My sister. Amazing.

A couple weeks ago, my sister and her good friend Shauna put on a "Pop Up" restaurant at Pioneer Square's Delicatus.  This idea is a fairly new culinary phenomenon where individual cooks will be invited by an existing restaurant to create their own, unique, one night only festival of food.  So always the overachiever, Mary tackled this huge undertaking during her "break" from her old job before her new seasonal gig out east.

The menu and style was all up to them from the ground up, so they decided on Guajacan cuisine. 

Anyway...all this to say, it was incredible.  These two talented women put on one of the best dinners I've ever set eyes on...single handedly...for 60 people.  The date of this affair coincidentally coincided with our dad's 60th birthday.  Perfect, even more reason to celebrate. 

Thank you Mary and Shauna for a delicious event!  

January 5th, 2011

When I try to put my finger on most days gone by and try to regain that feeling by reliving that one moment lost...I squint my eyes...try so hard to conjure up a vivid memory...and...I...can't.  Even yesterday?  Can't remember it really.  I'm taking vitamins, I'm doing Sudoku, I'm trying to exercise my brain, but my poor, sad memory is a feeble creature.  Things come and they go all too soon.  It is bothersome.

But this one day, this day January 5th, 2011, I remember like yesterday...oh wait...can't remember yesterday.  You get the picture.  On this one day Cory and I were flying back from Israel into Athens at 6 am.  We were meeting our next Couch Surfing hosts Olga and George at 2 pm.  It was my 29th birthday. 

So although we were deliriously exhausted from our 3 am departure from the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv...poor as poor could be...I still needed to be the birthday princess.  It was a challenge.  Cory started out the pampering at the Athens airport Mcdonalds with an eggless sausage breakfast sandwich.  I can not tell you how happy this made me.  We sat in front of the big windows, watched the airplanes take off, sipped our McCafe and smiled.  I don't care how American it makes me sound...I love a breakfast sandwich.  After that we made our way outside into the cool morning air to catch our bus into the city.  It was there that Cory surprised me with the second best thing an impoverished traveling Anna could receive...a English fashion magazine.  These glossy pages filled with anemic women and the clothes that I covet are much more pricey than they are here.  Anywhere from 8 euros to 12 euros...which converts to way too much.

Some views from the park...

By 8 am, I was flying so high from my treats and lack of sleep, it could have been January 6th and I would have been completely happy with how my birthday went.  Alas, we had a big day ahead of us, so we hopped on the bus to central Athens.  Being semi familiar with this city by this point, we got of at a bus stop I recognized the name of from our Christmas there 10 days before.  The central city stop was called Syntagma and it ended up being a perfect location for two weary, droopy eyed vagabonds to kill 6 hours.  There is a beautiful park here where we laid on benches, walked around the palm shaded paths and explored the sweetest patched together zoo I've ever seen.  It was full of Peacocks, frogs, turtles, Ibex, goats and baby bunnies.  Total score for two sleep deprived animal lovers.

After a while, old wise one Cory decided we need to give ourselves plenty of time to get across the city to our meeting place with our CS hosts.  I was skeptical of this plan until we got to the subway stop to find all bus and subway workers were on strike until 4.  Being that we had to meet them at 2, this would simply not work at all.  Oh Greece...how inconvenient your strikes can be.  So after about 20 minutes of running around weighed down by our packs and screaming at each other about what we thought the best new plan would be, we made it to the tram.  Apparently the tram was not on strike, and it would take us half way to our distant destination.  When we got to the Neos Kosmos (pronounced "Neosh Koshmosh") tram stop, we hopped off and spun around searched for a cab.  We didn't want to take a taxi all the way from the city because Greek cab drivers are notoriously shady, and we couldn't risk the potential bill on the full ride.  Thank goodness the driver we hailed was legit, and he zipped us through insane Athen's traffic, right to our stop.

Try getting around this city during a transportation strike...

There we met up with half of our Couch Surfing host couple, George.  He took us to the apartment he shares with his girlfriend Olga and let us sleep in our new surrogate bedroom.  I mentioned to him on the ride home that it was my birthday, and his eyes lit up.  He said they had plans to go out that night and we were coming.  I had no idea what we were in for.  Cory and I rested for a couple hours, showered off the airport grime we had covering us and met lovely and bubbly Olga.  We then went out to the area of the Parthenon for a special birthday dinner.  My wonderful parents had given me some precious birthday moolah, so we decided to have a real meal.  Sitting outside under the lights speckling the Acropolis, I was surprised with a traditional candlelit Greek birthday cake from the wait staff.  I thought this was as good as a birthday could get.  I was so wrong.

Our new friends: George, Olga and Dimitra

When we got back to Olga and George's it was about 9:30, and they were just getting ready to head out.  Cory and I were in and out of consciousness at this point and were unconvinced we could make it through the rest of the night.  That simply was not an option.  We were going to go out, and we were going to enjoy it.  They took us out to a Greek tavern with their friend Dimitra.  And then it started.  The wine, the food, the wine, food...it was flowing to our table in a steady stream of deliciousness.  They did all the ordering of course, and we found out the Greeks do not hold back when it comes to food and wine.  The food was fresh and incredible.  The wine was light, fruity and abundant.  It flowed out to us by the litre in a steady stream the entire evening.  I would conservatively estimate we drank around 20 carafes of wine between the 5 of us.

I'm sure George is ordering more wine here...

And what so faithfully walks hand in hand with excessive wine?  Dancing of course...and can the Greeks ever dance.  The progression of dancers coaxed to the floor by the live band was swift.  Once someone stepped up, it was on.  Practically the entire restaurant was on their feet taking turns in the middle of the circle.  Everyone was swaying their hips slowly as their hands perched raised about their heads were methodically snapping.  When a man would get up to dance in the center, all the women would get down on their knees and give the slow rhythms their utmost attention.  Dimitra commented to Cory about how masculine that form of dancing is.  This struck him as such a difference from American culture, as masculinity isn't frequently judged by their slow and snake like movements on the dance floor.  The confidence exuded was in fact very raw and in fact more masculine than any over muscled American guy screaming at a football game.  Dimitra also told us that once you spend a year in Greece, you have no choice but to dance slow and seriously as heaviness inevitably takes over your steps.  Olga eventually convinced me to join her in a dance, as she taught me of the rhythmic and patient way they dance.  "More like a snake!" she would yell over the music, as I tried to tame my wild moves.


Around midnight they had a huge piece of their traditional chocolate cake sent out with a big candle on top.  I was so thrilled.  I had only known these people 10 hours and they had made me feel so special.  The combination of moist cake, fudge layers and incredible company made this the best chocolate cake I've ever had.  We continued to dance and laugh and drink until about 2:30, and by that point Cory and were feeling the 24 hours of no sleep again.  The restaurant was still as lively as ever and being that it was a Wednesday night, I was shocked at the number of people that showed no sign of slowing down.  We eventually found out that this is just the Greek way of life.  Live while you can.

We settled into our own (this was an extreme rarity) room that night and felt the fatigue of days of travel and hours of dancing drift us off to sleep.  As I dozed off I had satisfaction in knowing this was a birthday memory that could never be duplicated and I would cherish forever.  Thank you Olga, George and Dimitra for this memory and so many others!

Doin' the Dead Sea...

It is true.  Our trip has ended.  They all do eventually.  Or do they?  Isn't the whole point of sacrificing material goods to instead experience, that  these immortal memories live with you forever? If one chooses, these jewels of actions past can never be returned, broken or discarded.  They are our memories to either exercise and utilize in these more "practical" days, or to cast aside under the guise of being past tense.  So as I bask in the comforts of home, and wade through the familiar feelings associated with returning, I remind myself that I have a free ticket to my precious memories anytime anywhere.  And although some was sacrificed in the production of these memories, the benefit and accessibility of this mental round trip ticket far outweighs the costs.

So I'd love it if you continued to come with me as I enjoy the privilege of excavating the hours and days spent with my wonderful husband in a far away land, that added up to create one of my most precious possessions. 

When hastily purchasing our airline tickets for our trip to Israel we decided 10 days sounded like plenty of time to tackle this tiny country.  Were we ever wrong.  We didn't conceive that Jerusalem itself would demand our utmost attention for 5 days.  That being the case, we were left with about 3 whole days aside from traveling to see something outside of Jerusalem's old city walls.  With advice from our Couchsurfing host/ Part-time Israeli tour guide (lucky us), Suzana, we settled on a trip to the Dead Sea.

The lure of floating on the water free of water wings, and the rumored desert temperatures was enough to be the catalyst which propelled us out of our beloved Jerusalem.  We struggled to find our bus in the massive bus station as the Hebrew language persisted to dumbfound us.  Finally getting on, Cory and I were the last ones for who there were seats available.  This didn't stop the bus driver from continuing to usher on passengers, whom were destined to awkwardly stand and sway for the next 3 hours.  Cory being the gentleman that he is, gave his seat to a girl who was standing and he sat on the ground.  I, not having such gentlemanly tendencies continued to hold tight to my seat wedged between  5 family members in the long back seat.  Standing practically on Cory was a young Jewish guy who decided that he would hold onto the bars that ran above him down the length of the bus for the rest of his ride.  This decision coupled with his decision to apparently not shower...ever, made this a very long bus ride for a lot of people.  The girls who I was sitting in the back seat with started to make faces at each other and fan fresh air at themselves as we all stared at the perpetrators pits with horror.  We did not technically share a common language, but I soon found that there is a lesser known universal language of BO disgust.  It spans borders and brings all those who choose to maintain hygienic standards together.  These girls and I were hysterically laughing as we gasped for fresh air and shrugged our shoulders in dismay.  This was the worst body odor I had EVER smelled.  I was silently praying for Cory and the people positioned directly under his pits...the pits of hell.  There was nothing I could do for him now.  The perpetrator had quite obviously settled into his expansive stance, and there was nothing to do but wait.  The girl next to me took out some perfume scented wipes, tore a sheet in half and handed one half to me.  As soon as she did I looked at her with tears of thanks in my eyes and held it to my nose.  It smelled like girl.  It smelled like freedom.  Eventually, to our disbelief, he started to make his way to the front of the bus and got off early.  The whole bus heaved a sigh of relief.  Cory, bless his sweetest heart, was the only one who couldn't tell who the smell was coming from being that he was sitting on the ground at his feet.  When we got off the bus and I said, "How did you survive that guy's BO?!",  he confessed that he was terrified it was his own stench the whole time.  The thought of Cory believing for two hours that that came from him, made me want to cry.  You might wonder why I even mention this slightly crude anecdote, in contrast to the fantastic subject.  It's only because these little moments of getting from A to B, and the absurd in-between is what really makes my heart swell when I think about traveling. 

When we got to our stop, the Masada Guest House, we hopped off and lugged our backpacks to this apparent desert oasis.  This giant compound sits at the base of the palace of Masada, which is hidden in the barren hills of southern Israel.  Masada was originally built by King Herod some 400 meters above the Dead Sea in 43 BC.  Masada was his plan B.  He wasn't the nicest guy, and apparently he knew it because he built this massive palace in the ends of the earth to retreat to in case of a Jewish revolt or trouble from Mark Anthony or Cleopatra.  In the end, Herod died before he had to use his lavish hideaway.  That wasn't the end of Masada's usefulness however.  The Jews revolted against the Romans in 66 AD, and a group of Jewish zealots captured Masada, using it for what Herod had intended for himself...a hide out.  When the Romans had suppressed the uprising of the Jews some 4 years later they focused in on those pesky Jewish rebels hiding in the mountain-tops.  Thus began the building of the huge ramp which eventually led to Masada.  When it appeared the Romans were getting close, the Zealots began setting fire to their homes and possessions to keep them from falling into Roman hands.  They then decided that they too could not fall into Roman hands, and that that they would rather die.  They cast lots to decide which 10 of the 967 would be the executioners.  When the Romans finally broke through the walls, they found 2 women and 5 children who had survived by hiding.  The mass suicide marked the end of the Jews presence in Palestine.

We had read that Masada was best to be hiked before sunrise, so we had the whole rest of the day to head to the Dead Sea.  We jumped on a bus to the resort town of Ein Bokek, just about 10 miles down the road.  There is big business in the Dead Sea.  Ein Bokek is right in the middle of it all.  People come from all over the world to reap the benefits of the unique concoction of salt and minerals which brews at that, the lowest point on earth.  Spending extensive time basking in this brine can apparently help cure what ails you, specifically respiratory problems.  To say we were not prepared to visit the Dead Sea would be a laughable understatement.  I had no bathing suit and neither of us had towels.  The, "We'll figure it out" mentality we had employed up until that point left us high and dry at this point.  Actually high and soaking wet would be more appropriate.  Amidst the smatterings of our obviously wealthier counterparts (a.k.a. those who could afford bathing suits), I charged into the water in my rattiest tank top and shorts.  It was not warm, but that was not going to stop us from doing what we came there to do.  Float.

And float we did.  It is really a wild feeling.  You are just...well...buoyant.  It's like I got pumped full of air like a beach ball and thrown into a giant pool.  It was really cool.  But alas, we're not beach balls...we're humans, and there was actually a natural force keeping us afloat.  The Dead Sea is mainly fed by the Jordan River but there isn't an outlet.  It is like...mega hot there most of the year, so the water level is kept in balance by the excessive evaporation.  The water arrives with normal mineral concentrations, but evaporation causes the mineral levels to rise dramatically.  It is 10 times more salty than the ocean, and with that 30% salinity comes the awesome perk of becoming a beach ball! We hadn't done a lot of research on the repercussions of being in this salty sauce, but figured rather we'd just figure it out as we went.

Fail.

As I ran, flailing towards the shore through the oily water, rubbing my eyes with all my might...I realized a little research could have been useful.  Who knows maybe the signs of red, squiggly Hebrew letters actually did read, "Caution:  Do Not Get Water In Eyes.  It Will Buuuurrrrnnnnn."  But we still couldn't read Hebrew, so we'll never know, will we?  All I know that is if you got the smallest drip in your eye, it will burn really really badly.  Oh, that is why I'd never seen a picture of a person swimming laps in the Dead Sea.  Got it.

We laid in the sand and soaked in the rays for a couple hours, all while receiving pitiful glances for our obvious lack of all and any beach gear.  They had no idea that we had spent the last month and a half traveling through -10 temperatures, and that is was a miracle that we both had shorts to wear.  To make it even weirder, we decided to spend our precious Shekels on a Dead Sea body mud pack.  These packs of slimy mud supposedly have many good things to bestow onto ones epidermis.  As we were making this decision, assessing our abused and somewhat reptilian skin...we settled on this splurge.  The process of publicly slathering each other was well worth it, but as a bonus it did actually give us silky smooth skin for the rest of our trip.  Thanks Dead Sea.

The day after Dead Sea, we woke up ridiculously early to take on the hike up the Snake Path to Masada before sunrise.  This is said to be the best sunrise view around...and was it ever.  Not to say we didn't have to work for it.  That Snake Path, dotted with about 20 other die hard hikers was no walk in the park.  We huffed and puffed our way up the desert mountainside beginning at 5:30, for an hour as the sun began to hint at it's arrival that day.  With every step the arid sky morphed into an unforgettable twilight.  Masada was bathed in a rosy pink hue when we finally reached it.  It was massive and complex, and it felt like we could explore forever and not see everything.  King Herod apparently was not a frugal man, and Masada was living proof of this.  For a "backup" palace he never even had the chance to use...this place was decked out...in a BC kind of way, of course.  After we spent a couple hours exploring we felt the incoming hoards of Israeli students approaching.
Apparently it is a requirement to visit Masada before they graduate, so this historical site is frequented by masses of them daily.  We had such a peaceful and serene morning up there by ourselves, that we felt it was time to head back down the Snake Path before it got more congested. 

After a HUGE complimentary breakfast at the Masada Guest House (I overate with the financial excuse that I was stocking up meals in my stomach for the rest of our time in budget busting Israel...) we checked out and hopped on a bus headed back to Jerusalem, and then one to Tel Aviv.  We stayed that night in the old town of Jaffa...killed the next day seeing more of Tel Aviv...then departed to the airport around midnight in a torrential downpour.  We left Israel around 3 am that night with a sense of overwhelming satisfaction and underlying sadness.  This place had meant more to us than we could have imagined when we had booked our tickets on a whim a month earlier.  I can safely make the assumption that there is no where else in the world quite like Israel...and for being able to experience all this we are so grateful.

Thanks for seeing us through the Holy Land...next up...CRETE!

Israel Part II: Traditional Shabbat and a Dance Party

As promised, I am now delivering to you dedicated Blog readers...Israel, Part Deux.  

I left you last some time during the day of December 29th.  This was a BIG day for us, and I actually left out a couple stops we made after our tour.  Cory and I decided we hadn't seen quite enough that day, so we trodded on to King David's tomb and the room where the last supper took place.  I loved the last supper room because it looked just like I had always imagined it to look.  You could just picture the banquet table strung out through the long hall, and picture Jesus enjoying himself with his disciples.  That pretty much wraps up that whirlwind day...so lets dive into December 30th!

We woke up and met (Room situation:  Can't afford private rooms+Muslim Hostel+no co-ed rooms=Cory and I having to stay in seperate dorm rooms) at 7:30 and set out to the Dome Of The Rock.  This huge, gold domed Mosque undoubtedly lights up the landscape of Jerusalem.  As the name suggests, this dome covers a rock that is pivotal to both Jewish and Muslim faiths.  It was on this rock that Abraham was said to have prepared to sacrifice Isaac and where Mohammed is believed to have ascended into heaven alongside Allah.  This is a big and.  To me, this place represented the conflict in the Holy Land as succinctly as anything else could.  This was the Jews holiest site.  This is the Islam's 3rd holiest site.  Yet this glaringly magnificant reminder sits for all to see, that the Muslims aren't going anywhere.  The city feels as if it is at a stale-mate.  This beautiful dome that sits on the Temple Mount is only open to Muslims, so Cory and I just sat outside pondering this space.  It is undoubtedly holy.  This is where God was said to have gathered the dust to create Adam.  You could feel the palpable energy in that land. We sat there, trying not to make assumptions or judge any one party involved with this tension...while also trying to conceive how this has all come to be this way.  We desperately wanted to talk to someone who lived there, and could give us a real perspective.

Temple Mount

After we left the Temple Mount, we headed up up up to the Mount of Olives.  According to the book of Zechariah, this is where God will start to redeem the dead when the Messiah returns on the Day of Judgement.  In order to get a good place in line, people have tried to get buried as close as possible.  There are about 150,000 graves there.  Aside from being the worlds oldest continually used cemetary, there are many churches and sites just around there that were pivotal in Jesus's journey to the cross.  We took a short walk from the Mount of Olives to Mother Mary's tomb, the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was arrested.  What I loved there was the gnarled and ancient 2000 year old olive trees.   It blew my mind to think that those trees were there, on the day that Jesus's journey to the cross began.  To me, it was amazing.  

Olive trees that saw Jesus

View from the Temple mount, with the cemetery in the foreground

After we made our way down the steep slopes of the Mount of Olives, we decided we hadn't quite walked enough before noon (this day has to hold the record for most steps taken by a tourist) so we headed waaay across town to the bustling Mahane Yehuda Market.  This market was jam packed with the most beautiful fruits and veggies I could imagine.  As it was a Thursday, and all the Jews were preparing for their Friday Shabbat dinner, it was especially chaotic.  People were buying huge supplies of food to see their families through Sabbath.  It was fun to see this dynamic market place in action, and to give us more of an idea of what modern day Jerusalem looked like outside of the ancient old city.  At the market we stocked up on  hummus of course, with plenty of green peppers, onions and fresh, hot pita bread to dip with.  The hummus in Israel was unlike any I have ever had and it is now my culinary life quest to make hummus that compares to theirs.

Delish pizza from the market.   The man that sold it to me really wanted to take a picture of me with the pizza.

Through the miracles of Couch Surfing, we had been in contact with a woman who lived in Jerusalem named Marianna.  She didn't have a couch for us to stay on, as she was a student in a dorm, but she offered to meet us for a drink so we had a real live person to give us the lay of the land in all the craziness.  That night we met up with her in the hub of the new city, Zion Square.  She guided us to a bar close by, where we splurged and bought one beer, and the bar to our delight supplied us with some FREEBIES!!!  We didn't think this existed in Israel, the land of the 10 dollar box of cereal.  They brought us out popcorn and a Hookah to puff on while we talked.  I was already calling this encounter a success.  Marianna was amazing, of course.  She is from Russia, but has lived in Jerusalem for 9 years.  She is a language student and was brilliant as far as I could see.    She chatted with us for 2 hours, and answered all of the questions we could muster.  She then asked what we were doing for New Years tomorrow.  We looked at each other in embarrasement and said "absolutely nothing."  She then invited us to her Orthodox Jewish sister's family Shabbat dinner...to which her parents were flying in from Moscow for.  After that, she said she'd bring us to a big party her classmates were throwing for New Years.  Jackpot. 

We were so excited for our big night in the real world.  She gave us the address to her sister's house, and the next night we headed out. The taxi driver couldn't even drive down many of the streets as the sun was down, Shabbat had begun, and many of the extremely orthodox neighborhoods block off their streets for traffic during these 24 hours.  Luckily, her sister didn't live in this kind of neighborhood, as the taxi could drop us off right outside.  We ran with our heads down in the pouring rain up to their doorstep, not having a CLUE what to expect.  What we found inside was her sister, with her head covered and a long velvet house coat on working fevorishly to finish dinner.  She had a beautiful, welcoming smile and spoke impecable English.  Her mom and dad were in the kitchen helping, and their sweet little boys were sitting on the couch with their tiny yamikas on reading Curious George.  We chatted with Marianna until Jake, her brother in law got home from Synagogue.  He looked about 20 years old, and not as nearly orthadox looking as I had expected.  He came in with his oldest child Elisha, who was a gorgeous and gregarious little girl.  Talking to Jake, we realized there was nothing to be intimidated by in this home.  They were SO normal.  I was expecting not to be able to relate to them on very much, as they were "Orthodox", and we are so not, but it was the complete opposite.  Jake grew up in Brooklyn, NY...so he obviously spoke perfect English.  Little Elisha was born in the states, so she also was fluent.  They all had incredible senses of humor, which delighted us, as it was rare to encounter people abroad that understood English so well that they could understand nuances and humor.  As we started dinner, he light headrtedly explained what traditions they upheld leading into the meal.  We sang songs in Hebrew out of a book they handed us.  Jake lead the songs, and it was hilarious to hear Cory and I mumbling our Hebrew bashfully in the background.  After about 5 songs, we all got up to ceremonially wash our hands before dinner.  We poured water from a jug on each hand twice.  Then we sat down and Jake broke off a piece of special bread and handed the rest of the massive loaf around the table.  That was the end of the ushering in of the Sabbath, and now they happily told us it was finally time to eat!  And eat we did.  

Course after course of amazing, healthy, and obviously Kosher food spilled out of the kitchen.  Cory and I were trying to soak up every vitamin and nutrient we could, as we never knew how long it'd be till we could afford another.  We stuffed ourselves, as any good, starving travelers would.  We continued on with interesting, and enlightening conversation with the whole family.  Turns out they are ALL math professors, except Marianna.  Gulp.  So smart.  Usually, nothing makes me sweat more than math minds, but it was totally different with these folks.  They were so down to earth and funny, I didn't even give it a second thought that they could think me under the table.  Jake, at 29, was actually the youngest professor EVER in Jerusalem.  But whenever proud little Elisha would bring out the article with Jake on the front stating this fact, both mom and dad would tell her to put it away...and that it really didn't matter.  She persisted and hung it up on the wall by the table.  I can not say enough how much this dinner meant to Cory and I.  We felt no longer like tourists or travelers, but guests. We got to ask all the questions we had, and Cory and Jake had a great, in depth discussion regarding the conflict as he saw it.  It was really more than we ever could have hoped for or imagined coming into this trip, and gave us a human context for everything we saw.  Thank goodness for the hospitality of strangers.  

Eventually we said our goodbyes, as it was time for the rowdy little ones to get tucked in.  We then caught a cab with Marianna and headed back to the center of town to our New Years party.  Prior to this, we had purchased our favorite Polish Grass Vodka (introduced to us by our best booze buddies, the Loyas, of course) Zubrowka, for the eve.  Being that you can't even buy this in the states, and it cost about as much as a pack of beer in the liquor store there, we were anxious to crack it open.  The party was upstairs, in a flat in the center of Jerusalem.  We couldn't believe the location.  The party was huge, and we met so many great people there.  As the night and alchohol consumption progressed, people started to shout..."WE LOVE AMERICA!!!"  everytime they saw us.  Marianna had also picked up another couch surfer name Julio, who was in town all the way from Madrid.  We had a great time talking to him, and overall just had a blast.  Because it was a party full of students, almost everyone spoke perfect English.  Let's just say, we got lucky on that one.  Eventually, as the party wound down, we headed out on our short walk back to the Damascus Gate, feeling an overall sense of gratitude for the evening.  Once again, reaching out to a stranger ends up saving the day.  We are so grateful to Marianna for taking a chance on two hooligans like us.  

Although we hadn't gotten home will about 3 am the night before, the persistant travelers in us couldn't be supressed.  We had more to see.  The next day we headed to Bethlehem.  It was only about an hour drive from Jerusalem, but it is a part of the West Bank, so we knew there was a chance we could get caught up at a check point for a while.  Everything went speedily, and we entered into the Palestinian territory with ease.  We didnt have a huge agenda for this day trip.  Mostly to see the obvious...Jesus's birthplace.  We ducked down to enter through a tiny hole-in-the-wall door to the church where the manger once was.  There was a massive gathering of people waiting to get in.  We waited our turn, and entered this below ground sanctuary.  There we were greeted with more beautiful, ornamental decor similar to the Church of the Holy Seplecure.  We found our way to the front of the crowd, where we were able to touch the place where Jesus was said to be born.  From there we made our way to where his manger once was and had to hurridly make our way out as the crowds were growing.  The rest of our day here was fairly uneventful.  We fell in love with the delicious Shwarma there, which is a huge, hot crepe wrapped around about 1/2 pound of lamb, vegetables and sauces.  Mmmmm.  So good.  We were mystified that our Lonely Planet offered the advice to travelers to make Bethlehem the home base for your trip instead of Jerusalem.  That might be the worst advice ever given.  We truley couldn't imagine why anyone would want to spend more than a day there, let alone call it home base!  This seemed insane, as this place had a fraction of a fraction worth of sights to see as Jerusalem.  We again must agree to disagree with Lonely Planet.  

Outside the church that is on Jesus' birthplace.  Watch your head!

Inside the church

We stayed two more days in Jerusalem until we headed onto the Dead Sea and Masada.  The remainder of our time in Jerusalem was basically wandering through the insane streets of the old city, wondering HOW 40,000 people of such opposing beliefs can coexist within these walls, and how WE have been so blessed to experience it all.    The words to sum up our time there would be astonishment and gratitude.  

And on that note...if you have made it to this point in this infinite blog, I am again both astonished and grateful to you.  Thanks for stickin with me through all of our journeys!  Next time, it will be a whole lotta floating on the Dead Sea, and what it fels like to get water with 33% solid substance  in your eyes.  Ouch!  

Talk to you soon!

Israel: Part I (yes...just part one)

Our trip to Isreal was born of all wonderful things unplanned and unpredicatable.  We ended up buying our tickets on an impulse, because our Couchsurfing friend Suzana, who we were staying with in Slovenia, raved about it.  She didn't have to do much convincing before we were pulling out the laptop and the cards.  The whole thing was divinely meant to happen from the beginning.

To say we didn't have a CLUE what we were getting into when we arrived at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv would be a gross understatement.  Over the course of the next 10 days, we would be slackjawed in awe, as we tried to concieve of this unparalleled place we had discovered. 

Being that our flight didn't get in until the delightfully uncomfortable 3am hour it seems most of the cheap flights like to, we spent our first hours in Isreal sleeping on the cold ground of the airport.  When we deemed it suitable to venture outside, we were stunned speachless at the heat.  At 8am, it was easily 70 degrees.  I was delirious with joy.  When we arrived at our hostel, much to our dismay, we found a whole outdoor deck full of hammocks we could have slept in.  We wasted no time making up for that mistake as we napped the rest of the morning away in the much welcome "Winter" sunshine.  I will hold to the claim that the nap there in the hammock, after the weather we had endured, was the best nap I have ever enjoyed.

Our next days in Tel Aviv, before we headed to Jerusalem, was spent wandering through the sun-drenched streets of Old Jaffa town.  This is the old district in Tel Aviv---and when I say "old," I mean OLD.  Beautiful, creamy white stones were what Jaffa was built with.  This would be a precursor to the beauty of Jerusalem which was and still is built strictly with these gracefully neutral "Jerusalem Stones."  Tel Aviv as a whole, outside of this little city within the city...in retrospect, feels like it's own country.  It doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the country I saw.  I don't know how to explain it, other than it just felt like it's own entitiy, in an incredibly distinct land.

As we discovered the money there was still the Sheckel, I had the pang of hope that the prices would be as outdatedly inexpensive as the currency sounded.  I was wrong...so...so wrong.  Tel Aviv was essentially our introduction to the art of being ripped off.  Now, ripped off isn't really a fair way to say it, as EVERYTHING is asoundingly expensive.  However, being that we were unmistakenly not from around there, I swear the prices increased at least 30% everytime they were quoted to us.  I just wanted to scream, "You don't seem to understand!!!  just because we are American, DOESN'T mean we have money!!!"  It was impossible to do Isreal on a shoestring.  Unless your body can subsist on the Falafel and the Falafel alone, you will fail at any budget attempts.  And once you've had a bad Falafel, there's no going back.  So now that the frustrating finances have been discussed, I can say I don't have anything else negative to say about this trip.

After 1 1/2 days in Tel Aviv, we got down to serious business.  We headed to the Holy Land.  I really have a hard time believing there is any place in the world that rivals Jerusalem for awe inspiring, jaw dropping, head spinning "stuff to do."  Let me try to be a little  more specific...

Our bus ride into Jerusalem got us into town about 1 or 2 in the afternoon.  I thought this would be MORE than enough time to drop our stuff off at our hostel and tackle this "Old Town" I had heard so much about.  Oh...was I ever wrong...we stood on the stoop of our Hashimi Hostel in the heart of the Muslim district of the old town, looked right, looked left, and realized we weren't in Kansas (Europe) anymore.  Prior to coming, we knew the old city was walled in, and there were some large gates to the city which let the masses in and out.  What we didn't know was that when you were a newcomer within the walls, it was like you were a brand new baby ant, in one of those huge ant farms I remember kids having in the 80's.  The kind where the ants were crawling all over each other, on top of each other, doing whatever they needed to do to get to where they were going.  We could not fathom what was going on.  We wandered, and wandered and wondered...does this labrynth of walls and alleyways and people and motorcycles nearly missing you ever end?  We had a map.  It didn't matter.  There is no map on earth that can guide one through that amazing chaos.  We knew there were different quarters to this ancient city within a city.  There was the Muslim quarter, which we could not seem to find the end to.  Then there was the "Christian quarter."  To a new comer, the Christian quarter looked a lot like the Muslim Quarter...there were Arabic stands everywhere, obviously Muslim shop owners...the lines were not as clear here as I had expected.  I will soon however get to why it is distinctly Christian.  Next there was the Jewish quarter, which we couldn't even dream to locate that first day on our own.  We did see Orthodox Jews everywhere, in varying degrees of decoram,  Some were just in the yamika, others were decked out with the long curlies hanging down from the heavy black hat.  There were also a lot of tassles involved.  Lastly, there was supposedly a very small Armenian Quarter.  This was the extent of our knowledge.  Oh, how much we had to learn...

Outside our gate...the Damascus Gate

Inside our gate

The next day we woke up early to tackle this place with an appropriate amount of effort.  We had both planned to get up at 6 to watch the sun rise over Jerusalem from the incredible view our hostel terrace offered.  My earplugs did too good a job, as I didn't hear my alarm go off and slept past it.  Cory got up and enjoyed the beginning of his first full day in this magical place appropriately.  I met him around 7:30am, and we headed out to the streets to experience the Via Dolorosa together.  This is the walk that Jesus walked on his way to being crucified.  There were multiple stations one could visit and contemplate on the way to the Church of the Sepalcure, which was where most people agree He was crucified, purified and buried.  Whoa.  We did not take this experience lightly.  We took our time in the silent, early morning haze of the walled city, to make this journey prayerfully and solemnly.  Each othe the different stations highlighted different portions of his trip to the cross, starting with where he was condemned to death, to where he meets His mother, to where he fell, and eventually to where he was nailed to the cross.  When we reached the Church of The Sepalcure, in the heart of the Christian Quarter, I wasn't prepared for what I would find inside. 

From the outside of the church, it didn't look extravagant or particulary special.  Just some more beige Jerusalem stones forming archways leading into a room.  What was waiting inside for us was more than I could have imagined.  Inside was unlike any church I have seen before.  Right as we entered there was a large slab of stone layed out under a string of beautiful silver lanterns.  This was the place where Jesus's body was purified after He was killed.  People were huddled around it, rubbing souveniers on it with oil.  We look around in wonderment thinking, what else is in this unassuming church?  It seems to be segmented off into many parts, so we head up the stairs to our right, not knowing what we'd find.  We soon discovered that to be the spot where Jesus was crucified.  Constantine's mother, Helena had built a church upon this spot...but when Jesus was killed, it was out of town, on a large rock.  We could actually kneel down and touch the rock where the cross was placed.  At this point I am thinking, "I really had no idea there was a place I could do this...this is unreal."  As Christians, this was an inredibly moving and momentous time for us.  We felt completly at peace in this place...totally surrounded by the Holy Spirit.  As we slowly took our time there, we wandered down the stairs to the next large chamber to find a dark, gigantic, ominous looking structure.  We then found out his tomb lied within this structure.  There was a long line to get in to see the actual tomb, so we immediatly took our place in line.  After about half an hour, we stooped down and entered this tiny room outside the actual tomb room.  There was a jovial, old Priest inside.  We were immediatly at ease with him.  He was far more lighthearted than I had imagined a priest working in Christ's tomb to be, but I also found it so wonderfully fitting.  He handed us some long candles which we then lit.  He asked with a laugh if Cory was Russian.  We all laughed as we told him we were American.  He just chuckled at himself and asked what we believed.  We said we believed in Jesus.  He smiled, laughed, and said, "That's all that matters" and told us to go in.  We stooped again to enter and the tomb was on our right.  We placed our candles, and quietly enjoyed our alloted moments there in prayer.  I was still just shocked and stunned I was doing what I was doing.  So was Cory.  We were just so happy to be there, at that place at that time.  There are really no words to describe the peace we felt within those walls. 

Ok, I thought I would be able to rotate this picture. Turns out not...so cock your head to the left and you will see the outer tomb of Jesus and the domed ceiling of the Church of the Sepalcure.  It

Above the rock Jesus was crucified on

After more quiet exploration, we eventually reentered the light of the outside world, with the hustle and bustle of reality, looked at each other and said..."Wow, that was way more than I expected."  It was then about 10am.  We had spent those couple precious hours in the most perfect way we could imagine.  Before the town woke up, we took the most memorable walk of our lives with our Lord.  It was a good morning. 

Via Dolorosa

At 11am, we knew there was a free walking tour leaving from the Jaffa Gate.  We found our way over there miraculously, and joined our tour.  Our tour guide was a wonderfully funny and knowledgable young guy named Dvir.  He took us on a wild walking ride throughout this complecated city. We had so much to learn, and he was our free ticket to understanding.  We were excited, to say the least.  He brought us to the Wailing Wall in the Jewish portion of the city.  We all had to have our bags searched and go through an metal detector.  Here we saw a completely different and important part of the patchwork of this place.  Jewish men and women, in seperate sections of a huge white wall, bowing and crying, wailing and praying.  This is the only portion of the second temple that is left.  These incredibly and admiringly devout people gather here daily, lamenting their tormented past, and praying for their messiah to come,  It was a sight I will not soon forget.  The passion and the sorrow I felt here was unlike anything I had known exist.  Cory covered his head with a yamika, and headed to the men's section as I headed down to the women's.  There is a tradition to write a prayer on a piece of paper and stick it in the cracks of the wall.  We both seperatly did so, and spent a few minutes in contemplation, trying to take it all in.  After we left the Western Wall, we headed to the roof of the Church of the Sepalcure, where we had been that morning.  What we didn't know before, that is on the roof of this precious church lives a small group of Christian Ethiopians.  They are part of what is called the Coptic Church, and that rooftop is the only small piece of real estate in the whole old town they lay claim to, so years ago, a group of them just moved in.  We saw an Ethiopan woman talking on her cell phone outside of her home, which appeared to be literally a hole in the wall.  He explained that there is such competition from the different denomenations of Christians surrounding that church, that there will be regular fights between priests of the different sects.  They all compete so heavily for control of that holiest Christian site, that years ago, control of opening and closing the church daily was given over to the only impartial party there was.  A Muslim family. 

This was the head spinning story we saw unfolding everywhere.  Groups of people that have learned to live together in what they all individually believe to be THEIR holy city.   Somehow it continues to kind of work, but it is a mystery to an impartial outsider how that logistically happens.  The tour brought us all around, and in the end we were infinitly more knowedgable, and infinitly more confused.  More facts opened up to more more questions...and so our time there continued to unfold.

Western Wall, Jewish Quarter

Ok, I could talk about this particular day for hours or pages or whatever...but I know when to stop...and that should have been a while ago.   Thanks for sticking with me on this one...I know it was dense, but I hope I could give you a feel for what our first real day in Jerusalem was like.  Next installment will include such highlights as "New Years:  Shabbat dinner with an orthodox Jewish family and a secular dance party."  Ahh, the wonderful contrasts...they never ceased. 

Greeciest Christmas Of All...

Hey everyone!  I hope that the holidays were full of joy, love and coziness for you all.  We sure missed everyone this Christmas and New Years, but we tried our best to make a memorable and not too homesick holiday season out of it all.  Let me catch you up on Anna and Cory's Greeciest Holiday Season of all.

Now, this installation is different than others because it was that portion of the journey which was neccesary, and interesting in a less colorful and glamerous way.  This is my way of justifying not taking many pictures at all.  Capturing this leg of the trip photographically would have exposed fairly lackluster views.  Not to mention the runny noses, the tired eyes and the pale skin we aquired while in the Balkans.  Your eyes would thank me. 

I think I left you at a dark, chilly and ominous Serbian train station.  Cory says prior to boarding this train was the only time he felt completely out of his element on the whole trip.  You know when the darkness just does something to your eyes?  This night is cast a strange, unknown film over everyone and everything.  No one would give us a straight story at the Belgrade train depot.  No English was to be spoken.  No one made sense.  We wanted to buy a sleeper car ticket for the trip to Greece.  The ticket lady seemed to understand.  Tickets were printed.  We get outside to what we assume to be our train, and the conductor tells us we still owe them more money for the sleeper cars, we only paid for the seats.  Okaaayyy....that doens't make sense, but what does?  We ask, who do we pay and how much?  He tells us as we go to get some money out of the ATM.  We do it and board the train which is even more enveloped with this strange layer of darkness.  There are ancient men hanging out of the windows, looking half dead.  There are multiple people outside the train telling us they had their credit cards stolen and we MUST give them 30 euros to get home.  There is not one light on in the entire train.  So inviting.

We get on, head to a sleeper car, which looked about ten times better from the inside (thank GOODNESS).  It isn't seeming to fill up too fast, so I am hoping against all hopes that we don't have to share this tiny room with 6 bunkbeds with anyone else.  Immediatly, an extremely small Greek man named Anar comes to our door and says, "I know there are other empty rooms, but I'd like to stay here so I have someone to talk to."  This is so European, to forsake personal comfort just for the opportunity to chat.  The exhausted American in me screamed..."NOOOOO!!!!", but he seemed really nice, and his BO hadn't sickened me immediatly...so of course we said come in.

Can I say I'm so glad we did.  As soon as he came inside and we situated our bags, a small older man with no uniform came in insisting we pay him for the sleeper car.  Well at least that's what our new translator, Anar told us.  Awesome, this guy has no uniform...no form of identification as a train employee, and he wants our precious Serbian Dinars and our tickets.  The paranoid cynic in me writhed with discomfort as we handed over our money.  He looked at it in disgust and said. "NO GOOD! NO GOOD!" and shoved back the money.  We ask Anar to transate and he said the man cannot accept Serbian currency.

Hmmm.  That is so interesting, being that we are IN SERBIA!!!  No, this man wants Macadonian money.  That is even more interesting, because the train was to travel through Macedonia, and not stop.  How, I am still asking myself, could be have gotten that money?  Sometimes when traveling, you feel like you may have lost your mind, and this was one of those times.  He will not take our money, but we had no way of getting what he wanted.  Anar was baffled as well, as their heated exchange continued.  At the end, the man begrudgingly took our Serbian money, as he waved a fistfull of everyone elses Macedonian money in our faces. Still to this day, I'm so confused.

We spend a couple hours chatting with Anar, who is a really sweet, small man.  I have a raging cold and go to bed with the assistance of my beloved Nyquil.  I slept for a miraculous 10 hours straight, to wake up to the rambling Macedonian countryside rushing by.  Not to long after my peaceful awakening, a large man comes in shouting at us.  Nothing is understood,  I wake Anar up.  They talk, and Anar tells us we are not there, but we need to get off the train NOW.  Great.  We aren't even in Greece yet, and this man apparently wants us to pack up and board a bus to ride the rest of the way.  He didn't seem to be directing any of this informaton at Anar, so I'm thinking to myself about the multitide of ways this guy wants to rob and mame us in this special "bus" he has.  I say I'm not going anywhere until we understand why.  I notice the few other people on the train getting off at this ramshackle stop we were at, and the thought creeped in that this guy might be legit.  Another man gets on and frantically yells at us to get off the train now.  When our greek freind jumped off, we felt it was okay to follow.

We follow the mysterious train guys to lo-and-behold...a bus.  We find out that there was a transportaion strike in Greece (which we now understand to be almost a daily happening here) so we need to take a private bus into the country from Macedonia.  Ahhhh, now THAT makes sense, finally.  Kind of.

The bus ride was fine.  The old man without the uniform who hated our Serbian money, now seemed to take special care of us, always making sure his stubborn American tourists got to where they were going.  When we got to Thessoloniki, where Anar helps us find the correct bus to our Couchsurfing hosts home.  We say goodbye to our Grecian guardian angel, and get on bus 56.

We drag our tattered selves up to their suburbian apartament, thankful that it was just the trains that were on strike that day...not the busses.  Our hosts were absolutley wonderful.  Their names were Christina and Perikles and they lived in a beautiful apartment about a half our outside the city with their hyper doggie, Ginger.  They insist we sleep in their bedthey promise that they love to sleep on the ground in front of the fireplace anyways.  So kind.  Perikles was preparing us a delicious pasta dinner, as we chatted and drank Ouzo, which is a very potent Greek liquor.  Turns out I like it (shocking) and we proceed to drink the whole bottle with our hosts.  We go out to drinks at a local bar after dinner.  As we chat like old friends, and I am once again struck with gratitude for the hospitality of strangers to some wayward travelers.

*Sidenote: If you are a traveler, please don't discount the philosophy of the website/culture of Couchsurfing.com.  Having people open up their homes to you, and visa versa can humble and bless you in ways you couldn't imagine.  The things you can share and learn from others through these sort of programs are precious.  Take the risk, and it really does pay off.  The end.

The next day we see the sights and watch a movie with our new friends at night.  The next morning we say sad goodbyes and rush out the door to catch the bus to Athens.  This bus ride was bad.  The weather was getting progessivly warmer as we headed south (not bad), however the bus driver insisted on blasting the heat out of of the vent which was situated right beneath me.  I. was. dying.  There was lots of me moaning, and swaying back and forth in pain.  Cory can attest to my ability (inability) to handle excessive heat.  It was as hot as the surface of the sun in there, I am sure.  Nauseating.  What was amazing that as I am fevorishly fanning myself, I look around to see locals completely unphased by the situaiton.  They are wearing leather jackets...with fur!  I was bootless, pants rolled up to my knees, stripped down to a tank top.  Finally, just as soon as was ready to give my life over to heat stroke, a girl from the back staggered to the front, begging for him to turn down the heat.  I collapsed in releif when I watched him go to turn down the temperature.  Thank you, girl I'll never see again...thank you.

The rest of the 6 hour trip was a breeze.  We pull into Athens as the sun is just setting, and catch a cab to the apartament my wonderful mom and dad had rented us for Christmas.  We stumble to the door of the apartament as  I hear my name shouted from the balcony above.  It was the Landlord, Panos.  He ended up being our own little Christmas miracle.  He is a small, round, Greek man who singlehandedly made our semi-lonely Christmas much less so.  He had stocked our apartment with Feta cheese, bread, wine, and all the other essentials.  He told us we had and hour, and then he would take us for a tour of the city.  And did he ever.  We went to every vantage point in the city to get a thourough percspective.  He took us out for their traditional street snack Souvlaki.  He rode us to the grocery store on his motorcycle.  He was amazing.

On Christmas day, we caught up on some much needed rest and slept until noon.  I woke up and performed my obligatory morning Facebook check, only to find out the wonderful news that my sister in law Mitzi was engaged to her boyfriend Erik!  After jumping on the bed and screaming the news to Cory, we were so elated, most of the day was spent recounting this new fact, and smiling about it.  We enjoyed having the city of Athens all to ourselves, and strolled the streets, relishing in the Christmas quiet.  Some calls to our families filled our hearts with cheer laced with homesickness.  We eventually wandered home to start our Christmas feast.  The night before we had only 20 minutes to plan and buy our big meal, as the market was closing early.  It was a bit of an Iron Chef Greece situation.  We had hastily planned a shrimp pasta, with mushroom and onion sauce.  We had so much fun fretting over our creation, enjoying the opportunity to cook without another hosteller waiting for the stovetop, breathing down our necks.  Dinner turned out spectaculary, and the evening was also blessed with a constant string of good Engligh speaking movies on.  This is extremely rare.  Even the old Christmas standby, Home Alone was on...which made me feel a little less homesick.  In the end, our unique shrimp pasta eating, no family Christmas abroad, turned out to be a huge success in our eyes, and one we will remember fondly forever.

So as the brief, round-one of Greece came to an end and we caught our plane to Isreal the next day, we knew when we returned, we would have so much to look forward to.  While our time with Greece was temporarily up, and we had a WHOLE new adventure nipping at our heals.  Isreal...here we come!

Pace yourself...

Is it possible to have extreme blog ridden guilt?  If it is in fact possible to be so negligent in ones blogging life, that one feels like every experience accrued is another drop of water in the overflowing bucket of blogable goods...then it's time to man up...find a computer and start to empty that bucket!  So bear with me, I hope to gracefully release the flow of adventures, instead of dumping the whole thing on your heads from behind, like football players do to the coach after they win a big game.

Drip...drip...drip...here we go...

I spoke to you last in Salzburg.  Refined, perfect (at least on the surface) and sweet Salzburg.  I was not prepared to like this place like I did.  It in the beginning was a necessary layover between Czech Republic and Slovenia.  Soon after getting there, we realized the Austrian way, was one we needed.  Here's a briefing  of what we saw.  First of all, it is so droll of me to continuously remind you of how cold it was.  That is a given.  Just assume at all times we are as cold as we have ever been.  Moving on...

People:  The people were amazing.  Seriously.  We hadn't stepped out of our hostel for 10 minutes before we had been approached by a lovely person about how they could help us.  Anywhere we wandered, the locals could sense that we were lost little lambs, and come up and talk to us.  These were the kind of people who remind me of how good it feels to be treated kindly while you're out of your comfort zone...as I try to stock that knowledge away for my summer job in tourism (which I sometimes (always) lose sight of).

Place:  Best Christmas market ever. Every one of the hundreds of booths were different...and beautiful.  Sparkly ornaments, waffle stands, OYSTERS!  Everything this girl loves (especially the oysters).

Pivo (beer):  We also had the extreme  luck of meeting two beautiful Aussie girls in the hostel bar one night...Hannah and Rachel.  We ended up getting along splendidly, and had quite a time of meeting up in the hostel bar, enjoying the first happy hour...which always quickly bled into the last.  We actually found ourselves without a bedroom to stay in our last night, and these two girls insisted we stay in their private room with them.

The oyster shack at Christmas Market.  Love those oysters.

The scene of the crime.

Our station at the hostel bar with Rachel, Hannah and our tasty friends.

Biggest Loser Salzurg?

Highlights:  Cory saw a frozen over fountain on one of our frosty excursions out with the girls.  Obviously, he had to test the limits of said ice.  He put one foot on...felt good...put a little more pressure on and CRACK!  He fell into the fountain, and managed to pull himself out before his body reached the slushy waters. We laughed, I mocked, and we headed into town to buy him socks to change into.  Back at the hostel that night, we talked to a girl who was on the "Sound Of Music" tour, who told us at the famous fountain in the movie...the one with the Pegasus, they noticed it had looked like someone had fallen through the ice, and the whole tour had all rallied together in laughter and speculation at what status of oblivious tourist it would take to test the ice and fall through.  Guilty as charged I suppose.  Yet another chance to humbly evaluate the stance I take on foolish acting tourists in my little tourist town of Skagway.  We are not so different, in the end...I hate to admit.

After we said our goodbye to the hilarious duo we had befriended, we headed off to Lake Bled, Slovenia.  Upon arrival we noticed the snow had finally caught up with us.  About three to four feet of snow sat heavily on the ground.  There is not much to do in Bled, except for enjoy the quaint beauty of Lake Bled and the fairytale island that sits amid it, with a tiny chapel perched atop.  We took the 2 hour walk around the lake, admiring the simple beauty of all.  Found our favorite pizza place and ate 3 meals there in 2 days.  Played an absurd amount of Buck Hunter on our iTouch (THANK YOU ERIK!!!).  Walking around at night proved scary, as there are no sidewalks and 6 feet of snow piled up on either side of the road...and Slovenians don't have the same safety bubble while driving with pedestrians that we Americans do.  That is...No.  Bubble.

Chapel on the island in the lake.

I officially turned into an ice witch.

After two full days there, we bussed our frost bitten booties to Ljubljana, Slovenia.  How can I convey the ways I love this city?  All I can say, is that you just have to go.  There is no way to properly describe is charm.  The willow trees weeping over the river, the cafe lined promenade, the Art Deco architecture...it is truly one of a kind.  We went on a tour of Slovenian architectural hero, Joze Plecnik.  He designed most of Ljubljana during the turn of the century, and made it the unique place that it is.  We toured his home, and learned that he was a sort of renegade in his field.  While Art Deco was the standard at the time, he infused classicism into his architecture, which really set him apart.  I am currently reading the Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, and it is all about architecture and the complicated webs of personalities and ideas that create buildings. This being said, it was very timely to visit this house where I had the privilege to investigate the private life of such a creative rogue.

All this said, we did stay in a wretched hostel.  It felt haunted, not with ghosts, but with the ultimate tackiness of communism.  Our room was drowning in the stench of other people's cigarettes.  Ugh.  We watched really bad TV there..  It seems Europeans know how to focus in on the worst of the worst in American television, and revere it as genius. To name a few highlights, "CSI Miami", "Bay Watch Nights," and the worst-worst-worst-might-not-ever-be-the-same movie ever, called "Long Weekend."  Promise me under any circumstances other than being stranded in another country, not able to understand any other shows, you will NEVER watch this movie.  Good. Thank you.

Main square in Ljubljana.

Street food=happiness.

That pink building was designed by Joze Plecnik.  I love it.

Dragon Bridge also designed by Mr. Plecnik.

Hot wine fuels all chilly adventures.

This woman on a large Asian tour wanted to steal Cory's smooshed penny at the castle.

 

Little Plecnik details like this grace Ljubljana.

Favorite Doner Kebaps ever..(Mary, recognize this?)

We really enjoyed our nights in Ljubljana, sitting in an outdoor cafe with heat lamps and blankets, drinking hot white mulled wine (Car, white is even better than red!), and watching the fabulously beautiful and fashionable students parade by.  I love that girlfriends are out together everywhere there.  They are arm in arm, enjoying each other, smoking many cigarettes and just being content with each other's friendship.  It makes me miss my good girlfriends (and mama) terribly however.

After we had enough of our magical Ljubljana, we headed for a respite in Novo Mesto.  We stayed with a wonderful woman named Suzana, who had taken my sister in through Couchsurfing back in 2006.  She has a great apartment where we experienced the luxuries of home.  Bath...kitchen...non-horrendous American TV...it was divine.  Just what we needed to recharge and charge ahead.  We can not say enough about the wonderful, humbling, hospitality of people like Suzana.  She was and is our travel angel.

After we had sufficiently relaxed, we took a deep breath and headed onward.  To Zagreb, Croatia.  Well, to be honest we had planned of making it to Plitvice Lakes, Croatia that night, but due to me misreading many train schedules, we ended up not making it past Zagreb that night.  Oops!  Oh well, you can not hold on too tightly to your travel ego, because after searching for transport and lodging every night, I've learned things can go wrong.  Very wrong.  So forgiveness and flexibility are necessary.  This being said, we stayed in Zagreb one night, and then headed out to Plitvice Lakes, for which the 16 interconnected lakes are notorious for their rambling beauty.  We found out...that is...not in the winter.  I had read there is no bad time to visit Plitvice.  That is a horrible lie. I have a very hard time admitting that there are just some things that should not be done as a winter traveler.  Visiting Plitvice is one of them.  The day as a whole is almost too exhausting to recall here, and I've already stated I'm going to avoid lamenting about '"how coooolllddd" it is and was, but this stop needs reinforcement.  It was traumatically cold.  The huge snow flakes blinded us.  We could not see.  We could not function.  Luckily, the lovely woman who's home we stayed at, had her brother bring us and her husband pick us up...or else we would have frozen and maybe died waiting for the unreliable bus.  I look forward to visiting this beautiful place in a time that does not kill me a little on the inside.

This trip took things too far...

I'm willing to admit my mistakes.  Sorry Cory!

The next day we got out of there so fast...and headed the 2.5 hours back to Zagreb.  Zagreb really exceeded my expectations.  We sat in outdoor cafes, under the heat lamps, watching soccer...just up my alley.  We spent one full day there, and around 2 pm on that day, we were walking by a small bar.  Cory just stopped outside to take necessary note of the low price of beer there, as we see a small man burst out of the door, and drag us inside.  He sat us down, poured us two beers, and from that point on...we were hospitality hostages.  My good friend Julie told me an amazing story about when her and her husband Joey were kept hostage by people who were almost overly hospitable.  Her story (which took place in central Asia) was extreme and involved bears...but ours was a little more tame.  He spoke no English, but we managed to sit and "talk" until 10 pm.  We tried to leave at least 4 times.  Every time we would put on our coats and say..."we better go..." someone would come in and buy us a drink.  It was magical really.  Plates of sheep cheese and loaves of bread and sliced peppers would appear on our table and not on our bill.  The bar owner offered to take us to a thermal hot springs after he got off work, and then showed me how I could wrap my scarf around to make a bathing suit.  His coverage configurations didn't quite fly for me, so we declined...but when he left for the springs, his son Aty came in and kept us company.  The same drunk man at the bar kept buying us beers, so we kept sitting.  It was really good time.  When we got back to our hostel that night, the Slovenian girls listened to our tale of generosity with awe, telling us that kind of hospitality would never be extended to anyone other than Americans in Croatia...that Americans are very well taken care of there.  Works for us!

The next day we boarded a 7 hour train to Belgrade, Serbia.  I was so excited to go to a country I hadn't been to.  It had proved to be quite interesting. Today we wandered around the city and fortress.  I have a cold, so am feeling less than energetic, but we have managed to get a good feel for this complicated city.  Right now we are sitting in our hostel, drinking Serbian wine, listening to the noises of life here, go on below us.  Tomorrow we will board a train to Thessaloniki, Greece.  There we will shake of the chills of the past, and look towards the warm and tolerable future.  Ahhh, I'm relaxed just thinking about it.

We have decided to cut our Balkan journey short for obvious reasons.  Everyone we talk to here, after they tell us how crazy we are for coming here in the winter, tell us that this is the coldest winter they can remember in their lifetime.  When an alternative is just a 16 hour train ride away, it feel crazy to resist.  So in 24 hours, we will be Greece bound.  We could not be happier about this.  Talk to you soon from Greece!