Jason's World Tour Journal

I finally arrived in Egypt after being stuck in Portland for 3 days. I slept on the floor of the airport one night, then the airline put us up in the downtown Hilon for the next two. When the airline announced that we could start boarding the airplane, everyone on the flight in the terminal cheered. That didn't happen with any of the other flights that were cancelled.

Cairo is a crazy city, mostly because of the traffic and how they drive. Streets will be wide enough for four lanes, but there won't be any lines marking the lanes. Vehicles will pass each other within fractions of an inch of each other in the most unusual locations. One guy I was riding with today drove a quarter mile in a one way street through traffic. The pedestrians play "Frogger" when they cross the street, jumping from lane (theoretical lanes) to lane while cars race by. Cars will speed without slowing down at a group of pedestrians and the will have to jump out the way.

I think I have the people here figured out. They want money and nothing is free, everyone wants to be tipped. It has become a game, they want to take my money and I want to keep it. We were driving back from Sakkara (I saw the step pyramid and a tomb) and my guide stopped at a carpet school. I saw a bunch of carpet schools and was wondering why there were so many carpet schools. The manager of the school showed me how they make decorative carpets and even had one of the kids (kids were the only ones attending these "schools") let me try to do a few knots. When he was done, he was motioning that I give him a tip. I gave him the equivalent of $0.40. Next, the manager took me upstairs and began giving me the hard sell. "I have a special deal for you because you are my friend" was one of the lines he used. I finally agreed to buy a carpet just to get out of there. Egypt 1, Jason 0.

Later I went to the pyramids at Giza and rode a camel (wearing my EZ Striders) to see them up close. Camels are not fun to ride. Most of the time I was concentrating on not falling off because when they walk they sway so much and its pretty high in the air. I went inside the smallest of the three main pyramids but it was not as good as the tomb in Sakkara. My guide wanted to get something to eat and he knew of a restaurant that was only $5. Every place he had taken, people had tried to sell me junk (I'm sure people he knew and people that kicked some of the money back to him), so I was getting suspicious. He told me to give him the money and he will get it. I wasn't that hungery and thought he was just trying to make me pay for his lunch, so I didn't eat.

Took an overnight train to Aswan. I didn't have a sleeping car and had to sit up all night. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. In some areas there would literally be a palm tree forest up to the track on one side, then rocky desert on the other side.

Aswan isn't as crazy as Cairo, cars obey the traffic lights here although they still use there horns a lot. I think it is there way of letting other drivers know they are coming up from behind. I joined a tour out to the lower dam and the high dam (third largest dam in the world, used to be the biggest). The high dam didn't look as good as Hoover dam or even Grand Coulee.

After the dam, my group took a boat to Philae Temple, on an island in the Nile between the lower dam and the high dam. Egyptian Navy (or what looked like egyptian sailors) were patrolling the island by rubber boat. The temple resembled an enemy "MMMMMMMMigdol" from Age of Mythology. We were showed heirogliphs that were destroyed by christian crusaders. I am starting to understand the pictures and what they mean but not very well.

I was just walking through the souq (market) here in Aswan and saw this internet cafe. Walking through, people will shout the phrases and people they know in english. One guy was yelling names like Rambo, Cassanova, and Jimmy Carter (I don't know why Jimmy Carter was in the list). By the way, something smells like marijuanna in here.

Tomorrow I am going to the temple at Abu Simbel (25 miles from the border with Sudan). The group leaves at 0400 with a military escort. Later in the day I will start sailing on a felucca down the Nile almost to Luxor. The trip will take a couple of days so I won't be able to write.

On Tuesday, I woke up at 0300 when the phone rang. "Wake up call time" the voice said then hung up. Indeed it was wake up call time. The bus driver was going to be at the hotel at 0330 to pick me up. When I got down to the hotel lobby three other people were waiting for the same bus. We grabbed our boxed breakfasts and got on the bus. The bus stopped at many hotels and by the time we reached the convoy there was only one seat left in our minibus.

When the convoy started, our bus immediatly dropped the hammer and passed about five large busses right out of the gate. I was sitting next to three Aussies and we were making fun that it wasn't a convoy but a race. From the sound our bus was making, the engine was at a constant 5k RPM's. The trip took about two and a half hours and we were one of the first to arrive in Abu Simbel at 0700.

The only reason for driving this far is to see the Great Temple of Rameses II cut out of a cliff. Well it's not really a cliff anymore, more of a mound. When they build the High Dam in Aswan the lake it created would have covered the temple, so they cut it to pieces and moved it. It was dissapointed when I found out, but it was still amazing.

The convoy would only be in Abu Simbel for just over two hours and the driver told us to be back at 0910 and be ready to leave at 0915. At 0900 the Aussies from the bus and I headed back. I bought a set of 20 post card for 10LE (Egyptian Pounds) which is the equivalent of $1.60. That is pretty cheap but I still think I got ripped off after taking a closer look at the post cards. There are two sets of twenty post cards for Abu Simbel. When the other merchants saw I have the first set, they all ran up and tried to get me to by set two.

I ran the gauntlet of sellers back to the bus rendezvous point. The whole gang was there but the bus wasn't. At 0930 the bus arrived. We laughed because the bus driver stressed that we needed to be back in time so we don't miss the convoy. We got in and lined up in the convoy, which didn't leave until 1000.

The ride back was more uncomfortable than the ride down. The bus was tiny and my knees were pressed up against the seat in front of me. It was getting warmer outside as well and the bus didn't have air conditioning. The bus driver stopped in the middle of the desert to go to the bathroom. There was nothing to hide behind so he just walked really far into the desert. We all watched him take a leak. Very entertaining.

There was some bus juggling once I got back to Aswan. I was supposed to get on a felucca to sail down the nile. When we got to the docks, my guide had a long conversation, in arabic, with a guy there. I knew I had missed my boat. My guide ran off to make a call. I sat down where I was at and the other guy asked my why I was late. I told him "I go where the bus takes me" but I don't think he understood.

I jumped on a passing felucca and was told I would be getting on another boat down the river. Good thing too because I couldn't take two days with these people. Most of them were Koreans, enough said. An hour or so later we met up with my boat. These people were much better. There were six French, two Americans (the first I had met in Egypt), and one Austrailian, Steven. We had a great time talking about travel and making fun of the last boat I was on. Hot tea was served about five times a day.

Just before sunset we stopped on the shore for dinner and the night. We all walked up the sand berm and saw a village near by. As we walked toward the village, some kids saw us. They started yelling and running towards us. When they reached us they all wanted "Baksheesh", the arabic word for "tip". I reached in my pocket for some American coins to give to them. As I pulled them out, my pen, which was clipped inside my pocket, fell on the ground. They pounced and fought over it like wild animals.

We walked though the town and mothers would come out of their houses with small children. They would point at their kids running around and say "Baksheesh". A crowd of kids followed us through the town and back to the boat wanting money and saying "Hello, pen". If I would have known they wanted pens, that is what I would have brought. We got back on the boat and they stood on the sand berm yelling "Hello, pen" as we ate. They were finally chased away by our "Cabin Boy" Ali(the other boy on the boat besides the captain).

It was really cold that night and no one was prepared. The next day everyone took naps in between servings of tea. The next night we stopped just down the river from Kom Ombo Temple (where we were getting off the boat and onto a bus) at a farming village. Again we wandered around, mostly through the farmlands. We turned back right before the village to avoid the barrage of "Baksheesh".

After dinner we made a fire and some of the villagers came to join us. Our fire also attracted another boat. It only had two Aussies on board, two that were on my bus to Abu Simbel but I didn't talk to them. We all had a great time by the fire. Steven and I went out with some of the villagers to find more fire wood because we were the only two with flashlights (or torches as they say in Australia).

The night was even colder than the last. I woke up around six and we were already under way. The captain and Ali were paddling across the river to Kom Ombo Temple. We ate breakfast on the boat then the captain took us to the bus we would be taking to Luxor. We toured around Kom Ombo Temple for an hour before leaving.

On the way to Luxor, we stopped in Edfu to go to the Temple of Horus. This was the best temple I had been to yet. It was very large and still complete. Kom Ombo Temple had fallen and only a little was left standing. We spent an hour in Edfu before continuing on to Luxor.

I was the first on the bus to be dropped at my hotel and didn't have time to say goodbye to everyone. I got a few e-mail addresses. I will probably meet Steven, the Australian, back in Cairo and will meet Dave, one of the americans, on the Sinai Peninsula and maybe go scuba diving with him.

At the hotel, I was given 45 minutes to get ready for my next tour. I visited Karnak, which is the largest temple in Egypt and the world I think. I was pretty neat but it had fallen apart. The columns in the great hypostyle hall were gigantic. Next, I went to Luxor temple. I think I am starting to experience AEO (Ancient Egypt Overload, or Pharonic Fatigue as a guy I met from Denmark called it).

Tomorrow I will go to the west bank to the Valley of the Kings. I will then take the night train back to Cairo, spend a couple days, then relax in Alexandria on the beaches of the Mediterrianean.

I can't take anymore temples. I saw four yesterday and one today. It is getting very repetative because the architecture is different but the contents are the same. Heiroglypics of the Pharoh smiting his enemies followed by heiroglyphics of the Pharoh being crowned by the gods followed by the Pharoh giving offerings to the gods. And, each temple has heiroglyphics that were erased by some one later, like another pharoh or christian crusaders.

I didn't know what time my tour was supposed to start today so I woke up at 0600 and was eating breakfast at 0700 to be ready when the tour bus came. After breakfast I went back to my room to wait. At 0915 I got the call saying I had five minutes to be in the lobby. When I got in the van, nobody was there. I found out the tour started at the 0730 but nobody came to get me. The tour was already at the Valley of the Kings. I didn't miss much, I found out later, and probably had a better time learning Arabic from the driver in the parking lot of the Valley of the Kings.

The temple limit was reached when we visited the Temple of Hapshutsep on the other side of the mountains from the Valley of the Kings. I was just going through the motions, I think I got one picture and thats it.

Next was the Valley of the Queens. People said it was better than the Valley of the Kings. There were more colorful heiroglyphics and not as many people. With one ticket you can only visit three tombs. There were only three tombs open so the choice was easy. The hieroglyphics still had all there color which I hadn't seen yet. Most of the backgrounds were white and the pictures were solid colors. The combination of the two made it look like something at Circus Circus or that a first grader had colored the pictures.

I will be taking the night train to Cairo tonight. I will probably go to the pyramids and the Egyptian Museum one more time then be done with Ancient Egypt. Then, I'm planning to head to Alexandria and the Sahara Desert before going to the Sinai Pennisula and on to Jordan.

Today is Friday, the muslim day of prayer, and all day there have been the annoying recordings blaring through the streets calling one and all to pray.

I arrived back in Cairo this morning on the overnight train from Luxor. The tour I got on ended with the trip back to Cairo but when I got off the train, there was a man there waiting for me. "Mr. Jason? Mr. Jason from Amedica?" (America in their accent). He tried to get me to go back to the rat hole I stayed in the first night. I told him no but, like always, he still persisted. A Swede and I negotiated for a taxi to our hostel. Once we agreed on a price, the taxi driver and the guy that was supposed to pick me up started yelling at each other. The whole scene was insane.

I'm tired of dealing with the egyptian people. I'm tired of always being on my guard so I don't get ripped off. If they are nice to you, they will try and make you pay for it later. And, everyone is somehow related to the U.S.

"Ah, you from Amedica? I have a [Brother, Uncle, Friend] who lives in [New York, California, Oklahoma]. If you need anything (especially dollars converted to Egyptian Pounds), come see me. Let me show you my shop!" is the typical line from them. They want you to buy crap at their shop and it takes a barrage of increasingly intensive no's to get them to go away.

For a change of pace, I went to the mall across the street from the Hilton. For once the people were nice to me because they left me alone. I needed some meat I could trust so I went to the McDonald's in the mall (at least meat I knew wouldn't do any permanent damage). After my quarter pounder, I checked out the movie theater that was right next door. It was only 10LE ($1.60) so I went to the next showing of The Italian Job which I hadn't seen yet.

Earlier in the day I went back to the Egyptian Museum and after the movie I was going to the pyramids. I wanted to finish up everything I wanted to do in Cairo then move on to Alexandria. I took the bus the locals take out to the pyramids because it was cheap (2LE). When I got to the pyramids, I was right back the in tourist meat market. The hassle of walking from the bus to the entrance to the pyramids almost makes the pyramids not worth seeing up close.

They stop letting people into the pyramids at 1600 and it was 1620 when I arrived. I had to walk back through the crowd of camel husslers while they yelled prices and asked where I was from. I have tried a few different countries and they all get a different response. I said I was from the U.K. and a guy responded with "Jolly Good" or some english phrase like that.

All at once, I had a guy telling me I could have a camel for 25LE, a guy telling me he would let me into the pyramids for 100LE even though it was closed, and I was dealing with a taxi driver to get me back downtown. I got the taxi driver down to 20LE and left with him. The guide book said the trip should cost around 15LE, but I wanted to get out of there and I got close enough.

I think I will get to the pyramids early tomorrow so I can leave for Alexandria in the afternoon. I will have to go through the whole thing over again tomorrow.

Saturday night I hung around my hostel, the Dahab Hotel, and played cards with a bunch of people from around the world on the roof. It was a game a guy from Canterbury, England taught us called Domination Whist.

Sunday I went back to the pyramids as planned. I told all the camel peddlers I was from England and got a lot of "Lovely Jovely" and "Tally Ho" from them. I told one I was from America and got a "High Ho Silver" which I hadn't heard yet. Half way through my visit I realized my camera was missing. I'm sure is was taken by one of those camel fu...guys, and I was pretty sure which one. The next hour was spent circling the pyramids looking for him.

I left there short one camera and headed back to downtown Cairo. Tristan, the englishman who taught us the card game the night before, was going to head to Alexandria with me at 1500 if he could get his Sudanese visa by then. In the mean time, I searched downtown for a place I could buy a new camera, preferably the same one I had before. Nothing. I didn't want to ask anyone because I would have to pay them.

I was on the bus to Alexandria at 1530 and it only cost me 16LE (just under $3.00). That is really cheap considering the five minute cab ride to the bus station cost me 5LE (I talked him down from 10LE). The whole way to Alexandria they were showing some Arabic comedy show. To me, Arabic comedy on television is very similar to the spanish comedy shown on TV.

In Alexandria, I stayed in the nicest hotel I have stayed in here in Egypt. It was very cheap, only about $8.00. I went out looking for a camera in the evening and was soon encountered by one of the shop owners. He helped me look for a camera for a little while but I should have known better. I didn't buy anything and when I was done looking he wanted money for helping me look. I gave him 10LE and walked away. He kept following me telling me that wasn't enough. Finally I told him he was lucky to get anything from me and to go away. He left me alone after that.

Yesterday afternoon I walked around the easter bay of Alexandria to Quaitbey's Fort, about a three mile walk from my hotel but I could see it across the bay the whole time. It is the site where the Pharos Lighthouse (one of the seven wonders) once stood until an earthquake brought it down some 700 years ago. Inside, one of the tourist police started to show me around. I tried to get away so I didn't have to tip him but he kept calling me back to show me something else. Really he didn't call but hissed, that is how they get your attention here. In the end I tipped him because he had a gun, that's reason enough for me.

This morning I bought a disposable camera. I figure I will buy these as necessary until I replace my stolen camera. I took the bus west along the Mediterranean Coast to El Alamein, the town where Montgomery defeated Rommel and started his retreat back to Tunisia. The museum there was full of equipment that was used (and in some cases destroyed) at the battle. The only other people in the museum were an elder couple from Australia.

When I was dropped by the bus I was told there was no busses back to Alexandria and that I would have to find my own way back. When I was ready to leave, I walked along the highway trying to flag down a van back to the city. The first couple passed because they were full but the third van stopped. For 4LE I was given a ride back to the city. Once there, though, I had to get a taxi to downtown adding another 5LE. Still, it cost 20LE to get to the museum on the bus.

When the taxi dropped me off, I gave him a 10LE bill and waited for my change. He didn't do anything so I asked for my change. He told me it was 10, which is what he first said before I got him down to 5. I told him we agreed on 5 and sat in the car. Reluctantly, he gave me my change. These people will take what they can get but will always try for more.

Everyplace I visited today was left by the Romans. I saw catacombs, a former temple, and the only Roman amphitheater in Egypt. Doesn't seem like a lot but it has taken me all day. At the temple, the policeman wanted to show around but I kept walking the other way. He finally gave up after five minutes. The policeman at the amphitheater did show me around but I got away before I had to "Baksheesh" him. They don't really do anything when they show me the sites, they just point.

I can't get enough of their fresh squeezed orange juice. For less than fifty cents I can get a big glass of OJ. I think I will have another once I am done here.

Earlier I bought a bus ticket that leaves for Sharm El Shiek tonight at 1930. I don't know how long it takes but I think I will get there early in the morning.

I left Alexandria last night and the bus was packed. Someone was in my seat on the bus so I grabbed another. Someone had reserved that seat so I had to squeeze in the very back of the bus where my seat was. My knees were pressed up against the seat in front of me. The bus was going through Cairo and some people were getting off there. When we arrived there three hours later I hopped in a different seat. It had more leg room than the other seats for some reason. People got off and the same amount got on the bus. Luckily nobody complained about me taking there seat.

I didn't get much sleep even with the extra leg room. Throughout the night the bus would stop and police would come on and check ID's and passports. We arrived in Sharm El Shiek just before 0600. I needed to get to the other bus station for the bus to Dahab. The taxi drivers wanted 20LE for the ride. I stuck with 5LE and finally got one to agree to is as long as I was dropped off 200 meters down the road from the bus station. That was fine with me, I just saved $0.85.

It was another hour and a half to Dahab. On the bus I met another Jason from South Africa. We were going to meet at 1100 to go snorkeling at the reef. As we were getting into the water, Dave, from my felucca trip down the Nile, was just getting done scuba diving. It's a small world when touring Egypt.

We spent about an hour snorkeling. The reef was gigantic, over fifty feet tall in some places and the water was very clear. We would dive down as deep as we could go, usually about thirty feet, and just watch the fish. There were some colorful and unusual fish down there. We are going to go to the reef on the other side of the bay tomorrow. I think I will rent some fins so I can reach the bottom. We could see people scuba diving down there and I think they would be suprised if I showed up that deep.

Friday I did more snorkeling with Jason from South Africa. We went to a place called Eel Garden. We saw some eels along with sea cucumbers, which I have never seen before. I rented fins this time and I reached the sand at the bottom of the reef. One of my friends who dove there said it is about 30 meters deep, that's almost 100 feet. Not bad for free diving.

At 2300 I got on a bus to watch the sunrise on Mt. Sinai. We arrived at 0100 and started to climb. I climbed with an American I met on the bus named Saul, who, after the climb, I renamed him Paul. We were cruising up the mountain passing other tourists and even tourists on camels. Another couple from Hungary caught us when we stopped for hot chocolate and we hiked the rest of the way with them. We were the first to reach the summit at 0315. We could see the trail lit up below from the lights of other climbers. We rented some mats and tried to sleep until sunrise but it was really cold and windy.

I had my head covered with my blanket and could start to hear people talking. I uncovered the blanket when I was sat on and I was surrounded by Chinese tourists. Every spot my body didn't take up on the ground was taken by someone else. Since we were the first ones on the mountain we got the good spot but people managed to squeeze in front of us while we were sleeping.

The first light from morning was starting to show when one of the chinese guys started a to sing a hymn in chinese. All the other chinese tourists joined in. I don't know how many choruses of Grory Harrerujah I had to listen to in chinese. When the sun peaked through the mist, they sang even louder. I knew to expect some singing on the summit but not it chinese.

As soon as the sun was completely up, they all filed back down the mountain to their big comfy tour busses. The four of us were the last ones on the summit not counting the locals cleaning up the blankets and mats left on the top. We came down a different route then we came up. We came up on the camel path like everyone else, but went back down on the steps of penatence. It was shorter but more difficult. At one point there were little piles of rocks people made all over the canyon we were in. I gathered my own rocks and made a pile for fun.

After going through the monastary at the bottom, we had to wait for an older guy in our van that was taking his sweet time coming down the mountain. When we finally left, was sitting next to an local teenager who was falling asleep. The road was bumpy and he kept hitting his head on the seat and window but didn't wake up. It was amazing. In the corners, I had to keep work to keep the smelly bobblehead from slumping onto my lap. I can still smell him, I think some of his funk got on me.

Sunday I missed the 1030 bus to Nuweiba so I took a taxi for about $8.00. There is a ferry from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan and I was trying to get on it that day. I stood in line (or as much of a line as I have seen in Egypt, they all just crowd the window) for a ticket and it took about and hour. At one point the only guy selling tickets took a twenty minute lunch. When I got my ticket, I went to the port entrance and the guys there said the boat was full and we would have to come back tomorrow. Appearently it is the time of year muslims make the Haj to Mecca and the ferry was a popular route to take.

Two Korean girls and a Japanese guy were also trying to get on the ferry that day so we shared a taxi into town to find a place to stay. The guy at the port told us to be there at 0900 the next day then changed it to 1000. We got there at 0830 just to be safe. We went through the weak security and waited to get on the ferry. We got on the boat around 1100 but it didn't leave until 1330. The trip took about 3 hours and I ate some cookies that would come back to haunt me later, and I ate a lot of them.

The ferry reached Aqaba around 1700 but people weren't let off until 1830. Earlier I tried to get my visa on the boat but the guy left and never came back. When I tried to get off, they stopped me because I didn't have a visa. I got through customs an hour later and headed for Wadi Musa, the town next to Petra.

I started to feel sick on the way to Wadi Musa and went to bed right when I got there. The next morning I was up at 0630 to eat breakfast and get on the 0800 bus to Petra. I was feeling fine. An hour into my visit to Petra I started to feel even more sick. I took my time seeing the sites. Petra is an entire city cut out of the cliffs, it is amazing. They used Petra in the movie Indian Jones and the Last Crusade as the site for the holy grail. They used the Treasury building, the most photographed site in Jordan. I made the long hike up to the Monastary and stopped to have some tea with bedouins and sit by their fire. It was very cold, it rained a little and it was very windy.

The bus picked us up from Petra at 0430 and we headed back to the hostel. I took a nap because I still wasn't feeling well then went down for dinner at 0700. They showed Young Frankenstien and I watched a half an hour of it before I went to bed.

I went back into Petra on Wednesday around noon. They didn't punch my ticket probably because it was afternoon and they thought I had already been in earlier. I took it easy because I was still recovering. I sat high on a rock and watched two local boys pry a block from one of the crumbled structures. They broke it apart and carried the pieces to their mother's stand to be sold, probably for a lot. The bedouins selling things from Petra approach and say "Take a look? No charge for looking." That is their big selling point, no charge for looking. I bought two roman coins found in the park (I can't trust anything they say, though) and they wanted 25JD for each coin. That's over $40. As I walked away the price kept coming down until I agreed to buy them for 2JD a piece.

I wanted to go on the tour of Wadi Rum and had been organizing a group for a couple days. I needed at least three others but ended up with five, the two Korean girls and Japanese guy I was stuck in Egypt with and two Australian girls. The six of us left yesterday morning for the desert. We saw some old inscriptions left by bedouins 3000 years ago as well as a house where TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) stayed. We climbed a lot of rock and even climbed onto a rock arch. Most were reluctant to climb, one of the Korean girls and I were always the first ones to climb.

When we stopped for lunch, our bedouin guide made "araboud," a bread made by bedouins in the area. He made a flat area in the sand near his fire and spread some hot coals on it. He flattened the dough and placed it on the coals and covered it with more coals and sand. Fifteen minutes later he uncovered the baked break but it was still covered in ash and sand so he threw it against the rocks a few times. I ate some of it and it reminded me of a cross between an english muffin and pizza crust.

We stayed the night in a bedouin camp in the middle of the desert. It was really cool out there at night. There were a lot of blankets and there was only six of us so I grabbed three. I had been cold on the boat in the nile and I had been even colder on Mt. Sinai and I wasn't going to be cold this time. Three was too many and had to lose one in the middle of the night.

This morning I came back to Wadi Musa. I am resting today and tomorrow I will go to Amman. I am trying to get a group together to take a tour of the sites on the way to Amman. The hotel wants 20JD per person ($30) and I think they are trying to rip me off. As I am sitting here there are a few taxi drivers in the lobby. A chinese lady wanted to know how much for a taxi to Amman and the taxi driver said $100. The lady had her back turned to the other taxi drivers and when the price was given, they all laughed. Meanwhile the taxi driver and hotel employee were both saying that's very cheap.

It has been a while since my last entry, there are two reasons for this. First the feast marking the end of the Haj began the second day I was in Amman and everything was closed for four days. Second, I entered Syria where, until very recently, ISP's were illegal. When I did find a place with the internet I couldn't access yahoo, where my mail was. Appearently Yahoo.com is run by Jewish people and the Syrian government thinks they are evil so the entire site is blocked through the whole country.

Anyway, I went to Amman from Wadi Musa and arrived around noon. I ate lunch by myself at the Planet Hollywood I found in Amman, nobody else was there. I went out to Madaba where there was a church with a mosaic map of the holy land. It took an hour to get to Madaba on the minibus and another hour to find the church. It is called St. George's but no signs say that, even the plaque on the church doesn't say St. George's. I walked passed it many times before a local teenager showed me where it was. I looked at the map and checked it off the list. I was going to find a taxi out to Mt. Nebo and the kid followed me. He wanted me to take him there. The whole situation was just weird so I said no. He asked if he could meet me the next day and I told him I would be in Amman and left in my cab.

Mt. Nebo closes at 1700 and I got there at 1630. The gate keeper said I had ten minutes to look around. I told him it was a half an hour until closing and he said I had ten minutes. I went in and skipped the Moses Memorial Church and went straight to the view over Israel. I stayed there until the last tourist left, which was about 5 minutes until it was supposed to close. I went back to Amman. At my hostel, two french people I met in Wadi Musa were there. They wanted to go to Madaba, Mt. Nebo, and the Dead Sea the next day. I was going to the Dead Sea so we decided to go together, I knew how to get there and I wanted to go back to Mt. Nebo.

We left the next morning before 0900 and took the minibus to Madaba. This time the bus was empty because it was the first day of the feast marking the end of the Haj. We hired a taxi for the day for 30JD and he took us to Mt. Nebo. It was a much clearer day and I could see farther than the day before. This time I had time to go in the church. The feature I liked most in the church was the tin roof, very classy. We headed to Bethany Beyond the Jordan after we were done. We were the only people at the site and the guards wanted us to pay 5JD to get in. We didn't go in and went to the Dead Sea.

The driver asked us if we wanted to go to the Dead Sea Rest House with cold showers for 4JD or go to the "water hot" for free. We chose the "water hot." It was streams from hot springs in the area where we could rinse off after swimming. I changed behind a tree and jumped in the Dead Sea. It was the weirdest feeling floating. I could sit up with my head straight out of the water. I laid on my back and half of my body was out of the water. We rinsed off in the "water hot" and went back to Madaba.

The driver tried to make us pay 35JD because of the extra drive to the "water hot" but we only paid 30JD. We looked at some mosaics in Madaba before going to the mosaic map. I went back in to see the map and it made more sense this time. What I thought was north before was acually east, the direction of the words threw me off. Back in Amman, the streets were empty. The night before we had to fight our way down the street but now nobody was out.

The next day the three of us went to Jerash, roman ruins north of Amman. Two Australians who were also in Wadi Musa with us showed up and went with us. Another french guy came too but he didn't speak english so we didn't talk. Before we were to meet in the morning, I bought a ticket to Damascus for the next day. The cab driver on the way back to the hotel didn't speak english so I had to direct him downtown to where I was staying. I did a pretty good job for only being there a couple days. The fare was less that 1JD and all I had was a 20JD bill. He had no change. I kept telling him to drive to a store where I could buy something and get change. He said nothing was open because of the holiday. I was getting mad at him because he wasn't doing anything. I finally had to tell him to drive and I found a bakery that was open. I got change and walked back from there.

We saw the ruins at Jerash, ate lunch, then found a taxi to take us to Ajloun castle. We crammed into his small pick up and drove minutes to the castle. We agreed on 6JD to the castle but for 16JD he would take us to Umm Qais as well, where we were going next. It was getting late so we decided to do it. He followed us around the castle while we explored, it was kind of creepy. He was starting to get annoying on the way to Umm Qais. He would pretend to swerve into oncoming traffic then laugh really hard. It started to rain while we were at Umm Qais and we didn't stay long. The only thing to see was the view over the Sea of Gallilee and the Golan Heights in Syria, the ruins weren't that great. The driver got really annoying on the drive back. He was the only option, no other busses were coming because it was so late. We rode with him back to Irbid where we could get a bus to Amman. He wanted to take us all the way to Amman but we were crammed in the truck, there were seven of us, and we were all starting to hate the guy. Once in Irbid, we threatened to get out and take another taxi and not pay him because he was being so annoying and not taking us to the bus station. We made it back to Amman on the bus.

I left for Damascus the next morning. At the border, I got stamped out of Jordan and got back on the bus for the one mile drive to the syrian border. Halfway between in no man's land was the duty free shop. We stopped and they happened to have the same camera I had stolen from me so I bought it. Syrian customs were the easiest to get through so far. From stories I have heard about trying to get a visa, I thought it would be hard. I was one of the first back on the bus because the non-arab foreigner have there own window in the customs office, and I was the only non-arab foreigner. Actually, nobody was at that window and I got to use the "Diplomats Only" window, that made me feel special.

I liked Damascus better than Amman. I explored the new city for a place to eat once I got to my hostel. I was followed for three blocks by a guy wanting to shine my EZ Striders. The Striders don't need to be shined. That night I found the only movie theater showing movies in english. The only movie was The Last Samurai so I went to see that one. The crowd was really into the movie with cheering and clapping after a few fight scenes. I explored the souq and the old city the next day. The souq was pretty crowded and they sold a lot of junk, especially toys for children. I saw the mausoleum of Saladin [Salah 'Ad-Din in arabic]. He faught against the crusaders and is a big hero in the arabic world. I followed the crowd into the giant mosque. A guy picked me out of the crowd, stopped me, and asked for my ticket. I didn't have one and he told me to buy a ticket around the corner. I walked around that corner but didn't find the ticket booth, only another entrance. I tried to go in with a big group but was stopped again. He asked for my ticket and I asked where everyone else's ticket was. He didn't understand and pointed in the direction of the ticket booth. I decided not to go in.

The next morning I went to Palmyra with Dennis, an older Canadian who was a teacher in Instanbul. He seemed a little neurotic. He got very upset when someone started smoking around him. Everyone smokes in the middle east so he got upset quite often. The bus dropped us outside of the town of Palmyra and a guy was there trying to get us to stay at his hotel. I didn't stay there just because the bus company seemed to have a deal with this hotel. It took us a while to find where we were on the map in my guide book because we were so far out of town. We went to the tourist information office next to my hotel and there were a bunch of letters of complaint against the bus company and the hotel we were dropped at. The bus was supposed to drop us at the bus station, not that hotel. The letters all said that hotel was awful.

The two of us made up half the tourists I saw at the site, and the site was huge. The guys selling camel rides out numbered the tourists. The ruins were a Roman city out in the middle of the desert. We explored the ruins but got bored quickly because they were so ruined. This was supposed to be the number one tourist attraction in Syria. We saw all we could then Dennis headed back to Damascus. There is nothing to do after the sun goes down in Palmyra so I went back to my hotel and did all my laundry in the sink. I'm getting quicker, it only took two hours to wash all my clothes this time.

I took the bus to Homs the next day then a minibus to Hama. I met Sam, an australian who was staying in the same room, and we went to the Krak des Chevaliers together. It is a giant crusader castle in the mountains of Syria. It took us three hours but we went in every part of the castle and even walked all the way around it from the outside. When we got back to Hama it was dark. We went to eat at one of the baked chicken restaurants that are all over the middle east. We split a whole chicken and he cleaned everything off his chicken bones then started to eat the bones.

Then next day I went on a tour of Apamea and the Dead Cities with an Italian and her daughter. I took the tour because those places are so hard to get to with public transportation. The daughter spoke fluent arabic and talked to the taxi driver the whole time. He gave her tours of the sites but her mother and I had no idea what they were talking about. They italians wanted to go to another crusader castle and I didn't mind. The castle wasn't as cool as the Krak, though. Apamea is more Roman ruins just like the other ruins I have seen, a bunch of columns, fallen buildings, and people saying what a great city it was. The Dead Cities were really cool though. We visited two and the first was overgrown with trees and bushes. They were abandoned by the Byzantines when trade routes shifted and are well preserved. We saw a fox run by as we crawled through some bushes. The second city was completely different. The buildings looked similar but there were no trees, just rocks and the buildings were very well preserved.

The next day I took the bus to Aleppo, the last city I was going to visit in Syria. I heard the souq was really amazing so I went there when I first got there. Like the souq in Damascus, it was in the old city. I had trouble finding it and ended up on the other side of it, near the citadel. The souq was down a long, narrow street that was covered. It smelled like something good was cooking but it was just all the spices they had there. I walked the length of the souq then got lost in the streets of the old city. The streets were very dirty and people piles there garbage in the corners of the streets. I saw a group of boys playing. One of them was holding a dead bird and chasing the others with it. He caught one kid off guard and the bird was smashed in his face. It seemed the boubonic plague could flare up here anytime.

I stayed only one night in Aleppo, the next day was up at 0330 to catch the bus to Istanbul. I got to the bus station at 0430 and found that there was a problem with the bus and wasn't going. I was put in a taxi with a couple other people and we were driven across the border to Antakya, Turkey. From there I would take a bus to Istanbul. The guy in Aleppo told me to go to what sounded like Ses Office in Antakya but he spelled it Sesofes. In Antakya, I asked around for this place. I was pointed to one end of the bus station. At that end they said that company wasn't in this station. I went to the company next door to ask them and they took my ticket and told me to sit down. I sat for 10 minutes without anything happening. I asked the guy what was going on and he said the bus leaves at 1300 and would arrive in Istanbul at 0700 the next day. It was 1030, I had two and a half hours to wait.

At 1245, I asked if the bus was here yet and he said the bus was full, I my bus left at 1900. I was a little confused why the bus wasn't full at 1030 but now it was and I didn't have a seat. He said the 1900 bus was an express bus and would get to Istanbul at 1000 the next day. I now had more time to waste so I walked through the town of Antakya. I noticed that the building didn't look like the trashy buildings of the middle east, they looked more western. And the streets were much cleaner.

The bus left at 1900 with me on it. There were only about 10 people on the bus and thought there had to be more coming. We stopped in Iskenderun and the bus was packed full. The movie was started after that and I watched Predator in Turkish while listening to music. The bus made a few stops during the night for people to get out and smoke or use the bathroom. I looked through the stores but nothing looked good, they had a lot of Turkish Delight, though I'm not sure exactly what that is. Some sort of candy or something.

We got to Istanbul around 1100 and stopped on the Asian side to let people off before crossing to the European side. I took the subway as far as it went then took the tram into the Sultanahmet district where I am staying.

I wandered around Istanbul that Tuesday night looking for food. I had a kebap which was pretty good. The next morning I went to the Blue Mosque which was right up the road from my hostel. The inside was really big and it had a lot of detail in the painting and the architecture. A guy approached me and asked if I would like to learn about the mosque. I told him no thanks and he wondered why I didn't want to learn about their history and culture. I didn't want to pay for it is what I told him and he said something about how money means nothing and that it is just made from trees as he walked away. I didn't have time to tell him he should tell me for free if money means nothing.

That night I got a new roommate. He was an american who just arrived from the states and new nothing about traveling. I told him some of the things I had learned so far and I think I scared him. We went to look for a place to eat for dinner and a stray dog started to follow us. He was trying to chew on my EZ Striders but I kept kicking him so he would go away. We stopped to look at the menu of one restaurant and the dog came up and started humping my leg. He had my leg in a bear hug and it took some work to pry him off.

Thursday morning I left on the 0830 train to the border of Turkey and Greece on my way to Athens. I had a compartment all to myself so I laid across the seats and slept. It took four hours to get to the border where I had to wait for another train that would take me to Thessaloniki. That train showed up three hours later and I didn't get to Thessaloniki until 2345. There was an overnight train going to Athens at midnight and, according to my timetable, I didn't need a reservation. When I went to get on, it was all sleeping cars and I needed a reservation. There was another train leaving at 0200 but that one turned out to be full (but I think the conductor was lying to me, I saw empty seats). I had to stay the night in the station, the next train was at 0800.

There was a greek sailor on a tanker that was also waiting for that train. We tried to stay warm by camping near the heaters. It was very cold that night, a lot colder than I expected in Greece. I taught him to play Gin Rummy and he beat me on his first game. I couldn't get any sleep because it was so cold. At 0600 the cafeteria opened up and we sat in there because it was warmer.

We got on the train at 0800 and we went right to sleep. An hour or so later the train stopped and everyone in our compartment left so we laid down on the seats. I think it was the same stop, I was already asleep, but it wasn't long before more people came in and we had to sit up. It was a long train ride to Athens and more and more people got on the train. I had a hard time going down the hall to the dining car because the compartments were full and people were standing in the hall. When I was in the dining car, more people got on the train and I had even more trouble getting back to my seat.

It was sunny but cold the first half of the trip and snowing really hard the last half. There was about six inches of snow in Athens, very uncommon from what I hear. The train arrived around 1600 and I went to my hostel. I was hungry to I got on the subway and went near the Acropolis for dinner. I ate a couple gyros and I was stuffed. I walked around a bit before I went back to my hostel and went to bed.

The next morning I spent trying to mail some of my souviniers home. I needed a box first so I searched dumpsters but couldn't find anything. I went to the post office to buy one and found a pile of boxes in the garbage out front. I grabbed one that looked big enough and packed my stuff in it back at my hostel. I went back to the post office but found I could only send parcels from a certain post office, and it was closed until Monday. I forgot it was Saturday.

I took my box back and went to the Acropolis. I walked around the Parthenon and the other sites that were there for a while. I went in the museum and was halfway done looking when the site closed for the day. It was only 1430. I went through all the shops down below the Acropolis and saw some keychains for the 2004 Olympics. I thought that would be a nice souvinier to have so I went to buy one. I put it back after I found they wanted $25 for a little keychain, I didn't need it that bad.

I stayed near the Acropolis until it got dark, eating more gyros. I went back to the hostel and talked with a Turkish Kurd that was living in Greece because he deserted the Turkish Army. I watched him and an Israeli play backgammon then a game of chess.

I was out of my hostel by 0600 the next morning. I was going to take the ferry from Patras, Greece to Brindisi, Italy and the only train that would get me there on time left at 0630. I barely made it in time for the train because I couldn't find the station it was leaving from. I got on just before it started to move. I got to Patras at 1030 but had to wait until noon to get a ticket for the ferry because they were closed (it was Sunday). I got on a ferry to Bari (there were no ferries to Brindisi that day) that left at 1800.

I walked around the port until 1600 when I could board my ferry. I met two canadians just before I got on the ferry, Kevin and Danielle. They had flewn to Athens five days earlier. They had no idea how to use the trains in Europe so I gave them a lesson. We were all going to Naples so they decided to go with me because I knew what I was doing. They wanted to get a room but they were 50 euros per person for just a bed, no shower. They devised a scheme (without my knowledge) where Kevin would pay the 50 euros and Danielle would sneek into the room and sleep in the other bed. Danielle told me this while Kevin was getting the room and I told her Kevin would probably be put in a room with someone else and there would be no empty bed. Sure enough, Kevin came back without a room because someone else was in there too.

They were being babies about the whole situation and they finally convinced themselves it would be better to spend 100 euros and get just a bed. They went to get a room but by that time they were full. This was the best place I have stayed the night without a room, I had a whole couch to sleep on. Kevin and I had no trouble sleeping but Danielle couldn't sleep because there were people around.

We got off the boat in Bari, Italy at 1030 the next morning. We split a taxi to the train station and got reservations on the train to Naples. The train left at 1345 so we went to get lunch. They headed straight for McDonald's but I wanted some Italian food, I was in Italy. I got a big, floppy slice of pizza and they had there McValue Meals.

The train took four hours to reach Naples but we did have to change trains. They followed me to the hostel I was staying at then complained about the curfew after they got their room. I was getting tired of all their complaining. We went out that night to a pizza place. We each got big pizzas for really cheap. We watched other Italians finish the pizza with no problem. I ate mine and was full afterwards but they didn't even eat half of theirs. They asked what we were going to do tomorrow and I told them I was going to Pompei, they decided to go with me because they wanted to see the volcano (they had never seen one before).

There was a free breakfast at the hostel and I was enjoying my roll before they came down and started complaining about the hard roll. We went to the train station to get to Pompei after lunch. It was only a fourty minute train ride, with all the stops along the way. When we got there and there were taxi drivers waiting outside the station. They wanted to give us tours of the ruins. We didn't want to so we started walking towards the entrance to the ruins. Danielle asked what the ruins were. I was speechless, I didn't know what to say. I told here they were the ruins of the city of Pompei from when Mt. Vesuvuis blew up. I thought that is why they came with me, to see the ruins, but they had never heard of Pompei before. I was beginning to realize these weren't the sharpest knives in the canadian drawer.

We ate lunch outside the entrance then we bought tickets (but not before Kevin checked to see if we could sneak in) and went inside. They seemed kind of bored and they followed me around. A lot of places were roped off so we couldn't go in. They were upset that so many places were blocked and decided to step over the ropes and go inside those areas just because they were roped off. They came back and said there was nothing to see. They jumped another rope and got whistled at then yelled at by a guard in italian. When we got back to Naples I went in to town by myself. They went back to the hostel but were worried they couldn't find their way back, they had just been following me the whole time. They are starting to harsh my buzz, I may have to lose them. They think they are going with me to Rome and then Venice but I don't know if I can stand them much longer.

Wednesday I took a break from the canadians. I spent two hours in the morning trying to mail a package. I had no idea what I was doing so an old italian guy helped me out for about an hour. I had another pizza for lunch and spent some time in town before I went back to the hostel to wash clothes later that afternoon. In the evening, the canadians and I went for more pizza then got ready to leave for Rome the next day. They washed clothes after I did and everything they washed was dyed pink and wasn't completely dry when it came out of the dryer.

The next morning we left for the train station in the morning, we had to check out of our rooms by 0900. An old guy wandering around the station told us there was only one train to Rome and we would have to pay 10 euros for a reservation with our rail passes. At the information window, though, we found the free train to Rome which was leaving ten minutes after the other. When the train showed up, a guy showed us where to go and made sure we got on the right car. He didn't have any name tag or anything like that so I knew he would want a tip. When he got us settled in our compartment, he asked for a tip so he could get some coffee. The canadians took it as he was going to get them some coffee. One gave him a euro and the other said he didn't want coffee. I played along too and said I didn't drink coffee. Later the canadian was wondering where her coffee was.

We got to Rome and people that worked at the station were very helpful in finding us rooms. We bargained with them even though I don't think we were supposed to. Still, we got a really good deal on a room. We ended up just sharing a room. We found a grocery store and I bought some cereal and milk because there was a fridge in our room.

Today we went to the colusseum and the roman forum. They complained a little more about the sites although it was expensive to get in to the colusseum. They had no idea where to go because we had walked there and they didn't bother to look at the map. I led them back to the room but I took the long way to see some of the piazzas along the way. I also took them by the Trevi Fountain. If they weren't with me they would see nothing in Rome.

Earlier in the day we booked a room in Venice for the beginning of next week, just in time to catch the end of the huge Carnivale celibration that is going on right now.

Saturday I took the canadians to the Vatican City. The museum there closed at 1345 so we went there first. The line to get in was almost a mile long, it snaked around corners and we found the end near St. Peter's Square. It went pretty fast for the size and we were in after about an hour. I headed straight for the Sistine Chapel and the canadians followed. We did look at a few things in the museum but I would come back through to see the rest after the chapel.

Inside the Sistine Chapel, the large crowd studied the ceiling. I looked over at the canadians and they were just kinda just standing there looking down at their feet. They asked if I was ready to head back to the hotel. I told them to look up, everything is up. After the chapel we made our way back to the entrance seeing as much as I could before the museum closed.

At 1400 when the museum had closed we stood outside and again they asked if I was ready to head back. I told them I was going to St. Peter's Square and inside the church. They followed. One minute after reaching the square they asked again if it was time to head back. I just ignored them this time. I walked around the square then got in the line for the church. They still followed. They had no choice, they had no idea where the hotel was or where we were on a map.

St. Peter's Bascillica was amazing. I studied the sculptures and saw where different popes were buried. One pope's hand was exposed and I could see the decaying hand of a former pope with a giant ring on his ring finger. A half an hour after entering I had seen about a quarter of the church and the canadians had had enough. They told me they would wait outside. I stayed in there for another two hours before going out. They asked again and we finally headed back to the hotel, it was starting to get dark.

The next day I went by myself and left them to find their own entertainment, which almost always involves a bottle of vodka or two. I went to the Pantheon and a few other sites I hadn't seen yet then found myself back in St. Peter's Bascillica. I spent another couple hours inside looking over the sculptures again. Once outside, I was approached by an older Italian and he was explaining some of the interesting facts about St. Peter's Square. I talked with him for about an hour before I was invited back to his appartment for some wine. I think he wanted to be "more than just friends" and that creeped me out. I told him no thanks and he started passive aggressively insulting me, telling me that I would never experience europe if I didn't have an open mind about these things. I got tired of it and just left.

Monday we left around 1100 on the train to Venice. The train was six hours long and the whole time the canadian girl had an annoyed look on her face. She kept complaining about being on a train for six hours. We didn't have a room that night because they were all full from the Carnivale and we would just stay up the whole night. She complained about that as well and even threw in some complaints about the rain. I wanted to tell her to just shut up.

We check out bags into storage when we arrived in Venice and walked around the city. We found a place to eat and sat inside out of the rain for a couple hours. The rain pretty much cancelled all the festivities for the evening so after exploring some of the town we went to the train station to hang out for the night. They started working on their first bottle of vodka at the station. I knew the station would close at 0200 as I have spent the night in a couple train stations. We found an train that looked like it was out of commision and set up camp in the entrance, the door inside the car was locked. At about 0300 the girl needed to go to the bathroom so she left. I told the other guy that she better be careful or she would be caught and kicked out of the station. He followed to tell her. Twenty minutes later they still weren't back and I was wondering what happened. I heard a lot of voices coming so I ducked down and peeked out the window. It was the two canadians and four cops. They were thrown out of the station and ratted me out. We were all kicked out of the station.

We waited until 0500 when we could go back into the train station and try to keep warm. We met two girls from England who were leaving back to the town in Italy where they live. Their friend's drink had been spiked with something and had to go to the hospital, they said she stopped breathing at one point.

The canadians continued to drink and were well into their second bottle of vodka by now. We had reserved a room and were going to try and check in at 0700. They reserved a double room then the plan was to sneak me in and we would all split the cost of the room because it was 50 euros per night. I hung back while they tried to check in and it was too early, the earliest we could check in was 0930. They left their bags there but I still had to carry mine. We went to a little coffee shop and I had a small roll for breakfast. There drinking continued with a couple beers. I'm sure the people working there thought it was weird they were getting a beer at 0730. They were poopfaced by that time and were trying to talk with locals that didn't know any english. They just kept repeating words over and over hoping that one time the would miraculously understand english or maybe that it would come out in italian. I was getting very annoyed and starting to be embarrased for them. They were annoying the people that live there.

At 0800 I couldn't take it any more, I didn't want to be associated with them anymore so I told them I was going for a walk and would be back at 0900 to check into the room with them. When I left I was intending to return but a minute after I left I decided to just ditch them. I check my bag in at the train station again then went to explore Venice and see everything I wanted before I was to leave at 1330 on the train to Florence. I saw St. Mark's Square and the church where he is buried and watched some live music. I jumped on the train to Florence and went right to sleep, I had been up for more than thirty hours straight.

I arrived in Florence and met some cool people right away in the hostel. There were so many nobody could remember anyone's name, we just started calling people by where they were from. There was New York, South Dakota, Toronto, Banff, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia to name a few. We all seemed to be from North America. Later that night we all went out and everyone came back after curfew. The guy that worked there wasn't too happy with anyone. It was made worse because we lost some people and everyone returned in three or four small groups.

Today I went with Toronto and Banff to find a cool statue that nobody ever goes to. There was a painting of it on the wall and were told it was four stories high. We rode the bus for a half an hour to find it. It turned out to be only about two stories high but still it was worth it. The hair and beard of the statue were made out of dead coral which made it look even more realistic. There was a shrine or something inside that was decorated with sea shells. We couldn't go in because of a locked door.

I glad I got rid of those other canadians. Everyone I have met in Florence have enjoyed my stories of them, so at least they are good for one thing.

Thursday we were going to Sienna but the weather wasn't that good so they decided against it. Instead, we wandered around Florence. One of the people in the group has been a student in Florence for a few months so she knew where to go. We went up to Piazza della Michaelangelo which had good views of the city. After it started to raining hard we stayed at the hostel until the evening. The girl that was a student also had the inside scoop on some free food. The coffee shops put out all their food they need to get rid of around 1900 and all we had to do to eat it is buy a drink there.

The next day Toronto, Banff, and a couple Aussies went to the Cinque Terre to hike between the five towns. I ran to the store to buy groceries and told them I would meet them at the station. Because of the long line at the store, I got there a minute before the train left and had to just jump on and search the train for them. They weren't there so I thought I might meet them on the trail, I thought I had gotten on the wrong train and they would get there before me. I changed trains in Pisa and went to La Spezia to catch the train to the southern most town in the Cinque Terre. In La Spezia, I was looking at the train schedule when they came up behind me. They had to get the train that left a half an hour after the one we planned on but we reached Pisa at the same time. We were on the same train from Pisa to La Spezia.

We rode the train ten more minutes before we arrived. We were in a tunnel for a long time then came out with a really nice view of the Mediterranian. Trev, one of the Aussies, went to grab his camera but we went right back into a tunnel as soon as he reached for it. We arrived a second later with the same view. We hike along the trail and all of us took a lot of pictures. Trev has a digital camera and I will post a link here as soon as he puts them up on his site. We only hiked between the first three towns, until just after what Trev named the "Stairs of Death." The rest of the trail was closed for safety reasons. It was hailing so we caught the series of trains that took us back to Florence.

Friday was my fourth day in Florence but I still hadn't been to the Duomo or the Uffizi Gallery. This was my last day so I saw those first thing in the morning. I climbed to the top of the dome in the Duomo and looked at the frescos of hell (as per Jeremy's instructions). I don't think artists today could get away with some of the things painted in the dome.

I went to the Uffizi Gallery after I spent a couple hours in the Duomo. I waited in a few different lines to go in for about an hour. First, I waited to go in the building. Then, I waited to get in the line to pay followed by waiting in the line to pay. I thought I could go in but I had bought an umbrella earlier and had to give that to the coat check people so I had to wait in that line as well. When I was done with the gallery I got on the next train to Pisa. It took an hour to get there. I walked to the leaning tower, took a couple pictures, and got back on the train to Florence. That is all there is to see in Pisa.

Tonight I am getting on the train back to Pisa just after midnight to catch a train to Nice at 0300. I will have to be careful on the night train because Toronto was robbed on the night train from Munich to Rome. They took his money from his money belt and he lost 400 euros and his notebook (I don't know why they would take a used notebook). I asked how he could sleep through someone going through his money belt when he was wearing it and he thinks he was gassed. Him and his friend woke up with what felt like a hangover even though they didn't drink the night before. His friend was a light sleeper too. Now he won't take anymore night trains.

I took the night train to Nice. I met a girl from the US and a guy from France and we watched each other's back the whole night. I spent the day in Nice. I walked to the beach and looked at all the Japanese people take photos, I even joined in. I took the half hour train ride to Monte Carlo and gambled in their Casino. Not suprisingly, I lost. There was nothing else to do in Monte Carlo so I went back to Nice. The one highlight of Monte Carlo was the bathroom in the casino, the toilet seat cleans itself after every flush.

I got on the night train again, this time headed for Paris. I had to pay $20 for a bed this time. I got to Paris at 0800 the next day and headed for Normandy. I stayed in Bayeux, famous for two cross channel invasions, William the Conquerer's invasion of England in 1066 and the D-Day landings in 1944. I saw the Bayeux Tapestry, a 230ft long tapestry that tells the story of William the Conquerer. It is over 900 years old.

The hostel I was staying at had an old piano and the owner let me play. It was horribly out of tune but I hadn't played in so long, it sounded good. The next day the owner also rented me a bike for 10 euros. The agreement said if I lost the bike I would have to pay 200 euros to replace it but it was so old, I probably could have bought it for 10 euros. My plan was to ride out to the beaches and see the sights, saving me the 35 euro cost of a tour.

I left arround 0930 and headed from Bayeux to Arromanches, where there were remanents of the docks they used to unload supplies after D-Day. It was about 7 miles. My bike had only one speed and the chain was rusted almost to the point of not moving, I wasn't sure it could make the journey. The whole way there I couldn't get the Wicked Witch of the West theme from The Wizard of Oz out of my head.

I made it to Arromanches on Gold Beach then headed to Omaha Beach. Along the way I stopped at the Longues Battery, four artillery guns and an observation bunker a few miles west of Arromanches. The guns threatened both Gold and Omaha Beaches on D-Day. They engaged in an artillery battle with allied ships and lost. I explored the guns and bunker right behind a group of school kids in a big tour bus.

Heading west I made my way to the American Military Cemetary at Omaha Beach on my one speed kid kruiser. I walked through the cemetary and then down onto Omaha Beach. I had lunch, which consisted of a cold can of beans, some crackers, and a candy bar, an improvised MRE. I walked east on the beach and up the beach to the Big Red One monument. I found some German bunkers and explored all of them, luckily I had a flashlight. I went back to the cemetary for a little bit then to my bike.

I wanted to go all the way to Point Du Hoc but the sun was getting low so I headed back to Bayeux. In all I rode that little bike about 35 miles, farther than it was even made to go. But like Matt in his Commando 300 raft at Priest Lake, I was determined. I only had to walk it up one hill and, suprisingly, down one hill as well. The brakes consisted of the souls of my EZ Strider Boots and one hill was steep and then went around a corner. I couldn't see beyond the corner and didn't want to have to brake suddenly. I walked it down until I could see what was there.

This morning I went to the Battle of Normandy museum in Bayeax then got on the train for Paris. I had trouble for the first time finding a place to stay, it took about three hours.

I stayed in a hostel in Paris that was filled with french middle-schoolers but luckily by the time I went down for breakfast on Thursday morning, they had all left to Eurodisney or where ever they were going. I ate as much of the free breakfast as I could because I'm on a budget and even took an orange with me for my lunch.

I left Paris Hostel Middle School heading to the metro after I stopped at the grocery store on the way. I was distracted by a store selling pianos. I went inside and the lady there let me play a bunch of different pianos, they all sounded really good. I played there for over an hour and while I played, she prepared some brochures for me in english. I didn't tell her that I was only there to play and there was no chance of me buying a piano there.

I picked up a few groceries and jumped on the metro headed for the Eiffel Tower. It was sprinkeling a little so I sat under the tower where there was less rain and ate the groceries I bought for lunch. I kept being approached by the peddlers selling little statues of the tower and lighters. When the police would come around they would beat cheeks. I guess what they were doing was illegal. I walked to the Arc de Triumph before heading back to third period at my hostel.

I woke up early the next day as I had to catch the 0915 train from Paris to London. They said to check in at least a half an hour in advance and they mean it. I showed up 15 minutes before the train was to depart and they wouldn't let me on the train. I had to get my ticket changed for the 1015 train but it was free to do that so there was no problem.

I couldn't get a hostel for all the nights I would be in London so I stayed out in Greenwich the first night at a hostel that was above a pub. I hung out and played cards in the "Chill Out Room" with an Aussie, a couple Canadians, and a Texan. I tried to go to bed early because I had a lot to do the next day before I met Matt at the airport but I didn't go to bed until midnight.

I woke up on Saturday at 0700 and was down ready for the free breakfast at 0800 when it was supposed to begin. The doors to the pub where the free breakfast was located was still locked. I waited and a crowd started to form. At 0900 we discovered they guys were still sleeping in the "Chill Out Room" and we took turns waking them up. I took about four tries.

I left at 1000 to move to the new hostel on the west side of town (I stayed on the east the night before). I checked in at 1115 and had to run out the door to get to the airport by 1225 when Matt's flight arrived. The train took a while and I arrived at Heathrow at 1220. I looked over the flight information I wrote down in my book before I arrived and found he didn't arrive until 1240. As I waited in the terminal, I noticed a lot of people with signs of who they were there to pick up. I still had the brochures the lady at the piano store gave me so I fashioned a sign that said "Mr. Westergren."

Matt finally came out of customs after 1300 and we headed back to the center of town. He dropped his stuff and I took him for a walk through the park. We walked all the way down to a Safeway I had found the day before. We got some groceries and got on the Underground. We took the train one stop where we had to switch to a different line. After one stop on that new line, Matt wandered off the train in a daze. I tried to get his attention but had get off the train and round him up. We made it back on the same train though. We played cards and I told him he couldn't go to bed until 2100.

After I bearly made it to the free breakfast the next day we headed out into town. We walked down to Liecester Square, through Picadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square. Then, we walked to Big Ben and Parlament. We ate our groceries in the park next to Parliment, we probably looked like bums. A train ride across town took us to the Tower of London. It was closing in about an hour so we decided to go back the next day. We walked across the tower bridge and headed back when I really had to use the restroom and didn't want to pay to use the public toilet.

Later that night we went out again, this time to a KFC for a late dinner. The restaurant was closing so we ended up eating on the steps of some apartment building like bums again. On the walk back, I found a new bag as we spotted our first bum in London.

Today we had a lot to do. First, I went to the Chinese Embassy and dropped off my passport to get a visa, that took one and a half frustrating hours standing in a long line that would not move. Next, we got Matt a ticket on the same train to Paris at the train station before going to the Tower of London. We spent a few hours inside listening to the "Beefeaters" stories of executions and seeing the crown jewels.

We ate lunch and decided to go to the British Museum. We stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral along the way but it was covered in scaffolding. I have seen a lot of famous structures covered in scaffolding on my trip. We got to the Museum as it closed so we hung out in the courtyard and Matt took a little nap on the bench. Again, we looked like bums (with an expensive camera). On the way back, Matt and I played "Spot the Pickpocket" on the Tube, we think we saw a few in action.

On Tuesday the 9th, we took the train through the channel tunnel to Paris. We were bombarded by guys trying to get us to their hotel. We decided to go one of their hotels because we didn´t have anything booked and we found one that was cheap. It turned out to be a tiny room and a little more expensive because tax wasn´t included like it normally is. We talked them into letting us have the room without the tax because there was only one bed.

That night we walked down to Notre Dame and I pretended to be a hunchback while Matt took a picture. We walked down by the river and we think we found where they filmed a scene from the movie Ronin. We got the feeling the people in Paris didn´t like us. Matt left a big tip at one place to get one guy to like us. I don´t think his "American Tax," as he called it, did any good.

We had to see everything in Paris on Wednesday before we left to Germany. We walked passed the Louvre on our way to the Arc D´Triumph when it started to snow. It was really cold when we went up the Eiffel Tower later in the evening. On our way back we visited the Louvre. We bought tickets out of the automatic ticket machine with our 20 euro bills and we got a bunch of change back. It was like we hit the jackpot in Vegas.

We left Paris the next day and headed to Saarbr?ken on our way to Neunkirchen. Vera, Christoph´s girlfriend, picked us up at the train station after asking a couple other people if they were us. We stopped by his school before going to his apartment above G?mi Gr?er, his dad´s tire shop. When he got back from school, we went to eat at an Italian restaurant.

Friday we got a slow start. Christoph decided to skip school that day and had to call his school as well as the company he worked for, who paid for the school. Before leaving to Munich, we stopped by the local mall for a sandwich made with flieschkasse (literally "meat cheese") that I remembered were really good. We drove in Chris?Mini Cooper for the four hour drive to Munich, it was tight, and we arrived around 2300.

We went to bed on Saturday night. On Sunday, however, Matt and I decided to go back with Chris and hang out for one more night. We didn´t do much after arriving back at his house, we just ate pizza and watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We were heading for Switzerland the next day without Chris, he had to go back to school.

After breakfast on Monday, we were dropped off at the train station and started making our way to Luzern, Switzerland. We had to switch trains about four times on our way there and took the scenic route through the park on our way to our hostel. We hung around with a guy from New York and went out to dinner with him. He ordered the $12.00 individual pizza and I got the cheapest item on the menu, a $4.00 salad. I had already eaten one of my trademark cans of cold ravioli on the balcony of our room.

Tuesday was our day to see Luzern. The first stop was to get Matt a Swiss Army knife with his name engraved on it. With that item checked off the list we got lost in town, we thought we had a destination but just kept wandering until we were way out of town. We found the old city walls on our way back into town and ate lunch beside it. Our train to Vienna left at 2110 so we walked across town to the lake then to a sculpture of a dying lion carved in the side of a cliff. I couldn´t figure out why whoever created that chose to sculpt a dying lion.

We left for Zurich at 2110, right on schedule, to catch our night train to Vienna. We were packed like sardines in our six bunk compartment with a couple people from Mexico and some other guy. They were the first travelers I have seen from Mexico, ever. Matt, with some form of the sickness he started the trip with, had trouble sleeping and I caught an infection in my lungs on the train. We got to Vienna at 0800 and the first thing Matt wanted to do was take a nap. The first hostel we went to was full after we walked halfway across town. We decided to go back to one near the train station but wanted to call first to make sure they had beds available. The first five or so phone booths we tried didn´t work (or they worked but someone busted the phone out of the booth) and the last one I tried wouldn´t take my coin, it just stuck in the coin slot and I couldn´t get it out. I finally got it out with the saw blade on my pocket knife.

We couldn´t check in until 1400 so Matt slept on the couch in the pub that was in the hostel. We walked around after he woke up until we could check in. After taking a shower we did laundry and just hung around the hostel until Matt got the urge to take another nap. I went grocery shopping while he slept then I also needed a nap after eating those groceries. We didn´t get up until 2030 then just hung out in the hostel until we went to bed a few hours later.

Thursday we rented a couple bikes from the hostel and rode around Vienna. It is a very lazy city. It is the city where everyday feels like Sunday afternoon. The land of perpetual Sundays. We rode to a park where we were yelled at for taking our bikes inside. The sign looked like we could ride inside, there was a picture of a bike then a picture of a dog that was crossed out. We figured bikes were allowed but dogs weren´t.

We walked into the park after chaining our bikes and sat on a bench and got some sun. It was a very nice day, pretty warm outside. After lunch we rode across town to the center then to our ultimate destination, the Danube River. That took most of the day to get there and we saw all the interesting sites when we had to hurry back, we were taking another night train to Berlin that night. We dodged people and traffic on our way back across town, I had a lot of fun.

On the night train to Berlin, we decided not to get the bunk beds and just go with regular seats so we had more room. We got there early and claimed a compartment to ourselves tried to persuade others from not entering. Our plan worked and we had our own compartment the whole night. We were singing the Star Wars Imperial March theme using only one syllable works because we were acting stupid. Matt broke out into "pots and pans" version of the song loudly and that is when we got a knock from the compartment next door.

We set up an early warning system with my umbrella to detect people wanting to gas us and take our stuff. The only person we caught was the second conductor who checked our ticket and made us by a reservation. The first conductor or the guy at the train station said nothing about reservations so we wondered if we were robbed by a guy in a train conductor suit and a receipt printing machine who charged everyone on the train nine euros.

We have the same problem in Berlin that we had in Vienna, we can´t check in until 1400. We are just hanging around waiting to check in although Matt isn´t as tired this time, we slept better on the last train.

It has been a long time since my last post, I've got to do them more often so I remember everything. Anyway, I've got a lot to write and not much time to write it.

Berlin was cold and rainy pretty much the whole time we were there. We relaxed most of the day in our room (once we were allowed in) and met a couple girls from England. We all decided to go to a mexican restaurant right across the street but the only mexican item on the menu was tequila. We tried to get tickets to a football, I mean soccer, game but they were sold out.

There were two empty beds in our room when we went to sleep and one of the British girls grabbed an extra pillow saying nobody would show up after midnight. I woke up to people coming into our room at 0400. After a litte while I heard one of them whisper "I don't have a pillow."

Matt and I went on our own walking tour of Berlin the next day. We saw sections of the wall that were still standing before Matt led us to Checkpoint Charlie. It was a quiet corner with no tourists around. I read in my guide book that there wasn't much left but I thought there would be at least a sign. Matt got his pictures and we continued. There was a large crowd at the next intersection and we wondered what it was all about. It was the real Checkpoint Charlie, Matt didn't get his merit badge for map reading. I remember him marking the points of interest on his map and he was drawing huge circles around them that cover about four square blocks, he couldn't pinpoint the right intersection.

We hung around with the British girls some more before we left for our night train to Malmo, Sweden. Fifteen minutes before the train left we got on and our compartment was already permiated with B.O. I stood outside until I wanted to go to bed. The smell was so thick I had to swim through it to get to my top bunk. At 0400 I couldn't take the man-musk or the heat anymore, I left the compartment for some fresh air. I looked out the window and saw a wall. That couldn't be right, I felt us moving. Having just woken up I wasn't all there yet and tried to figure out how that was possible. Was our train put inside a larger train? I opened the window and stuck my head out and realised we were on a ferry.

After a little while of watching people walk in and out, I decided to check out the boat we were on. I left the train and walked up a couple decks to where the action was. They had the typical tax-free shop that sold alcohol and cologne and the slot machines. I tried to walk out on deck but the wind made it hard to open the door.

In Malmo, the customs guys came through with their dog. They checked everyones bunk then asked who was sleeping on one of the top bunks. The lucky winner was me. I was taken into the compartment and the door was closed behind me. The dog gave a reaction when sniffing my windbreaker. He asked if I had any pot on me and I told him no. There was a long pause as he studied me to see if I was lying. He asked if I had been to Amsterdam and I told him no. There was another long pause. I had to try really hard not to smile or laugh.

We made it to Stockholm and relaxed after that horrible overnight train. We were in Stockholm so long all the days are running together. One day Matt wasn't feeling well and wanted to take a nap so I went to the Vasa Museum to see the old ship that capsized on it's maided voyage. We (or at least I) made multiple trips to the grocery store. Another day we went to the Historiska Museum to see some viking runes and other stuff. We did a lot of walking (even with Matt's broken foot, he found out later). On Friday, Matt left for home and I left for Norway.

I met Kim and Anniken, my cousins from Norway, at the train station and we went to Kim's apartment. He lived near the center of town and from there we walked around Oslo for a while then went to eat at a mongolian barbeque place. The food was really good but I had a hard time eating it with chopsticks until I got used to it. There was a big step in the floor where I was sitting, the chair legs were cut off and it was basically just the seat right on the floor, it was awkward to sit down. Anniken couldn't stop laughing when she saw a fat guy try to get down in the seat. I watched "Idol" that night at Kim's apartment, it was disco night. It was Anniken's favorite show.

The next day I saw more of Oslo with Anniken and Kim and his girlfriend. We went to Holmenkollen, a big ski jump, but nobody was jumping that day. There was a race going on though. We went to museums for the Fram, a norwegian ship they froze in the ice as floated through the north pole, and the Kon Tiki, a boat made of reeds that was sailed from Chile to Easter Island. Later, we went to their parents house and had dinner, a lot of dinner. The rest of the night we spent watching Norwegian game shows and playing X-Box.

On Sunday morning, it was time to set our watches ahead one hour. After breakfast we all took a hike down to where two fjords met, the Oslo fjord and the Drammen fjord, and roasted hot dogs over a fire. Kim's hot dogs kept falling off his stick into the fire. He would just dust it off and continue roasting. Sometimes the same hot dog would fall in two or three times. That evening we went to their grandmothers house for dinner, a lot of dinner (that is a reoccuring theme). It started with roasted potatoes, meat, and vegetables before we had ice cream and fruit. We looked at old photographs before it was time for cake. I finished the photo albums and then it was time for snacks in the sitting room.

Everyone went to Oslo the next day except Stian, who couldn't convince his parents to let him out of school. We went to the Viking Ship Museum and the People's Museum, the village there was cool but none of the houses were open. Afterwards, we walked around a giant park with statues all made by the same person. There were a lot of statues so he must have spent his whole life just making statues for the park, there were never two that were the same. After we ate pizza, a lot of pizza, they went back to Tofte and I stayed with Kim. We saw the town at night and I was introduced to the Grandiosa pizza and other cheap food products that students live off of. For example, we got a big bite hot dog from 7-11, piled the toppings on, and covered it with a slice of potato pita bread to keep the stuff from falling out.

I caught the train back to Stockholm at 0630 the next morning, that was early after being out late but I slept on the train. It was weird being back in Stockholm without Matt but it was a lot warmer and it was sunny. I walked around for a few hours, even stopping at my favorite grocery store, before I hopped on the overnight ferry to Helsinki.

The ferry was really an old cruise ship, it was nice and it was free with my eurail pass. The free cabin, though, was deep in the belly of the ship, we were even below the cars. We were so deep I think they were using us for ballast. I walked around the ship a while before I went to bed. Everyone in my cabin was already asleep when I came in. I tried to be quiet but I woke one of them up. He laid there for about five minutes with his eyes open before he said "I wanted more food." He got up, put his pants on, and left.

We arrived in Helsinki at 0930 local time (I had to adjust my watch for the time difference) and went straight to the train station. I got on the next train to St. Petersburg. There are two trains that go between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, one operated by Finland and one by Russia. I was definitly on the Russian train. It was decorated like an old ladies house with the smell to match.

It was a six hour train ride including the hour or so stop at the border. Crossing the border was easier than I thought, the guy took my passport for a little while, asked me a few questions, and I was through. We didn't arrive in St. Petersburg until 2230 but I was caught off guard because of the time change. That was the third time I had to adjust my watch in four days.

I wandered around St. Petersburg for about an hour being hassled by russian police wanting to see my visa and trying to find where I was on the map. I went back to the train station and realized I wasn't dropped at the station I thought I would be. I came from Finland so I just assumed I was being dropped at the Finland Station in St. Petersburg. I took the metro to my hostel and arrived just after midnight.

This morning I arranged a train to Moscow then went to see the town (after the free breakfast, of course). I took the metro as close to the Winter Palace as I could get but still had to walk about a kilometer. It is free for me to get in to the museum there, because of my student card, so I will probably be back here tomorrow.

After I was done in the Winter Palace on Thursday I went to the Zoological Museum across the river. They had the bones of a blue whale, which were huge, plus the bones of other whales and even a mammoth. There were lots of small animals in jars and thousands of stuffed birds and other animals. Everything was in Russian but it was still worth the 30 cents I paid. Later that evening I hung out in my room with my Canadian roommate, we both had the same MP3 player.

Friday was my last day in St. Petersburg. My roommate and I went to the Peter & Paul fortress but everything was in Russian. We went through quickly. Outside one of the gates on the river, there were people sun bathing in speedos. It was only 30 degrees outside and there was still ice in the river. After the fortress, we split up and I went to the Naval Museum. Again, it was all in Russian so I just looked at all the models of the ships (I think I went through the entire museum backwards).

I went back to the Winter Palace (because it was free with my student card) and looked at the art but mostly the rooms in the palace. When it closed, I went back to my hostel. On the way a guy followed me talking to me, I never really responded after I told him I didn't speak russian but he kept talking to me in english. I could tell he was drunk as he told me how he worked for the Red Cross. After he followed me into the metro, I told him I was going to look for souviniers back on the street. It was just trying to get away from him, I didn't know if we just happened to be going in the same direction. Before I walked away he asked for money to feed someone, I wasn't really paying attention, I told him I had no money and left. I had an idea he was going to ask for money. Next time I should beat them to it and ask for money to ride the subway before they get a chance to ask me for money.

I got on the train at 0030 after hanging out in the hostel with my Canadian roommate. I avoided the cops in the station because I hadn't registered my visa yet. When the lady checked our tickets on the train, she asked for 35 roubles (just over a dollar). I don't know what it was for but everyone else was doing it so I did too.

I made it to Moscow without being gassed and robbed, which is good. I hung out at Red Square today (avoiding the cops there as well) and went into the GUM department store. They have a Sbarro's there, which seems really wierd to me. After that I walked down to Gorky Park but didn't go inside, it's just a big amusement park with little kiddie rides. It was a long walk but it was next to the river, which was nice (the walk not the river, the river is not pretty). I went down into an underground mall next to the Kremlin which is were I am writing this from.

Right after I left the underground mall yesterday I walked the short distance back to Red Square and a new scam was perpetrated for my viewing pleasure. There was a guy walking next to me but I didn't think anything of it because there were a lot of people there. Another guy walked around us quickly like he was in a hurry and, when he was about ten feet in front of us, he dropped a plastic bag. It was full of cash. The guy next to me picked it up quickly and looked at me. There was a five dollar bill on the outside of the wad so I am supposed to think it is a big roll of fives.

He said something in Russian and I told him I don't speak Russian. "Don't tell anyone and we will split it" he told me as we were still walking. I told him no thanks and that it was all his. He asked me to go have coffee with him and we will split the money but I still told him no and kept walking.

The guy who dropped the bag came back and said he dropped a bag with $10,000 and was frantically trying to find it. The other guy already had the cash in his pocket and told him we haven't seen it. He wanted to see our wallets just to be sure and the other guy quickly pulled his out and showed the contents, the money wasn't there. Now he wanted to see mine but I told him no and that his friend had it in his pocket. I started to walk but he stepped in front of me and insisted on seeing my wallet. I was starting getting angry because he wouldn't let me leave and kept asking to see my wallet. I told him no again. By this time their act was wearing off they gave up.

I headed back to the hostel after that. I searched for the hostel for about two hours. I couldn't find it, I thought I was in the Twilight Zone and the city had changed slightly while I was away. Everything looked the same but the streets were slightly different, I thought I was going insane. I finally realized I walked the wrong way out of the metro station but it seems everything was a mirror image in that neighborhood.

I am being lazy today, I was going to see Lenin's body but I got there to late. That is all I have done so far today. Tomorrow I will have to get up early, I have a lot to do including getting train tickets for the Trans-Siberian.

I have been in Moscow longer than I wanted. I wanted to leave for Irkutsk last night but there was only first class tickets left. On Monday I switched hostels because there was nobody staying at the one I was at and it was more expensive than the others. I moved to a hostel about 7 miles out of the center but when I got there they had no dorm rooms left. Still, for all my trouble I saved one rouble (about 3 cents).

The rooms are grouped in pairs that share a bathroom. A key card is needed to get to the two rooms and the bathroom then a regular key is needed to get into the room. That night around 1030 there was pounding on the outer door, it lasted for about an hour. The only thing I could think of was some drunk russian either couldn't work his key card properly or he stumbled to the wrong room. I took the necessary precautions though, I turned around in my bed so my head wasn't near the door and slept gripping my swiss army knife with the corkscrew poking out from between my middle and ring finger. For some reason the light switch was located outside the room next to the bathroom so I just unscrewed the light bulbs using my dirty sock as to not get burned. The sheets there were so starched it was like sleeping under a piece of plywood.

Just after the pounding stopped the door was opened and there was a knock at my door. I stumbled around to screw at least one light bulb back in before I answered the door. It was a security guard and a maid, they wanted to know if I was the one pounding on the door.

Today I finally went inside Lenin's Mausoleum. It sits right next to the Kremlin walls inside Red Square. During the three hours it is open everyday, Red Square is completely closed. The guards inside make sure it is absolutely quiet and that everybody keeps moving, there is no stopping to look. In all, I stared at his wax-looking body for a total of about twenty seconds. Afterwards I walked next to the Kremlin walls, which are closed when Red Square is open, and saw where a few communist leaders were buried including Stalin and Brezshnev (if that is how it is spelled).

I have got some time to kill today becuase my train doesn't leave until just before midnight. I got a possible location of a piano store from the receptionist at the hostel so that could take up a lot of time. I can't get enough of the small home-made ice cream cones they sell inside the GUM Department Store so I will have to get more of those.

I sat in the GUM Department Store in Moscow and I talked for a little while with some guys from Seattle. They were teaching english for a week in a small town outside of Moscow. They weren't teachers though, one worked for Boeing and one was a pilot for Horizon Airlines. They spotted that I wasn't a russian because of my shoes.

I got on the train to Irkutsk at 2310 and to my suprise I was not in second class but third. There were no compartments, just open bunks lining the car. I found my bed and slept once the train left Moscow. The next three days are a blur because I did the exact same thing everyday; eat, sleep, read, and wait for the next long stop to buy weird food from the babushkas that line the platform. I would buy bread and was always suprised by what I found inside. Sometimes it was cheese, sometimes it was potatoes, sometimes it was meat, and sometimes I didn't know what it was. By the third day I could start to smell one of the passengers, an older lady that was "big boned." She smelled like her body was burning tires, I had to hold my breath every time she stirred the air. Luckily she got off that day.

I arrived in Irkutsk on Easter morning. It was snowing and I searched for a cheap place to stay but everyone just said no when I asked if they had any rooms. I don't know if they just weren't open for the season yet or if they just didn't want to give me a room, nobody was there. I went back to the station and decided to move on to Mongolia. I waited in the station about twelve hours, talking to other travellers and buying more supplies for the two night journey.

This time I had to go second class even though I wanted to go third (there was no third class on this train). There were only five people going to Mongolia and we were all foriegners. I shared a compartment with a couple from London and there was a guy from D.C. and a woman from Switzerland. The next day we arrived at the Russian border at 1300 and began the process of getting punched out of Russia. We spent most of the roubles we had left at the little store on the platform. At about 1600 we made the unusually long journey through the "no man's land" to get to Mongolian customs. The train was full of officials handing out forms for us to fill out. One was a health questionaire. They stamped our passports and collected the forms, although they never took my health form. Next the train was boarded by money changers, and they were pretty pushy, our provadnitsa finally closed our compartment door and locked us in so they couldn't get to us. We should have thought of that. We waited around in the border town of Sukhbataar and we all bought a lot of boiled meatballs wrapped in a noodle with our remaining roubles. We left for Ulan Bataar at 2200.

The next morning I went with the Londoners from the station to a ger camp up in the mountains. A ger almost looks like a cake-shaped tent with a wood and coal burning stove in the middle to warm the ger. The ger always has the door facing south, and the man sleeps on the west side and the women sleep on the east side. The north side is the "place of honor." And, always walk around a ger clockwise. I had my own ger for only $6 so I didn't have to worry about any of the formalities.

We hiked around the frozen stream and then rode tiny mongolian horses after lunch. I felt like I was riding on the shoulders of my horse because I was sitting so far forward. We ate dinner and our guide (who was about 50 and a avid follower of buddah) came down to ask us what time we wanted to leave in the morning and we was drunk, very drunk. We told him 1000. He came down later with his bottle of vodka and started telling us all about Mongolia. He offered a toast to his homeland by facing west (he was from western Mongolia) and tossing a shot vodka, it got all over the floor and window.

The next day we were ready at ten but he hadn't shown up yet. We finally got him to come down at 1130 and he slept for the whole hour ride back to Ulan Bataar. I walked about four miles with my backpack (I am guessing but it took an hour) to get a ticket to Beijing tomorrow then walk to my hostel. I bought supplies for the train ride tomorrow then saw some of the town I didn't see while wandering with my pack. There are a lot of people at this hostel including the guy from D.C. I met on the train. Most of them are leaving on the same train that I am tomorrow, and staying in the hostel I am in Beijing.

There were nine of us leaving the hostel that morning to go to the train station. We were going to try and fit all of us in three cabs. We hailed one cab and soon there were about seven cars stopped wanting to give us a ride, and some weren't even taxis. I was the only foreigner in my car, but the others were packed with travellers. I shared a compartment with three mongolians. The train went right through to heart of the Gobi Desert and we stared at the scenery, or lack of it. The land was very flat and went until it faded into the sky. I saw wild horses and two-humped camels wandering in the wilderness.

We reached the border in the evening and waited a couple hours to be stamped out of Mongolia. We waited another few hours to get through Chinese customs then we went to have the bogies (the wheels) on the train changed. One mongolian guy couldn't believe it was my first visit to Mongolia and China because I knew about the changing of the wheels. The locals smoked outside the bogey changing shed while all the tourists watched inside. They were finished and we got back on the train at 0100 the next morning.

When I woke up it was spring. It was the first time I remember seeing leaves on the trees since I was in southern Italy and it was about 85 degrees. The train stopped next to the Great Wall to let the brakes cool after going downhill and everyone was out taking pictures. We followed the Great Wall for a ways and I was hanging out the window getting pictures.

The mongolians in my compartment fed me lunch before we arrived in Beijing. They made a flavor of tea I had never had before, it was meat flavored. I got some hot tea then they put dumplings and sausage in my tea to warm them up. After they were warm, I ate them out with chopsticks then drank the tea. The tea was good at first but once it started to cool down I had to dump it out because it was making me sick.

I arrived in Beijing ending my journey on the Trans-Siberian, or more precisely, the Trans-Mongolian. The train station was very busy when we arrived, there were a ton of people waiting outside to get us in the taxi or to their hotel. I went with a couple dutch people to change money then get a taxi to a hostel we both were going to. Nobody knew where it was at or how to get there on the map even though it was just south of Tiennamen Square. Finally we convinced someone to take us. The hostel is in the heart of the city but I wasn't expecting it to be a small street with nothing but street vendors and chinese on bicycles. The hostel is really nice, though, and it's only $6 per night.

I went out to dinner with some of the people I met on the train. One was a welsh guy who, at one point during dinner, asked me "would you like more tea, old boy?" We had chinese and we passed the menu around and everyone ordered one dish that we all shared, just like real chinese people. Everyone agreed my choice was the best, the egg rolls. I was suprised to find egg rolls are made out of eggs, I have never seen that in the U.S. I have eaten with nothing but chopsticks since I have been here and now am really good at it.

Today I went to Tiennamen Square and the Forbidden City. People would ask where I was from and I always answered "I'm from the U.S. and I don't want to buy any chinese art" otherwise I would have got nothing done. I was warned about those people by travellers heading the other direction on the Trans-Siberian. I bought a train ticket to Hong Kong for Monday, that will give me about nine days to relax on the beach before my trip ends. It's very depressing to think about (my trip ending, not the beach).

Sunday I took a trip to the Great Wall with a girl from the Netherlands and a girl from Canada. We went to the wall at Simatai and hiked up the steep mountain on the wall. The canadian got tired and rested while the dutch girl and I went up just one more tower. We kept saying that though and ended up on the peak of the mountain where the wall was closed. The canadian showed up not too long after we reached the summit, it flattened out and was easier so she decided to continue.

My train left on Monday at 2030 so I spent the day shopping. First I bought a few DVD's for $1.00 a piece. I went to the silk market and bought a couple summer shirts (they weren't silk though) because I had very few. In fact, I threw away some of my winter clothes because I didn't need them anymore including my only pair of pants.

I was in the cheapest class on the train, as is my style, but not only the cheapest class but the cheapest bed. The beds in third class have different prices, the bottom of the three layers of bunks being the most expensive. I was on the top bunk. The whole day we passed nothing but farmland outside of the cities. Every square inch of usable land was taken. I guess they need a lot of farms to feed 1.3 billion people.

The train didn't go all the way to Hong Kong, it went to Shenzhen just over the border of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Zone. I walked across the border, going through customs again, to the Hong Kong Region then jumped on the KCR (Kowloon Canton Railway) to Kowloon, just across Victoria Harbor from the city of Hong Kong. I went to stay at the Chunking Mansions, the most infamous block of guesthouses in Hong Kong. Outside the building, I was solicited everything from suits and watches to drugs. The whole building is filled with foreigners, mostly Indians and Africans. It is a very shady place.

The next day I went looking for a tent, I wanted to go camping on one of the outlying islands. I searched Kowloon and found nothing but found a tent after a long search in the city of Hong Kong. In my search I ran across a piano store and stopped in to play. The lady only let me play for ten minutes before asking me if I wanted to buy that piano. I told her I would keep looking but keep this one in mind. It had been hazy all day but it cleared up so I took the tram up to Victoria Peak (or just The Peak, as it is known). There were some really good views of the buildings in Hong Kong with the harbor in the background.

Thursday I set out for Lantau Island where I pitched my tent on Pui O Beach. I sat around on the beach the rest of the day and all of Friday and got the worst sun burn I have ever had. I thought I better stay out of the sun for a few days so on Saturday I went to the Po Lam Monastary to see a big statue of Buddah. It is not the largest statue in the world but it is the largest statue that is made out of bronze, sitting down, and outside. It was over 70 feet high. There was a lot of incense burning at the monastary. Faithful Buddists would buy large incense sticks and put them in the giant incense pots. Two girls took turns taking pictures of each other in front of the pots. One read the sign and giggled, "Beware of Hot Incense Pot." "It says pot" she told her friend. They must be American.

I took the ferry to visit Hong Kong on Sunday even though I was still camping on the beach. I went to the Botanical and Zoological Gardens where they have different plants and animals. It is like a zoo for animals and for plants. They had different monkeys and even a Reptile House, consisting of a few turtles and a python. Not enough reptiles to constitute a "Reptile House" in my mind.

Yesterday I went island hopping. I took the ferry from Mui Wo on Lantau Island to Central Hong Kong on Hong Kong Island. From there I took a ferry to Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island and spent an hour looking around the small fishing village. I took another ferry to Aberdeen on the southern end of Hong Kong Island then a bus to Central Hong Kong. I thought the bus would stop and the ferry pier because most busses do. It didn't and I ended up riding all the way around the island back to Aberdeen. The next time I took that bus I got off in the city. I took the ferry back to Mui Wo on Lantau Island and caught a bus back to Pui O.

Today I moved from the island to the district of Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. The place I went to stay said they were full but the guy ran out to get me while I was waiting for the elevator and told me they had rooms available. I don't know why he didn't just tell me that to begin with. The rooms are really cool, there are two rooms in one flat and they share a bathroom and a little common room with a TV. A swiss guy in my room was watching The Simpson's when I arrived.

I may have found a buddy to go to Ocean Park with me tomorrow (the local amusement park). He just started teaching english for seven weeks here in Hong Kong. He is from New Mexico but just finished school at BYU in Hawaii.

My last day in Hong Kong was spent having fun at Ocean Park. I went with New Mexico and we went on all of the few rollercosters and other thrill rides they had there. There were also a lot of animals there, they had a couple giant pandas, a huge shark tank, some seals and dolphins, and lots of birds. We were looking at a crane that was over three feet tall from a small bridge. He kept sticking his head under the rails and biting our shoes. We went to eat in a cheap chinese restaurant for dinner before going back to the hostel.

I leave tomorrow morning at 1035 and arrive in Seattle at 1230 the same day (because I will be crossing the International Date Line, which sounds like a worldwide dating service now that I think about it). So ends this adventure, but I only have two weeks before I begin the next.

Peace Out,

Tre Kronor