Well. It brought me back here and I realize I have not posted for 3 months!!! Man, life goes fast. I have been busy getting back on track and got pulled deep into crunch mode at the new job I started Oct 1st. blah blah blah… .

Anyway, that little discussion of yesterday evening brought back a lot of fond memories. But while you could think I remembered more some of the places I visited, it is actually not the case. The strongest memories that came back to me are all related to people that were nice (crazy!?) enough to accept to hang out with me while I was traveling or even to worry for me or support me through this blog, emails or pure thoughts. This is what means the most to me.

Extending this to the full year, I want to thank you all, all my family and friends I knew before or I met in the last year. Thanks for welcoming me in your life, even if it is/was for only 5 minutes, 1 hour, a day, a week or forever. Thanks for being here. I appreciate every minute of your friendship. You are all great people.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2007.

Wish to hear from you or, even better, see you soon.

]]> http://www.30wonders.com/blog/2006/12/16/happy-holidays-bonnes-fetes/feed/ http://www.30wonders.com/blog/2006/09/15/source-of-inspiration/ http://www.30wonders.com/blog/2006/09/15/source-of-inspiration/#comments Fri, 15 Sep 2006 19:05:12 +0000 david Thoughts http://www.30wonders.com/blog/2006/09/15/source-of-inspiration/ As I got my computer back, I stumbled on the bookmarks I had done while I was planning my trip and I started opening some I remember liking. It is when I realized how much websites of people that have traveled or are traveling have inspired me to go through with my decision.

Of course, as I have written before in this journal or in other parts of the site, my desire to go on a long trip did not suddenly grow out of one source. It was a slow process that lasted for many many years as I was learning about the world, meeting people that had done it or even as I was traveling myself for short trips complaining that I did not have enough time to really enjoy the places I visited.

Anyway, most of these people have had amazing experiences and have gone past their limits more than once. They usually have great advices for wanna be travelers and some of these websites are just amazingly well done.

Daniel at Neverbecomplete quit his software engineering job and went on a trip for 6 months then came back and went away again for 4 months. He has cool stories to tell and seems to have found his way at the end. He also produced an animation that I really like to watch: Never be complete. If you only check one thing, make it that.

Hector Around the World, a Spanish guy that have travelled from Turkey to Egypt along a similar path in 2 months. His writing style is very pleasant. I got a lot of information from his site and today, I can even compare notes .

Megan at Me-go is quite the traveller and an inspiration. When I meet a woman that tells me she would be afraid to travel by herself, I think about Megan. Frankly, that girl has been in places I might not dare go! And as an added bonus, she is a great graphic designer and has cool sketches on her sites.

Good stuff!

One last warning: Be cautious, this is contagious .

No, no, I did not sign for a new job yet .

But my camera (Canon SD400) is finally fixed and working like before with a sparkling new LCD screen.

The screen had been broken since the day I left Turkey for France rendering the whole camera useless as most of the functions are only accessible through the LCD screen.

While in France, I had found that it was possible to order the LCD screen directly to the Canon New Jersey parts center. So one week after my return here, I ordered the screen. It went very smoothly and cost $65.

I received the screen yesterday afternoon and armed with a lot of tools, I got on with the task of trying to make the substitution. It took me some time to decide which screws to remove. And I ended up stuck with a screw that did not want to bulge. But finally, thanks to the fine step by step instructions I found on the web, a piece of paper and some tape, I managed to make the change without removing the damn screw!

Tada!

It is now working like before as you can see from the pictures in this entry .

Hurray!

Well, if you have read this website from the begining, you know I spent some time fine-tuning my packing list optimizing for weight and easy-cleaning. To read how it was created and how I selected some of these items, go there.
I think the best way to comment it is to go over it:

• 3 t-shirts/1 long-sleeves t-shirt: I loved my 4 dry-fit t-shirts. They were perfect for every occasion. I ended up buying one short sleeves and one long sleeves cotton shirts in Dahab and it proved useful too.
• 2 pair convertible trousers: Perfect
• 3 pairs of underwear: Rod used to make fun of me for having only three of them. He even offered me to buy me some in Tel-Aviv! That is true that it was a bit tight especially when I could not clean any for several days. I would go for the double next time.
• A set of long very warm underwear pants and t-shirt (The set I use when I ski): I used them at night in the desert and on top of Mount Sinai and never got cold.
• 1 swimsuit trunk: Definitely
• 1 fleece jacket: Not used that often but definitely worth carrying.
• 1 windproof, rainproof jacket: Only used in England!
• 3 pairs of socks: I wore the Tevas most of the time so 3 pairs were enough. If you wear closed shoes more than half the time, I would take 2 more pairs.
• 1 cap: Perfect. I would take one more next time because I got tired of it.
• 1 pair trekking/walking shoes: Perfect
• 1 pair of Tevas: Perfect. They got quite stinky at time but they wash nicely overnight!
  
• 1 travel towel: Useless. It is nice to go on a backpacking weekend. Very light and everything but frankly, I used it rarely preferring the hotel’s towels when available and ended up loosing it. I bought a normal towel that I lost the same day on the boat. I finally bought a large beach towel in Greece and even if it was taking more room in my backpack, it was definitely worth it.
• 1 silk sheet bag (because I am worth it!): Well, used it only for 10 nights max. The hotels/hostels usually provide bed sheets and those that require a sheet bag rent them for super cheap and you do not have to clean the damn thing. I would not take it again for a trip in Middle-East. It might be different for a trip to Europe though.
• 1 toothbrush / 1 tube of toothpaste / 1 box of floss: Take the real thing, not travel size.
• 1 bottle of shampoo/1 bottle of soap: I thought I would be smart and use containers that close tight but they were too small and ended up having to buy these items.
• Nail clippers: N/A
• An electric razor: Except for the fact I decided not to use it by the end of my trip, it worked great. If you don’t bring one, you can take your chance with the barbers that do a nice and relaxing job for very cheap.
• 1 travel pack (Gregory Palisade): Worked well. Difficult to securely lock so it might be a concern for other people.
• 1 day pack (Eagle Creek packable day pack): Love it! British Airways too!
• 1 duffel bag (that folds very small): Never used.
• 2 locks: Definitely. I used one to lock my daypack when going in crowded area.
• 1 tiny alarm clock: Very useful and worked like a charm.
• 1 mini Maglite flashlight with extra bulb: Very useful for the desert, the Egyptian monuments and the cave exploration in Petra and Cappadocia.
• 1 Leatherman micro: Very useful. Sadly, I had to let it go at the airport in Athens after I forgot to check it in.
• 1 compass/whistle combo: Compass was very useful while exploring Petra and Cappadocia.
• 2 safety pins: Never used.
• 1 bunch of Ziplocs: Perfect
  
• 1 small roll of duct tape: Once again, it saved the day when I had to fix my papyrus roll after the Israeli custom had cut the top open!
• 1 tube of detergent: I bought liquid soap. I did laundry every night for 1 month. I did not have enough. Then I discovered that most of the backpacker hotels were offering laundry service for very cheap so I went for that.
• 1 sink stopper: Great
• 1 surgical-quality, natural latex rubber clothesline!: Perfect, that stuff can hold a load.
• 2 inflatable hangers: Very good. I got some shit for having them from Rod but I think he was just jealous!
• some toilet paper: Always have some on you.
• 1 pair of sunglasses and its box: Lost the box in Athens. I also managed to damage them by putting them in my pocket .
• 1 traveler first aid pack including diarrhea treatment, Advil/Tylenol, blister pads, bandages…: One word: Cypro!
• 1 bottle of mosquito repellent: Used it only twice.
• 1 tube of sunscreen and lip balm: I think I went through 5 or 6 tubes total. It is difficult to find good sunscreen with SPF over 30 so if you need more, stock on them. I used SPF 60 for most of Egypt.
• Inflatable travel pillow / blindfold / earplugs: I cannot find earplugs that work with my ears. As Ledi says all the time, they have a weird shape!
• A digital camera + an extra battery + charger: Worked great except when I broke the LCD.
• A Hardshell CD case to store the picture CDs I burn along the way: I bought it in Egypt. Definitely worth it.
  
• An IPod and its charger: For the 13 hour bus rides with the radio blaring in a language you do not understand!
• An universal power converter: It worked great everywhere. Small and versatile.
• A security pouch: Perfect
• Important documents
• Passport / Green card
• Vaccination certificates
• Credit/debit cards
• Health insurance info
• 3 personal checks: Never used one but it is a good thing.
• A list with personal addresses and phone numbers
• Copies of these documents: N/A
• 3 guidebooks: The Middle-East Lonely Planet turned out too old to be useful. It was so heavy that I ended up tearing sections apart and carrying only the current country’s section. Having a guidebook is at the same time an enchantment and a calamity. It helps you not get scammed all the time but it also shields you from many experiences. Using it is definitely a balancing act. While more expensive and more difficult to buy a guide when you get in the country, it definitely saved my back not to carry all of them from the beginning.
• A bunch of books: These were heavy. Need to take less and unload more along the road. The book exchange works quite well.
• My scuba diving logbook and PADI cards
• 1 small notebook
• 1 pen: Failed on me in Istanbul. I did not find one I liked before England.
• 1 pencil: Gave it to a tomb guard in Abu Simbel on a misunderstanding. I thought he wanted to write something for me!

The only thing I really missed was a set of nicer clothes to go out. I did not go as much as I could have because I did not have anything nice to wear. I will take what is needed next time.

Except for that, everything worked quite well. I have updated the list based on my comments.

But everything is fine. The bag was only weighting 2.5kgs (5.5lbs) so I was a bit worried about it (and stuff stored inside ) being smashed by heavier pieces of luggage. The camera is fine (except for the LCD screen that was already broken), the IPod is fine, the glasses are not worth than before and the books are all there.

The picture CDs are fine too. I think it is mostly due to the hard shell CD case I bought in Egypt at the beginning of my trip for 30 cents. I had decided to buy this shell once I realized the 2 first CDs I had burnt were getting scratched by dust and could break if something went wrong. Maybe the best buy of my trip! I will definitely add this item to my packing list for my next trip.

And the story of a French Canadian girl I met in Istanbul makes this even more compelling. She had got a professional recording of her singing done in Budapest and the audio CD broke by Istanbul. She was quite upset about it. Gladly, the master digital CD was still fine!

I am now in the process of copying all the pictures on my computer hard drive and I will burn them again on DVDs.

I also got my notebook back so I will be able to type some of stories I did not get the chance to publish before.

We’re back, we’re back in San Francisco
We’re back and you tell me I’m home

If anyone wonders, this is what I was singing in my head as I was walking out of the plane as I had just landed at San Francisco International Airport today.

Around 12 hours earlier, I had said bye to Rav that had taken me to Heathrow way early as I did not know how long it would take to register and then go through the security checks. The security restrictions have been eased up and everybody is now well aware of them so it went smoothly.

Back to San Francisco. Since I had been out of the country for 5 months and had visited many countries of the Middle East considered at risk by the government, I had to go through a lengthy interview process. But it actually went very well as the officer was very nice about it mixing probing questions with genuine interest for my trip and the things I had visited. I was prepared for a rougher reception so it was a pleasant surprise .

My friend Gregory offered to host me while I will be looking for a new place. It is Kind of surreal though as it seems like I was leaving yesterday but really, I have been away for 155 days! It has not sank in yet. At the same time, I really feel the need (pressure?) to get back into “normal life”. I will try to balance that feeling in the following days as I am adjusting to the jet-lag.

Later on, as I was checking email, I got a message from Rav telling me a bag had been delivered to his place! The good news is that BA located my bag. The bad news is that they did not take into account yesterday’s phone call and still delivered it in Southall. Well, it is still great news and I am quite happy that it was not stolen or completely lost. As usual, everything ended well. My lucky star is not going away. Rav will be sending it to me next week. I will soon be reunited with my pictures. Quite a good start for my come back .

This time is different as I am staying more days here and I am on my own most of the time since Rav is busy at work. In a way, it is better as it is when I visit by myself and sometimes get lost that I get a good feel for a city. At these occasions, my strategy is to walk as much as possible using the bus or tube only if I am in a hurry or if the place I want to go to is too far to walk to.

After having lunch with Rav and some of his coworkers at their office, I wanted to go checkout the Dali museum located close to the London Tower and the London Eye.

I didn’t have a map of London so I had to rely on some directions given to me by Rav and on my tube map. Of course, I got lost and ended up walking a long way with an unplanned detour by Buckingham palace. But I did not mind as it gave me a chance to explore some side streets and a park and I finally found my way to the museum.

The museum ticket is a bit expensive and Rav had warned me that some of his friends had not found the exposition worth the money. But I really wanted to go as I have never really got the occasion to explore Dali’s universe and I have had a kin interest for a long while.

It was actually very interesting for me but if you have already seen things from Dali, it might not be worthwhile as most of the pieces in exposition are not originals. The paintings are mostly lithography and the sculptures are all one of a serie.

Like Picasso, Dali had definitely another vision of the world than most of us. I liked what I saw .

Later in the evening, I met again with Rav that took me for a walk through the center of what is known as Little India (downtown Southall). It might well be the largest Indian mall out of India. Also, the neighborhood is stuffed with places of cult for the different religions cohabiting there: Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian.

On other news, it is now the fifth day my backpack went missing. I finally got through the BA phone system. The representative told me there was 5000 bags left to process but they would be processed tomorrow. As I am leaving tomorrow, I asked him to change the details on my file so that my bag is delivered to San Francisco now once they find it.

That is a very limited experience of such a great museum so today, I went to checkout the museum one more time wanting to see some of the other collections. And since the entrance is free, I don’t see why I would not come again and again!

Anyway. To my delight, I found out there was a very nice exposition named Enlightenment that picked up my interest.

As I wrote yesterday, an historical period I am very interested in is the period of the French revolution. And a movement that in a way led to the French revolution is the philosophy of Enlightenment (Les lumieres in French) that took up during the XVIIIth century.

The exposition is really good. Organized around the library and personal collections of George III and some scientists of the period, it provides a good overview of all the topics that started to be examined at that period: Biology, Geology, Archeology, Antiquities, Science, History and Origins of Art, Ancient Languages study, Mysteries, Spirituality…Some great scientific tools of the period like globes and astrolabs are presented. There is also a copy of the Rosetta Stone that not only one can touch but also examine for a long time without being pushed around by other people trying to get a picture of it as it is the case for the original located somewhere else in the museum. I am sure most of these people don’t even look at it and could not tell you in which order the languages are written on the stone! It is quite nice to be able to feel the cavities of the text of such important document.

Everything is well documented and very educative. I finally stayed a lot of time in the room as everywhere I was looking, I could see one more item or presentation of interest.

Since I was at the museum, I could not pass on another visit of the Egyptian collection. It always brings back very good memories and at the same time, I can put many pieces in context so it is a lot of fun. I really liked the part on the book of the dead with some great papyrus including one depicting the last judgment (I bought a similar one in Cairo for those that did not follow ).

Since Rav and one of his good friend work close by the museum, we went to lunch. He took me to a dive Korean restaurant that cannot be found if one does not know about it beforehand as it is not advertised outside. I even wonder if it has a proper license! We entered a Korean grocery store, chose between two main dishes, payed and walked all the way to the back down a staircase. We ended up in a room with some tables and chairs surrounded by shelves full of tapes and a stack of VCRs surely used to produce these tapes! We were served promptly. Food was very good! A unique experience .
We met again later after they were finished with work. We tried some bars around the same area and ended up at a Taco bar/club with excellent tacos, coronas and cool music. It was a lot of fun. Thanks guys.
Another good day in gloomy rainy London .

On other news. Today is the 3rd day since my backpack went missing. I could not get through the system in England but Ledi managed to get someone in the USA. They don’t have any idea of where it could be. Hopefully, it is partying with the 20 000 other bags stranded at Heathrow!

From Rav’s place in Southall to Salisbury train station, it took around 3 1/2 hours taking the bus from his place to the tube station, tube to Waterloo station and train from Waterloo to Salisbury. 7 hours spent traveling might look a lot to many people but I guess it does not anymore to me. It is only half the time it took me to go from Adana to Antalya or Selcuk to Goreme by bus in Turkey! And since the train is way more comfortable, it ended up feeling like I spent the day on the couch at home reading a good book except that in place of the TV, I had a great landscape scrolling in front of me .

Anyway, I arrived in Salisbury a bit after noon and bought a round-trip ticket to Stonehenge. It is an interesting place and I liked to listen to the free audio-guide that is providing a lot of information about what the historians and archeologs know of the place. It is difficult to get a good grasp of the place though since in my opinion, one cannot get close enough to the circle and stones. Also, some roads have been built very close by making the place less impressive than it could be. Fortunately, the British government has started a program to cover one of the road and remove the other in order to return the site to its former state: lost in the middle of the plain. Actually, to be perfect, it would need to be surrounded by a forest. In this case, Stonehenge would really look surreal.

As you can have guessed by now, I was not that impressed. A bit disappointed actually. I think the hype killed it but it is still worth a look though .

I took the bus back to Salisbury and since it was only 3PM, I thought I would walk around the city and maybe look for the cathedral Rav had advised me to checkout. I really liked walking around the city. It is very charming. Exactly the architectural style I associate with an old British college town. I could definitely live in downtown Salisbury .

I finally found the cathedral at around 5PM and decided to take a look. It has a very interesting architecture. Walking inside while the service was on added to the spirituality of the place.

Eventually, I stumbled on something I was not expecting. In the very nice library, I had the opportunity to checkout a copy of the Magna Carta (Great Chapter). I did not remember much about it from school but the very nice lady that was guarding it provided me with a booklet full of information. It was really interesting to read the translation and learn more about its influence on other countries’ constitution including the American constitution.

It actually brought back fond memories of when younger, I was studying the preparation of the Estates-General in 1989 (Event that led to the French revolution, my second favorite historical subject after ancient civilizations). At this occasion, the citizens of France had drafted a list of demands to the king that are very interesting since they show the concerns of the time. While not as broad, the Magna Carta still gives a good feel for the concerns of the barons in early XIIth century in England.

Anyway, I digress. Enough to say it was a good surprise and this made my day .

All in all, a very good day-trip. And I even have some pictures to share thanks to Rav that lent me his camera.

On other news, my backpack is still missing. I tried to call the mishandled luggage line of BA all day but I cannot get through . Rav’s brother that works for BA told me over 20 000 bags had been mishandled and BA was recruiting volunteers from other departments to help. Hopefully, I get some news soon.

I arrived in Roissy early as I knew it would take longer to get through the formalities. I was right! It took about 2 hours to go through the check-in process. To make matters worst, the hostess requested I only keep my wallet with me and check-in my small black day pack. I was not very happy about this as I had heard this was only for USA-bound flights and did not think it would be enforced on flights to London. No liquids of any form, OK. But no carry-on!!! I don’t really like to part from my camera, my IPod and especially my notebook and the CDs with the pictures from my trip. I have travelled through all Middle-East and I had not to do that at any time.

Well, I didn’t want to get anybody anxious so I complied. Unfortunately, I would discover later it was a huge mistake!

The trip went OK. Of course, I had to go through 10 controls before I could board the plane. And of course, we got delayed at every possible occasion arriving in London 2 hours late. But that was still alright as I understand the situation and I was not in any kind of hurry except that my friend Rav was waiting for me at the airport in London.

It is when I went to get my bags that it all turned sour. I collected my two big bags but after waiting more than 30 minutes, I had to accept the truth, my small blag day pack had been mishandled and I would not see it coming out of the conveyor belt today.

So I filed a complain with BA and am waiting for them to locate it. Hopefully they do it fast because loosing the pictures of my trip would suck big time .

On a side note. Heathrow is a big mess with tens of flights cancelled and thousands of people stranded. The departure level parking lot looked more like a refugee camp than an airport parking lot with heavy security, people lining up under the rain in order to get in the terminal and distribution of water bottles and prepared food. I hope it gets better by Thursday or I might have to find another way back to San Francisco.