Hello Little Corn, Home for now

   OK, all 7 of you, I’m back! I am currently sitting at Tranquilo bar and restaurant on Little Corn island on the Caribbean side of Nicaragua as I write this. So lots of stuff has happened since we last talked, or you read, we zoomed up to Vancouver to visit family and friends and set my Dad up with a Skype account. Although because I knew the internet on Little Corn is usually crappy at best, communicating would be a problem, I set him up anyways in case we travelled somewhere, where the WiFi is a little better, which I’m thinking is everywhere else

Me: This way you can talk to me where ever I am

Dad: I can just use my phone card, it’s easy and pretty cheap

Me: Is it free? Cause Skype is virtually free

Dad: It’s not very expensive

Me: Yes, but is it cheaper than free?

Dad: No……

 Since Dad reads this, yes one of you 7, I won’t get into the not wanting to do new things, thing. Let’s just say he’s now a Skype convert . Just Skype me baby!

   So we did a bunch of stuff after that, which mostly involved hanging out with friends and family and of course meeting my new nephew, Riley, that’s going to be a big boy. I have been writing this blog in fits and starts (spurts? Sounds a little rude, starts sounds better) I can’t seem to get into the mood to write, but to be fair we aren’t travelling around, sightseeing and stuff, we’re on Little Corn, soaking up the beautiness of it all here. So… wonderful but not necessarily eventful or really that funny. After visiting, we packed up and piled into the Honda and drove across the country to Rhode Island to visit with Cora…and her parents of course. On a side note, which seems to be what I do, after moving from Vancouver, it made me realize just how beautiful and amazing Vancouver is and it made me appreciate it much more when I go back. I think that can happen wherever you happen to live, I know Carrie and I rarely went out wine tasting unless we had company from out of town visiting. So in a long about way of saying, WOW parts of America are absolutely stunning, even other worldly, of course other parts are like driving around in circles in the Tri cities, but I do understand now when I meet travelers and they absolutely gush about the beauty of America. We posted a bunch of stuff on facebook, about our travels, so I’m not going to get into it here, but I am excited about the prospect of driving back the other way, in the spring.

     OK, back to the blog. We are in Rhode island for 3 weeks and David is sending stuff there, for us to bring with us to Little Corn, this was not unexpected, but as the packages started piling up and the weight started to grow, we were starting to get a little apprehensive and maybe a little sweaty. Meanwhile it’s getting COLD!! in Rhode Island and Nicaragua is looking better and better by the minute. So off we go to the airport in Boston with a total off about 200 pounds worth of stuff in 3 backpacks and 2 carryon daypacks..stupid airline luggage fees, mavbe with all the fees we are paying now, maybe they could take 3 or 4 seats out of the plane, so we could have a little more leg room, yeah ok that’s never going to happen. We have been to Nicaragua a few times, so we have an idea of what customs and immigration is like…hit or miss, mostly miss. Hmmm, what should we put on the customs form? I don’t know, does it matter? No probably not, I don’t think they ever look at it. OK so let’s just put nothing to declare, OK done.Get off the plane in Managua, an hour or so to get through immigration, no problems , just slow. Grab our bags, off to customs.. is the suspense killing you? Yup Welcome to Nicaragua and your 200 pounds of stuff, can we get you a taxi? Old people don’t smuggle stuff.

  After a night in Managua, back to the airport, for a short flight to Big Corn island, then a taxi to the ferry dock and the ferry to Little Corn. The ride was a little rough and wet, but it wasn’t raining and nobody threw up on me, so really it was all good.

  We have a little house just a short walk out of “town” that he just finished building, Blackie is his name, it has a small kitchen and a refrigerator that Blackie got for us, after we agreed to pay 2 months rent up front. So what’s it like here you ask? Well let me tell you….The power has been fairly regular, on around 1pm and off at around 6am, except on the days they sell some of the gas they use to power the generator, then on those days we have less power or on days they just don’t feel like getting diesel from Big  Corn or it’s too rough to make the crossing, again, then on those days we have less power. Not really all that big a deal, but it does make keeping things in the fridge cold, somewhat difficult. A little more challenging was being out of water for a day, hard for the restaurants I think, we have a fair amount of rain water to use where we are, so again, not that big a deal, just another thing that can happen on a small beautiful Caribbean island.I know all this sounds negative, but really, it just is what it is. I have gotten a little bit of work from the dive shop here, which has been great and we have been able to get in a few dives. For me, the great thing about this place, is the people, the locals, the tourists, the ex pats, all of them. The island is small and everyone knows pretty much everyone. It’s like Cheers…where everybody knows your name. Old reference I know, we’re old.

Allright, so just some random stuff…I love not having to wear shoes anywhere, rain or shine. It’s been raining quite a bit, but really, it’s not cold, so whatever. There are fireflies here at night, just magical. We have pigs and chickens where we are, watching the chicks run around with their mom chicken has been vastly entertaining. Blackie’s 5 year old grandson Dylan, can be seen at various times of the day, running around with a machete, half his size. Pretty sure that’s not something you see every day back in the states. They have ramen here. Blackie has a lawn mower, cause we have grass, hmm yup. Ok that’s about all I got for now.

Love and warm thoughts from Little Corn

Carrie and Glen

 

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That's a wrap... for now

   Ok we're back home now, yes I think we still consider the Tri cities home. We're staying at the winery with John and Ann. Whew, the first couple of days home, the jet lag was brutal, I've been tired before but wow I've never had headaches before. Our connections home were kind of tight and one flight was late, so our backpacks didn't make it with us, but they came the next day, no problem.
   So let's back track a bit, back to Ljubljana. I forgot to mention that they had a couple other exhibits at Postojna that we saw, one was of the cave creatures that they have found over the years, ok I'm not saying they weren't in the aquariums, I'm just saying we couldn't find most of them, yes I know most of them were small, but still, if I was a local watching the tourists pointing at stuff that wasn't there, I would be laughing my ass off.
What do you mean you can't see it?! It's right next to that clump of dirt by the big rock.
I still don't see it, you mean that brown thing over there?
Yes! See it just moved!
Oh yeah I see it now!
Laughing my ass off.
  The other thing we signed up for was the butterfly exhibit, OK I understand this kind of thing is somewhat hypocritical of me, cause I'm fine with Aquariums and butterfly exhibits, but I find zoos just sad and depressing, but I love butterflies...except this was not butterflies flying around in a tropical jungle, nope. This is hundreds of butterflies crucified on pins and trapped behind glass, horrifying, You can hear their dying screams for miles away...sad and depressing.
   We did go see another set of caves, I can't remember the name of them right now, but I seem to remember if you put 2 golf balls in your mouth and say chinese checkers, I think that's pretty close.These were beautiful as well, not as dramatic as the ones in Postojna, but this one had an underground river going through it, pretty cool.
   We stayed in Ljubljana for 5 days and I think we either ate sushi or sandwiches from a sandwich shop we found every day. Weird Glen! I know huh.
  Then it was on a bus to Bled, which is a lake up in the mountains with this monastery built on an island in the middle of the lake. This town is small, but they were over run with tourists. I was really curious to know what all these Asian tourists were told when they booked their trip. Oh yes you get to see every church and castle in Slovenia, almost all of them are 3 or 4 miles up a hill, but remember the other half is down hill. They do start to all look the same, but you can take pictures anyways.
  From Bled we made our way back to Zagreb to catch our flight home. We got some great news the day we got back, my sister Brenda had another baby boy, Riley. Welcome to the world nephew. So we are off to Vancouver for a bit of a visit and then back here to get organized for the next part of our journey...Nicaragua.

Love and Warm thoughts from Benton city

Carrie and Glen

Stamps in your passport

   Hello Everyone ! I say this, like there are more than 10 people that actually read this blog...ohh well Hi everyone!
   Just a couple things first off before we get started, I still can't help but feel that every time that we get into a taxi, we're just getting ripped off. We have had some very nice taxi drivers and I'm sure all of them are not ripping us off, but I really wouldn't be suprised if the majority of them were.
  I spend at least half of the time when we are walking around places, watching where I am stepping, cause... there's lots of dog poop everywhere. I wasn't sure at first, not about the poop, but about the amount of pet dogs people have here, and maybe people walk their dogs more here. But lots of dogs, no bags...lots of poop..excellent.
   Ok, so we are in Ljubljana, yeah try to pronounce that one, the capital of Slovenia, we just got here yesterday, it's all very pretty so far. But Glen how did you get there? What's been happening since you last wrote? What exciting things have been happening? I'm so happy you asked. So when we last spoke, we were in Kotor. So we hopped on a bus there meaning to go to Dubrovnik, but the bus was actually going as far as Split, which is where we wanted to go, so cool. We got off the bus, walked around the corner to the ferry dock and caught the boat to Trogir.
  We had done a day trip earlier with the kids to Trogir, but we thought it might be nice to stay for a few days and explore a little more. Ok soooooo... one of the people that actually reads this blog is Carrie, and I'm not sure how much of this I disclosed. One day in Trogir, we decided to rent a scooter. I have never driven a scooter before, much less with 2 people on it, but I mean it's just basically a bicycle with a lawnmower engine in it, how hard could it be? Ok it's not that hard, but whew! I was nervous. So we are going down this hill, that is basically straight down and of course dead ends. So Carrie gets off the scooter and I start   to turn the scooter around and all of a sudden there is a solar flare and the magnetic field on Trogir shifts and the scooter falls over, embarrassed for the solar flare, I quickly pick up the scooter, and gun it up the hill. Back on the scooter we drive to the end of the island and stop at a beach. We open up the compartment on the back off the scooter to get our stuff out and.... ta dah no stuff, money, id, bus tickets, lots of good stuff not there. Minor panic episode, ok get back on the scooter, drive back to the site of the solar flare, get lost momentarily, find our way, back down the hill and ...ta dah just like we had left it there, all our good stuff... whew. Not the most relaxing day ever.
  So from Trogir we took a bus to Opatjia and then hopped a bus the next day to Mali Losinj, an island off the Croatian coast. Mali Losinj is a very beautiful small town, lots of touristy stuff to do, but to be honest I was looking for a place to dive. So we checked out the 2 dive shops, only one was going out on dives, so that made the choice easy. Nice dive, nice people, good shop, that's all you can ask for.
  From Mali Losinj we made our way to Pula, on the mainland of Croatia. Nice town, but for me, it was the first place where they had parking spaces that people used and no one parked on the sidewalks, amazing.
  So we hadn't planned on going to Italy, but what the heck, on a 5 hour bus ride you can go from Croatia, through Slovenia and into Italy. I'm all in baby, so off to Trieste we go! Trieste is wonderful, expensive, which is sort of what we expected. By the way, this whole low season, cheaper prices thing, where ever it is, it's hiding from us. I spent a whole day there looking for a dive shop, lots of exercise, no diving. So back inland for us for the last couple of weeks, we actually spent the day at the underground caves at Postojna, totally amazing. I'm going to post some pictures on facebook, it will give you an idea of their amazingness.
  Just a couple of other things that I noticed; for some reason we couldn't find ramen in Kotor,only in Croatia do they charge you to put your luggage on the bus, does nobody eat celery here? not that we looked for it all the time, but it was scarce. I don't really want to know why this is... but yogurt in all the countries we've been to except Italy and Slovenia, has been pretty liquidy. I remember meeting this guy in Budapest and he was saying how Budapest was OK, but the best thing about the city was the free subway system they had, which of course, just meant he wasn't paying for the subway. I have noticed most of the public transit systems here are "honor system" unlike  Canada and the US, I wonder why that is?
  OK that's all I got for now, love and warm thoughts from Ljubljana

Carrie and Glen

Montenegro, cause it's fun to say Montenegro

  So I was just at the store picking up some vodka and I walk up to the cashier to pay for my purchase and she starts adjusting her boobs, not like, oh something under my strap itches or an indiscreet tug on the bottom of your bra or something cause there's a strange asian guy standing in front of me wanting to pay for his vodka. Nope, it's like one's trying to run away and she has to catch it before she loses it all together, I had no idea where to look, just smiling and holding out my 20 dollar bill, waiting till she's done, ok done, thank you for shopping with us, come again, yup gonna bring my wife next time.
  I am currently on our deck in front of our room on the  Dobrota side of Kotor, we're probably 30 yards from the bay, which unfortunately is blocked by the hair salon and the bakery right in front of us. On the other hand the bay is only 30 yards away, the room is cheaper because we can't see the water and the bakery smells so awesome. Kotor is absolutely beautiful, my friend Brian calls it one of the wonders of the world, I really don't think that's over stating it. I know we have posted some pictures, but they don't do it justice. Even to get here is amazing, coming by bus, you're driving along the beautiful Montenegro coast and then you turn in land and into a mile and half long tunnel, which is real treat with all the windows on the bus open, suprised nobody died from the vehicle fumes. Anyways you come out of the tunnel and BOOM your in a valley leading to the bay of Kotor. You have Muo on the west side of the bay and Dobrota and  old town on the east side of the bay. You should Google pictures of old town Kotor, just great.
    We've been here now for about a week and a half now. We originally had an apartment on the Muo side for a week, tiny, let me emphasize small studio apartment up on the hill about a half hours walk from old town, great views of the other side of the bay and pretty close to the water, but... walking in the rain to old town to get supplies got to be kind of old. But we liked the feel of the town and the beauty of it, so we decided to book a room on the Dobota side of the bay and stay for another week. We are much closer to stuff here, the market is only a couple minutes walk from here and there are restaurants close by and well the bakery is right here. We were wondering about anlanguage that we would have to get used to, but it's just the same as Croatian, which makes sense, because they both were a part of Yugoslavia, so same words for thank you and hello etc.It's actually like Croatia, pebble beaches, a cool old town with cafes and resturants, live music, a nice feel to the place even with the 2 or 3 cruise ships a day they seem to get here.
   By the way, like every where else we have been, no one has change here. WHAT"S the deal with that? They use the Euro here, so you go to the ATM and withdraw some cash and 50's and 100's which is like 65 and 130 US dollars and then go to a restaurant or something and try to pay with them and you get the whole dirty look thing like your trying pay with rocks or something, What! they have small bills in this counrty! I've seen them, are you hiding them?  are you saving them for Easter or something? I don't get it, maybe they have an expiry date.
    OK well back to how we got here...We were in Costinesti on the Romanian Black sea coast, still afraid to use the kitchen at the place we were staying at, they kept it locked, don't get me wrong they were happy to give us the key, but it was all quite uncomfortable. It wouldn't have been that bad if the restaurants there were decent and the one we liked hadn't stopped serving us, I don't know, one day they just wouldn't bring us menus, so we just didn't go there anymore. We did find a pool hall done by the beach and spent some good quality time there and Carrie found the nude beach, YEAH Carrie!  The bad thing about nude beaches is they are usually far away from other beaches and well stuff period, but the great thing about nude beaches, besides the obvious, is that they are usually not busy...like the one in Costinesti. So we strpped down and promptly burned our kibbles and bits. So this only applies to men, so there are quite a few hairy guys in this part of the world, but on the nude beach in Costinesti, I noticed, and not trying to stare noticed, that a few of them were shaving their pubic area, so this bright white spot in a sea of body hair...a pubic eclipse ? A big white smiley face? I could go on..OK I will , a human launch pad with a rocket and boosters, OK anyways, pretty fun.
   We had thought about going to to Macedonia and Albania or maybe even Greece, but in the end we decided to go to Montenegro. I didn't want to be land locked anymore ( Macedonia and most of Albania) and Greece looked like it would blow our budget, so on to Montenegro and we're going to fly dammit! So, catch a bus from Costinesti, back to Constanta and then catch the fancy train , still ridiculously cheap and because it's Carrie's BIRTHDAY!!! to Bucharest, got a nice fancy hotel room in the center of town and found nice little french restaurant in old town for a nice meal cause... it was CARRIE"S BIRTHDAY!! We got a cab to the airport the next morning and flew to Istanbul, I know the wrong way, but it was the cheapest flight we could find and then an hour later got on a flight to Podgorica, Montenegro. I had read on some blogs and in the lonely planet guide book, that the taxi drivers in the airport would try to take for a ride, literally, instead of taking you to the bus station. So we agreed before we got out there that we wouldn't pay more than 15 Euros for the ride to the bus station. Taxi, taxi! you need a taxi? ahh sure how much to the bus station? 12 Euros, ok sounds good, ok then follow this guy. Not as hard as it sounded like it was going to be. So we follow him to a line of taxis, which are all late model Mercedes, cool I like that. After we get in, he does ask where we are going and we tell him , Kotor, he says he can take us straight there if we want, I ask if he will do it for 7 Euros, which is what the bus will cost us, he laughs and  says maybe for 70 Euros. So we can take the bus back and forth from Podgorica to Kotor 5 times or take a nice Mercedes taxi once to Kotor...bus station please, does anybody actually take that deal?
    I forgot I wanted to write about the family we met on the train to Bucharest, they were sitting across from us, mom, dad and their 2 daughters, college age I think.Anyways we started talking to the one daughter whose english was quite good, they were coming back from the coast as well, to Bucharest, where they lived. As we got to the train station we started to ask them about getting from there to our hotel in the center of town. She said you can take the subway there, they should just follow them cause they were going to the subway as well. So off we go, through the train station down stairs to the subway station, where they pay for our fares, get on a train with us tell us where to get off and then walk up the stairs to your right and catch another train, go 2 stops and get off and your there. Ok see you, nice to meet you, bye bye. I love travelling!
  It has been raining here quite a bit and we're hoping it will pass soonish, or this is what september in eastern europe is. Now that it is september, we are getting into low season, so we are hoping things will get a little cheaper, not so far though. The plan next is probably back to Croatia for a little while and maybe Slovenia, we only have just a little over a month left before we fly home...it sure has gone by quick. Well that's all I got for now. Love and warm thoughts from Kotor!

Love Carrie and Glen

Stuff

Hi all, hope this finds you happy and well. It's overcast and kind of cool here in Costinesti... so perfect time to write another blog. I thought I would just write some observations and tidbits. There are not alot of sights here in Costinesti, just the beach and BOOBIES!! yeah for boobies!  Seriously it is sort of like one big carnival on the beach, it has everything, fast food, tattoos, carnival rides, cheap beer, casinos, the whole deal AND... BOOBIES. OK moving on.
   I've noticed this everywhere we've been, sidewalks are not for walking on, they are for parking on, I've looked for signs saying no parking or green P signs, nope not a thing. On the other hand I have seen cars getting tickets for what I'm guessing is being illegally parked...HUH?! WHAT? I have no idea. OK gather round people, settle down, settle down, take your seats, today we are going to ticket all the green cars, got that? the green ones, not the blue ones, that was yesterday. Hold on, hold on! remember be safe out there!  ( thank you hill street blues)
  So in my last post I was wondering if people would be more friendly once we got back into Romania. First a little detour, so we had hired a taxi to take us from Cahul, Moldova to Galati, Romania, about a half an hour over the border. So we call the guy in the morning and he says I'll be there in 3 minutes, honk, honk there is some dude in a late model Mercedes waving at us, not a little yellow subcompact, but a black Mercedes, Hmmmm. We get in, no talking, put your seat belt on and away we go. Pretty much silence until we get over the border and about 20 minutes into Romania, when he looks at me and smiles, points out the window and says Romania, I smile back and say Da, it's not really any less weird, but I don't think he's going to kill us now and dump our bodies on the side of the road.
  OK this is where it gets fun, KGB guy drops us off at the bus station and the 1pm bus is full, so we have 3 hours till the next bus at 315pm. OK I'm not sure if we had signs on us saying we just came from Moldova or what, but these next few things happened over the next couple of days. While waiting for the bus, the guy next to us starts talking to me in romanian, which means he's talking and I'm nodding my head... something about are you north Korean, do you work here? and we are going to Mangalia. The conversation lasts alot longer with more nodding. We are at the bus station, but actually it's all locked up and everything around it looks pretty much shut down. So looking for a toilet, Carrie asks the woman who seems to be in charge of the Constanta bus and is just sitting in a car on the side of the road, where the toilet is. She gets out of the car, waves Carrie to follow her, takes her around the corner to a local bar, gets her to pay the bartender to use the toilet, checks to make sure there is no one is in there, there is, gives him the romanian what for and then tells Carrie to go ahead. This happened the next day, we were walking down a side street in Constanta, when we came upon a small store, so I went in to buy a coke zero, I couldn't find a cold one, but wasn't really worried, we had a fridge in the room. So I'm lined up at the counter, and the woman behind the counter comes around, puts her hand on my coke, and proceeds to a back fridge to get me a cold one, I almost cried. So yes people have been very friendly here...well except for Mama here in Costinesti, we used her kitchen this morning, that didn't seem to make her a happy girl! I can hardly wait till I use it this afternoon to make a salad...I might wait till tomorrow.
  That's all I got for now, we have to sit down and figure out where we're going next. Love and warm thoughts from Costinesti.

Carrie and Glen

Romania

  Hello everyone, well it's been a rather busy couple of weeks and there is lots to get to. So it seems we start these things this way now, so here we go...I'm sitting in the gazebo outside of Kate's place in Cahul , Moldova, who thought you would ever use the words gazebo and Moldova in the same sentence. Anyways that's where I'm writing this from and as always it's stinking hot, again I think I mentioned this before, I brought too many clothes.
  OK so we have taken trains all over Romania and we have worked out a system..we look online and figure out if there are trains where we want to go, on the days we want to go and write it all down before we get to the train station to board our next train. Then we go to the ticket window and buy tickets for our next leg of the trip. This is for 2 reasons, one, it cuts down on the amount of verbal communication that needs to take place and second, we obviously DO NOT know how to pronounce the names of the towns that we want to go to, stupid americans.
  Let me give you a brief run down of where we have been, you should get a map out for this, I'll wait....Ok so from Oradea we went to Timisoara for 2 days, Timisoara is the birthplace of Romanian independence and the name of a beer. Then it was off for 3 days in Sibiu, I think the guide book called it the most cultural city in Romania or something like that, It's definitely had the most tourists so far and the most new looking buildings. From there we headed off to Sighisoara, try saying that to the girl at the ticket counter, for 3 days. This is the birthplace of Dracula, I'll talk more about Vlad later. So from there we headed to Brasov for 5 glorious days, OK some of you may think I'm talking out of my ass here and more precisely...whining, but after travelling here and there for awhile, it gets exhausting and we need a break. It gives us a chance to do laundry, catch up on the mundane stuff like bills and correspondence. For us it also gives us a chance to cook for ourselves, eat a little bit healthier, don't get me wrong, eating out is great but after a while you just want to eat some comfort food. From there we headed off to Moldova, but before I get to that, I of course wanted to talk about a few things.
  There are 3 different kinds of trains in Romania; Regio, this train stops everywhere, there are no different classes and is ridiculously cheap, think $6US per 100 miles. Irregio stops at big towns, has 2 different classes and seat assignments, which are more like suggestions really and is twice as much and then there is Intercity, which stops only in major cities, but otherwise like Irregio in every other way.But to be honest, paying for the better class cars doesn't really seem to mean better quality or cleaner, just seat assignments. OK a slight detour into poo land...trains here don't even pretend that the contents of their toilets go anywhere but straight onto the tracks, some may flush, but when you do you can see the tracks going by. the worst is sitting in the train station waiting for your train and somebody in another train flushes right in front of you, close your eyes and listen, now shiver.
  It's been a while since I've lived in small apartments, but still, these apartments are small and obviously things have evolved to be the most space efficient as possible. There has been a fair amount of washing machines in bathrooms or kitchens, fold out beds etc. but for me the cutting edge of space efficiency has come in the washrooms. So I have a space of about 4x5, how do I fit a sink, a toilet and a shower in this space? First the walls are all frosted glass and the floor is tiled with a drain in it, then you put up a movable glass panel that can swing in front of the toilet when you take a shower. So when you take a shower, water does get all over the bathroom, hence the glass and tile, and you do have to wipe that up when your done of course. The best however is, if you want to save time, you can leave the glass panel against the wall while you are on the toilet AND take a shower at the same time...I love travelling.
   Ok onto Vlad, let's face it, it's  a marketing tool, so why not use it? So he was born in Sighisoara, and you can actually go in the house where he was born, or I guess more appropriately, eat there, as it's a restaurant now. He actually only lived there for 4 years. He was at a castle in a Brasov for about 10 months. Actually the longest place he stayed where we have been is in jail while he was in Budapest, 10 years. Hmm.. that seemed like a fairly boring piece of bloggishness, oh well enjoy!
  Onto Moldova, we decided to take the overnight train from Brasov to Chisinau, in total about 15 hours on the train with a 2 hour layover in Plioesti to change trains. Our biggest question was what was going to happen when we hit the border? And at 4 AM we found out, first the Romanian guys come on, take your passports, someone asks the usual questions and then when it seems they might not be giving you your passports back, they come back with them, stamped. OK lights out, train moves for maybe 5 minutes and stops again. OK Moldova time, someone comes on and asks the usual questions, looks under the beds and THEN! this guy with a laptop comes on and scans our passports right there!  WHAT the hell is happening? stamp and away you go, enjoy your stay. OK I could go on and on, but I'm not going to, let's just say a couple of things, poorest country in eastern europe, not enough drinkable water, inefficiencies everywhere, but the goverment decides to invest in wireless passport control technology that even Romania doesn't use, for all those tourists coming to visit? There are no tourists here. Even when we were booking tickets to go to Moldova, the girl at the ticket counter in the train station  in Sighisoara was like..umm really! nobody wants to go to Moldova, I've never done that before.
  OK so we get past the border and go back to sleep for about 15 minutes and then it sounds like they are adding train cars or something, and really this goes on for quite awhile, but neither of us wanted to get up to see what was going on. What was going on was they were changing the wheels on our train cars because the tracks in Moldova are a different gauge than? the rest of the world ? I don't know. Anyways 3 more hours on the train and BOOM we are in Chisinau and Kate is on the train platform waiting for us. We spent a couple of days in Chisinau and then Max came to meet us and went up to Balti for a couple of Peace corps functions. I really enjoyed meeting Kate's friends and co volunteers, I came away thinking, none of these things they are doing, or trying to do, is by any stretch of the imagination easy, I wonder if I could do this? probably not. So now we are in Cahul with Kate, it seems like a fairly nice small town, not the friendliest people ever, I'm not sure if that is because people identify with Russia more here than the US, or they are just not very friendly. We plan on moving onto the Romanian Black Sea coast after this, it will be interesting to see if they are more friendly there.
  OK well I think that does it for me for now, best wishes and warm thoughts everyone from Cahul, Moldova

Love Carrie and Glen

Hungary

  Hello again, lots to get to,so... here we go!  We're sitting in the pub of our hotel as I write this, I'm not sure why I feel the need to tell you where I'm writing these things, guess I just do. So, we are currently in Oradea, Romania, we've been here for a couple days now. Maybe we were trying all the wrong things, but it seemed really hard to get into Romania from Hungary, you know like, sorry only one bus a week to Romania or you will have to go back Budapest and then transfer here etc. Well we're here now and ready to see Dracula country, they do seem to play this up quite a bit. One more thing before I recap Hungary. Here it's been quite noticeable... people are staring at me, like I'm from a totally different planet and to be sure, I think, in the short time we have been here, I haven't seen 1 Asian, I did see 6 black guys yesterday... we stared at each other.
   So, in Budapest I wanted to stay on the Buda side of the Danube, it had the old castle and town, I sort of had the idea it might be like Croatia, where old town was where you wanted to be, but apparently not in Hungary, old town is, well just the old part of town. The Buda castle is beautiful and all the buildings around it, but not much else happens on the Buda side.
   Around this time we had been lamenting how we haven't met very many people on our trip so far and... there you go, we met 3 people in one day. One young man came up to us while we were at McDonald's, and just started talking to us, somebody has been feeding him the wrong information about America and the rest of the world, awkward conversation that was rather difficult to get out off. Next we met the owner of a shoe store that was very kind and helpful, and we both enjoyed our conversation with him. Then we met Alain, Evelyn and their son Aaron at a cafe by the mall. Alain worked for Avis, so his english is quite good. Anyways walking back to our apartment, it turns out they live in the same building! totally crazy. We ended up hanging with them for a couple of days before we left for the Pest side of town.
  You know, I don't think I ever really understood the big fuss about truffles before, but we found a food and wine festival in Buda and spent most of our time at the truffle booth. I think I understand now...truffles are DELICIOUS!
  OK over to the Pest side of town and TA DAH, everything is happening over here, cafes everywhere, restaurants, beer bikes, basically a bar on bicycles with a keg that you pedal around town while drinking, I think a pretty good idea, all sorts of stuff. The apartment we have is right near one of the nightspots, perfect location. Again I don't want to go into a detailed travelogue about what we did everyday, but I do want to touch on a couple of things.
  We went to a jazz bar one night, there seemed to be quite a few in Budapest, we picked one that seemed to be for locals, not really the tourists. Very cool, one guy playing electric guitar and the other playing the hammered dulcimer, what!?, yes playing jazz, google that baby, again very cool.
  We went to the museum of fine art, holy crap that is one big museum, we saw lots of very cool stuff and really ran out of time to see all of it. I did want to mention this before, in the first museum we went to in Zagreb, a museum of tradational Croatian art, they had quite a few paintings on glass, which I guess was popular there in the early part of the 20th century. The detail in these paintings is amazing and... you had to paint it backwards!
  OK onto stuff we love to talk about...poo. I'm not really sure I understand the design of the toilets over here.Is it so you have to use that little brush they have beside the toilet? So everybody is on the same page, the toilet designs have varied, but they all hit some porcelain before hitting water, maybe that's it , no splashing. Anyways the one in Pest was really interesting, it had a little depression in the back of the toilet, so it would hold all your poo there for you to see, like this what your poo would look and smell like in nature. THEN! you flush, so it's like launching a ship out of drydock, I always made sure I was standing as far away as possible for this part.
   From Budapest we made our way by bus to Eger, a little town northeast of Budapest in Hungary's wine region, famous for it's Bull's Blood. It was nice to get to a smaller town.
  So we go to the train station in Eger to see if we can book a train to Timisoara in Romania. The one lady that doesn't speak english directs us to the lady that barely speaks english...and off we go!  She explains in Hungarian, which we sort get, is that we will have to go to Budapest first and switch trains there and go onto Timisoara, ok no problem. Well actually problem, to get the lowest price you have to book at least 5 days ahead of your travel day, OK how much is the not lowest price ticket so we can leave on the day we want to? Double, so instead of $20 , it's $40, OK fine let's do it. You have to understand, all this time she looking up schedules in binders and booklets, not on the computer. So she comes back, OK here's your ticket...Budapest to Timisoara at 7am, Huh What WHOA wait a minute, how are we supposed to get to Budapest by 7am? Lots of buses the lady says. Yes OK but what if we don't want to get up at 3am to get the train at 7am? Can't we just get the train from Eger, transfer in Budapest and go to Timisoara? Yes you can do that!! finally Ok cool. Train leaves at 345am....ughhh. is there a later train? more books and binders...yes! one at 1pm, ok great let's book that one. Then she disappears for what seems like a long time, then she comes back and says " sorry train full" yup ok. Frustrating for all of us, oh well ended up taking a bus to Debrecen and a train to Oradea. And here we are all caught up!!

  Love and Warm thoughts from Oradea, Romania

Carrie and Glen

Family Fun

      Hi all, it’s been a while since I wrote. I did have a pretty good excuse… having lots of fun with family. So let’s see, since I last wrote we had just moved to Milni , just south of Dubrovnik. A very nice small seaside town, apparently a favorite vacation spot for the Croatian army, so it saw , and you can still see  some damage to buildings from the war here 20 years ago. Actually almost everywhere we have been , you can see evidence of war, it’s sort of hard to wrap your mind around the thought that people were dying  here just 20 years ago in a bloody civil war.

   Ok this is how it started, this is so fantastic to me, I am just amazed and glad that we were able to pull it off.  On Tuesday June 17^th, Carrie and I went to the Dubrovnik airport to meet our nephew Tyler Williams from  New Zealand, via Portugal and France. 2 hours later, David arrived from Nicaragua via Norway. The next day we moved to a house in Dubrovnik and Maggie, Sean’s mother from New Jersey met us at the house and finally…. Later that night,  Sean, Erica , Cora  came in from California via Moldova where they had been visiting Kate for a few days, and then hopping on the same plane as Sean, Erica and  Cora, Kate also made her way to Croatia. So here we are 8 adults and a baby, together in this beautiful country, ready to have some fun.

   I don’t want to go into great detail about what we did for the next couple of weeks, and we have posted a lot of pictures on facebook, which I think will give you a pretty good idea of what we were up to. I do want to talk about cooking and eating though. Since there were so many of us and some of us, actually most of us were tryng to stay on a budget, cooking was a good option. Not all the restaurants were expensive, just like anywhere, and you could do some baked goods and a cappuccino in the morning quite inexpensively. All 3 of the houses we stayed in had pretty good kitchens and of course they all had the world’s dullest knives, my total pet peeve. I think we all agreed, the nights we cooked, and everyone cooked, we made better food than we could have gotten at a restaurant for at least half the price.  Mushroom risotto, pasta carbonara ( oh my god the Pancetta here is amazing and well… cheap and the Feta! BOOM!)  Gyros, chicken with gremolata, etc. we all ate very well. For me, to have all our family around the dinner table, eating, drinking and having a great time together, means a lot to me.

   So I am sitting on the upper balcony with Carrie in the house on Vis, and I see a gentleman walk out onto his balcony in the house adjacent to ours. I go to say good evening to him and then stop, because I realize I don’t know if he’s a local or a foreigner, so what language do I use? Meanwhile he is no longer looking at me, so I have lost that opportunity. Carrie, who is sitting with her back to the man, has no idea what is going on, she is talking to me and by this time my attention has wondered slightly, this never happens by the way. So imagine Carrie is sitting at the table, talking to me and I am watching the man on the other balcony, take his shirt off and hang it on the line, look at me..I smile, Carrie is still talking to me. He takes his shorts off and hangs those on the line, no looking this time, I look at Carrie and wonder if I should interrupt, and decide not to right now. I look back just in time to see, yes of course, the man taking his underwear off and hanging those on the line…Ta Dah , naked man on the balcony across from us, does it get any better than that? An emphatic NO Then he looks up at me, smiles , waves and goes back inside, waving back never even crossed my somewhat astonished brain…so I did not…love travelling.

               We did do some diving on Vis, I have to say it was kind of disappointing, I was looking forward to diving in Croatia ( OK let’s be honest, I look forward to diving period) It was cold, but we knew it was going to be, it was expensive, but we hoped we could get some sort of deal … we didn’t. We dove 3 times and went to the same dive site all 3 times..lame. We max depthed or close to it all 3 times…again lame. OK I ‘m getting depressed just thinking about the whole experience, only think happy thoughts, only think happy thoughts…so yeah we did some diving in Vis.

     As I write this. we are going through passport control on the train into Hungary. We have decided to spend a lttle or maybe long , time in Budapest. Last night we took the train from Split to Zagreb and we decided to spring for the sleeper car, an extra $40 each. We got a room to ourselves and of course beds! Neither Carrie or I had been on a train in years and the sleeper car was a nice surprise for us, we thought we would just have a bunk bed in the hall somewhere. We left at 10 last night and got into Zagreb around 630am, we stashed our packs in a locker and walked around town for a bit. Walking through the mall by the train station, I found a McDonald’s, OK before you get all whatever, yes I did want an egg mcMuffin.. and I got one, but the nice thing about McDonald’s, when you travel, is that, they all have free WIFI and outlets so you can plug in your stuff before going on a long train ride to Budapest. OK so the train station is great, and it was built in something like 4000 B.C. , but they didn’t have electricity back then, so they didn’t think back then to run conduit through all the rocks and bricks, for all the electrical outlets they will need, so Carrie and Glen can plug in their Ipods, so they can listen to music.

    We both loved Croatia, the country is beautiful, especially  all the little towns on the coast. It is getting kind of sloppy messy with tourists, so going inland for a while, might give us a respite from all the hoardes there vacationing. On the other hand, we are going to a pretty touristy city, might have to start rethinking our plan if we want to get away from the crowds. Well I think that’s enough for now, we should be getting to Budapest in about 4 hours and well it’s past noon now, so….it’s beer time.  

  OK, one more thing. One day while walking back  from the beach in Split, I was thinking about what to make for dinner and thought maybe some tsatziki might be good and that I should remember to pick up some dill if I can find it in the fresh green market. Finding fresh herbs other than parsley has been close to impossible. Literally 3 steps later, there was some wild dill growing out of a crack in the pavement by the side of the road. Hmm guess I can check that off the grocery list. This place is cool…love travelling.

Love and Warm thoughts from Hungary

Carrie and Glen 

Dubrovnik, sort of

   Hello all, We're in Mlini now, about 8 km south of Dubrovnik. We got here after an 8 hour bus ride from Zadar and then another 1/2 hour on the public bus to here...and well it's been raining here ever since. When we got to our room, the family had welcome shots of brandy for us, I love this country, by the way did I mention you can basically buy alcohol everywhere, for example, the gas station, it's like the anti = Indonesia, where we couldn't find alcohol anywhere. Well since it's raining and we're sitting at a restaurant drinking, I thought hey it's a good time to write something.

   Even though the room thing in Plitvice didn't really work out , I think in the end, it was the best. By staying in the park we only had to buy a one day pass, instead of 2. We didn't have to take a bus back and forth to our other room out of the park and well we were right there. So.. according to Glen math, everything was a wash, a little high on the financial side, but way high on the happy scale...ohh ok I forgot about the food, the food in the park is horrible, really??!!! boiled pork chops in some sort of oily saucy thing...Yum?? no I think not, something masquerading as a hamburger, good? NO! OK I think you get it.

  The park however is ABSOLUTELY beautiful, really probably the most amazing place we have ever seen, I mean we haven't been everywhere, by any means, but I think that's saying something.We posted some pictures on facebook, they only give you a small idea of how beautiful this park is, I could go on...and I will, only on a slightly different tangent.. cause that's what I do.

   So we had been walking around the park for 5 or 6 hours and we decided to go back to the hotel for a beer and a rest. From to the lake to the hotel is about 500 metres, almost all uphill. The park is also filled with people on tours from all over ( and most of these people are older than us, or at the very least look older than us) OK so we are walking up the steps on the way to our hotel and we are behind one of these tour groups, slowly we are making our way through the group until we reach 4 ladies spread out across the whole width of the steps. So imagine the blocking wedge they have in football on kick off returns, this is the same thing and just as effective, they are not going to let us get around them. I started thinking... maybe if we just chucked one of them off the trail the others would get scared and let us pass or maybe if we separated one from the rest of the herd, they would sacrifice the one for the benefit of the rest of the herd...so we started looking for an older, slower tourist the herd might sacrifice, when, I think,sensing our intentions,  opened a hole for us to pass through.

  We grabbed a bus to Zadar on Wednesday, have I mentioned it's been stinking hot here, I am not complaining, but I did make an error in packing, it's been in the low 90's since we got here.So.. Zadar, lots of what I am assuming is communist era ugly apartment buildings, but really that has been everywhere we have been so far in Croatia. Old town in Zadar is just great, the stones on the walkways are shiny from the centuries of people walking on them. This is my first time in Europe and this may get old, but for me, it was beautifully old and choatic, crammed with people from all over, speaking all these different languages, these amazing old churches, small hole in the wall shops, the predictable and tacky tourist souvenir shops, the families out for the day, the women all dressed up in heels and nice dresses and the men dressed. The sea organ and the sun salutation are definitely very cool, in our mind a perfect example of a city supporting the arts and in turn that art creating a tourist attraction that benefits the city.

   Ok well I'm running out of gas here and well... the wine is starting to work, the wine so far has been pretty good, is mostly served cold and it won't probably win any awards, but it tastes ok and it's 2 bucks a glass, so who's complaining, not me!

Hey the sun's coming out, yup definitely time to go.

love and warm thoughts from mlini

glen and carrie

  

Here we go!!!

  Ok so....  for a little recap. We have sold almost everything we own and put the rest in a small storage room. I quit my job at the winery, so I think that means I am now retired. We each have a backpack and a day bag and that's all. The plan really is no plan, the next month or so with the "kids" is more or less planned, can't really travel with your own baseball team without plans. After that though is sort of whatever we feel like doing until our return flight in October. We haven't been freaking out or anything so far, so I guess having no house and travelling the world, is OK for now. We have been asked a few times how long we plan to do this, and well my answer is ...until I tip over and can't get up. I think Carrie's answer is different, but maybe not.
  We arrived in Croatia this past Thursday, after 24 hours, from home. Pick your expletive here, although it was less time to get here than going to Indonesia, we were crushed. I think I made it for 2 hours after we got to the apartment in Zagreb before I started experiencing total system shutdown. I think we fell asleep at 5pm and slept for 12 hours. Zagreb what we saw of it, is a nice city, somewhat eclectic maybe, but with a nice vibe. Just a small note about Croatian.... is not pronounced the way it is spelt, I'm just saying, not trying to be judgy. There is alot of graffiti here, I don't know if that means jack, but it seemed a little curious. So it seems the major food groups in Croatia are coffee, beer and cigarettes.....another curious thing, the streets are clean, we saw street sweepers, but they don't pick up the cigarette butts, not sure why. We wandered around town for a couple of days, did touristy stuff...another thing and I don't know why, but I was suprised to see so many of my tribe in this part of the world. OK one more thing, if your dressed like your going to comic=con but your not actually going to comic=con, then you look stupid.
  The big public market in Zagreb was great fun and the amount of bars and cafes is mind boggling. We figured out how to catch the tram to the bus station this morning because we couldn't figure out how to call a taxi, or flag one down for that matter. We did figure out how to get a bus to Plitvice national park, although we didn't figure out that our room we booked, wasn't actually in the park. So we decided to splurge a little and get a room here in the park. This is us so far, stumbling around in the world but slowly getting our feet under us...  yup that's me , mister profundity!

Love and warm thoughts from Plitvice

No good title for this

Hello from Gili Air , yup we have moved again, we're in the Gili islands off of Lombok and more specifically we're at a restaurant named Scallywags and I'm eating tuna sashimi in a third world country... could be a bad culinary choice, I'm sure we'll find out.

Like Erma Bombeck but different

OK , we're on Bunaken island now, after a couple of days travelling to get here. We 're staying at an all inclusive... yes we have gone indonesian high end, called Seabreeze resort. great place, nice people and we're going to start diving here tommorrow, yeah fishies!!!

Hi to Bali or Bali Hi

Nyepi

So I guess I 'll start with Nyepi. Nyepi is the Balinese "day of silence" which in more practical terms means we are not allowed to leave the hotel property the whole day , no internet , no music and of course no electricity. They have had Nyepi events the last 2 nights, a dance on Sun and a parade last night up and down the Main Street with these big , and I mean 10 or 12 ft big evil looking figurines on platforms that are carried by a crew of people . Lots of fun, fireworks, bands , torches , singing....all fun , all the time in Bali. So today we are hiding from all the evil spirits and making ourselves inconspicuous so that the evil spirits pass us by.

trundling around japan

Being in Japan is a little like the unwritten rules in baseball, unless you are in baseball or follow it pretty closely , you don't know the rules. I actually bought a book about Japan that had some stuff that even Erica didn't know about. ( red lanterns outside a doorway means neighborhood pub, blowing your nose in public is frowned upon...but all those other disgusting noises they make are OK?) It is cherry blossom time in Sasebo, just beautiful, not sure why we don't plant like millions of these trees everywhere.We took a little field trip to Nagasaki and Kumamoto. I'm jumping around here, but hey , back to being in Japan...  everything is small, except the money (1000 yen = $12 around there) so the cars are small , the roads are skinny, the doorways are short, it sort feels like your in legoland...in an ashtray, cause everybody smokes. Everything is really clean,on time ( which is helpful to try and figure out which train or bus your supposed to take ) and polite. Japanese people are not the friendliest people around, unless they're drunk, then pretty friendly until fall down time....so friendly for about a half an hour.
  Nagasaki atomic bomb museum ..is what you would imagine. The castle in Kumamoto is world class, just beautiful. It sort of seems like all japanese cities were designed by the same guy...shopping area here, call it ginza,restaurants next to the shopping area, big beautiful park in the middle some where and then plain bordering on ugly offices,apartments, hotels and then huge ostentatious pachinko bars that look like they are on fire, just all the cigarette smoke coming out of them. Almost everyone backs into parking spaces, do you think people that don't get tickets?
  Anyways we're back home now, all jet lag screwed up. Slept like 22 hours the 1st night and then 4 the next, UUGGGHHHH.

love and warm thoughts from home

carrie and glen

another bathroom story

I know I've already written a bathroom story for this trip, but we're in japan and unless you've been here, you won't really understand. OK let's start with most things are in Kanji, which are chinese characters, which means we have no idea what it means...and off we go!!!!!  Feeling an uncomfortable pressure in your reproductive area you decide to seek an appropriate place to relieve said PSI, and trundle onto to a bathroom in Japan. Upon entering you see plumbing and wiring in and out of the toilet that can be some what disturbing. There are also picture instructions that make sense mostly, but you really can't be positive. And what does stand by mean? So assuming your sitting ( you pretty much miss the show if you stand) as soon as flesh touches seat a whirring starts ( 2 things happen here;1- the seat starts to warm, 2- the water for the bidet starts to heat up ) So assuming you're not scared by this point your doing something...or not because your too scared. Anyways after said business you have options ( for me, this has been a trial and error process, lasting 3 or 4 days, with some lingering doubts) So you can go for the direct jet , of which some you can vary the pressure, lots of pressure can be somewhat uncomfortable, you know wrong direction and all.you can choose the light shower thing which I think is mostly for woman ( larger surface area ) and most important, none of this stops automatically ( so on the high pressure direct jet setting and you start to tear up a bit, calmly look fot the stop or power button)Also on some toilets the handles flush both ways, one way for liquids and the other for..well other ( I'm actually just guessing but it seems right ) and others the water to fill the bowl comes out the top so you can use it to wash your hands, although there never seems to be any towels to dry your hands.
  Japan is wonderful and weird and I have lots more I want to say about it in the next few day , including why WIFI was more available in the Phillipines than here

love and warm thoughts from sasebo japan

carrie erica and glen

things I never get tired off

It's sort of like, some of my favorite thinegs but without Julie Andrews, singing....OK it's not really like that, it's just stuff we've seen in developing countries that would drive OSHA, building inspectors, L&I people, pretty much anyone from a developed country would start shaking their head and mumbling....doing Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.
   Transportation is great!!...So 5 people on a scooter ( yes I said scooter!!!) at least 10 people on a tricycle, a palm tree on a pedicab or about 15 people in and around a small pickup truck and my favorite was outside of the big market at Masaya in Nicaragua at about 4 in the morning, a donkey is pulling a cart loaded about 12 ft high with plastic laundry baskets, plastic chairs and tables , going like 2 miles an hour done the highway. I assume they were taking all this stuff to the market that morning to sell....hanging off the back of the cart was the hazard light to warn on coming cars of a slow moving vehicle, or actually a small boy that looked around 5 years old waving a flashlight at on coming cars, the best, I laughed my ass off. Another good one is babies, yes small toddlers, on the handlebars of bicycles or various pets or food products ( still alive ) on bicycles or scooters, always a good picture.
  I almost always get asked if I want to buy some sort of drugs by various random people... drugs are a pretty big no no in the phillipines...but still, I did get asked by various random people on the street if I wanted to buy some Viagra. Not sure what that meant but going to go with, alive and male.
  Showers and electricity, or pretty much wiring anywhere in third world countries, always exciting. Just yell "Clear " before you plug in anything and remember to not touch the suicide shower while the water is running... again exciting and usually it breaks the heater which means no more hot showers, not exciting.
  Ok one last thing, diving related of course. We all agree ...nobody gets tired of seeing Nemo ( or I guess more accurately, clownfish or anemonefish ) so like I've said in previous posts , Nemos are territorial and pretty aggressive, so getting rushed by a 2 inch fish is pretty amusing, I also learned this trip that they see each other in your mask. So they also think another Nemo is coming to take their anenome from them, along with the 6 ft bumbling flesh bag that is getting close to them.
  I also never get tired of travelling, of meeting these wonderful people in their beautiful countries and my favorite of all...meeting their children, they are innocent and old all at once. Sad and wonderful....

Love and warm thoughts from Sasebo, Japan

Carrie, erica and glen

waiting

Hi all, let's see.... it's pouring rain, we've checked out of our room, the girls are playing bananagrams and of course I am writing this down . We are at the dive shop restaurant ( spent alot of time here ) waiting for our boat to come and pick us and take us back to the mainland and our waiting van, for the 3 hr trip back to Cebu airport for our flight at 130am to fukuoka, japan.So we have about 3 hrs to kill, hopefully the rain stops, cause the boat in the rain could be a little uncomfortable.
  Yesterday, our last day diving, and erica's birthday, we did the shark dive, the best one yet!! lots of sharks all around us.For the 2nd morning dive, we dove a seamount, pygmy seahorses and ....a blue ring octopus, which I find out later are quite poisonous. The last dive is a shallow dive just mucking around the bottom looking for stuff. Found lots, pipefish, stonefish, cuttlefish and seamoths ( they must be mating because they are travelling around in pairs )A really good last dive here.
  Then back here last night for dinner and swap war stories about divers with some of the staff here. Some of my best stories. It's been fun here, we weren't able to see as much as we would have liked to, which is usually the case when we travel and we really didn't get to experience as much of phillipine culture as we would have liked. But we can always plan to come back. Next stop japan and the home of my ancestors, should be interesting, will keep you updated.

love and warm thoughts from malapasqua

carrie, erica and glen

something in the water

We're in the water the other day, diving Gato island. There's a few boats around with other divers, like almost all the places we visit when we are diving, the head is pretty much just a hole in the floorboards to the ocean. ( are you getting the fore shadowing here? ) So we are coming up from the dive and I notice stuff floating down from the surface. We are underneath another dive boat and well the light goes off in my head!!!, I look once more at what looks like toilet paper and !!!!??????? I'm swimming in #$%&, everybody out of my #$&*% way now! Everybody is looking at me like I'm rude, but obviously nobody realizes what is going on, don't care I'm looking for clean water. That will be our bathroom story for this trip.

Love and warm thoughts from malapasqua

carrie, erica and glen

so it never rains in malapasqua

So we get up at 430 in the morning to do the thresher shark dive...ughhh, so getting up before sunrise is not my thing, you know you meet these people that get up early to take sunrise pictures, yeah that's not me...but to see thresher sharks I make an exception ( we're actually going to do it for the 4th time tommorrow) still 430 is early, except for Erica, who seems to get up at that time, all the time, WEIRD!! We hop on the boat and get to the dive site just after daybreak, and of course I'm taking sunrise pictures, cause what the hell, who would believe it. In the water and down to about 90ft and bingo just like you ordered it up...thresher sharks. Very cool and well it wakes you up pretty quick. This is me underwater; mutter, mutter, somewhat grumpy mutter, I'm telling you there better be sharks on this dive OR ELSE!! not that I know what else. Then boom 2 sharks about 8 or 10 ft long , just swimming around, they hang out for a couple minutes then leave. Then more swimming and we see a couple more, some get pretty close, maybe 10-15ft away. they seem curious, if screaming about how cool this is wouldn't scare them away, I would be screaming how cool this is!!and by the way you can hear screaming underwater, Carrie yelled at me the other day just as a thresher shark was swimming over my head that I hadn't noticed, and I heard her and saw the shark...probably the only time I liked being yelled at. We've done the shark dive 3 more times and saw sharks everytime, ok so here's the deal... they feed at night, deep, like 300 or 400ft deep and then come up shallow in the morning to get cleaned, so we are seeing them at cleaning stations that they use all the time at this shoal, and they are there every day, amazing.
  We did a nitrox course here, which means we are breathing gas that has more o2 and less nitrogen, which means we can stay down longer and be exposed to less nitrogen ( bad thing!!) So we have been doing some nitrox dives and some regular compressed air dives. Hmmm. this is kind of even boring me. We are starting to slow down and get tired, we've been diving 2 or3 times every day since we've been here except !! for the 2 days it poured rain here and we're not talking thunder showers , we're talking rain straight for 2 days. And what do you do in tropical paradise when it rains for 2 days, well we read alot and start drinking at the restaurant around 2 and not alot else, we did a couple of dives but being on a boat in the rain is less than fun and really quite cold , which is something we were trying to avoid by coming to a tropical paradise. Anyways we are just going to do the 2 early dives tommorrow, our last day of diving here, so I will get on again and blog about other stuff, or if your lucky maybe my wonderful wife will give you some of her insights into travel and diving here in malapasqua.

love and warm thoughts from malapasqua

carrie, erica and glen

malapascua

OK let's see,  it's around 8 pm on monday and we're going to do the thresher shark dive tommorrow morning at 530am..this is going to be great!!!! then it's off for a 2 dive day trip ahh I cannot wait. We saw a seamoth today, very cool, sort of looks like a seahorse with too many after market parts, can't really swim properly, just sort of bumps along the bottom.
   Travel has been somewhat difficult here, the distances are far and there are not a lot of airports and things have been late. The slow boat from el nido (8 hours ) was 3 hrs late, so again we were looking for a place to stay in coron after dark. OK so the diving in coron was pretty good, lots of wrecks, not sure we're big wreck fans...dive deep for a short amount of time and then come up, looking at pretty much nothing, But we did dive barracuda lake, so... 30ft of fresh water at about 85F, then 30 ft of brackish water at about 105F, and the rest sea water at 82F. Sort of like the grand canyon underwater with shrimp and catfish and really hot water, very beautiful.
  We stayed in coron for 4 days and decided to jet to malapascua to see the sharks. So you take a van from town and travel for about 45 minutes to the airport, which is just on the other side of the broken cattle crossing. We had this 5 hr lay over in manila before our flight to cebu ( yes there again ) but it turns out our flight was 4 hrs late , so there was some rushing involved. Overnight in cebu after getting some more money ( they only took cash jn coron) snacks and yes ..vodka. The next morning we got a van for a 3 hr ride to maya, a 1/2 hr boat to malapascua and we're here!!! That's all for travel , we're here till we fly to japan...so a week.
   Again for you non divers, this is just blah, blah , blah. The diving hasn't been great, there's alot of divers here, enough that we have come up with a underwater sign for cluster fuck. The visibility has been average, but we have been seeing really cool stuff...we have been seeing pipefish so regularly that it's almost boring, but it's not. We saw a burrowing sea cucumber, well lots of them, a long lure frogfish, ornate ghost pipefish, ornate filefish, seriously stuff from the dive magazines you just never see.
  Ok it's 9pm now and I need to go to bed, and well I'm at the bar outside our hotel and it's starting to rain, so way I go. Now that we have a somewhat regular schedule we will blog more.

Love and warm thoughts from Malapasqua

Carrie, Erica and Glen