I have the greatest mouse in the world

The box of stuff that we sent from Greece arrived yesterday, including my $13 Akihibara mouse: The happy face is of course split into left and right buttons, and the brightly lit nose is the scroll wheel. What you might not be able to tell from the photo is that the bottom part is sort of like a snow globe, and has red and green (plastic?) flowers, a couple of sea shells, and some coarse sand floating in water. Some LEDs in the front compartment cycle through red, green, and blue colors, lighting up the water and stuff in it. Awesome.

It also works very nicely as a mouse.

Then there are the $15 webcams:
(Janet's is a mouse with eyes that light up when the camera's on.) They're not quite working with iChat because of some driver problems, but the tech support guys are on the case.

Meanwhile, some things that didn't find a place anywhere else:

* Going in, we knew that cell phones were big in India. What I wasn't expecting was the strength of the cell phone model in commercial media. Watching local TV (great Bollywood music videos!), you'll see TV commercials that are visually and structurally equivalent to American or British commercials (although in Urdu, of course). But when you get to the point where an American commercial would show the URL there is something like "sms FREE to 73371". It was very rare to see a URL in India, although they're all over the place in Cairo.

* Saturday morning, BBC 4 was running a live feed of their Big Brother house. For HOURS -- continuing coverage of people sleeping, and absolutely nothing happening. Warhol lives, with a British accent.

* India seems to have rejected the Negroponte $100 laptop program, at least at this point. A Delhi paper reported that the appropriate government agency told Nicholas that the evidence on the utility of machines like this was unproven, and that maybe they should try it out in their own country and see if it works instead of expecting India to be their guinea pigs. Snap! Whether this is just a stage in the negotiating process remains to be seen.

I'm sure I'll think of other things that should go here, but I should get those lovely pictures of our new toys out first...

There comes a time when all you want to do is go home

Yesterday was...interesting. Jim left out a few items.

1. The United powers-that-be knew once we left London that we weren't going to make the 5:00 flight to SFO and rebooked us on the next flight...the following morning which would not have been good from my "I have to go to work on Monday morning" perspective. If we'd known this was going to happen, we certainly wouldn't have agreed to be bumped. Not getting home last night would have been a deal breaker.

2. This is my personal favorite. I've never before had a ticket agent tell me: "You are booked on a flight tomorrow morning, we won't pay for your hotel, and if you want to put up a fuss, the Chicago police are standing right over there." I've never been threatened with the police before, particularly before I've even had a chance to say anything.

For what it is worth, I think perhaps the ticket agent was having a worse day than I was. The police were there because a previous customer had lost his temper. Extremely lost his temper, in at least a highly verbal fashion, if you know what I mean. They escorted him out of the airport I believe.

3. Since we might have to stay the night without luggage, there was a quick, "Open up the bag and grab out a change of clothing" before rechecking the bags. I've always loved grabbing underwear out of a bag while sitting on the floor of a crowded airport.

4. Once we travelled to the adjacent terminal, we had to re-enter security. Our stand-by boarding passes seem to set off some kind of alert and so not only do we have to do the regular stuff, but we are patted down, and our bags searched with the little explosive detection cloths. This does not speed things up for us.

5. When we finally get to the gate and to the desk to inquire about our standby status, they hand us our boarding passes with the words "Oh! We've been paging you!"
It wasn't like we took a detour to the gate. It just takes a LONG time to get between terminals in O'Hare, and getting extra security checks doesn't improve things. I have to say that flight had to have the worse first class cabin I've ever seen, although the food wasn't bad. Jim and I were separated, we were in the bulkhead row, so no space in front of us to put our bags, and Jim had very little leg room.

But the plane was going to SFO, and that's all that counted. Unfortunately the bags didn't make that flight and were on the flight that came in 30 minutes later so we had to hang out at the airport the extra time to collect them. We didn't get home until after midnight.

Funny thing. The flights on All Nippon Airways, Singapore Airlines, Swiss Air, and even Egypt Air, which is supposed to be unreliable, all went smooth, no problems, nice planes, good food, ontime departure and arrivals. It wasn't until we got back to "civilization" and Lufthansa and United that things turned sucky. Makes you think.

But, hey, at least we didn't get arrested.

Other random thoughts.
1. Why is it only in the USA do you have to take off your shoes at security? Don't shoes explode in other countries? Not that they ever have in the USA, so why do we have to take off our shoes?

2. On United flights you get plastic knives to cut your filet. Other airlines use metal knives, and yet no one has taken over a plane using the cutlery. Odd thing that.

I don't have to get on another plane for over a week...yippee!!!

Those whom the gods wish to make crazy, they first upgrade to business class

But what then?

Step 2: Delay the flight out of Heathrow for an hour, so that the connection in O'Hare will probably be missed (but while holding out the possibility of making lt),

Step 3: Put Jim's bag at the very end of the baggage claim. This way...

Step 4: ...they will be towards the end of the near-endless line to rebook their now definitely missed connection, along with all the other victims on the plane.

Step 5: Make sure all the other flights to SFO today are full. Give them a confirmed booking on Monday, and hold out the possibility of flying standby this evening. Also decree that, since the flight delay was because of air traffic control and not United per se, they would have to pay for any needed hotel stay. They would also not have their bags with them in the hotel, since those would have to be checked to SFO on the standby flight.

Step 6: Run them through an amazingly mysterious security process at O'Hare (take me back to Cairo, please!), just to increase the tension.

Step 7: But, being benevolent travel gods, let the standby reservation clear, in first class no less. So it's a piece of post-dinner tiramisu and a glass of wine as an end to a very long day.

My, that was fun.

DNS error: 28tickets.miramontes.com does not resolve

A brief update upon having left London. More will be said of this, except to note that I could walk around this city all day long (and almost did), and that Judi Densch is surprisingly good at physical comedy.

We got to Heathrow a little early, figuring that we could check out whether our miles-funded business-class upgrade had come through and, if all else failed, burn off our final pounds on duty-free English goodies and hang out at the airline club. We got to check-in to discover that our flight to SFO was severely overbooked (thus no hope of the upgrade), but that they were offering $1000 travel credit for people willing to be bumped and arrive a bit later. Family members willl recognize our response: "Hmm..."

Negotiations began; keep in mind that we had just arrived from Hong Kong, India, and Egypt. ("That much? Oh, no, no -- far too much. My loss! My loss!") We were also conducting the negotiations from the business class line, which they thought they were entitled to and which gave us a certain amount of leverage. A bit of back and forth followed (travel hint: in a bumping situation, airline folks have a lot more flexibility and options than you might think) -- we went from business class and the full travel credit to business class without the credit to coach with the credit and I think a couple of other things. I was about to throw in my DVD of Cars and a copy watch when we agreed on business class to SFO and $500 credit per person. What followed was some waiting for paperwork and then a frenzied escorted dash through Terminal 3 security to make the new flight, complete with a ride on the "get-out-of-our-way-more-important-people-than-you-are-coming-through" beeping golf cart. The driver of the cart failed to run over anyone, somewhat to my dismay. In any case, we're currently working through the ice cream and port course of our lunch on our way to Chicago, where we're hopeful that the hour delay leaving London won't keep us from catching our final flight to SFO, and thinking about where to go with our $1000. Assuming we make our connection in O'Hare, life is good.

Amazement fatigue

I'm really glad we came to Cairo, and Egypt in general, because I had no idea what to expect from it. I mean, intellectually I knew there was more than mud huts and camels, but I had no idea of what modern Cairo really was like. My guess is that I've absorbed so many images of the Pyramids and the Sphinx over the years that there's no cognitive room left for more mundane questions like how hotels fit into streets and sidewalks and whether they have 7-11s. My problem, not theirs.

Flying into the city, you start to get an idea. It's a big city (14 million?), and, in many respects, just like any other big city, aside from the fact that it seems to be all one color -- the color of sand. But, yes, there are streets and sidewalks and traffic lights and all that stuff; yes, you can walk from your hotel to a restaurant or a kiosk selling newspapers, magazines, and bottled water. Yes, there are people of varying ages and economic levels who would love to sell you a new memory card for your camera or simply-made bookmarks. No, you probably don't want to drink the tap water. But once you get past all that, it's another big city with all the advantages and disadvantages of any big city. On arrival, we check into the hotel, think about showering or hitting the pool, and figure out where to eat.

But then you're off to do the Rampaging Tourist run through Cairo -- the Pyramids and the Sphinx, the ruins at Memphis, and the 3200 BC step pyramid at Sakkara. Sheesh. Somewhere in here, Amazement Fatigue sets in, especially the next day in Luxor, spending hours going through 5,000 year old tombs with amazingly beautiful paintings and wall carvings. Seing evidence of sufficiently developed models of medicine to understand that the heart was a pretty significant organ worthy of some respect. Enough engineering to cut straight-as-an-arrow blocks of granite and limestone, and fit them together without a gap. And all at a time when our ancestors were rolling around in the mud and picking lice off each other. The Fatigue comes from trying to reconcile all of this, and failing miserably. Which is okay -- you give up and fall back into simply absorbing what's in front of you, figuring that you'll reflect on it later and be amazed, Which you do, and are.

As suggested above, our last (second) night in Egypt was in Luxor, about an hour's plane flight away and home to most of the tombs and temples (temple complexes, really) you've heard about, including Tutankhamen's. Some additional evidence for Jim's main travel principle: "Use organized activities as a way to put yourself in the way of serendipity, which is what you're really traveling for".

* We went to the "sound and light show" in Luxor. These have become quite the thing lately for those places that have lots of monuments that can be lit impressively at night. They write a little script telling a not-awful history of the place, get some voice actors to play the parts of the ancients in their best James Earl Jones voices, and walk the tourists through the site, doing the sound and light thing as they go, I apologize for the condescing tone of that description; it's better than I made it sound.

Anyway: the show ends with the audience sitting in a set of bleachers overlooking the entire site -- a huge place of 40 century-old architecture and construction and religion -- taking in the final bits of dialog and western-ish orchestral music. While the dramatic lighting of the site remains, the sound track ends, and is replaced by the natural sounds of Luxor at the moment...

..which turns out to be the evening call to prayer, sent out with simple amplification systems, of what must have been ten to twenty mosques throughout the city. This was the real soundtrack of the place -- calls filled with passion and faith, bumping into each other yet telling the same story that the callers and their ancestors have told for centuries. It hit me in the gut; I didn't, and still don't, know completely what to make of it. It was one of those things that transcends reason and rationality. But there was a reality there that couldn't be denied.

* We went back to our hotel, which was across the street from where the Cairo-Luxor-Aswan cruise ships (ferries, really) dock. We got out of the car and into a completely joyous chaos. As in India, July is low season for tourism in Egypt -- only idiots like us and truckloads of American college students would travel to Egypt from America in the heat of July -- and so many of the ships, which are rather nice, rent themselves out for parties and weddings and the like. A couple of weddings were underway, judging from the elaborate gowns on some of the women, the video cameras capturing everything, and the music. The music was provided by random collections of locals with collections of drums, horns, and who knows what else -- it somehow reminded me of a New Orleans krewe: they would descend on a wedding party, play their hearts out and get everybody into the excitement of the moment, and then move on to the next one, presumably after being paid either for their efforts or simply to go away. Big fun, and definitely the best street music of the trip.

* We then went inside the hotel to find the lounge band -- two singers and a keyboard with bass and drum loops -- doing a vaguely recognizable country/western song. Brain hurt, Must go outside again.

Other completely random notes:

* Gasoline here is about 75 cents a gallon. Most of it seems to be going directly into the Cairo air. Nasty stuff.

* At the airport food court, I watch three local (I think) kids taking advantage of the free WiFi to down Egyptian porn or semi-porn into their laptops and cell phones. Some things don't change, no matter where you go.

* Why does the Cairo airport have free WiFi, but you have to pay in SFO and Heathrow? Grr.

* There's huge variance in womens' clothing here, from stylish things you might see in LA to a full-bore head-to-foot black burqa, with only a slit for the eyes. But look a little closer -- some of the burqas have gorgeous bead work along the edges, and the glasses peeking out of the eye slits can be very stylish. Things here are not as simple as they might seem; Janet may have more to say about the status of women here, in India, and some other places. For my part, I'm glad I can pee standing up.

* So, you're down in one of the 5000 year old tombs, and you're met by a local in full bedouin dress (almost certainly not a costume, but his everyday clothes), who is happy to help you down the stairs and point out the interesting bits (in exchange for a little baksheesh, of course). He asks, using much of English he knows, where you're from. We say "America", and he responds, with a big smile on his face, "Ah, yes, America! Very good!" As noted before, we were spending most of our time around locals who were probably financially motivated to be friendly to us, and we were certainly on our best guest-in-your-fine-country behavior. But I can say that I saw no anti-American sentiment; no negative comments, and no dirty looks (except for the Luxor bellman I inadvertantly undertipped rather significantly). America still has some emotional capital available to it in this part of the world, no matter how quickly we seem to be burning it up.

* With all respect to the country of Egypt, I have finally found a country with a worse monetary system than the US. I don't mean this in any macroeconomic sense, but just in terms of the physical currency. While there are coins, they're not accepted by local banks, and so everything we saw was paper money, all rather bland and brownish. It's bilingual Arabic and English, but on a side-by-side basis -- if you fold a bill wrong, you have no idea what it's worth. And then there's the matter of getting the rightkinds of money.

See the previous discussion of baksheesh -- there are lots of expectations of small tips/gratuities/payoffs here, from the bathroom attendant who dispenses the toilet paper, to the antiquities guard who looks the other way while you take a picture of something you're not supposed to, to the local cop who lets your guide's car park someplace it's not supposed to. In most cases, not much is expected, usually just an Egyptian pound, or about 15 cents US.

The problem here is getting the pound notes (not coins, you'll recall). They certainly don't come out of any ATMs, and most of the banks or hotel cashiers look at you with a sheepish look and tell you they don't have any, which is probably true. But you've gotta have them to get along in the city, and perhaps especially as a tourist. As far as I can tell, All the notes are in the hands of the people receiving them, who could probably set up a pretty profitable black market in them -- seven one-pound notes for one ten-pound note, let's say. We were reduced to looking for newspapers or other small things that cost maybe six pounds, so that the shopkeeper is forced to give you four pound notes in change for your ten.

If you're lucky enough to get some, you then go through the Clothing Preparation Process, so that you can pull out the appropriate tip at the appropriate time without fumbling around with your wallet: One-pound notes for local guides in the right pants pocket; five or ten-pound notes in the shirt pocket for water or trinket purchases; more serious money for drivers or guides in the left pants pocket, Or whatever works for you. Great fun, I guess; it's a way of life here.

* Plus, of course, Murphy's Law starts to apply, and you find yourself collecting more and more of them as you get closer to departure. I now have seven or eight pound notes; if you're going to Egypt, let me know and we can work something out. Two or three dollars for the set seems about right....

* Interesting pop music on the Egyptian MTV clone. Definitely western at its base, and a little too Celene Dion for my taste, but with Arabic scales and modes mixed in that turn it into something quite different. There's probably a culinary analogy I could draw here if I wasn't as tired as I am.

* Of course, the big question for Egypt, and the area in general, is how the modern Egypt Is to be reconciled with its conservative Islamic culture. Western trappings are everywhere -- the famous KFC across the street from the Sphinx; the English-language billboards advertising some sort of idealized lifestyle to be obtained from some purchase or another; Western-style night clubs, still open during our 5 AM run to the airport. And it's clear that there are some people with some pretty strong opinions about the incorrectness of these trappings and what ought to be done about them, as well as the motivation to act on those opinions. I'm glad nobody's looking to me to find the solution to it all.

Meanwhile, the Real World has started to slip into our consciousness -- another packing session and airplane flight or three, and we're off for a quick stop in London, and then home. (This is written in the fake present tense, mind you -- see a previous post for how we really got to London.) Memories of work and other realities are starting to appear, which is either a good or bad thing. We'll figure that out later, I guess.

Acropolis now

Sigh. I'm back to being two countries behind. That's okay -- it means we've had other things to do than sit around a hotel room writing blog posts, But I don't want to be too far out of the moment while writing this, so I may have to resort to a blast of bullet points that will at least let me pretend I've covered things. I can always come back and pontificate later (see India post).

Greece was somewhat jarring after our stop in India: landing at the airport, we were very clearly back in the western world. Also, we were no longer one (or two) of a very small number of westerners, as we were in India. Our flight from Delhi went through Frankfurt, where we joined up with endless American tour groups. Back to the land of Raiders t-shirts and American flag baseball caps.

Greece was much more fun than I had expected. Even granting that we're mostly encountering people who are financially motivated to being friendly, the folks here seem genuinely happy and outgoing; they're very touchy, back-slappy people. All the old Zorba stereotypes -- sit down, enjoy life, have another glass of wine! -- seem to be real.

We realized the other day that, accidentally, we're sort of going back in time on this trip -- modern Japan, the Hong Kong of the Brits and the Victorian era, India and the 1500s that gave the world the Taj. Now we're back to the early BCs, with the Acropolis, Delphi, Episus, and their cohorts. Time has done what time usually does, and a certain amount of imagination is needed to fill in the gaps of the Parthenon and such. But, yikes. There are endless opportunities to have those "Cleopatra-was-a-real-person-and-once-stood-right-here" moments, which can shake you a bit.

I didn't quite know what to expect from Delphi -- it's about an hour and a half outside of Athens, and (surprisingly to me) up in some pretty impressive mountains. The effect is somewhat staggering --temples, ampitheaters, and streets, all set in a mountain valley only slightly less impressive than Yosemite. If you were looking for a good place to put a city honoring the gods a couple thousand years ago, you'd be hard pressed to do better.

Other, somewhat more random thoughts:

* Up to this point, Athens wins the prize for Best Street Music -- guitar guys, somebody playing a zither, an Alenis clone, and (best of all) a somewhat raggedy group of three accordians, a guitar, and a tambourine who pulled up along the row of tavernas we were having lunch in, working for tips. Their exuberance somewhat exceeded their talent, but the combination was certainly worth a euro.

* Lots of street vendors, here and in the cruise's stop in Kusadasi, Turkey. The pitches in Kusadasi were the most fun -- unlike "Mister, you want copy watch?" as in Hong Kong, this was much more "Hey, why are you smiling so much?" Or, a few yards away, "Hey, why aren't you smiling?" They were no less interested in doing business than any of the other vendors we ran into, but they seemed to appreciate it as more of a dance -- The Fleecing of the Tourists -- than a simple matter of commerce.

* Favorite sign: "Genuine Copy Watches Here!"

* Mykonos is a seriously gorgeous island. White buildings and blue water everywhere. Not much to do there than sit back, look at the ocean, and have another glass of wine, but sometimes that can be enough.

* World Cup fever was of course everywhere; we watched the finale in a big room on the ship with a couple of TVs and maybe a hundred rabid football fans. Good fun, except for the part about France losing (there was a sizable French tour group on board).

* Most cringe-worthy comment heard on the ship staircase, from an American coming up behind us: "We were at lunch with a whole table of French people, and, even though you know they could all speak English, they decided to speak French, just to get under our skin." Yeah, I'm sure they missed out on some great conversation.

* Personal linguistic best: at our lunch with part of the French group, I needed the salt, which was at their end of the table. I made the "shake-shake" motion and pointed at the shaker, and got out what I took to be a reasonably understandable version of "Excuse me, I speak only a little French." They seemed entertained.

* Fun Fact #73: Every country on this trip, except for England, has a non-western alphabet at the heart of its language. There's plenty of English around, but, still....

* In comparison to the countries in our previous stops, I'm not sure I know what Greece wants to be at this point in its history. It's a prosporous country (relatively speaking) with a great sense of history and its place in it -- nothing wrong with that. But I don't see the drive to the future, to what it might be in 5 or 10 years. This, of course, could be my problem more than theirs -- I probably just need to sit down with Zorba, have that glass of wine, and relax a bit.

* I've lost count of the number of bottles of water we've gone through. Hiking around in the bright sun on top of marble and granite can be no fun -- the heat bounces off the rock and blasts right back up at you, broiling and baking you at the same time. I'm sure Cairo (our next stop) will be much easier.

Beauty, squalor, and maybe the future

So, India. India is, well, complicated. This may take awhile.

(Up front, we should note the absurdity of almost anything I might have to say about an utterly unique country of a billion people, based on a two-day visit in extremely privileged surroundings. But this is the blog world, and you get what you pay for.)

I'm sure I'm not the first person to see India as a land of contrasts -- beauty next to squalor, Mercedes taxis sharing the road with camels and water buffalos. But so it is, and somehow the place works. The traffic in India may be a metaphor for it all -- at any given time, a road can be carrying trucks, buses, cars, tuk-tuks (think enclosed golf carts, except with cargo or 8 or 10 people stuffed inside), motorcycles, rickshaws, bicycles, water buffalos, cows, camel-drawn carts, and pedestrians. There are traffic laws meant to control all of this, but in practice they're best thought of as suggestions: any time you see a sign saying "Please don't drive on the wrong side of the road", you know you're playing with a different set of rules. And yet traffic flows well amidst the chaos, or perhaps <i>because</i> of it. Everybody is paying attention to their driving because they have to. There are no assumptions about right of way or ownership of a lane based on a centrally-planned and enforced set of regulations; these are all negotiated between the players, in real time. And, here as in other places, India is most definitely a bargaining society. Some people win, and some people lose.

So, yeah, there is certainly what we in the western world would consider squalor. You'll drive by what seems to be a collapsed building and see people living inside. Beggars in the train station will sort of attach themselves to you -- not physically, but silently following you around, hoping for something in return for their karmic escort service. And any place that has camels and water buffalos wandering the streets is bound to have piles of stuff on the ground you'll want to avoid. But if you look a little closer and drop your prejudices a bit, it's not clear that things are really any more extreme here than, say, around Ensenada or Cancun. Or, to be honest, parts of South Central, Mississippi, or BedStuy. I can safely say that life in the Indian countryside is not one that I would find particularly rewarding, but in most cases the housing is functional, the people look pretty healthy, powerlines run everywhere, cell phones are common, even in the boonies (thanks to a VERY different pricing philosophy than Cingular has figured out how to offer in the US), and TVs are not unknown. Still, there's no pretending that this isn't extreme poverty, and the impact on the society and visitors is what you would expect. It's never fun to have somebody trying to sell you postcards or Taj snow globes or Chiclets and just not taking "no" for an answer. But you can't expect much else when you're an obvious westerner coming to a place like this and bearing signs of what must be seen as unimaginable wealth. It's part of the toll you pay to come here.

The advice of our guide was "to remain in a meditative state" and walk past them as if they didn't exist, just as has happened in India for thousands of years. We did seem to get a sense that "this is how it has always been" among the guides we were with; there doesn't seem to be the sense, as in the US, that this is a sign of societal failure that goes against the proper order of things and must be corrected. But, just as the government does seem to be getting the most basic essentials of life out to the people, it also has a very clear idea of how it can deal with its problems in a longer-term way. And the key is education.

Education (and its corrolary, career advancement) is simply everywhere. Billboards, TV commercials, half-page ads on the front pages of Delhi newspapers. All along the road from Agra to Delhi, there are large, gorgeous buildings that house either universities or crosses between colleges and technical trade schools. Newspapers are filled with stories about the students who have done well on the British-style leveling tests and entrance exams. It's just a fundamental part of the culture; yes, more so than in the US. You don't see too many kids in Delhi proudly wearlng "I'm slacking off" t-shirts; a schoolbag with a logo spelling out "Success" is more common. There are many issues and challenges here, but they know what they want to do. And, combined with a similarly-thinking China, we're talking about a couple billion people that would like to make the world a very different place than it is today. I don't know if I'd bet against them.

Of course, there's beauty, too. You have to know where to look for it; much of India looks simple worn down by the years of a challenging climate and too little money. But there are amazing 16th century forts and cities; huge sandstone complexes of buildings -- sometimes dozens of them -- that had once housed the government until Something Changed -- politics, the water supply, whatever.

And then there's the Taj. A story that I believe to be true: George Bush was invited to take a tour of the Taj while visiting India a few years ago (his first trip out of the country, ever?). Reportedly, he declined, because he was wasn't interested.

If true, that says everything you need to know about the man.

The Taj starts out pretty much as you've seen it in pictures -- glistening white against the sky. And that's amazing enough to warrant its reputation. But as you get closer, the white starts to break up into mixtures of white and gray; you think it's maybe different kinds of marble. It's not until you're much closer that you discover that it's covered with inlay -- precious and semi-precious stones forming designs, flowers, verses from the Koran. Everywhere, something new and beautiful to look at. I remember feeling like one of the apes from 2001, staring up at this thing of beauty and purity, and trying to imagine who or what created it. If it had simply disappeared and returned to whatever dimension it had come from, I wouldn't have been surprised. There's another line from 2001; (the book, actually), where Dave's last words before entering the monolith are "My God -- it's full of stars." It kind of works here, too. You need to see it, and walk around it, and touch it to really appreciate it. All the other bits of squalor disappear for a minute, which is what great art is meant to do, 500 years ago, now, or 500 years from now. It's one of those reasons you have to travel.

From Janet: Vanilla plantations

A very long time ago when Jim and I first started heading to interesting places for vacation, we would often take organized excursions to visit the local area. These were tours with transportation and a guide to tell us about the place and they were fun and interesting.

Towards the end of the tour there was almost always a visit to a local vanilla plantation where we would learn facts about the growth and care of vanilla beans...and have an opportunity to buy some beans to take home.

After a while we figured out that there was a financial relationship between the owners of the vanilla plantation and the tour guide.

Jim and I are taking many tours on this trip, sometimes with a group, and sometimes with a private guide the tour company we contracted with for India, Greece, and Egypt has provided. Going with a company to organize this section of the trip was pricey, but it has been incredibly efficient for us. We are picked up at the airport, whisked to our hotel and then later to the airport.

But on these tours there is often a "vanilla plantation" involved, usually a local arts and crafts place where you can see how the local artisans create the treasures in the gift shop conveniently located nearby.

The objects for sale are usually a step up from the normal stuff available at the "bazaars". Do I believe they make all the stuff in the gift shop? No but someone in the area probably did as opposed to it being imported in bulk from China. (We were told in Greece that the sponges in the plastic bags were actually from California.)The prices in the gift shops are quite a bit higher but you can bargain to get a lower price. It is clearly one of the ways the local travel group makes money, by sending tourists to one of these places.

Also on a trip as tightly organized as this one, it can be very efficient to go to a place where they have a selection of the treasures we want, particularly if they take credit cards.

As Jim puts it, sometimes you are in the market for some vanilla.

Adventure! Excitement!! Oops...

Our astonishingly good fortune bestowed upon us by the travel gods finally ran out, a little anyway. Today (Friday) is a travel day -- Luxor to Cairo, and then Cairo to London via Frankfurt. Unfortunately, the flight from Cairo to Frankfurt is badly delayed (something about a crew problem in Frankfurt?), and we won't get to Frankfurt in time to make our connection. So we'll be crashing at the Frankfurt airport hotel (it's a little plush for the term "crashing", but whatever), and then catch an early morning flight into Heathrow.

Still, our luck has been pretty good; I guess this is why we bought that travel insurance.

From Janet - Why it sometimes pays to dress nice

As it happens today I decided to wear a pink striped skirt and a top which looks rather nice. One might say business-like rather than tourist casual. So Jim and I are in line to board the flight from Zurich to Cairo when one of the gate agents spots us and drags us over to the front desk. I'm not sure if it was the way we were dressed...a little upscale, or the fact that we were holding American passports in our hands. But he has a deal for us. He says he needs volunteers to test out their Swiss Air Business Class for the flight.

Of course we promptly volunteered to help him out.

And so, for the next four hours we will sit in very comfortable seats that fully recline, enjoy movies on large individual screens, have a glass of wine served in an actual wine glass, and dine on rabbit cacciatore ragout and sauteed salmon in a light thyme sauce.

Life is sometimes surprising and very good.

Catching up

I haven't posted much recently because, well, we've been kinda busy. When I started writing this, we were on the ship going from Athens to Mykonos, so there's been a bit of a chance to pull back and catch a breath.

It's all becoming something of a blur at this point. Another airplane, or train station, or ferry, or all three -- more pretty good accented English (thank God!), which I can usually figure out once I remember which accent filter to activate, except for a few days ago, when the right filter was "Arkansas redneck". Another hotel, another search for a place for dinner and something other than CNN on the TV. But things are going well, somewhat amazingly so. We've been hit with a couple of different versions of Traveler's Tummy (not so much the tummy, but you get the idea), but that's about it. No missed flights, no lost bags, at least so far -- knock on wood.

So, what's been going on?

Hong Kong: Major frenzy I wasn't here before the handover, so I can't have a clear sense of how it's evolved since then, and I don't really know how HK fits in with other parts of modern China. But, to me, its British heritage only comes through in the street names and liberal use of English in street signs and many (but not all) of its people. That's surely helpful to the western tourist -- we found it quite easy to get around -- but there's really no question that you're in China, and there are some different rules at play. At times it feels you're in San Francisco's Chinatown, and, at other times, you might as well be on Mars.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the energy of the place -- the rush of people, the buildings and lights along the harbor. Is this any different than someone from China might feel after being droppped into New York? Probably not. But it's certainly different, which, from the Rampaging Tourist's perspective, is good enough. Things are just recognizable enough to let you get by, and then something weird hits you upside the head and reminds where you are.

Much of what you do in HK is shop, so we had no choice to oblige. We passed on the Chanel and Bulgari shops in city center, and headed out of town on the Metro to the Rainbow Computer Center, three floors of tiny independent stores crammed one after another selling gear from the common to the bizarre. In some sense, this was more fun than Akihibara. $15 webcams in the shape of cartoon characters -- stuff like that.

Later, we went to the Night Market elsewhere in the city, looking for something approximating adventure. Janet is still learning the finer points of street market bargaining, but there are signs of progress. The most noticable purchase, carried out as a professional exploration only, is that I picked up a few DVDs -- Cars, Mission Impossible 3, and DaVinci Code. US$2 each. The video transfers are excellent, although the sound leaves a bit to be desired (dubbed off a telecine?), and they come complete with subtitles and soundtracks in multiple Asian languages. I dunno -- I really am opposed to piracy, but there's gotta be a solution to this problem that doesn't require us to believe that people living on an astronomically smaller level of income than Americans are going to plunk down US$25 for a DVD when a much cheaper alternative is right in front of them, probably being sold by people they already know. It's hard to expect that people bargaining HARD over 25 cents are going to care a lot about taking a buck or two out of Tom Cruise's mouth. But if I had to solve this? Mumble. Maybe site licensing, from the studios to China, and co-opt the pirates into being the distribution channel? (Update from Athens -- street vendors were selling Superman Returns last Thursday in the tourist areas we were in, just as we saw "genuine fake watches" (love the term!) being sold in Turkey.) Dunno -- sleep might help me think about this, but there's precious little of that in sight, and not much more wisdom.

So now I'm only two countries behind, as we head from Athens to Cairo via Zurich. (If you think this routing sucks (check a map), you're right.) And those are tough countries to figure out. But airplanes are meant for sleeping, reading, and writing, right?

At the Athen's Airport - with extra luggage

And they actually have internet, so it is time for a quick post.

On a trip like this, one develops a love-hate relationship with the goodies one can pick up. For one thing there is always something available to buy to remind you of your trip, ranging from postcards, to local clothing, to electronic stuff that you won't see anywhere else. That's the good news. Most of it isn't even that expensive, which is the better news.

The bad news is that once you have purchased that darling little object d'art you now have to haul it with you everywhere you go unless you can find a way to ship it home. We've got one box that supposedly will be shipped today that the local touring company agreed to help us with, but then we picked up this small hanging rug in Turkey... You can see how this gets. My roller bag is expanded out to accomodate the t-shirts and other items I bought in Japan and Hong Kong. Plus anything fragile or particularly valuable must be hand-carried onto the plane. I've got a series of bags I use for my "carry-on" luggage and I'm now at the biggest one, crammed full of stuff either Jim or I couldn't resist.

I'm sure there will be nothing in Cairo I feel the need to pick up.

Right...

From Janet - Sailing, sailing, over the Aegean Sea

We're back in Athens again, after a three day cruise around the Greek islands, including one stop in Turkey. For three days we slept in the same bed...we even unpacked our bags and put stuff into drawers. What a luxury!

I'd heard less than flattering things about these cruises in that they are definitely not what the typical cruise-goer expects. No big midnight buffet, no constant food opportunities, and portions were actually rather small.

In other words, it was perfect for me in that I prefer not to have large portions of food that make me feel I should eat everything on my plate. I like being able to eat an appetizer, salad, main dish, and dessert without feeling stuffed.

The ship did rock a bit and though some people did have trouble with motion sickness, Jim and I did not. Perhaps we've simply grown beyond it.

The shows were simple caberet type shows, often featuring members of the crew moonlighting as dancers or musicians. But they were talented so who cares? The cabin we had was rather nice for this ship. Still small, but we had a window and were able to move the beds together to make an almost double bed.

But the cabins and food and entertainment aren't why you go on this cruise. It takes you to a number of small islands that have wonderful ruins and other sites of interest, plus just being beautiful. In Turkey we saw Ephesus, the ruins of a city founded by Alexander the Great. Anthony and Cleopatra were there once...he gave her the contents of the library as a present. Unfortunately the books were later destroyed.

When we arrived back in Athens this morning we disembarked the ship and found a driver Jim had contracted with to take us to Delphi, the ruins of a great set of temples dedicated to Apollo and Artemis. Once upon a time this place was a treasure-house of offerings made to the gods in exchange for good oracle readings. Later on various Roman emperors looted the place.

Delphi is set on the side of a steep mountain overlooking a valley with a view as glorious as anything I've seen before. We ate lunch at a small tavern overlooking the view to the sea before returning to the ruins and visiting the museum where they had fragments of the wonderful buildings that had once been on this hillside.

Tomorrow we go to Cairo, which means that I won't have another salad until I get to London on Friday. But we'll see the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Valley of the Kings and Queens, and that seems a fair trade.

Possibly we might get internet as well. We'll see.

Whee! It's Clean Socks Day!!

In Turkey at the moment; heading back to Greece shortly.

You know, if anybody out there is reading this stuff, a comment or two would be appreciated. Just to keep us motivated and posting...