Let's put in one more before the new year

We're okay!

One person said to me the biggest culture shock when you get back is maybe no one wants to hear your stories.

It's been about three months since I last posted for a lot of reasons. Internet
Isn't cheap
Isn't here
Isn't working without electricity
Isn't on our minds so often.
Isn't it possible we forgot about you?
(You did the same.)

However, we have been in Sévaré and Mopti for the past few days staying with our CouchSurfing friend Willem waiting for the ferry to Tombouctou so I have some free time to try and get out an update.
One city name at a time will hopefully change into a not too boring recount.

Marrakech
we land!
we spend over a week getting lost in the medina
couch surfing with jacques qnd nicolas

Casablanca


Fes


Dades Gorge
you know how sometimes if you're a VIP customer hotels will comp you things? well, it's like that except the hotel owner thinks Ramadaan breakfasts and some rose water mean he can sexually harass me all he wants. Maybe it's more like Fair Trade coffee.
plus we walked through the canyons, ate tons of figs and became nomad voyeurs for a while

Agadir
sucks
hi, i am a student from liberia and i need bus money to get back. well we don't have any. okay well who do you think is richer - p-diddy or 50 cent?

Dakhla
I honestly think that argane oil is the worst excuse for someone to try to give you a massage. This is not the first encounter
The beach was lovely

Gueguarat

Nouadhibou
First step into West Africa and the difference is astounding. Black African culture definitely dominates the area.
take the iron-ore train to choum, longest train in the world at 2.3km

Choum
around 2.30 maybe we ran off the train and found a a cheap ride thanks to one of our new friends. we rode for a short time before we stopped by some general stores and played around with kids asking for gifts while they secured the luggage in the bed and on the back of the truck. we all found our places on the pile and enjoyed the desert night, drifting in and out of sleep until arriving in Atar a couple hours after sunrise.

Atar

Terjit

Atar

Nouakchott
couchsurfing with chloe
bonfire in the dunes surrounded by camels... and giant bowls of their salty milk


St Louis
is pretty okay
it looks nice
there is too much rasta music
do you want to see my shop, my friend then we can smoke some pot, my friend and then you can buy these knock off clothes my friend, and maybe later i'll take you to a game reserve my friend
i am a guide
it is impossible to walk around here by yourself, i will help you
i guess we lose these people after a second though because our clothes are faded, smelly and ripped and they're sick of us asking them if they need a guide

Dakar
sketchy hotel
although Dakar really isn't as dangerous as everyone says
maybe we just don't look like the type that have anything
at all
waiting for our visa for the gambia because we think it will be SO COOL!..

Karang
was draining.
my mindframe changes immediately to please stop knowing english right now

Barra
high hopes accompany us on the ferry along with at least 100 steer

Banjul
looking for embassies that aren't there

Serekunda, Kanifeng, etc
what can i say about this
the gambia is full of sketchy people
we did see a lot of green velvet monkeys at bijolo forest park though
and stayed at a YMCA, that was pretty bizarre in itself

Brikama
pretty much just too late too go anywhere

Tendaba
how about we just hand out money to people, it will be less stressful that way
fye's ecotourism camp tendaba!!! (really, the name does have that many exclamation marks. i'm not just being ridiculous this time) it was really cheap!!!
being chased by baboons in kiang west
and yelled at
walking everywhere

Soma
trans-gambian highway, hey!
maybe they'll have internet so we can check if my ticket has changed and not just Max's
no, we can't
power outrage

JanJang-Bureh
sucks!
but the boat ride down the gambia was nice!
Met some german travelers at the camp
We are border crossing with them
They want to hire the drunk rambler as a guide and they're giving him a safari vest too

Tambacounda
the stinking germans want 30€ for the ride
They're just using it to get African fabric pajama pants anyway

Kidira
we're still in senegal cause the border is closed, yeah!
yeah, we're in mali!
max goes in between thinking he does and doesn't have malaria

Kayes
bush fire train
starting to eat as much as the locals
everytime the train stops they go insane waiting to buy something, anything
max thinks he has malaria

Bamako
couchsurfing with lalia who only speaks french and we still know barely any
couchsurfing with melissa
stuck here forever
max always thinks he has malaria
waiting for camera
american club with the marines and volleyball
encounter with chief of customs

Mopti + Sévaré
hey mom, right now the kids in the compound are over watching young and the restless dubbed in french

WHAT'S HOT

Morocco
Big pots and medium glasses of China green tea with mint
Getting high all the time, really, even during Ramadaan

Western Sahara
We don't make our tea with mint, we're Saharis.
Give us our land!


Mauritania
More China green tea but this time with foam because we're Moors!
Drinking behind doors, probably holding hands too
Racial tension (I suppose Arabic vs Black Africa is nothing new)
If the lantern is lit, we have fresh camel milk, you know

Senegal
Jelly sandals, everywhere. I have never seen more jelly sandals than in Senegal. Sure, you see them here and there other places, but this is one of those shipments that got lost in the 90's. Hey Tracie, remember jelly sandals?

The Gambia
Smiles
Yaya, you know he is our man!
Curing AIDS
Changing the work place (for the better)
Getting girls in school (it's for the better)
billboards of Yaya (you know he is our man)


Mali
Soap operas
Slavery
Tuareg uprising
The US building radio towers in the north to "help" northern towns communicate (not keep tabs on things happening in the Sahara or anything like that)
Bin Laden Never Die stickers right next to USA flags on your new K-Power mobylette


West Africa
Ca va?
keeping away war so that you can get foreign aid back
Working really hard to make tea all day
Being friends, Hey! My friend!
80s Madonna stickers all over your minibus (the same one on each bus) And I do mean black lace gloves Madonna.
Hey Taubob, pen? bottle? sweet? bonbon? cadeaux? cfa? dalasi? euro? ougiya? dirham?
Not actually asking for these things, probably just demanding

It's a long way back to Germany

I picked up a book on beginner's Arabic and have started practicing the alphabet. I also wrote my first Arabic sentence which may be too embarassing or funny (depending on who you are) to mention. Tomorrow we leave for Frankfurt for a day of layover, whereafter we will end up in Marrakech on the morning of the 8th. Instead of going through just a few countries in the north of Africa and onward into the Middle East, WE'RE GOING INTO AFRICA*!!!!!! We've picked up a few things including a tent, some sterile syringes and needles, the new LP Africa guide book (shameless advertising) and of course I've got my headscarf to stay demure.

Oh, and


Ramadan starts on the 11th!..

EDIT Okay, the moon didn't show up until the 14th

did some updating, some.

So it has been a while since the last post as we haven't had much access to free internet and emphasis on research has been placed highly anytime we pay for it.
We're staying with a really great host from CouchSurfing right now and he's let us use his internet access among a million other things...
Picking up since the last post,
We went to Sofia and I have to say that for the most part it was definitely the least touristed place we have been. There we experienced the machine gun turrets still up around the local water source where people fill up their jugs, huge red (communist, probably) star trashed by a gated old building, threatening young gangs of boys trying to mess with people, and torrential rains causing us to believe this might be the next flooded city on the news but only ending up soaking us from loose stones shooting up hidden water. Sorry Sofia, but I just wasn't feeling it at the time...
Next we headed to Serbia where our first stop was the Downtown Belgrade Hostel, home of the famous managing magician! After we were shown a few card tricks, we went to the Belgrade castle... Which is basically just a bunch of young teens (and adults) dry-humping and drinking. The next day Max and I split up and I went to the Tesla museum and he took pictures of military property where apparently they were quite serious about him showing them the deleting of the photos. He did however still get some shots of the wrecked buildings leftover from the NATO bombings.
After hearing about the festival, we headed to Guca

Гуча
sleeping on a cold dewy hill
talk about a lot of drunk french, serbian, and roma
note: have a bunch of gypsy children and work them during the festivals - you know, anything for money


Budapest
couldn't find a place to stay because of the musical festival (exit i think) and had to spend 70€ on a hotel room which someone tried to break into in the middle of the night. Plus we arrive a few minutes too late to even enjoy the four star perks like swimming pool, sauna, etc.

Veľký Krtíš

Hrušov
I wear the Slovak national costume
and eat SO MUCH STRUDEL
KATKA I LOVE YOUR GRANDMOTHER

Bratislava
PG.58 Happy Birthday, here is your Yellow Fever vaccination

Vienna
You are in two cities on your Birthday, to go back to Bratislava and get your yellow fever vaccination turn to page 58.



And finishing this post with the best gift of my birthday...

Here today, gone tomorrow

So we arrived in Sofia yesterday. It's part of our severalcitygrandscheme (Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest) on the way to Bratislava.
We just booked tickets for our next destination.
MARRAKECH!
I'm pretty excited. I think we will start in Morocco, and head through to Egypt and maybe Sudan. From there maybe see Goreme in Turkey, then Iran, Israel, Jordan, some of the -stans, maybe going through China into India to avoid Pakistani VS Hindustani border issues. We were initially thinking about taking the Trans-Siberian into Asia, but I think we will take that near the end of our trip during the winter time... I'll have to research it a bit to see if it'll be unbearably cold or just a pleasant snowy view and vodka to keep us warm.
I'll update more about the here and now, once the SeptemberAfricaexcitement wears off.
As always, email me if you have advice and thank you for any advice you've sent thus far.


I'm not quite sure how I'll adjust to normal life after all this wandering.

MİDNİGHT BALKAN EXPRESS

Heading to Bulgaria... İ'll leave special instructions Rosetta Stone style in my pocket to post a blog if İ don't make it there with a beating heart.

I'm a Seadog!
Click here to test your skills at the wheel of a carribean cruise liner.

Just for curiosities sake...Tell me how much you pay for this make you happy

This post might be a bit oddly phrased as İ am too lazy to investigate certain punctuation and many keys are rearranged. You know what that means... NEW COUNTRY!é!éé''!ŞÖĞŞÇİŞŞÜĞĞPĞĞĞPéÇÇÖ. yeah!
So we arrived in İstanbul yesterday. We decided to stay ın a certain part of town called Sultanahmet. Shortly after we arrived we heard our first call to prayer. İt was a bit mesmerizing really. İ think after this whole trip is said and done, İ will refuse to listen to anythıng but accordians, the call to prayer, and İ'm sure Fado or tribal calls are in my near future.
With all that pointless bit said...
The architecture here is stunning and there are stray cats everywhere... Almost as many cats as business men. That's pretty much it. Oh, and we are going to meet wıth Max's friends Esra and David tonight after we take a walk through the Grand Bazaar and check out a few other things.
This includes modest clothing for the Mid East!

İ'll give a much better update after my first full day of bargaining.

YR MOM GOES TO ATHENS.

Before we left Krakow we went on another visit to Auschwitz, mainly focusing our time on Auschwitz II - Berkenau. It's quite vast, much larger than I previously thought. It contained five crematoriums + two temporary crematoriums before that. We went to the room where they showered, shaved down, sanitized, clothed and tattooed the incoming prisoners that weren't killed on spot. 75% were killed on spot. The railway led right to the crematorium which was surrounded by trees and flowers as to bring a false sense of security to vulnerable new arrivals. The room contained stories and snapshots of several people. The whole experience was overwhelming but seeing the photos was difficult to bare as it's the easiest connection to making Auschwitz more real for people. We can't go back in time, so it's hard to know what it was like. The current Auschwitz has beautiful trees and green grasses amongst the blocks - probably from all the human ashes spread there. Around one and a half million were killed there.
The next day we tried to catch a bus to Greece, but it didddn't quite work out so we had to wait until Monday and now................

A couple hours ago we got off the bus from Krakow. We're in Athens now as a stopover on the way to Istanbul. We could've made the trip a full 20 or so hours shorter (some time off the bus and the train) by going to Thesseloniki but we opted for being able to see the scenic train route from Athens to Thesseloniki that includes beaches and Mt. Olympus.
Our passports our definitely filling up now. I have over ten stamps...even after not being stamped in Poland or in Rome (after entering, exiting & entering again.)
Our bus crossed quite a few countries. I bought some chips and mushy carrot juice in Yugoslavia and we stalled the bus each time we were at the border as we were the only two Americans on the bus. "Oh, is this your only passport?" "Where is this from?" "Oh, you are Ammmerriicannn."
We met a 17 year old Polish boy on our bus trip named Olof who taught Max Polish and Greek (along with the drunk guy behind him... No, he didn't teach the drunk man, the drunk man was teaching also) and forced all of his food upon us. Mostly sweets. Including these weird blue Polish candies that are probably in the vein of agent orange and we just don't know it yet. I think it's impossible to refuse something if someone pushes it toward you three to four times each time. No really. EAT IT. IT IS MY PLEASURE.
35 hours of bus riding is insane. I am glad we stopped in Athens since our train ride will be another 24...Tomorrow morning.
I got a guide book on the Middle East and it includes the Arabic alphabet, which I think I will practice writing. I was able to find a book store called Massolit in Krakow that has over 25,000 English titles. I wasn't able to find an Arabic language book yet, but I've written down quite a few English language book stores in Istanbul.

Me - "Hey Max, do you want to ad anything?"
Max - "No, it's cool."

Love,
Nancy and Max.

PS: I added a link to my FLICKR account. That means you can see travel photos as we upload them. It will be slow-going at first, but it will pick up speed. Just like this blog.

From the beginning, sort of.

I know I've been saying that I'd start a travel blog for a while. The first post is the biggest hurdle so hopefully it'll keep filling up from here. As for photos, for now we have to figure out how to get the usb devices to show up on a Polish Linux OS. I'll insert them into here once we
So far, I've been travelling since May 8th where I lived in an apartment in Rome for about a month and half, visited Manchester and Liverpool for about a week where most of the siteseeing was pretty much set to pubs in Warrington and select movie theaters. Thank you for all your hospitaaality, Pat and Phil (and Greg!) After that I flew back to Rome where I met Max (for anyone who doesn't know, Max is my boyfriend.) About a day or two afterwards, we were crossing the street and got knocked to the ground by a scooter. I ended up being carted away in an ambulance to the nearest hospital. This is definitely the first time I've suffered head trauma so it was a little bit of a crazy experience to feel the back of my head covered in blood. Don't worry, I'M OK. Luckily (and I didn't know it at the time) emergency care in Italy is free. They took a few xrays of my chest and head and cleaned me up. I ended up with some rib bruising, a head wound, a bruise on my hip bigger than a softball, road rash over my left arm. I looked like a wreck walking back to where we were staying. The zipper on my dress had busted, one of the straps broke and I still had a lot of blood in my hair and on my legs.
Since that happened, around a month ago, my chest has finally stopped hurting and the last of liquid stitches (along with a few locks of hair) have found their way off my head.
We stayed in Rome for a couple days longer where we saw all the typical sites plus some stranger (better?) ones like Capuchin Crypt, and spent a night sleeping around the city - including the stone benches surrounding Trevi Fountain.
We decided we wanted to get away from the speed of city life so we headed to The Aolian Islands of Lipari, Salina (where they filmed Il Postino) and Vulcano - Home of radioactive mudpits, sulfur heated waters and the original gate to hell!
From there we went to Milan, but realized it was pretty much just a city for weekend shoppers. It didn't stop us from waiting in line to get into Prada and looking for fanny packs in Louis Vuitton.
From Milan, I think it was mutually decided that we were in a little bored of Western Europe for the time being and so we headed to Prague... Maybe the budget airline had a bit to do with the decision but it was a good entrance into CentralishEasternish Europe. It was pretty laid back. Mostly roamed the streets, read a book by one of the two famous locals (this is obvious, I know you know it,) and ate some pretty cheap vegan food. If you like vegan food, go to Country Life by the Museum. They have a market and a restaurant in the alleyway behind it. Cheap and delicious.
Now I'm in Krakow, which seems to be cheaper than Prague. I like this city the best so far, maybe because it's the city I can most see myself living in from the few select I've visited thus far. I love the main square in Krakow. From accordian players to break dancers. I'm sure I've gotten a few good photos here.
Yesterday we went to Auschwitz I and II - Berkenau and it was pretty wild. We opted to go for a tour, but agreed that it left us feeling rushed. The whole tour experience made me feel like we were going through one large dismissal of everything that happened there. I'm thinking of going back there tomorrow to spend some time wandering and really letting things sink in.
Looking forward...
We're always really open to where we can go next. So far, every move has been a last minute decision. If you have any suggestions of places to go or that can't be missed, let me know. Whether you leave me a comment here or send an email to overseascalls@gmail.com
What we might be doing next...
Next I THINK we're going to Turkey next and then from mid August for a few weeks, we'll be in Slovakia. For the beginning of September until the 22nd, I don't know what will be happening, but I would like to go to the Middle East for Ramadan. I'm looking into trying to find some books or something to practice some Arabic... If anyone can help me out with a good site for language tips or anything like that, let me know.
I miss you all and I spent a ton of time making people angry because they're waiting to use the computer and this browser keeps shutting down so I hope you READ THIS.