a block from the water and since the air was cool and no mosquitos we left the balcony doors open at night to hear the wonderful faint sound of the waves washing in all night.

And here is Lynette just after being surprised by a big wave in the face as she tried to walk the rocks at the shore:

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Okay, that's finally it. I know its been a long one. You can go back to doing whatever it was you were doing. Take care.

Dave
dbuck242@yahoo.com
lynette
lschimpf@gmail.com

9 months on the road remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We stayed in a hostel in the area very near to the Acroplis. This was the part of Athens that still retains its old Greek charm with winding stone streets and charming architecture. Its therefore the most tourist busy area with lots of shops and restaurants. But its cool to stroll around, then turn a corner and find some site of ancient ruins, with the hill of the Acroplis always visible in near view.

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View from the Acropolis overlooking the ruins of an ancient theater. We were able to go down and actually sit on the old marble seats that real toga wearing Greek theater goers once sat.

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The Sofie Star has made it to the Acropolis in Greece! -- I'm saying, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm standing in front of the legendary Parthenon!!"

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Some shots around Athens:

From the temple of Zeus:

From Athens we headed off to the Greek island of Santorini. Our plane landed on the island around 5:30 AM, still dark. This is the sunrise view that greeted us when we arrived at our hotel near the beach:

The views on this island have been absolutely breathtaking. Like nothing we've seen in our lives. We highly recommend you consider the location for your next vacation.

We've had some spectacular food in Greece. There was a local place in Athens that served to-die-for gyros. Lynette has sampled musakas (sp?) and baklava from a variety of places, and loved them all. I had some stuffed tomatoes that brought tears to my eyes they were so delicious. (This at a place called Mama's where a woman called Mama greets you at the door with a hearty hello and a hug like you are family.) And the fried cheese in Greece is unsurpassed.

There's often massive crowds of tourists (mostly midday from the cruise ships that have docked) filling the streets snapping photos in every direction. Even when its slower in the mornings or evenings there's usually a good number of people milling about, but sometimes if you are lucky you can get some shots that make it seem like you are the only foreigners in town.

But there were also times when we would walk a bit out of town center and get away from the crowds. Like this one when we hiked down a long rocky path and found this wonderful lonesome church sitting on the side of the cliff overlooking the sea. No one else was around. We sat there for a while and just soaked in the amazing beauty.

After walking the town one day we stopped for some wine and watched the sunset:

Tomorrow we take the ferry to the island Paros for a few days, then Mykonos island.

Greece wonderful Greece remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It would be a hard moment to beat but the very next day it was when we went to hike along the Great Wall. We got up early to catch our 6:00 AM tour up to where we'd start our hike. It was a cramped 3 hour drive with Lynette and I wedged next to two Chinese woman in the back row of the van, a seat built for 3. It was rather uncomfortable and my right butt cheek quickly fell asleep as did the rest of the occupants up front in their comfy seats. (I would make sure I got one of those seats on the way back.) As we got closer and closer to the site the air visibility got worse and worse, like we were driving into a big cloud. You couldn't see very far and I couldn't imagine the view for the wall could be much worse. We started the hike up and onto the wall. For the first 30 minutes or so I just couldn't enjoy the fact that we were actually walking on top of the Great Wall of China because I was too mopey about how bad the views were. I wanted picturesque photos! But after about 30 minutes the fog began to miraculously clear. I quickly snapped off some shots of the wall going into the distance in case this was a fleeting moment of clarity, but the fog just kept on lifting, along with my mood, and soon was completely gone, leaving a spectacular clear view of the wall and distant hills, and majestic blue cloudless sky above. It was like that for the rest of our 4 hour, 7 mile hike. Now I could not imagine a better day to have done the hike, especially after hearing from someone that it had been raining there the day before. The rest of the day was packed with one spectacular view after another and we had a great time. I guess it just goes to show you that you should get really upset and sulk when things don't go your way because it ends up making things turn out alright.

I have 2 Sofie Star photos this time. One in front of one of the oldest structures in China, The Great Wall.......

And one in front of one of the newest structures in China, The Olympic Stadium (Bird's Nest!)

Lynette's leaping abilities continue to amaze me. Here she is showing her excitement for getting in with our scalped tickets:

You can find a few empty seats scattered throughout the stadium, but this definitely blows away any other Paralympic game attendance.

Wheel chair relay race at the finish line:

I'd like to recommend to any future Olympic/Paralympic games organizers that might be reading this to include more than just one McDonald's restaurant on the grounds. They had just one here which was about a mile away from the stadium. We had to walk really far and then found a huge line out front to get in. This photo shows what it was like once we got through the door - More long lines to get to the counters. Granted, they did have some other food vendor stands scattered around, but they were serving primarily Chinese items, and even in China, McDonald's proves to be most popular.

Here's some shots from our day on the Great Wall:

The rest of our time in China has been great as well. It started off rough with that crazy over night bus trip, but since then it has been splendid. A few highlights include our bicycle tour through the Yangshuo countryside, the cruise down the Yangtze River, our visit to see the taracotta soldiers in Xian, a full day of traveling by multiple modes of transportation which was stressfull but we got to experience the kindness of many Chinese people who helped us along the way, meeting a wonderful young Chinese couple on a train, seeing the sci-fi like skyline of Shanghai, and spending a few days in the wonderful ancient walled city of Pingyao.

The Asia chapter of our trip is at an end. Its been a good run. Tomorrow we will be off to Europe and our first stop is Greece. We are very excited! That is someplace I've always wanted to visit since I was a kid, ever since I wrote a report on the Greek gods in the 4th grade.

We'll let you know how it goes.

Dave
dbuck242@yahoo.com
&
Lynette
lschimpf@gmail.com

Leaving Asia remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Lynette also has this passion for figuring out maps and transit systems and city layouts. I unfortunately am lacking this particular passion. And when she is looking for something she's got a one track mind, with an ability to block out all other sensory input until she finds the place. So I know to just leave her alone when her radar is in high gear. And as she is navigating us through the city to find the destinations I'm aimlessly looking around and taking pictues of hundreds of things that strike my fancy. As she is reading the street signs I am looking at the interesting design of the street signs. I'm constantly thinking, "Wow that looks cool" or "Ooh, I might need that as a reference for a design someday" or "I bet the folks at home would be interested in that when we get back." So I end up having thousands of photos. Some of which I may someday think, "Why the heck did I photograph that?" But I figure its better to have too many photos than not enough. I will probably never be in these places again. Lynette and I will be walking down the street and I will say "Wow, hold on Lynette." and I'll stop to look up and photograph something. And Lynette will kindly wait for me even though she is thinking "Does he really need ANOTHER photgraph of a rickety old bamboo scaffolding?" or "Doesn't he have enough shots of blank rusty billboards?" I don't know, some things just look cool to me. But we understand eachother and our own personal passions. That's one of the reasons we make good travel buddies.

One of the things I like to photograph which might seem strange is people doing mundane things. Like sitting on a subway. I think its good to have shots of people doing everyday things and not just of skyscrapers and landmarks and things. The tricky part is trying to get these shots without people seeing you and possibly being offended. I'll casually position the camera down at my waist like I'm just holding it and will snap the photo. Pretty simple in a case like this:

I turned off the sound the camera used to make when a photo was snapped which made it silent. But there was still this little red light that would go on whenever I focus on something which brought attention to me. Such as was the case with this guy. He doesn't look too happy. I've since figured out how to also turn off the red light. Now I'm in complete stealth mode.

The subway system here is state of the art. Its really fast and easy to figure out. The subways are crowded but the trains are running all the time and never late so you always easily get to where you are going. Another form of transporation that is huge here oddly enough is the escalator. They are everywhere. No doubt because the city is in the middle of the hills. They even have the longest escalator in the world outside in the middle of the city. Its covered from the rain so this is a main form of transportation for daily commuters to get to and from work. It sure is a thigh saver let me tell you.

Right now the country is Olympics crazy. I didn't figure this would be the case until mainland China, but its pretty big here as well.

An Olympic countdown clock in the subway:

They've developed these really cute Olympics characters that are everywhere.

There was even a small Olympics street carnival the other night right outside our place. They had a street set up with some dancers and walk around characters and a couple tents set up with free carnival games where we won a couple Olympics souvenirs.

And we each got our official 2008 Olympics temporary tattoos!

The sky scrapers here are lit up to the hilt. The electric bills must be off the charts. And they also have countless amazing neon signs throughout the streets. Here's some shots for Tim and the guys back at WDI. Go graphics department!

The other night we went across the river to watch the nightly city lights show. The city looks pretty amazing before the show even starts as you can see here. But then as the music starts the lights on the buildings start to flash and dance in sinc with the music. Prety cool.

A few shots from around the city:

I thought it was cool how the sunlight bounces off the glass buldings creating some neat effects on others.

This building is a big mall.

They are pretty germ careful here. In many public places they have these signs posted informing that they disinfect the place every hour, such as with this library elevator button.

A few times we've been walking around the city we've caught sight of this guy who walks around dressed as Batman. I could not resist getting a photo with the superhero.

There are so many people here. Its maddenning just trying to walk around the city streets. Constantly having to bob and weave to get around the hords. And good luck trying to get a table at lunch time. We walked around for a long time the other day trying to find a place to sit down and eat. But the lines were really long and the tables all full. We finally found a KFC and while I was in line to order the buildings power went out (which is not common here as it has been in previous countries.) So we had to continue our search for lunch.

We visited a Buddhist temple where they have tons of spiral incense hanging from the ceiling. Its a pretty cool sight. Each one lasts for 10 days. There are trays underneath them to catch the falling ashes as well as signs to watch out. I'd hate to look up and get a burning cinder in the eye.


These pigs were not in the temple. I just put it here at random. Thought they were cute.

We still have not visited Hong Kong Disneyland which I'm really looking forward to doing, but we have made it over to the the Hong Kong OceanPark which is an amusement park with a few rollercoasters and such. You actually ride more escalators than anything because the park is built into the hillside. You take about 3 slow escalators to get up to each level where there's one or two rides. I thought it sure was a good way to build excitement for the next ride.

Hard to get a photo alone with so many people.

Unfortunately the one big coaster was out of commission. The one that was running was just okay from a ride standpoint, but just the view from it alone was awesome.

There were two animals I wanted to get to see while on this trip. One was the koala which we were fortunate to get to see in Australia. The other was the panda. So when we heard that OceanPark had some pandas I had to go. And it was a pretty cool experience. They were so cute. Here's a few photos. I love the way the one on the left is reclined back while he's eating the bamboo.

Here they are talking about which one of them has eaten the most bamboo today:

All they do is eat, poo and sleep....eat, poo and sleep. And we got to see them do all three!

Lynette and a baby seal. (Not a real one) Her sister Kirstine should appreciate this one.

We got to see the movie Kung Fu panda recently which is big here. We really enjoyed it. So we thought it was cool to see these photo-ops at the OceanPark.

With all the heights we've been experiencing I'm actually getting over my vertigo and extreme fear of heights. I would not have been able to ride this ferris wheel without freaking out before the trip. Now it was a piece of cake.

They had some pretty neat "streetmosphere" characters (as we call it in the biz.)

Except for this one:

The park is divided into to parks which are not within walking distance of eachother. We were surprised how far apart they actually were. You had to take this amazing cable car ride across the hillside to get there. It was a great ride with some great views of the ocean. And again, not afraid of the heights!

A few days ago we went up to the viewing tower on one of the hills behind the city. The view was breathtaking.

Another movie we've just seen here is the new Batman Flick. Pretty awesome. If you haven't seen it I recommend you go. I don't think its a spoiler, but one of the things we thought was really cool about the movie is that in it Batman goes to Hong Kong. And what made it even more surreal was that Batman even jumps off the very skyscraper that the theater is inside where we were watching the movie. Its the tallest building on the left in the photo above. And there were a few other spots around town we recognized in the movie. Pretty neat. The weird thing about the movie was that it was at 10:00 AM. I've never before had to set my alarm clock to see a movie. Now I can say I have. Movies are pretty expensive here but the early ones are cheaper.

-Dave

Images of Hong Kong remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We are having a great time. It is nice to just chill out a bit and just explore one place for awhile versus hurrying through the sights before rushing off to the next place like we did in Vietnam. We are renting a small service apartment for a month which has a kitchenette where we can actually cook some of our own meals. This is nice not only because we get to eat some of the things we have been craving from back home but also allows us to save some money. HK is not exactly the cheapest city in Asia in fact it is one of the more expensive cities but as we have found, if you are willing to eat local food compared to western food then you can still dine rather cheaply. The exception here is McDonalds. You can get a value meal for $4 here just like in the states. We have dined at McDonalds twice already.

Here are some of the things we have done in Hong Kong...

We went to a movie. OK, that may not sound like a big deal to you but to Dave and me - big movie goers back home - it was AWESOME! The thing about seeing a movie in HK is that you get an assigned seat so you don't have to arrive early. Just walk in a minute before start time and your seat is waiting for you. The experience was not five star like what we experienced in Bangkok but was extremely nice. We saw the movie Hancock and agree with every critic and probably most people who saw this movie - the first half is great.

We dined on some delicious authentic Chinese food, which was surprisingly light and fresh. It wasn't heavy, deep fried, thick or saucy like much of the Chinese food we are used to back home.

On Wednesdays in HK, a bunch of museums offer free admission so this past Wednesday we made our way to the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts. They had ceramics dating back to 2000 BC - just gives you an idea on how ancient this civilization is. We walked around the waterfront taking in the views and enjoying the sites. There are a lot of Olympic decorations everywhere from the huge Olympic ring symbol on the museum to the Olympic mascot statues. There are also stickers throughout the city promoting the Olympics.

I got a much needed hair cut. It’s been six long months since my last. I went to this place I found recommended on an "expats in Hong Kong" website. It wasn't very fancy but the price was right. I had a shampoo, cut, and style for about $20 which is excellent in this town and also excellent compared to what I paid back home. The shampoo I had at this place was like no other shampoo I have ever had in my life. The woman scrubbed my head over and over to where I thought my scalp would start bleeding. When I thought she was done she scrubbed it all again. She would take her fingers and scrape up and down on all parts of my head fast and hard. I didn't say anything to her since I wasn't sure how much English she knew and I figured she must know what she is doing. After that shampooing I don't think my hair has ever been cleaner. I won't have to wash it for days. Of course, the first thing the hair dresser said to me after touching my hair was that he needed to thin it out - "too much hair." Boy did he ever thin it out - he went at my hair with scissors of fury. I ended up with a great cut and he took a massive amount of weight off my head. After he was finished he said "much better" and he was "glad he could help me out." It is a cool experience to get this sort of mundane task done in a foreign country.

We saw the Hong Kong Festival of lights. Someone came up with the great idea to do a light show every night to music using the massive amount of skyscrapers and buildings on Hong Kong Island. To see it you have to go to the other side of the bay - Kowloon - and just hang out at the harbor. It is a must see in HK.

We went to the HK botanical gardens and zoo and saw lots of primates and birds. This patch of green is definitely needed in the middle of this concrete jungle.

We still continue doing things every day - like today I'm in the HK Central Library which is the big daddy library. Since Dave isn't with me to remember to take pictures. I don't have any pictures but it is big and open. I also have been to several temples which are dwarfed in between the huge skyscrapers.

Here is a bit more info on HK...

Hong Kong is made up of islands and a tip of the mainland. Dave and I are on Hong Kong Island which is where the banking center is and is considered the center of Hong Kong. The service apartment we rented is on the 4th floor in an old Chinese Tenement building located in the happening Lan Kwai Fong area. We literally walk out of our building onto the street where there are hundreds of restaurants, bars, pubs, stores and people bustling about. There is both a Haagen Dazs and a Ben Jerry's within 30 seconds of our front door. Our apartment does not face the street so we hear very little street noise - thank goodness. We are only a 5 minute walk to the central transportation hub as well as hundreds of shops, several major malls, and on and on - it is really fun. Kowloon is a major part of Hong Kong and is located just across the bay from Hong Kong Island and is where most of the museums are located. To get to Kowloon it is short ride on the MTR which is the mass transit system here (subway). We bought Octopus cards (like the locals) which allow us a discount and to easily hop on and off most of the public transportation. You can take the MTR or you can also ride the Star Ferry across the bay which we did once. Hong Kong Disneyland, which we will visiting at some point, is actually on another island called Lantau. There are several more islands also. I hope to get to some of these other areas before we leave Hong Kong.

One unexpected thing about Hong Kong is the number of Philippine women who live and work here. Hong Kong has over 130,000 Philippines. A lot of the women are house keepers, care takers, and baby sitters. They work for extremely low wages so pretty much everyone in Hong Kong has at least someone who comes over once or twice a week to clean. These mostly women have one day off a week and it is Sunday. Since most live with the family they work for in a very small room, they head to the streets and parks of Hong Kong on Sundays to enjoy their day off. They are everywhere on Sunday. They spread out on blankets and eat, drink, sing, paint each others nails, play cards, just basically enjoy their day off. There will be rows and rows and rows of women along the sidewalks just relaxing and having a good time. It is quite a sight.

Dave will be uploading some photos soon. Hopefully sometime this week.

Till next time,
Lynette & Dave

lschimpf@gmail.com
dbuck242@yahoo.com

Living in Hong Kong remains copyright of the author schuckley, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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