Macedonia and Kosovo

With a population of around 2 million, and not much to offer besides the huge Lake Ohhhhhhhhhhhrid, Macedonia was nonetheless a very fun visit. From there we rented a car (more smoothly than in Greece incidentally, and for much much cheaper) and used it as a base camp from which to run up and visit newly born Kosovo (though with the way Serbia is behaving it's sort of a half-birth thus far).

Unfortunately the computer here in Moscow (we're about 3 weeks behind on pictures) won't let me upload any more pictures, so this is all for now.

Dubrovnikking and Greece Pictures

So we have successfully been to Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, and are currently in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where we are spending 2 days in a kind of break from our constant car trip. Needless to say the 5 previously mentioned countries have absolutely stunning countryside. The road trip across Albania was one of the most incredible mountainsides I have ever ascended, and the narrowness of the roads and the igloo shaped bunkers all over the place only added to the adrenaline rush of feeling like you were on top of the world.

Dubrovnik is absolutely one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to.

However, the picture updates are behind the actual trip, so I'm backtracking to recount Greece.

First, we arrived in Athens at 6 AM on the morning of June 8. We were unable to check into our hostel until noon, so we spent the morning completely exhausted and therefore slaphappy wandering around the Parthenon:

After which, we went and took a nap and awaited the arrival of our cousin Cole, who showed up for an evening exploring the ancient ruins.

The next morning we took our newly rented car (a tiny little deal, we had to stack 2 of our bags in between Heber & Ryan in the back, and Ryan kept hitting his head. It was one of those times I'm glad to be shorter than average. Also glad that I was navigator, which meant permanent shotgun status.

We drove up through the beautiful Grecian countryside to a little town called Kalambaka, in the shadows of some monasteries built into very sheer cliffs. The whole area is called Meteora. The morning of the 10th was spent exploring the monasteries and hiking around, then we got a guide to take us rock climbing. Not a bad place for Heber & I to do our first rock climbing.

After which we headed north to Thessaloniki, which was kind of unimpressive.

On the evening of the 11th we jumped on the train up to Macedonia.....

And as usual, the obligatory celebration of the artwork which is Heber's hair.

Leg 1 Pictures: Egypt

So here are some of the pictures from Leg 1 of the Cannonballz World Tour 2008. It started with Heber going to Abu Simbel with Mike Christensen. (I had to remain in Cairo to take care of th Russian visa).

I then flew down and met them for this sweet overnight sailing trip on the Nile:
















After which we visited Karnak Temple. I wasn't quite so reverent.




Followed by some lounge time and snorkeling on the Red Sea.







And then the Pyramids and Cairo.








And then we shaved Heber & I's head. For Heber we left this gorgeous rat tail. The razor gave out about 80% of the way through my haircut, which meant at the Pyramids I had random tufts of hair sticking out, but then I went to my barber and got it fixed.

Just to update everyone, we made it safely through Greece after seeing some amazing stuff. Highlights included Athens, rock climbing in Meteora, and some amazing drives through the Parnassos national park and the mountains around it. Yesterday we took a train from Thessaloniki and have now officially begun the road trip portion of the trip. We got to Skopje, Macedonia last night, and will be running up to Kosovo this morning, after which we will return to Macedonia and spend the night on Lake Ohrid, and then off to Albania and then Montenegro on Friday.

Stories & pics to come!!!

Curtis

So the Cannonballzzz World Tour 2008 is officially underway. Heber arrived in Cairo a little over a week ago, after which we did a quick tour of Egypt. First we went to Aswan, followed by an overnight sailing on the Nile on a felucca. We then continued downstream to Luxor where we visited the temples and the Valley of the Kings. After which we flew to Sharm el-Sheikh and spent 3 days lounging on the beach and snorkeling amongst the fishies.

We then did 2 days in Cairo, and I finally visited the Pyramids. I had successfully avoided that circus for an entire year and 3 days. However, my last day in Cairo we went.

Now we are in Athens. After a flight that left Cairo at 3:45 AM and landed in Athens at 5:45 AM, we came to our hostel (The Easy Hostel) and dropped our bags off. They wouldn't let us check in so Ryan, Heber, and I wandered about in a daze and went to the Parthenon and the Acropolis. We then went back and took naps while waiting for cousin Cole to show up. Now the 4 of us are ready to rock Greece. Tomorrow we will be heading north and doing some rock climbing at Meteora, after which we will be heading to Thessalonika.

Pictures coming soon....

Trilingual Bilateral Cultural Exchange Part 3

So while I might have mastered the labyrinth which was the Russian embassy in Cairo, I failed to give myself adequate time to conquer the Chinese one. In spite of gathering all the documents which their website said was necessary (including bank statements, proof of enrollment at the university, hotel reservations, and $130), here were the excuses offered for not even considering my visa application:

First visit: my bank statement was not actually from the bank, but printed off the computer (apparently the fact that all statements are now sent via the internet doesn't matter to China).

RESPONSE: Dig up older original bank statement.

Second visit: my current bank statement off the internet in combination with an original older bank statement doesn't work either: they need ALL my bank statements, original, from the last 6 months.

RESPONSE: Have father overnight said bank statements to my roommate Michael who was coming out to visit. Michael brings statements, which I deliver to my travel agent, who assures me that this time, the third time, is the charm.

Third visit: They inform me that I will have to extend my EGYPTIAN residency visa, which is good until the end of June, in order to qualify to receive a CHINESE visa. They could have informed me of this 3 weeks ago on attempt number 1, or told me from the start that I needed an Egyptian residency visa valid for at least 2 months in order to qualify for a visa application. You'd think my agent would have known these things. She did not get paid for anything, needless to say.

Apologies

For my lack of pictures lately. My camera has not been functioning properly, I think it got an amoeba or Cairo food poisoning or something. However, Heber has a camera for our round-the-world extravaganza, so we should have some good shots eventually.

Trilingual Bilateral Cultural Exchange, Part 2

It turns out that trilingual cultural exchange, like all things, gets tainted once you wrap it in a shroud of mysterious bureaucratic inefficiency. The Russo-Egyptian combo is lethal!!! My brother Heber and I have planned a trip for this summer, starting here in Egypt and ending in Japan where we will meet my parents and pick up my youngest brother from his mission. After much thought and debate we decided to visit Russia and China, with an overland journey through southeastern Europe on the way. Had I known how difficult the visas would be to get, I would have bagged all that and just gone to Thailand. But oh well. Heber got his visas taken care of at great expense; I'm almost there.

Here is what it took to get a Russian visa in Cairo:

$30 to have an agency "invite" me to Russia.
$75 to have said "invite" shipped to Cairo, as the embassy here requires the original copy.
5 total trips down to the consulate
12 hours of waiting time, 8 outside the consulate, 4 inside (over 5 visits).
$150 for the visa itself.

Needless to say, I was never so excited to hand over the final $150 and have it be done. After 3 failed visits down to the consulate without entering, I found out which travel agency the university here in Cairo uses to get visas for its professors, and they said they'd be happy to help me. However, they apparently had never helped an American get a Russian visa before: the embassy has a rule that agencies MUST do single-day service, which for Americans comes to $550 plus insurance fees, meaning the total cost of my visa was going to approach $700. So last Thursday, being the last possible day I could apply for regular service and have it be done in time, I went way early and parked myself in front of the door 2 hours before it opened. My zealousness paid off, and I got in. I had to come back today, and I once again got in, but then had to wait inside for over 3 hours while they.... well, I don't know exactly what they were doing.

Next up: Visa to China.

Music Video

So as part of our effort to improve intercultural relations we made a video celebrating one thing Middle Easterners and Americans have an affinity for: trashy pop music. We downloaded a karaoke version of "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys, borrowed some cheesy lyrics from various Arab pop songs, and after some effort recorded it. "Shabaab al-Haara" or "Back Alley Male Youths" was born (we rendered a stilted translation both ways as part of the joke).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGA07Zb9kNw

Thanks to Aaron Rock, Brian Loo, Aatif Iqbal, and Scott Trigg for being part of the Male Youths, and thanks to EB Harper for letting us borrow her camera, and to Clay Adair, Mark Lomedico, and Dan Stoltz for letting us borrow their time to film us clowning around.

Trilingual Bilateral Culture Exchange

Many people thought I was crazy for attempting to learn Arabic: a foreign language with a different alphabet, totally different grammar, and even different sounds that just don’t exist in English (or any European language).

Well now I am taking Russian, another language with another different alphabet.

So how crazy is it that I'm taking the third language/alphabet in the second language/alphabet. That is right, I am taking a Russian class explained in Arabic. It's left-to-right again, but explained in the right-to-left.

Needless to say it is quite an exercise in toggling. All the words we learn we get the Arabic translation for. However, Arabic is a terrible language to write down phonetics (how a word actually sounds). So I’ve taken to writing the Russian word down with the Arabic translation next to it, but then writing the phonetic version of how it is pronounced in English letters. It creates quite a headache sometimes.

EXAMPLE:

Преподавательница = مدرسة = prepadaVAtyilniitsa

“Teacher.”

OR:

Откуда вы приехали? = Otkuda Vee Priyekhali? من أين وصلت؟ =

Meaning “Where did you come from?”

However, the workout which is switching between my second language and third language while using letters from my first language to ensure pronunciation is nothing compared to the fascinating (and perhaps even more headache-inspiring) experience of being the foreigner in a class full or Egyptians. At first our teacher, as much to show off to me his own language skills as to help me, explained everything in both English and Arabic. This simply angered the other students who couldn’t understand his English. To be truthful I couldn’t understand much of his English either; his Arabic explanations were much clearer. I quietly pulled him aside after the first week and asked him to just explain things in Arabic, since I was trying to learn both Arabic and Russian. He laughed and agreed, though I’ve had to remind him a couple of times since then.

Yesterday he taught us a phrase that means “Repetition is the mother of learning.” The phrase rhymes in Russian so it sounds nice. The teacher explained what it meant in Arabic but then rendered an English translation in his thick accent, “Rreapeating is mother of educating.” I quickly said, “hey, no English” (in Arabic), and then thoughtlessly added (in Arabic) that “we don’t have a proverb like that, it’s better in Arabic.” Of course, in retrospect, we do (“practice makes perfect.”) but I was simply stating the literal translation sounded weird.

However, then my friend Ahmed jumped in, “Actually, that’s not a proverb, it’s more of a saying.” Then, he said (in Arabic) “in English you would call that an expression.” He said “expression” in English. This prompted Mustafa, another classmate, to wonder whether it would properly be translated as “saying” or “expression.” After about 3 minutes of discussing the finer points of how to translate the various terms for “idiomatic expression,” “pithy saying,” and “proverb,” with additional discussion as to which category “repetition is the mother of learning” fit into, we finally were able to move on to the next point.

Such is the nature of bilateral cultural exchange in a third language.

I’ve learned some about Egyptian students. Of course, I’m generalizing, but I think it’s a safe statement that observations which would be considered hurtful or lacking tact in the West are not that big of deal. Here are some of the things my classmates have said about me either to my face or to other people about me.

“Curtis does not have very good pronunciation in Russian.”
“Curtis, why do you not study very hard.”
“Curtis, you are not doing very well, you should consider dropping out so as to not waste your time.”
“Curtis is kind of lazy in Russian.”

It kind of cracks me up, because I’m actually not that worse than my classmates. I pronounce Russian terribly with an American accent, they pronounce it terribly with an Egyptian one. However, since the rest of them are Egyptian and so is our teacher, I’m the one that looks bad. As for the laziness accusation, it is true that I am a little bit less focused. I’m learning more Arabic than Russian from these classes, and am just hoping to pick up a few helpful phrases. The four of them want to become Russian tour guides by the end of the summer.

Of course, the whole tact thing doesn’t just apply to language. My friend Ahmed has also said, at various points to either me or my friends:

“Why does your hair always look so bad? Why don’t you brush it?”

“You eat more than any girl I have ever known.”

“Clay you are very weak in Arabic language.”

To him, these are just statements of fact, objective observations; no insult or shame is implied.

Nor, for the record, is any insult or shame taken. Doing trilingual bilateral cultural exchange can't allow for it.

http://www.egyptianmarathon.net/result%20Pharo%2007/Result-Solo%2007.htm

http://www.egyptianmarathon.net/Marathon%20Results%2008/Marathon%20results-Male%2008.htm

That's right. I rule.

London, Madrid, and Morocco

So I am currently sitting in my budget hotel in the old medina in Casablanca, feeling a little bit disappointed that the weather is cool and mostly cloudy today. My travel companion, Mike Christensen, left this morning to return to the United States. I could not get a flight until tomorrow, the 24th. All week while we were wandering around Morocco I had just figured that on this last day when I would be by myself I would go to the beach all afternoon and then go to a movie. Well it is too cold for the beach and all of the movies are dubbed into French. Honestly, who still thinks dubbing is a good idea? Use subtitles!

Anyway, it has been a fun trip. We started in London, spent 2 days there, and then flew to Madrid for 48 hours before coming to Casablanca. We actually took a train from the airport directly to the city of Marrakesh, where we spent two days wandering the markets and looking at the old desert castles . The big square in Marrakesh is an amazing place, with the best orange juice I have ever had side by side with little open air restaurants serving goats heads (literally they singe off all the hair and serve it up with the skull as the bowl). There are snake charmers, dancers, and storytellers. They are a demanding group. We got charged for 2 minutes watching one guy play his little flute; another put his pet monkey on my back uninvited (totally scared the crap out of me) and then told me it was 10 dirhams. I told him to get the monkey off my back and that I would not be paying anything.

We took an overnite train to Tangier, seedy port of international renown, but decided we were more interested in seeing Gibraltar, so we took a ferry back over to Spain and then took 2 buses to get to Gibraltar. Gibraltar has the coolest flag in the world; a red and white one with a Super Mario Brothers castle on it. It is also a cool rock, towering over the ocean. We could see much of the coast of Spain and on a clearer day might have seen the African coast.

The next day saw us back to Tangier and up to Chefchouen, a little mountain town famous for its whitewashed buildings painted a unique blue color and for its marijuana farms. Unfortunately this charming little town was somewhat tainted by the annoying guide who followed us from the bus station offering to show us around and "protect" us from badgering locals. After 30 minutes of increasingly blunt declarations to go away he declared that he would only go away if we paid him. We told him we would do no such thing as we had told him from the beginning we would not pay him. He finally cussed us out and left.

That night we pressed on to Fez where we had similar experiences. Apparently calling somebody a Jew in Morocco is the worst possible epithet you can think of; we were called Jewish SOBs about 5 times that day as we refused to allow any of the "faux guides" to get their commission by taking us to any shops.

The next day; having successfully angered the guides we were more or less left alone to explore the massive medieval markets of Fez. We also got tours of an old school leather tannery and a pottery shop.

Finally we returned to Casablanca yesterday to see the Hassan II Mosque; the 3rd largest in the world and the biggest that any non Muslims will ever see anything of besides pictures (the other 2 are in Mecca and Medina which are closed off to non Muslims). This giant mosque which holds 25000 worshippers, in Mike's words, makes the Conference Center in Salt Lake City look cheap. It was marvelous.

Any way, I dont have pictures yet for this trip but will post them later. Other highlights included:

-Seeing "La Bella y la Bestia"; the Spanish adaptation of Broadways adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast in Madrid.

-Cleanness. Coming from Cairo London was so SHINY

-Mike getting attacked by monkeys in Gibraltar. These beasts, the only monkeys in Europe, are very smart. While Mike was getting his camera out of his back they jumped across the road, climbed up on him, and snatched his bar of chocolate out of his bag. Another tourist we talked to had tried to feed them; she offered them a bite of her own chocolate bar. After observing her right hand with the bit of chocolate, the monkey darted in, grabbed the remainder of the bar from her left hand, leaving her with the little offered bit. Smart animals.

-Going to a Hammam. A real one. The tradition of public baths has become a tourist favorite in parts of the Middle East. However instead of going to an expensive tourist one we went to one the locals frequent. We walked in, paid, and were led to a dark room with puddles of soapy water still on the ground. Our scrubber proceeded to instruct us to fill our buckets and lay down. As we were getting scrubbed down with the steel wool mittens they use I look over at Mike who was absolutely horrified. He later said all he could think about was how many layers of other people's skin had probably been peeled off with the same steel mitten; and that he felt like he was laying down in what he called "a petrie dish of bacteria."

-Snail soup. Enough said.

-Bastillas. This dish is my new favorite. Essentially a chicken pot pie served with almonds and a heavy dose of cinnamon and sugar.

Anyway, I am very excited to travel back to the US of A tomorrow and see my family.

Rain

January 9, 2008
I've been here in Cairo for 7 months and a week. Today it rained for the first time. It had sprinkled before, and were I in any other city I would have thought it would rain. But today it's raining. For real.

Arabian Holiday I: Yemeni Christmas

For the most part I didn’t think about Christmas on Christmas. After all, I was in Yemen, six time zones away from my brother Chad in Japan and ten time zones away from my parents in Salt Lake City. My celebration of the holiday consisted of finding the only 24 hour Internet café in all of Yemen to participate in our 6 way teleconference Christmas call. It was a miracle that a 6 way teleconference call that included participants in Fukouka, Nashville, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, and then myself in 4000 year old Sanaa was even conceivable. It was a miracle that I found a 24 hour internet café in Yemen. It was a miracle that it worked. It was a great way to wake up on Christmas morning, better than any present.

The call ended around 7 AM, and at 8 our driver picked us up. We had scheduled a 2 day trip to a remote mountain village known as Shaharah, which had not been conquered by any military power ever until the 1960s when they could use air power. Perched atop a 3000 meter peak (9000-10000 feet), the village was only accessible via very steep dirt roads. As it was sympathetic to the rebel cause in the on again off again Yemeni civil war, tourists were only allowed to visit with a military escort. On this day, we were the only tourists. Our caravan consisted of the Land Rover with myself, my companions Aatif, Raha, and Khulood, and our driver Ali. Behind us was a cannon mounted jeep with five rifle armed soldiers. The soldiers and our guide didn’t seem to think it was strange: they did this everyday. The only thing unusual about the trip today was that the tourists spoke Arabic and 3 of them were Muslim. When I told them my name was Abu Saifayn (a nickname meaning “Pappy Two Swords”), they assumed I was Muslim too. I did not try to dispel them of the notion.

Off we went, 3 hours on pavement, then 2 hours off roading until we got to base camp, at the foot of the mountain. At the top we could vaguely make out the buildings that made up Shaharah village. Here we had to switch vehicles and leave behind our cannon and our guide Ali. A new guide, Yahyah, and one of the soldiers, got into the pickup truck that would take us up the steep switchback trail that led to the village. We rode in the back.

Amidst the stunning views and hairpin turns and cliffs that took our breath away, I was struck by how much this reminded me of Utah. Except in Utah there aren’t villages at the top of the 10000 foot mountains, just the little house thinger that marks the top of the ski lift. There aren’t centuries-old stone bridges built across gigantic chasms that make you think of the scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf fights the balrog. There was such a stone bridge in this village, built to connect two villages that, though just a few hundred meters from each other, were completely isolated from each other until the bridge was built.

Also, the entire mountain was terraced. Terraced and landscaped to allow crops to grow on the entire mountain. Or rather, to make one crop grow: qat trees.

Qat is a drug that is indigenous to Yemen and Ethiopia. As far as I know it is also only legal in those two countries, though it may also be legal in the UK and Amsterdam. It is illegal in Saudi Arabia and the United States as it is mildly addictive. It is consumed by simply popping the qat tree leaves into ones mouth and chewing. Much like chewing tobacco except you don’t spit until the end. All Yemenis chew qat. All of them. Everywhere you go the Yemeni men carry two pouches of qat: one in a plastic bag beneath their jacket, and one in their mouth, stuffed away like nuts in the mouth of a squirrel. The average Yemeni is very easy to caricature: a galabiyya (white robe), a traditional dagger in his belt, a pair of sandals, a western style suit jacket or sports coat, and a huge protruding cheek full of qat.

It’s a national pastime, this qat-chewing. Yemenis purportedly spend 20% of their family income on it. Millions of man hours are wasted daily because of time spent putting the leaves in their mouths (they don’t take time off work to chew, they just put so many leaves in their mouths while they work). 55% of the nation’s water supply (in a desert country that rains only a couple of months a year) are used in watering the qat trees. Entire mountains, including the one we were climbing, are devoted to growing the plant. We asked the guide if they grew anything else on the mountain, since every part of the mountain seemed to be terraced to grow something. “Nope. We used to grow food. Now we just grow qat.”

At least, in addition to being a caffeine like stimulant, it is also an appetite suppressant.

Anyway, back to the qat-terraced cliffs. We finally reached the town just before sunset, and checked into our little hotel. We were served dinner, given a brief moonlit tour of the area, and went to sleep.

“Merry Christmas,” I said to Aatif.

“Merry Christmas.”