Kunming

I've spent the past 48 hours in Kunming, which is part of the Yunnan
Province. Our local guide was especially good at explaining the
culture of the province, so I'm leaving here feeling like I know a lot
more about Kunming than other places we've been. China has around 55
minority groups, and something like 25 of them are only found in this
province. Last night we went to a show that had the traditional dances
and music of some of the minority groups. It was incredible! I am
guessing they modernized it a lot for their 100% tourist audience, but
I still feel like I have a pretty good idea of the general styles.

One of the sixteen people on this trip had the common sense to bring a
China guidebook, so we turn to her for guidance about each city. It's
not that we don't trust our guide—we really like her—but she has a
very clear itinerary and set of speaking guidelines, so we often don't
get all of the information we want. For Kunming, the guidebook
basically says that the only thing for tourists to do here is go to
the Stone Forest, which is actually an hour outside the city. Living
up to our expectations, we spent all day yesterday at the Stone
Forest. The Stone Forest used to be covered by a lake, and over time,
due to Himalayan plate movement and erosion from the water, these tall
stone columns formed everywhere. I could not envision it at all before
we got there, but it really does look like a bunch of tall, stone tree
trunks with real trees interspersed between them. When you walk among
them, it is like a combination of weaving through tree trunks in a
forest and walking through caves with roofs that have fallen in. Ok- I
didn't do a great job describing this. Check out my pictures when I
post them. It was really cool to see though—almost magical. Definitely
not like anything I have ever seen before.

That's about it for Kunming. Now we're on an airplane waiting to take
off but are delayed for air traffic control reasons. This doesn't make
a lot of sense to me because, according to the departure board, there
are only about 6 planes leaving each hour. But I'm just gonna go with
it. They're showing a white water kayaking competition on the TV,
which seems pretty random, but, again, I'm going with it. I'll use
this time to write about some more general observations about China.

Architecture:
Everything is China is big. They have a huge influx of people moving
to the cities (remember when I said 8 million people was just a medium
sized city?) so everywhere we've been, the skies have been filled with
half completed apartment buildings that look a lot like the projects
in NYC, but are a little nicer and a lot bigger. Our guide joked that
the national bird of China is the construction crane. Other than the
completely boring and huge apartment buildings, China is full of the
most creative office buildings I have ever seen. Every building has
some kind of unique element to make it stand out from all the other
equally unique buildings. There are skyscrapers that are odd shapes,
consist of uncommon materials, or have huge sculptures on top. I'm
convinced that there is some big competition between all architects to
build the most creative building.

Fashion:
-Screen printed tee shirts in English are really popular here, but
most of them make NO sense. I'm not sure whether the people wearing
them just don't understand what they say or whether they know it makes
no sense and see it as a fashion statement. Most shirts are
accompanied by graphics that have no relationship to the words on the
shirt whatsoever, but here are two examples: Our adult, professional
tour guide wore a shirt the other day that said
"FREE
keeps evolving
ALIVE"
Oh, and the capitalized words were also glittery. Then, shopping in a
store a few days ago, I saw a shirt that said
"Big Rooster
Since 1983
Pursue Character
wear out the your it's best own style"

-One of the most popular hats that are sold in tourist shops and that
people wear here are fake panama hats that say "Ronaldino" across the
front. The "n" has a little tilde over it but I can't figure out how
to type that into this blog. Now I'm not super up to date on my sports
trivia, but the only association I have with that name is a famous
soccer player from (I think) Argentina a few years ago. I've asked
about a dozen people here what that means and nobody knows. I have a
hard time believing this is the same Ronaldino the hat refers to, but
I have no better explanation. Maybe the Chinese just really like South
American soccer players. Weirder things have happened…

-I haven't seen a single baby here wearing diapers. Instead, they all
wear pants with giant slits in the middle so that their butts hang
out. I guess it saves a lot of time doing laundry, and it's pretty
cute, but still doesn't seem super sanitary.

Weddings:
We see brides everywhere we go. I guess in a country of 1.3 billion
people, a lot of people get married every day. One of the people on my
trip (the only other one under 60ish) just got engaged, so we've been
talking about weddings a lot. All of the brides that we've seen wear
Western-style, white poofy dresses and, of course, all of the brides
are beautiful. Traditionally in China though, white is the color one
wears to a funeral, so the young brides usually compromise with their
parents and wear a traditional red dress to the wedding reception. One
of my favorite new customs that our guide told us about is that when
it is time to put on the rings, they are flown across the room to the
bride and groom via remote control helicopter. How creative!

Ok. The plane is finally taking off. Yangtze river cruise here I come!

Chengdu and Lijiang

Here's the thing. Pandas are the cutest animals ever. Yes. Ever. Fun fact though: newborn pandas are not. They look exactly like naked mole rats. After a few weeks though they are super adorable and continue to be so for the rest of their lives. We only spent one day in Chengdu, and our first stop was the Panda Sanctuary, where they have about 80 pandas. Most of them were inside, but there were enough around that we spent about 3 hours there. I literally overdosed on cuteness and am still talking in a slightly squeaky voice.

 

Then, in the afternoon, we went to the Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu. It definitely did not make up for us not being able to go to Tibet (the Chinese government forbid it, so they had to rearrange our tour) but it was still amazing to see. There are monks walking around everywhere, sitting in the stores, and generally acting like it's no big deal to be a Buddhist monk. The stores are full of beautiful Tibetan art, prayer wheels, jewelry, and ornate statues of Buddha. I got a set of prayer beads and a gorgeous carved incense burner box. It was so frustrating though that I couldn't communicate with the store owners at all. I had about a million questions and would have talked and talked for days if I could have.

 

A quick note on the food there- it is the only variation we've really had so far. Chengdu is in the Sichuan province, meaning that the food is really spicy. REALLY spicy. They gave us 2-star spicy food (on a 5-star scale) which, while delicious, almost gave me PTSD flashbacks to the time I tried the spiciest sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings.

 

After Chengdu, we hopped back on a plane for a brief trip to Lijiang, which turned out to be my favorite place so far. The Old Town, where our hotel was, doesn't allow vehicles on its streets. The entire place is paved in large stones and has narrow, winding streets. If I had gotten lost I don't think I ever would have made it back to the hotel. It has become pretty touristy and is lined in small shops decorated with red lanterns that sell jewelry, antiques, and clothes that are much more of a bohemian style than traditional Chinese.

 

In the morning we went to a museum about the history of the Naxi (pronounced Nah-shee) people, who are native to the area. This region became part of China relatively recently (like 800 years ago) and the people seem to have much less allegiance to China as a country, and especially the Chinese government. Our guide was the first Chinese person I've met to blatantly criticize the current government and Mao specifically.

 

After the museum, we went to a beautiful park at the foot of the edge of the Himalaya Mountains. I climbed about 3 steps of the trail, so now I can say I've hiked the Himalayas:-) While wandering around the park, I was approached by a group of Chinese tourists who asked if they could take a picture with me. I said yes, which led to more tourists asking to take pictures with me. In China, the ideal woman has a big nose and is pale. Also, my blonde hair and blue eyes are especially exotic, so I stand out A LOT here. I've decided to embrace it though, as very few people appreciate paleness in the USA. Our guide told me that many people in China have seen white people, but have never seen someone in person with blonde hair and blue eyes. The photo shoot was a little awkward but mostly I had fun with it.

 

In the afternoon, we went to a training school for girls to learn embroidery. The art they make it truly amazing. In the gallery, we saw many works that had been copies from paintings, and looked exactly like paintings. Incredible detail! Some of them took people who had been studying embroidery for over 10 years, a full year to make.  Then, we went to a small town up in the hills where there was a small museum about Dr. Rock, who despite his misleading name, was an anthropologist in the early 20^th century who lived among the native people and chronicled their lives.

 

One of the best parts of this stop was our local guide: Wu. He studied Chinese literature in university and now works part time as a teacher and volunteers at a nature conservancy in addition to his tour guide job. He has a great mastery of English and has gone above and beyond to learn how to speak English in, what I assume, he thinks is a poetic and authentic way. He has literally memorized every idiom of the English language and uses them whenever remotely appropriate. This means that he averages an idiom every two sentences or so, making him extremely entertaining to listen to. A typical example: "First we will go to the gift shop. Remember a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush so feel free to spread the wealth. We've had a lot of balls up in the air today so we'll take a break before dinner and you can get forty winks." A great sense of humor!

 

Now we're back on a plane, flying to Kunming. This trip involves a lot of travel, which is tedious but makes sense. Turns out China is a pretty big country!

Xi'an

Our next stop after Beijing was Xi'an, which at a population of 8
million (roughly the size of NYC) is "only a medium sized city"
according to our guide. It was also the beginning of the Silk Road and
the capital of its region something like 2000 years ago, giving it a
lot of rich history. I won't go into that though because that would
take pages and pages (and also I don't remember most of the details).
I haven't had time to blog since we got there 3 days ago so this is
going to be a long one.

After the aforementioned nap in my previous post, we hit the town. And
by hit the town, I mean spent a few hours in the Shaanxi History
Museum. After trying, only semi-successfully, to understand the story
written mostly in Chinese, here is my highly scholarly take on the
history of China: There were a lot of dynasties. The emperors were all
very wealthy and commissioned super luxurious art. They had lots of
slaves. Then there was communism and the people loved it (or at least
pretended to). Maybe I shouldn't generalize, but the museums and
historical sites here that I've seen are much less cohesive and
interactive than museums in the United States.

This seems like as good a time as ever to provide a disclaimer: I take
no responsibility for what may seem to be fact in this blog,
especially dates and superlatives. Sometimes the English explanation
is hard to understand, I have a very selective memory, and (if you've
ever met me you already know) I've been known to zone out
occasionally. Remembering numbers, particularly, is not my forte. Feel
free, however, to correct any inaccuracies in the comment section.

After the museum we went to the top of the city wall and then had a
Mongolian hot pot meal, which is like fondue but not as good. I had
fun with it, but a few of the people in our group had a shockingly
difficult time understanding the concept of cooking their own food.

The next morning, our first stop was a jade factory. Carving jade into
complex, highly detailed designs is very difficult, but the
demonstrators made it look easy. I learned a lot about jade, including
the fact that jade is not always green. Also, unlike most other
gems/stones, the more colors and variations in a piece of jade, the
more expensive it is.

Next stop was the Terracotta Warriors site. The Terracotta Warriors
were made to protect an emperor in his afterlife and are buried about
a mile from his tomb, which is, by the way, the largest tomb in the
world. Yes, bigger than the pyramids. While the varied and detailed
8000ish warriors and horses were incredible to see in person (one of
those" way better in real life" type situations), I would like to
focus on how they were found: by a local farmer digging a well. They
have the site of the well included in the exhibit, and it is on the
verrrry edge of the front line of warriors. As in, if he had decided
to dig half a foot farther over, he would have missed the underground
lair completely. I guess the find worked out ok for him in the long
run, though, unlike in the USA, he has no claim to site even though it
was on his property. He now has a cushy, government assigned job
signing books in the museum gift shop and for 20 Yuan (roughly $3)
he'll pose for a picture. This tourist attraction, unlike most other
ones, did have a pretty cool interactive part. I now have a picture of
myself riding a bronze chariot pulled by clay horses.

After a brief stop at a wholesale herbal medicine market (lizards on a
stick, goat testicles, and human placenta were among the delicacies)
we headed to a delicious dumpling feast. You're probably sick of
hearing me talk about food so I'll try to keep this short: 18
different kinds of dumplings all in different shapes! A gastronomical
adventure and delicious! During dinner we saw a performance of
traditional Tang Dynasty music and dance. All of the dances were
interesting, but the one that really stuck out was the 10,000 Hands
dance. I don't know that a video would be easy to find online, but
it's definitely worth a try.

Yesterday morning I woke up early for an optional Tai Chi lesson,
which I loved. I guess I was the Tai Chi master's favorite because he
gave me a peacock feather as we were leaving:-) Of course now I am
determined to carry it around for the next 2 weeks and somehow get it
through customs…

After a brief stop to learn about lacquer furniture (sick of
showrooms, I quickly retreated to the bus to read about 15th century
England) we headed to our "day in the life, typical farming village
overnight home stay." I actually had a great time and enjoyed my host
a lot, however I had a hard time getting over my anger that the
Chinese government was trying to sell this as a "typical" farmer's
life. First of all, this was a model village, only 10 years old that
was clearly built for tourists. All of the houses we stayed in had
second stories with two bedrooms and a western style toilet. All of
the houses also had certificates on the wall that they were certified
by something like the Chinese Bureau for Tourism. Second, we didn't
even live like they do. We had much softer beds, they cooked for us,
and we were there from 4pm to 11am. At night, we went to the center of
town for traditional Chinese dancing (at the risk of being immodest, I
was the only one of us to really learn the dances) and American dances
like Cotton Eyed Joe and the Macarena. I ended up talking to a
16-year-old girl who said that she comes from a neighboring village
every night to practice her English because they have dancing with
American tourists almost every night. Oh, and there was a group of 30
or so People to People teenagers staying in the village too.

We went to the old village that everybody had moved from when the town
was built, and that is similar to where the majority of farmers in
China still live. It reminded me a lot of Uganda. I am trying not to
get too into this rant right now, but the amount of control that the
Chinese government has over our experience here is scary. Even though
we have a tour guide, we are required to hire local tour guides
certified by the government, each place we go. All of the tour guides
so far have parents who are in the communist party, which, by the way,
is pretty difficult to get into. Most of the information they give is
only half the story, and even by asking direct questions it is hard to
ever get an answer that doesn't show the Chinese government is a real
light. And don't even get me started on the government banning US
citizens from traveling to Tibet! In trying to control my experience
here so that I see the Chinese government in a good light, they made
me view it as extremely oppressive. But I digress…

This morning we got a demonstration of a unique emerging style of
farmers' art, and then participated in a paper cutting lesson. My
paper snowflake skills are clearly not developed enough for anything
more complex.

Now I am on a plane to Chengdu, as a documentary/infomercial on the
overhead TV tells the inspiring story of a flight attendant who had
trouble in flight attendant school (she was petite and had trouble
opening the emergency door) but persevered and is now a well trained
flight attendant on this airline. I can't tell whether the point is to
give us confidence in our flight crew or inspire us to want to BE the
flight crew. Regardless, this is getting long enough and I want to
nap. Gotta get rested for pandas tomorrow!!!

Beijing--> Xi'an

Yesterday was, sadly, our last day in Beijing. I could have easily
spent another week there. In a city of 18 million people, there is a
lot to do and see. In the morning we had free time, so Jane, Dad,
Karen and I decided to go shopping. Being in China without a guide is
a little bit more stressful than most places I've been because I can't
read any of the signs, but thanks to two terrifyingly daring taxi
drivers, we made it to the mall and back. Actually, on the way there
we saw a really intense fight between three bicycle cart drivers in
the middle of a busy intersection. Our taxi driver just swerved around
them like it was no big deal. Driving in Beijing, by the way, is
crazy. As our tour guide put it, the lanes and signs are more like
suggestions that nobody follows. Driving is kind of like playing one
giant, very expensive, game of chicken. Being a pedestrian isn't easy
either, as cars have the right of way here. Like, if you are on a
crosswalk with a walk sign and a car wants to turn left, it's your job
to get out of the way and avoid getting hit. We've already had a few
close calls in our group.

In the afternoon ate lunch at the house of a woman whose grandfather
was an artist for the government and trained her to take over his
business. Basically, she takes glass vases and paints beautiful
pictures (mostly landscapes) on them from the inside using a curved
brush. It seems incredibly difficult because she has to paint the
details and then the background. She also taught us how to make
dumplings and let us try too. Of course, mine fell apart…

After lunch we did a walking tour of a traditional neighborhood, which
has small, single-family houses crammed side to side along narrow
alleys. Our guide told us that the neighborhoods are disappearing as
the government takes them over to build skyscraper apartment buildings
for the growing population to live in. The way that housing works here
is pretty complicated. Some people own their own houses/apartments,
but most people lease them from the government. Everybody has to have
ID cards for their province, and with certain exceptions (marriage,
etc) they are not allowed to move to other provinces. Also, if
somebody is going to school in a different province than the one their
ID card says and they get sick, they have to go to a hospital in their
own province to get any insurance coverage.

After the neighborhood walking tour, we went to the Temple of Heaven,
which is gorgeous. It is this huge, one room structure that was used
by the emperors to pray to the heavens, usually for a good harvest.
That's about all I got out of it though because all of the
explanations there were only in Chinese.

Last night, after a delicious noodle dinner, we boarded an overnight
train. My group had a sleeper car to ourselves so we decided to have a
Fourth of July party in the hallway. Someone bought a bottle of the
traditional Chinese firewater, which smells like rubbing alcohol and
kind of tastes like it too. Luckily the train cart was selling "Great
Wall wine," which I also don't recommend unless it is your only
option. We arrived in Xi'an this morning and all promptly went to our
beds to shower and nap, which is where I am now.

I guess I should take this time to write a little bit about our group.
There are 16 of us, all couples except me, Karen, and an adult father
and daughter. As it turns out, summer isn't the most ideal time to
visit China (I think it has been in the 90s every day so far), so
about half of the couples here are traveling now because one of them
is involved in academics. Most of the people here are around my
parents' age, though there are a few older people, including two
really in shape 75-year-olds. So far everyone is getting along well,
though I think everybody is complaining a little bit too much. If they
wanted to relax and be comfortable they shouldn't have gone on a tour
of China! Mostly though, everybody has a good sense of humor and
adventure.

Our tour guide is Susanna, and she is fantastic! She has done a great
job of taking care of us and answering all of our questions, though I
am getting the feeling that the government tourism bureau has given
her quite a few guidelines. She has a mini umbrella that is decorated
like an orange panda (including ears sticking out of the top) that she
holds up when we are walking around. I find it probably more amusing
than most people that I am going to spend the next 2 weeks following
an orange panda around. Before we go into large crowds, Susanna always
reminds us, "We are a group! Stay together like sticky rice!"

So far I have only learned/retained a few words, so I will end with a
very short lesson:
Hello= Nee-how (not to be confused with neeow, which means "I have to pee")
How are you= Nee-how ma
Soso= mama hoohoo
Great!= dingding how
Thank you= Shi-eh shi-eh
I don't want (to buy)= Boo-yao

Beijing

Wow. The past two days have been jam packed. I have lots to talk about! So here goes:

Saturday morning we went to a cloisonné factory. Cloisonne is the art of decorating things with copper wire, filled in with colored enamel—think J. Crew enamel bracelets but usually on much larger items like vases and plates.  We went to the factory and watched women hand paint vases. Then they took us briefly to the kiln room, where they fire each piece 5 times at around 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. When they opened the kiln the whole room immediately heated up at least 10 degrees! Honestly, it was mostly an excuse for them to take us to a GINORMOUS show room full of art and push us to buy things, but it was still really cool to see. We got in a big debate about whether the women who do the painting find it fun and creative or just tedious. I tended to think more on the fun side but was pretty outnumbered.

The afternoon was taken up by going to The Great Wall. They took us a little farther outside the city so we could get to a part that hadn't been rebuilt and wasn't so touristy. According to Mao (nbd but I'm kind of on a first name basis with the guy by now), anybody who climbs to the top of the wall is a Chinese hero. So we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. My legs were finally recovered from all that biking in Friesland too! Our guide, of course, was running circles around all of us as we wheezed our way up the stairs. Here is the thing about The Great Wall that I didn't realize: most of it (and ALL of our part) is just stairs. Nothing flat. All they're all different heights so you really have to pay attention to where you are going if you don't want to fall on your face. We climbed a total of 800 of them, give or take 20. (I counted on the way down).  Reaching the top was definitely worth it. The view was incredible. I know this is obvious, but the wall just goes on and on and on. For me at least, seeing it gave me a much bigger appreciation for the work involved in creating it than just hearing about it.

That evening we went to an acrobatic show that was generally like Cirque Du Soleil but not quite as well funded. The tricks were still incredible though. I was really impressed by how young all the people were, but I was told afterward that the minimum age was 13. I thought they were 10 at the oldest!

This morning, our first stop was "Beijing Number 1 Carpet Factory (2nd)." No joke. That was the name. And it actually is one of the biggest and oldest silk carpet companies in Beijing, employing around 1500 people to hand make silk rugs. 2 fun facts about silk carpets:

1) One silkworm cocoon (approximately the size of a walnut) can be unwound to make about half a mile of silk.

2) A large, 800-count, silk carpet can easily take someone 2 or 3 years working full time to make

After the silk factory, we went to the Summer Palace, which is where old Chinese emperors and empresses used to spend time in the summer. The parts that we were in were mostly full of tourists, but according to our guide, there are many quiet parts where people living in Beijing (Beijingites? Beijingers? Beijingeans?) go. Not a ton to say about it though. It was very pretty to wander around, and then take a pagoda boat through, but nothing very exciting happened.

In the afternoon we went to one of the local Kung Fu schools. You know how in the US we have language immersion schools? Well this school is like that but instead of intensive studying a language along with regular subjects, you practice Kung Fu 4-5 hours a day along with regular subjects. First we saw a demonstration, which was awesome and pretty much exactly like the movies. There were lots of flips and sword play, breaking wood on people, and then somebody threw a needle through glass to pop a balloon. After the demonstration we had a tutorial from the students, which we all failed miserably at, though a lot of the poses were very similar to yoga poses.

Finally, tonight we went to the opera. Now, this is not at all like anything anybody in the US would think of when I say opera. The place was set up more like a nightclub, with everybody at tables instead of in rows of seats. We had dinner in the theater before the show started, and then once it started the entire audience continued to eat, drink, smoke, and talk while little kids ran around. The show itself literally consisted of one woman in traditional robes, fake hair down to her ankles, and her face completely covered in makeup standing on stage for 30 minutes singing (in a high pitched voice) eeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeAAAAAAAAAAaaeeeeeeeeEEEAAEEAEAEAEEEEEAaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeee. I am dead serious. Everybody (not just the American tourists) was laughing the entire time. We had been warned by our guide ahead of time that 30 minutes was plenty long, but I didn't take her nearly as seriously as I should have.

Alright. I have a lot more general stuff to write about, but this is getting long I think tomorrow I will have a lot more time to write, as we are taking a 12-hour overnight train. It should be interesting…

Netherlands to... China!

I typed this on Friday but couldn't post it because turns out China blocks blogspot (yay rights!). Then, today I remembered that I set up an email address from Uganda that lets me email in my posts. Not sure if this will work but it's worth a try (somebody email me and let me know if you're reading this?). Without further ado, a seriously subpar entry:

Ok. So apparently I'm not so good at getting my final trip entry done. Things always seem to speed up, and reflecting so soon is overwhelming. The end of the bike trip in Europe was fantastic though. The last two days were definitely the hardest, with headwinds and monotonous landscapes for the majority of both days. We still found ways to entertain ourselves though and have fun. And, of course, we also managed to eat really well! We got all 11 towns, and biked the whole 260kms, which means that after we mail off our stamp sheet I'll get a certificate. I'm gonna frame that baby!

Anyways, after 2 days in Charlotte doing nothing but sleeping late and then napping in the sun by the pool, I'm in China! Yeah… it's a rough life. We landed last night at 11pm, were at the hotel around 1, and had to wake up at 7. As a result, it is 9:30 and I'm already in bed. My body is beyond confused about what time it is.

Today was fantastic though. We wasted no time jumping right into it. First thing we did was go to Tiananmen Square which, unfortunately, was closed off today because it is the 90^th anniversary of the founding of the Communist party in China. We got to see it from across the street though, and watch them set up for some kind of ceremony they were having later in the day.

There was a huge police/military presence everywhere we went today. They kept randomly stopping people (not Westerns though) and doing full searches of their bags. I'm talking FULL. Like, opening each container, smelling liquids, etc. It honestly seemed to be more for the intimidation affect than actual security, but I'm guessing that was the point. And it works! I would not have wanted to attract the attention of any of them.

Next was the Forbidden City, which, true to any description, is HUGE. Before you even really get into it there are 4 or 5 gates, each with giant courtyards in between them where there are military barracks and souvenir booths. The palace itself is absolutely beautiful, full of old relics and extravagant decorations. All of the rooms (or at least all the ones we saw) have different names and since there are 9,999 rooms, they obviously had to get a little creative. One of my favorite parts was just reading all of the names.

Ok. This is a very incomplete description of the day, but I am exhausted and need to get some sleep so I'll try to catch you up on my observations another day. This is going to be a great 3 weeks!!

Elfstadenroute

The Elfstadenroute (elf=11, staden=town, route=route) signs are what I both hate and can't live without at the same time. These are the tiny signs posted all over Friesland, telling me when to turn when I'm biking. Sometimes they are high up on a pole on the other side of the street and sometimes they are nearly hidden by tall grass on the side of the road. Occasionally, they are not there at all and you just have to figure out that you are supposed to turn. It amazes me that we haven't gotten lost yet. Luckily, we have approximately 10 different maps of various detail helping us figure out where to go. Once we get to each town, the guidance basically stops and we have to find the VVV(prounced vayvayvay) tourist office to get a stamp on our record page. It definitely adds a fun scavenger hunt aspect to the whole trip.

The B&Bs we have been staying are small and quaint. The first night we were the only people there; the second night there were 6 others; and tonight there are 4 others. The towns have been too small for restaurants, so the B&B owners cook delicious dinners for us using almost all local ingredients. Our host tonight is the first person I've met (in Norway and The Netherlands) who doesn't speak English, which is ok because Jerry can communicate the basics in Dutch. I wish I could talk to him though because he seems really cool. Big, bushy white beard, Einstein hair, and a giant, goofy smile. I was pretty jealous that the other table of people had a very lively conversation with him at dinner.

The past few days of riding have been much better than the first day. We've had better weather, our muscles are finally beginning to adjust, and we've gotten very little head wind. Yesterday was pretty uneventful. We went through a few particularly cute villages, but mostly we were just riding along fields of crops and animals. There is nothing quite like the smell of manure wafting by to motivate you to bike faster. We made good enough time that we were able to take a bus from our hotel to the first town we were supposed to stop in the next day. We wandered around there for a while and then got to breeze through it this morning, getting a good start on the day.

Today was the 2nd longest day, distance wise. We had tail winds for a good part of it though, so it was pretty easy. In one town, we stopped for a few minutes to find a pharmacy (I am now the owner of a pretty awesome knee brace) and ended up passing a planetarium from around the 1700s. By planetarium I mean this guy who was a genius and turned the ceiling of his living room into a moving replica of the solar system, and turned the room on the floor above it into a mechanical room full of cogs to keep the model moving at the right speed. This thing has lasted for centuries, always keeping the exact right time, monitored by one swinging pendulum. It has all of the planets, the date, the moon phase, astrological signs, time, etc. It was definitely worth the half hour break for the tour.

Today, I also fell for the first time, though it was at an extremely slow speed-- we were trying to read the route sign and I ran into a pole. To be fair, I could have caught myself if my feet reached the ground, but here's the thing: Dutch women are GIANTS. As in, women's average height is like 5'10". Ok, according to wikipedia it is 5'6", compared to the US's 5'4", (fun fact: it is 5'7.5" in the Dinaric Alps and 4'8" in Bolivia) but I swear I haven't seen a single person here shorter than me. Regardless, even when I point my feet they are a good inch or 2 from the ground.

Last observation for the night- most people here have their stables attached to their houses. Mostly, they are pretty nice, new looking houses too. So you'll see something that could easily be in Ballentyne (Charlotte people reference only, sorry others)but it has a HUGE room attached to it. I guess it makes sense for conserving heat in the winter and having easy access to the animals, but I can't imagine that the smell can be kept completely out of the house...

Alright. Time to sleep. 2 more days and 4 more towns to go!!!

Friesland

It’s 9pm and I’m already in bed, ready to read a few chapters of my book and then go to sleep. Today was the first day of the bike ride. We rode for 6-7 hours, a good portion of it along the dikes next to the sea. Talk about head wind! We were expecting it to rain for a lot of the day, and the first hour or so was a miserable torrential downpour, but after that we had a blue sky with a slight breeze. Though I can’t really feel my butt and am a little sunburned, I still had a great day. I was worried that by the end of today I would be dreading the rest of the week, but I’m really looking forward to it (just not how sore I’m going to be when we start riding tomorrow morning).

The landscape is much more varied than I expected—there are some cute little villages and forest paths thrown in with the never ending pastures of cows, horses, goats, and thousands of sheep. We’ve also biked by a bunch of windmills, but they’re mostly the industrial white kind, not the cute wooden kind. It gets a little monotonous at times, but I’ve astounded myself with the number of songs I know the lyrics to and can sing in my head. Plus, it’s a constant challenge to make sure we are following the right path.

This is a very specific route, which goes around most of Friesland. There is a very famous ice skating race, the Elfstedentocht, along the canals in Friesland that goes through 11 towns, so in the summer there is a bike race that takes a slightly different route, but also goes to each of the towns. We’re not racing, obviously, but we’re doing that route. We have a page with a space for each of the town halls to stamp that we were there, and if we get all of them we get a certificate. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling this to whoever is reading my blog, but I’m a sucker for certificates, so that’s pretty good motivation in itself to complete the tour.

Today we got to the first town, only to find out that the town hall was closed on Mondays. Disaster! Luckily a man walking his dog came up to us as we were biking through the town and, after a short conversation, we mentioned our disappointment at not getting the stamp. By lucky coincidence, he happened to have the keys to the local church and said they also had the stamp there so he would let us in and give them to us. I reitterate: everybody here is so friendly!

That’s all for now. I’m about to have the heaviest sleep I’ve had in a long time:-)

The Netherlands!

I think the only thing I don’t like about The Netherlands is how complicated they make it by sometimes calling it Holland and calling the language Dutch. But honestly, I don’t even dislike that completely. I have to give them some props for being original. And to be fair, they actually call their language Netherlands, so it’s really more of an English problem. Speaking of which, the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually German. Who knew?! But anyways, after my two days in The Netherlands, here are my favorite things:

1) Amsterdam is beautiful! I had no idea that it had so many canals and quaint streets. I always pictured it as a much more industrial looking city. Other than the Jewish Museum gift shop (I got a hamsa to replace the one dad and Jane got me a few years ago there that was stolen with my car keys) and the Van Gogh museum (good museum but super touristy and loud), all we did during our one full day there was wander around looking into shops and galleries, and people watching. I had so much fun taking it in, I didn’t take any pictures. I think mom took a few though that I can steal from her.

2) Everybody is so friendly! Every shop we went in, the people went out of their way to be nice to us even if it was clear we weren’t going to buy anything. This was great in Norway too. Us Americans really need to step up our game on being likeable. I don't know how irrational this is, but I tend to think that everybody hates tourists, especially American ones. I go to great lengths to pretend like I'm not a tourist, which usually includes refusing to look at maps, getting really really lost, and having to ask (in English) for directions. It always surprises me when somebody proves me wrong. It took until Saturday night and was a huge mess, but the airline got our bags to us, and everybody who was helping us was pretty friendly about it the whole time. Actually, the people in Latvia weren’t too bad either. Yes. Our bags were in Latvia.

3) Cheese!!! So much delicious cheese. And cheese shops on like every block. With lots of samples. Here’s the thing- I like cheese probably more than is socially acceptable. Like, more than dessert. Did you know that pesto cheese exists? It does and is incredible. How much is an appropriate amount for me to bring back to the US? Three wheels? Four? I may have to throw some gouda in there too. Making room in the one backpack I brought should be interesting.

That’s about all I have to say about The Netherlands so far, but I still have a whole week ahead of me. Mom and I met up with Jerry on Friday, so our duo has become a trio, which is nice because, even though mom and I got along great, spending a week with one person 24 hours a day is a lot. Also, Jerry has spent a lot of time in The Netherlands and speaks some Dutch, so he’s a great guide. It’s relaxing to have a few days break from constantly consulting maps.

Right now we’re in Joure. Tonight we had one of the best meals I’ve had in my entire life. I won’t describe it because I just couldn’t do it justice, but on our way out we made reservations to come back on Friday when we finish our bike loop. For the next five days, we’ll be biking in a loop around Friesland, from town to town, going about 30-40 miles per day. It’s definitely doable, but right now I’m really wishing I had done a little bike training to prepare for this. I do have some pretty awesome biking tights, waterproof pants, and biking gloves though, so at least I look the part. If you’ve got any energy to spare, send it my way. Not sure how many of the hotels we’re staying in have internet, but I’ll keep you updated as much as I can.

Last, but not least, just want to wish a happy happy Father’s Day to the best father in the whole world that anyone could ever ask for- my dad:-) Sorry I’m not home. MMMMMLL

Good news!

Norway pix are up on facebook! You can only see them if you're my facebook friend though. Sorry.

Oslo!

So I’m sitting in my hotel room in Amsterdam, where mom and I met up with Jerry earlier today. I’m mostly in the dark other than the light from the bathroom and some weird mood lighting along the baseboards. I have no idea how to get any of these lamps to turn on, but I’m exhausted so I’ve decided I can do without them. Plus, at least my bathroom walls are real. In the hotel in Oslo, the bathroom walls were made of clear glass. Luckily I don’t spend much time in the hotel anyways. It’s more amusing than annoying. But on to the past few days. This is going to be a long one…

This has been a great week, but Oslo was definitely my favorite part. Everywhere we’d been earlier in the week was absolutely beautiful, but things moved a little bit too slowly for my style of travel. We spent most of Wednesday on trains, going across the country to Oslo. Actually, yesterday one of the wooden tunnels in Middle Of Nowhere, Norway caught on fire and basically incinerated a train (all passengers and crew were evacuated) so the line is down indefinitely- a bit of good timing on our part.

When we got into Oslo it was evening, so we decided to walk to a big park nearby that was designed by a super famous Norwegian sculptor named Gustav Vigeland. The main attraction (at least for tourists) of the large park is a long pathway flanked by life size bronze sculptures of people, with a large sculpture fountain at the end. It was incredibly impressive (see soon to come facebook album for some pix). One thing that I noticed was that almost everybody who owns dogs in Norway seems to own GIANT ones. I guess the smaller ones don’t do so well in the snow.

Thursday morning we got up early and hit the ground running. First stop was the Nobel Peace Prize Museum, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I won’t go into a ton of details about it, but I learned A LOT about Fridtjof Nansen, who, as it turns out, is pretty badass. For more info see the ever-so-scholarly Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen. I even learned a lot about Alfred Nobel, who invented, ironically, smokeless gunpowder to help soldiers see on the battlefield. Also, fun fact: he invented dynamite! I literally could have spent all day there, but eventually it was time to move on. Oslo in one day takes a lot of dedication.

Next stop was the Contemporary Art Museum. Not much to say about that… everything was pretty angsty in the kind of omg-nobody-understands-me way. Still glad we went though.

Last museum of the day was the Edvard Munch museum. Well first a munch at the Café Munch (bahaha) and then the museum. Who knew he painted so many other things besides The Scream. Turns out, the museum owns like 1200 paintings or something like that. Not all of them were out, obviously, but there were plenty. Seeing The Scream in person was pretty cool. I had never really focused on the sky before, but it really stands out in person. They were restoring a bunch of his paintings too and the studio had a glass wall to look in, which was really cool to see. They have so much super fancy equipment in there!

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the city, first in some random residential neighborhood just outside the city center and then the shopping district. Then, in the evening we went to see the opera Peter Grimes, which was fortunately in English. The actual theater is designed to look like a glacier, and the architect pulled it off really well. For the sake of time I will refer you, once again, to the soon-to-be facebook album. I hadn’t been to an opera since I was old enough to sit through it without fidgeting—ok. I fidgeted a little in the middle of this one too, but it was very subtle and the thing was over 3 hours! If you’re going to see opera though, that is definitely the way to do it. The theater was huge and paneled in gorgeous wood. the performers sang beautifully (not that I’m a great judge), and the plot was much more complex than I expected it to be.

After that we had a late dinner at a really cute café with a view of the Akershus Fortress. The only reason I bring this up is that my mother, mistaking a different restaurant for the one we were trying to find, tried to convince me to eat in a dark, hole-in-the-wall bar with a skull and crossbones flag covering the window of the door. I will be more than happy to explain this in more detail to anyone who asks:-)

So now onto the second leg of the trip—Amsterdam and biking through Friesland. The airlines lost our luggage, but we’re optimistic that they will find it and get it to us sometime tomorrow. Otherwise, all I have to bike in are my flip flops, so that should be interesting. For now, I’ll leave you with the only Norwegian words I can remember (most words I had no idea how to even begin trying to pronounce).

Utgang- Exit
Ingang- Entrance
Airport- Flyplass
Train- Tog
Gate- Street (it’s pronounced gata, though we didn’t figure that out until Thursday)
Fiske- Fish
Kylling- Chicken

Back on the road

Sorry everyone! Forgot to post this when I wrote it and just realized. Should have been posted on Wednesday:


Monday morning, mom and I left Tromso for Bergen, with a layover in Oslo. We were sitting in the Oslo airport, both slightly annoyed that we were wasting most of our day in transit, when who should show up at our gate but CYNDI LAUPER. Seriously! After Google imaging her picture to double check, I spent about 20 minutes deciding whether I should go talk to her. Finally I did, and she looked just about as surprised that there was an American on her plane who recognized her, as I was to see her. We had a short conversation—I told her to break a leg on her concert, she asked what I was doing, told me that mom and I were cute, and then autographed by Norway guide book. Totally worth the layover.

We got into Bergen that evening, just in time to wander around the old part of town and have dinner. The architecture was gorgeous, but we couldn’t go into most of the buildings because it was still the Monday holiday—the holiday was Pentecost, by the way. That was a big disappointment but I guess it just means I’ll have to go back there someday:-)

I ended up ordering reindeer patties for dinner that night which, honestly, made me seriously consider going back to being a vegetarian again. It actually tasted pretty good, especially with the cloudberry (who knew that was even a thing!) jelly they brought to put on top, but the consistency was… not really my thing. I’m not sure whether it was just how reindeer is, or it was a low quality piece of meat, but I sincerely hope I never eat anything like that again. I’m thinking the jerky is may be different though, so I’m still planning on eating that. Speaking of which, not that sharing the jerky is a competition, but if it was, Michelle Evans and Emily Rosenzweig would be winning and Alex Miller would be losing. Oops. So off topic! Anyways…

Tuesday morning we woke up early and hopped on a train along the water, which took us to a bus through a canyon, which took us to a boat through some fjoyds, which dropped us off in the endearing, yet touristy, town of Flam. The fjord tour was absolutely incredible. We passed a few old towns, which were fun to see, but the real draw, of course, was the fjord rock walls rising up on either side of us. They are all REALLY tall. Some are even high enough that people base jump off of them. As soon as they mentioned it, mom turned to me and said something like “I know I don’t have veto power in your life, but I still want to veto you ever doing that.” Oh well…

But back to the canyon walls. This is a very interesting time of year because the bottoms of the mountains are covered in greenery while the tops still have snow. The melting snow (maybe along with other sources. I haven’t done research.) creates streams down the mountainside, but since the mountain sides are so steep (more like a series of cliffs) there are waterfalls everywhere. I’ve probably taken about 1000 pictures of them trying to get one that actually captures anything even close to how cool they are.

Last night we stayed in a really cute hotel in Flam that reminds me of a less fancy version of the Carolina Inn at Pinehurst. Everybody here is so nice! I’m getting very spoiled and have no interest in ever dealing with customer service in the US again.

Now I’m on another train and haven't seen anything but snow, ice, and rocks for about 2 hours. Mom and I decided that we were a little bit too ambitious about how much ground we could cover in a week, and as a result aren’t spending enough time anywhere to fully explore it. At least with all of the transit we’ve gotten to see a lot of the countryside. Now, on to Oslo!!

And on to Norway!

I left Winston-Salem with mom at 1pm on June 9. Then, 5 flights, 1 missed connection, 1 semi-overnight hotel, 4 meals (including a breakfast of salsa and a meatball, which I “accidentally” napped through), a pack of No Jet Lag (Homeopathic? Yes. Works? Yes. Judging myself a little bit for my wholehearted faith in it? Absolutely.), and 39 hours later we arrived in Tromso, Norway: The Paris of the North. While that slogan is just a bit of an overstatement (I think “The Asheville of the North” is maybe a bit more accurate), it did not stop me from seriously considering buying a $32 T-shirt with the title.

Actually, back up… The flight to Tromso was one of the most beautiful trips I’ve ever taken. We flew in early in the morning, and for at least an hour before we got there, the entire view was nothing but snow covered mountains, separated by lakes, all covered by morning fog drifting in off the ocean. My face was literally pressed up against the window the entire time. It made missing our flight the night before 100% worth it to get to fly in in the morning. Actually, I’m writing this as we fly back south to Bergen and I think it’s going to take me the entire flight because I keep getting distracted every time I can see through the clouds. But back to Tromso…

Tromso is located in the arctic circle, and boasts a lot of “northernmosts in the world,” such as botantical garden, brewery, glassblowing factory, and Burger King. It is also the Land of the Midnight Sun, meaning that the sun never sets. Ever. At midnight the sun is well above the horizon and it looks like it is around 5pm. I get the general idea of how this is possible, but not nearly well enough to explain it here. If anybody finds a good explanation online, let me know. In the winter, the opposite happens and it is dark all the time, making Tromso one of the best places in the world to see the northern lights. Oh well, I guess this isn’t my last time here. Bummer;-)

The first thing we did after we left the hotel was go explore the small center of town, where they happened to be having a Thai festival. There was Thai food and actually a fair number of Thai people, though we never found an explanation for the festival in English. Pretty much every Norwegian can speak English, but there were very few signs around the town in English. What we gathered was that, while Tromso is pretty cool, most tourists really use it as a sort of base camp for full day long nature activities (sea kayaking, glacier hiking, etc), which, since we were only there for 48 hours, we did not have the time to do.

After getting our bearings, we decided to take a bus to the cable car—one of Tromso’s few tourist specific activities—to the top of a mountain overlooking the city and bay. The view really was breathtaking. Any way I can think of to describe it here would be super cheesy, so I will refer you to my facebook album… We spent a few hours up there just wandering around the mountain and trying to avoid falling through snow (mental note- sneakers are not acceptable footwear for hiking in the arctic) before going back to our hotel for a nap. Jetlag is NO FUN.

We really lucked out weather wise actually, which is especially good for mom and I, who have both been known to break out our heavy winter coats well freezing temperatures are in the remotely foreseeable future. So even though there was snow, we got away with light jackets. Of course, most of the people in Tromso were in shorts and tees, and we even saw people sunbathing next to patches of snow.
Yesterday, in the morning we went to the town’s few museums and learned about arctic environments. Then, in the afternoon we went to the botanical garden, which, as one would expect in the arctic, was not very extensive (though it was a beautiful garden). After wandering around for a while we found a place on the grass and spent the afternoon reading, with mountains rising around us in every direction. Not so adventurous, but a perfect afternoon.

Overall, the town was very quiet since we were there on Sunday and a holiday Monday. People here clearly like their vacation and pretty much all of the businesses were closed, including some of the restaurants. The restaurants we did end up in were always pretty empty. The last night we ended up in a restaurant and were literally the only people there. The waitress told us it was because everyone was at home grilling. The night before when we asked our waitress what the holiday was, she responded “I don’t know. Nobody knows. It’s a national hoooooliday.” We got most of information about the town from waitresses, actually…

Ok, this is getting long so I need to end. Speaking of food though, as anyone who has ever traveled with me knows, I consider no adventure complete without gaining extensive knowledge of local cuisine. Months ago I began declaring that I was going to to an eating tour of Norway. Food here is unbelievably expensive (a coke for $4 and not a single restaurant offering dinner for under $20) so I didn’t do a lot of snacking, but the food we ate was delicious. Lots of fish, which is not my favorite. True to my Jewish roots though, I’ve had about my whole years worth of lox already. A lot of restaurants serve whale (which I thought was illegal, but I guess is not here), elk, and reindeer. While I didn’t try any of these in the restaurants, I did buy a pack of reindeer jerky to bring back to the US and share with whoever is around when I open it (note: bribery will be received favorably).

That’s all for now. Sorry this was so ramble-y. Will try to do more frequent and concise posts from here on out. Hade!

And now for something completely different

I'm not a big fan of this whole blog thing. However, a few weeks ago I went back and read my Uganda blog for the first time since I got back. Turns out there were so many things in there I had completely forgotten about and am really glad I now remember.

I never got around to ending my Uganda blog once I got back to the states-- the gist of the ending would have been something like "that was crazy but I'm so glad I went." So instead of ending it, I'm just going to turn it into my travel blog.

Heeeeere goes....