Miraculously I awoke to find my feet feeling refreshed.  Sad to say though, the first cute guy and the only other female both left the room and now I have two more males in the room.  Back to the regular type I’m used to, the kind who are slightly disheveled and make me sad when I survey the shared bathroom.  I made sure they’re ok with me being the only female in the room, you never know if you end up with sailors who see women as bad luck.

After a later breakfast Andres and I headed out for another day of foot torture.  We looked for a Citi bank in the upscale neighbourhood rife with Rolex, Pandora and other stores before leaving to seek solace in something a little more ethnic.  We found a shopping street with alleyways twisting in and out, tiny stores with tacky nicknacks, and streets packed with pedestrians, people carting goods on bike, and laundry hanging outside to dry.  Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the end of day 1 and my feet are killing me.  Fortunately I’ve pumped myself full of advil, beer and zoplicone so either I’ll fall asleep from exhaustion or from being happily stoned.

This morning I woke and met the second of my cute male neighbours.  As we were eating breakfast it turned out Spanish Andres and I had the same itinerary and so spent the day together.  We headed to one of the main attractions and while it was large and old, it did not capture my imagination.  But the second attraction we went to did, I remember watching the news of the protests and the army’s response to them.  Standing in the same place and thinking of the brave people who stood up to their government for what they believed in was quite overwhelming.  It’s amazing how the politicians whitewash those days with large screens displaying tourism commercials with shots of the beautiful countryside and soothing classical music piped in from the surrounding speakers.  Fortunately we haven’t forgotten and I hope the locals know that. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry to take so long to post but the censorship is high enough here that wordpress and facebook are both blocked out.  Even though I host my blog under my own domain they’ve figured out how I get in there.  So here I am, trying to beat the censors and get my messages to you.

I arrived on Sunday afternoon after a long, uneventful flight.  I sat next to a nice local lady who introduced me to her equally nice husband when we left the baggage claim area.  They helped me get my subway ticket, negotiating the language and figuring out my cash for me.  Ten minutes later I’m on my way into the city so it was far easier than I was anticipating.  Even though I’ve met wonderful people everywhere it still surprises me to find others who are so willing to help out. Read the rest of this entry »

A hint in the last post was that I’m going somewhere I haven’t gone before.  There’s a whole list of countries on this blog that will help in elimination, but there are others that I visited before the days of the blog, some even before the existence of public internet.  Here they are in alphabetical order:

Austria, Belgium, England, Egypt, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland

Git ‘er dun.

It’s time again to head out and go explore another part of the world.  But this time I’m not telling you where I’m going.  Instead, you will have to follow this blog and guess from the clues where I might possibly be.  Leave your guess as a comment on whatever post you read and if you’re the first person to guess correctly, you’ll get a gift from the country I’m in.

Here are a few hints to get you started:

1.  I’ve never been to this country before

2.  I’m taking a backpack

3.  the weather could be hot, could be cold, depends on climate change and its unpredictability

4.  you can get there by land or boat but I’ll be flying

5.  I’m packing a swimsuit

6.  I need a passport to enter

7.  I leave from Vancouver on September 15 and return on October 6

That’s it, no more for you.  Let the guessing begin…