The Yeagers’ Experiences

Istanbul (formerly called Constantinople and Byzantium) is the only city in the world that straddles two continents (Europe and Asia) and has been the capital of 4 different empires.  Check out Istanbul’s Wikipedia article for background on its long, illustrious history.  For more than two millenia it has been a point where East meets West, which is still true today. First, a word on what we thought we would find in Istanbul.  Much has been made in the developed world about how moderate Turkey is, so I anticipated a thouroughly modern city not unlike the major capital cities of Western Europe.  I thought most women didn’t wear headscarves and Westerners would be welcomed.  I expected minimal culture shock and viewed this trip as a great chance to learn a little bit more about the Muslim world. 

Our experience of Istanbul was certainly different from our expectations.  First of all, we did feel welcomed, but in more of a “Hey, you have money, come give it to me” kind of way.  Secondly, the cultural differences are not easily glossed over.  I would definitely say the Turks have more in common with Arabs, but also have some things in common with Europeans.  For instance, one of the things that we definitely noticed was the lack of local women out at night.  The nightlife is for sure male dominated, and I suspect this has a great deal to do with the fact that Turkey is 99% Muslim.  With that said, I did notice that about 70% of the local women were not wearing headscarves, so that says something important about Turkey’s moderate political and religious values.  This trip was very educational, and it has left me very conflicted on the question of Turkey’s accession to the EU.  Condolezza Rice was in town for an Iraq summit, so we were slightly worried about the risk for terrorism, especially since Turkey has their own home-grown terrorist elements that the government continues to battle.  Despite our mild fears, everything was fine, and our only indication that there was something important going on was a very large, heavily armoured convoy speeding down the street one night.

Enough politics!  Istanbul was a very beautiful city, despite the fact that it is home to over 20 million people.  You can see Roman ruins, Byzantine churches, and amazing mosques from the heyday of the Ottoman Empire.  One of the coolest and most revealing experiences was visiting the beautiful Blue Mosque.  I had to wear a headscarf (which I completely mangled) and we both had to take off our shoes before we entered the mosque to show respect.  The main area was huge, and completely different from a church.  There were no chairs or pews inside because worshippers kneel on the ground.  Blue tiles adorned the walls and the ceiling of the dome, which was held up by massive “elephant feet” columns.  The main section, which was very large, was strictly for men only, while the women had a small, cramped area partially obscured by columns and screens.  I don’t call myself a feminist, but the separate and unequal nature of the worshipping area struck me as deeply unfair. 

Next up we visited Topkapi Palace, which was the seat of the Ottoman Empire for centuries.  There is a museum inside which houses many priceless items, including several relics of Mohammed and eye-catching jewels.  One of the most fascinating areas of the palace was the blue-tiled Harem, which is where the Sultan kept his women and their children.  Apparently over 300 women were living here at one time, and there was a very structured hierarchy that governed daily life.  We made the mistake of eating in the cafe here and were grossly overcharged!  What a rookie mistake

Istanbul also has something of a nightlife, although I would not by any means put it on par with Madrid or London.  Everyone gets around by the the very modern tram network, so finding our way around was not a problem.  We got really lucky one night and wandered off the beaten path near Taksim Square and found a bar where loads of Turks were drinking and singing folk songs.  There people were having a huge amount of fun just singing and dancing (which didn’t really look like dancing at all).  Afterwards we got a fantastic late night dessert, so this night has to be our favorite memory of Istanbul.

We could have / should have spent a lot more time in Istanbul, but the culture shock did wear on us a lot.  By the end of it we were just really looking forward to coming home and escaping the constant hassle of walking down the street.  I couldn’t count how many times we would walk past a shop and hear things like “Yes please!”, “My friend!”, “Are you from The Netherlands?”, “Let me help take your money! (no kidding)”.  It was a tiring experience but it was really nice seeing and absorbing a completely different culture firsthand.  I think anyone who dabbles in politics these days should definitely go and seek out Arab culture to see what it is all about for themselves.  In some ways it opened my mind, in others it reinforced ideas I already had.

For a really addictive (related) song, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQrKZcYtqg

Pictures are now up!

…and pollution capital of the current World.

Ok ok, so it doesn’t even make the top 5 most polluted cities, but the blanket of smog over Athens was horrendous. I had coughing and sneezing problems the entire time and couldn’t wait to get home to the “clean” air of London. Why is it so polluted? Well, one of the reasons might be that 40% of all Greeks live in the capital. Another might be that the city is surrounded on 3 sides by very large hills. It looked like the entire city was covered in soot and nothing had been cleaned in 50 years. My guess would be that they used to fight the problem by scrubbing every so often, but eventually even the corporations gave up trying to keep their buildings shiny. They try to rectify the problem by allowing only cars with odd-numbered plates on odd-numbered days and vice versa. They are of course examining other options but right now the situation doesn’t look good.

We arrived in the city center via the brand-spanking-new metro, and walked out into a slum. We looked around and everyone was dressed nicely, the cars were fairly new, and the atmosphere was upbeat. It was as if you took people in Buckhead (a nice upscale part of Atlanta) and dropped them in the worst area of New York. We were a little confused by it all, to say the least. Luckily, our hotel was on a street with a few trees which made it look slightly better (and probably bumped up the air quality a bit), but head any direction and you enter the mish-mash of upscale and slum.

Putting on our blinders, we tried to focus on the reason we came to Athens… the monuments, of course! And this was definitely the place for them. Our hotel was in a really cool area – in the shadow of the Acropolis where you could look up wherever you were and see the ancient buildings tower over you. To brush everyone up on their Athens trivia, the Acropolis is a rock outcrop in the middle of the city which has 3 main monuments still on top: The Parthenon (the most famous), the Erechtheon (with a temple to Athena and Poseidon), and the Propylaea (a huge archway). We didn’t do the Acropolis until Day 2, but chose to focus on monuments around its base. There are 2 forums (one from the Greeks and one from the Romans) and an absolutely huge library created by Hadrian. The largest temple in all of Greece is the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which would have been even more magnificent to see if more than 15 of its 56-foot 104 columns still existed and were standing. On the contrary, the Temple of Hephaestus is pretty much all there — it even has a complete roof and is the only Ancient Greek temple anywhere with that honor. Moving up the Acropolis, we walked through a tiny village called Anafiotika which was composed of people from the island of Anafi and their small, bleach-white houses typical of their island homes. Most people miss this tiny town when they go to Athens, but we thought it was one of the coolest parts. When we got to the Acropolis, we walked through the Propylaea to enter the main area, and were completely taken aback by the size of the Parthenon. That is truly one incredible structure. Its only problem is that scaffolding has been erected around it since about 1980 so you can’t get a decent picture off.

We also went to the Greek Archaeological Museum which has famous statues from many generations of Greek civilizations, and also quite a story about hiding everything from the Germans during WWII. Another site we visited that I highly recommend is the original Olympic Stadium which was rebuilt in 1896 for the first modern Olympics (so it looks in mint condition compared to the other sites).

I’m sure you don’t remember much about the history of Athens because neither Stacey nor I could get it right, so let me jump through the basic timeline. The Greeks were there first, then they were conquered by the Romans (Hadrian had a particular affinity for the Greeks). Then the Herulians drove the Romans out, but then the Romans came back, and then the Romans left and the Turks showed up and ruthlessly destroyed a lot of the monuments. Then the Venetians came in and fought a huge battle with the Turks. During this battle, the Venetians made a direct hit on a gunpowder store in the Parthenon (who the hell keeps gunpowder in a really important monument???) and blew its middle completely out. And to finish it all up, Greece was occupied by the Germans in WWII. Basically, this can be summed up like so: the monuments were erected, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, built over top of with more monuments, destroyed, built over top of with houses and roads, destroyed, excavated, and eroded. It was a historical nightmare!

We had a very interesting dinner whereby a restaurant put tables outside in as many places as possible, which included right on the street. Luckily ours was on the sidewalk, but we had the pleasure of watching cars come by every 10 minutes forcing people to stand up, move their chairs, and sometimes move their tables. We even saw one huge van pull up and the driver got in an argument with the restaurant server in Greek, then the driver got really pissed and ran over one of the tables. It was quite a scene!

All-in-all, we enjoyed Athens once we forced ourselves to look past the pollution. Would I recommend someone going there? Of course. We saw people from a lot of different countries, as the Ancient World attracts a lot of people interested in the beginnings of the modern-day advanced society. What I might recommend is to try and go as soon as possible. The monuments have already shown a lot of damage from pollution and it’s not going to get better anytime soon. One study even discovered that a particular monument had more damage in the past 50 years from pollution than the previous 3000 years of its life sitting outside in the elements.

Pictures have been up for a bit. You should definitely check them out.

Oh, and you’ve got to check this out: http://www.debevec.org/Parthenon/film.html (download video)

So much to say, so little time… That has been our problem the last few months.  Joe has been travelling for work like a maniac, and we have visited Istanbul, Cairo, Luxor and Atlanta in between.  I also accepted a job offer with Kimberly-Clark (yipee!) and did some house hunting when in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently it has all paid off because we are in the process of buying a house now!  We are way excited about it, but needless to say buying a house while in England and Egypt is quite challenging. It brings chills down my spine to think of the cell phone bill this month…

For any who are interested, the link to the house is here.

The point of all this is that we will try our best to write a few posts and upload the pictures in between house stuff and moving stuff, but it may take some time.  Please be patient and keep checking back for updates!

We couldn’t leave Europe without first scoping out the art in Florence and seeing what all the fuss was about with the canals in Venice.  Let me preface by saying we had only arrived back home from Athens 4 days before we set off for this trip, which explains a lot.

We found Florence to be a lovely town with just a few too thousand American tourists.  I would REALLY like to know why more Europeans don’t go to Italy because it is really a lovely country.  In most other places we have visited we have been surrounded by Brits and Germans, with a smattering of Americans thrown in, and perhaps the odd Frenchman.  In Italy however, without exception every single city we have been to has welcomed Americans in abundance and been entirely lacking in Europeans.  Anyway, this isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does dilute the real Italian culture that we want to be a part of.  Given that we are part of this phenomenon as well, I can’t really complain

Back to the story though.  So when we arrived at night we thought Florence was beautiful.  When we awoke the next day we realized that even though it was mid-October, the tourist season in Florence knows no bounds.  We went to the Uffizi Gallery and had to fight our way through the crowds.  When we got out, we had to fight our way through more crowds to get to the nearest gelato stand.  After we ate our ice cream, we had to fight our way through even more crowds to see Michaelaneglo’s “David”.  It was all very exhausting.

Florence is an art mecca; everywhere you look you can usually find high quality sculptures or frescoes.  In fact, we had to reserve timeslots just to get in to the Uffizi and the Accademia.  In the Uffizi (the most important Renaissance gallery in the world), we beheld such wonders as Botticelli’s masterpiece “The Birth of Venus”, Roman sculptures, and works by Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo… yes folks, we did see masterpieces by all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!  The art was glorious, but in the end we are not art people so we didn’t linger for too long.  The “David”, in the Accademia, is absolutely stunning, as are the various violin and cello Stradivari.  We also went to the Santa Croce church, which is unremarkable except that Dante, Michealangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and Marconi are buried here.  What an allstar line-up!  

Annie, a family friend, hooked us up for dinner with reservations at the restaurant of one of her Italian chef friends.  We dined for nearly 3 hours at Trattoria Icche ce’ c’e, courtesy of Chef Gino and his wife Mara.  They were a wonderful couple and the food was even better.  Thanks Annie!  You might think up until this point that we were very productive in Florence.  WRONG… as I mentioned before, I had virtually no time to prepare for this trip, and as a result we ended up missing a lot of things altogether (Donatello’s “David”), getting lost, or not knowing what we were looking at.

On top of our disappointment, the apartment we rented had bed bugs… I suppose it was inevitable given all the travelling, but it is still really gross.  Good thing we only stayed there 1 night, because Joe was really eaten up.  I’m not sure why, but bugs don’t usually fancy me so I was left relatively untouched.  To add insult to injury, our taxi driver ripped us off and doubled our fare.  I wouldn’t say this trip was as bad as our Berlin trip, but it is definitely in second place.  We were glad to be out of Florence by the end of the second day.

Venice, I am happy to report, was an entirely different experience.  Well, not entirely, but in most of the important ways at least.  There were no bedbugs or crappy taxi drivers.  In fact, Venice is the world’s only pedestrianized city, so we didn’t really have to worry about traffic of any kind.  We arrived at night and were absolutely enchanted.  Venice’s many charms only get better at night, when the day-trippers leave and the alleys and canals are quiet and romantic.  We had the best gnocchi ever, then went to San Marco Square to hear the dueling orchestras.  After wandering around for an hour, we didn’t really know what to do until we found a small shop open late that sold alcohol to go.  We grabbed a bottle of Prosecco (complete with 2 plastic cups) and walked around until we found a quiet canal-side piazza in which to pass the time.

The next day we grabbed a map and set off.  What was really nice is that in Venice’s tiny alleys you actually feel like you are in Italy, not the cheap, commercialized shell you experience in many other places in Italy.  One of the major highlights was just getting lost in the backstreets, having only the slightest idea of where we were.  We had a really good, detailed map, but I still manged to get us lost a few times, which suited us just fine.  It was only when we got close to the Rialto Bridge that we remembered that we are in fact tourists sharing this lovely place with tens of thousands of others just like us.  We passed on the gondola ride (€80 for 45 mins), and opted instead for the stripped out versions that serve as ferries crossing the Grand Canal (€0.50 for 2 minutes).  It wasn’t exactly romantic, but it gave us the basic idea and saved us a wad of cash. 

We somehow found the tucked away gondola workshop, complete with alpine workmen.  We also made it in to San Marco Basilica (after nearly stepping on about a million pigeons), with its wall to wall glittering gold mosaic ceiling and mosaic tile floors.  San Marco Square was entirely different during the day.  I have never seen so many pigeons in my life!  Lots of people fed them and became covered in a mass of frantic, flapping wings.  One even landed on my head for no reason, but I saw to it that it didn’t last very long!  Other than that, I can’t really recall most of the things we saw because we just wandered a bit aimlessly, and managed to soak up the atmosphere and just enjoy ourselves a little better than we usually do.

Unfortunately on the vaporetto (waterbus) to the airport I caught a really nasty bug which involved me losing my voice and showing symptoms of a cold for almost 2 weeks.  I missed 5 days of work (thank God for unlimited sick time!), but the trip to Venice was still worth it. 

Pictures are now up; there are some particularly beautiful shots of Venice.  Coming up, our last 2 trips will be to Istanbul, Turkey, and Egypt (Cairo and Luxor), so be sure to tune in next month!

Normally when we travel to a new place we struggle with the typical things like: what should we order from a restaurant? where is the hotel? Do you tip taxi drivers? In Athens, however, we had an entirely new problem to contend with… Greek. I never thought having to memorize the Greek alphabet as part of my initiation into my business fraternity would actually be worth something. Turns out that all those days of reciting the Greek alphabet backwards and forwards really paid off here. My only regret is that they only taught us the capital letters. Thanks ΔΣΠ!

Test your Greek alphabet knowledge and sound out this phrase: BUΛΛΔOΓΣ PUΛE!

Yes, I am aware that even if you understand the alphabet you probably still can’t communicate with the natives. But it is really difficult just reading street signs and maps if your brain cannot process how a word is pronounced. The Greek alphabet just looks so foreign and strange that sometimes the only thing I could do to navigate is to sound words out on the map and on the street signs and see if they sounded the same. A lot of the streets signs were in Greek, and the map I had was only in English.

For those who don’t know, the Greek alphabet goes something like this (yes, it is in order): Α (alpha), Β (beta), Γ (gamma), Δ (delta), Ε (epsilon), Ζ (zeta), Η (eta), Θ (theta), Ι (iota), Κ (kappa), Λ (lamda), Μ (mu), Ν (nu), Ξ (xi), Ο (omicron), Π (pi), Ρ (rho), Σ (sigma), Τ (tau), Υ (upsilon), Φ (phi), Χ (chi), Ψ (psi), Ω (omega). Whew! Now throw in the lowercase letters: αβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρσςτυφχψωf, and you can see where it might get very difficult to decipher. All of these letters are pronounced in ways that for the most part correspond to pronunciations in English, only they are represented by different symbols. For example, Φ is pronounced like ‘f’ or ‘ph’, while Λ is pronounced like ‘L’.

It helped a lot to be able to pronounce Greek words, because by sounding the words out we were often able to guess the meaning.  As a result of our efforts we discovered that a lot of words in the English language have Greek roots, like Pharmacy (ΦAPMAKY).  I have always been interested by language, and have often thought that if I had a second calling it would be as a linguist (too bad I don’t know any foreign languages, but that is a minor detail).  For anyone with similar interests, Greece is certainly a boon for armchair linguistics.

The answer, by the way, is a simple truth – Bulldogs Rule!

P.S. Joe should be posting about our experiences in Athens any day now!

What’s better than the party city of Madrid? The beach town of Barcelona, of course! To add to our conquering of Spain we headed off for a weekend of fun in the sun. Anything to beat the British cold and rain they call summer! And boy were we pleasantly surprised — it was sunny for the whole weekend, and a perfect 80 degrees.

The beaches of Barcelona are some of the best in the world. They have a boardwalk, many shops and cafes, great sand, and beautiful people with hardly anything on. The last point is the one I will focus on, because it was what stood out in my (and Stacey’s) mind the most. The men are in fairly good shape, with about half in speedo trunks. The women were all very skinny, with very small bathing suit bottoms… and nothing for a top. We didn’t go to a nudist beach or anything, but about half of all the women had no top on. Many were even sitting up, chatting, and walking to and from the beach. It was the oddest thing. Then, when it was time to go, all the clothes went on. Almost as if there was an invisible line between the beach and the boardwalk, no one went past the beach without at least a t-shirt, pants, and shoes. There were also people that came onto the beach towards the end of the day with no bathing attire. They would simply sit on the beach and chat… oddly though the women always took their tops completely off.

We didn’t have much time to party Spanish-style in Barcelona. Friday night we got in real late from the flight, and Saturday we ate dinner until 1:30am and, while this is early for Spaniards, we were exhausted after a long day. We pretty much got all of it out of our system the week before in Madrid anyway. We did take in the relaxed culture though and had a great dinner at this authentic (we were surrounded by locals) tapas restaurant — it really was the best food we’ve had in awhile!

Some of the must-see things in Barcelona are Gaudi’s creations. Gaudi was a famous Spanish artist and architect who created magnificent buildings that were out-of-this world. For example, one of his most famous buildings is supposed to look like a dragon… and it does. He hated straight lines – he thought they were boring – so all of his buildings have winding shapes and creative uses of space. He also designed an entire park (Park Guell) that is filled with winding paths and very colorful structures. The largest one is a large market square surrounded by wonderfully decorated benches, and the entire market square is elevated by 100 large columns. His greatest work though is a cathedral called La Sagrada Familia that is still not done. It has been under construction for over 120 years with an anticipated completion date of 2026. What we saw of it was absolutely fantastic!  There were 8 towers that soared into the air, and the inside was stunning. A lot of it is completed but the scaffolding and construction bits around leave a lot to the imagination, not including the fact that several more large towers are left.  One of the most significant pieces is the main steeple that will tower over 500 feet in the air and shows no sign of construction. We’ll be sure to put Barcelona on our calendar for 2026

One more thing to note — don’t ever plan on checking out of your hotel, going to the beach, and then catching a flight home. We were absolutely disgusting after the beach (sweat, sand, & seawater) and then picked up our bags from the luggage store of the hotel. There wasn’t anywhere to shower so we had to head to the airport and fly back in desperate need of a shower… and the “mini shower” in the airport bathroom’s sink didn’t help that much.

Barcelona is definitely on our list of places to return to someday. It’s a nice, enjoyable city with some really unique characteristics that you can’t find anywhere else. The relaxed Spanish atmosphere combined with the great beaches and the party-crazy culture make it a great place for a “holiday.”

Pictures have been up for a bit.

Fans of bullfighting tend to liken it to a beautiful dance, or a match of wills, or a fiesta nacional (national party) etc etc. having witnessed it first-hand, I can say that there are some aspects that are fascinating, exciting, and maybe even beautiful; however, the bulk of it is just gory and indefensible. For an obviously biased, but very informative article detailing the in’s and out’s of this “art”, go to this site: http://www.lostgeneration.com/article6.htm

Joe and I arrived at the bullring very excited. We knew that bulls die at the end of a fight, but we didn’t really consider this as we waited for it to start. Call it willful ignorance. We were carrying on, taking pictures, remarking on what good seats we had. I told Joe a little bit about the 3 different “acts” of a bullfight. There are pretty names for these, but it really boils down to teasing, wounding, and killing.

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of a bullfight is the first part of the wounding sequence. Two horses enter the ring completely decked out in what look like heavy quilts. These quilts sure come in handy, because the bull is encouraged to attack these horses. The quilts apparently provide protection from the bulls horns, but the bulls can be so strong that they actually lift the horses off their feet. I wouldn’t exactly call these horses willing participants, since they are blindfolded, have their ears plugged, and may even be lightly sedated. Apparently in years past the horses didn’t get any padding, and frequently died. We saw two horses fall over from the force of the bull’s attack, which can be really dangerous for both the horse and the rider. The point of this whole exercise is to get the bull close enough that the rider spears him in the back. This serves to weaken the neck muscle and tire out the bull, which obviously gives the matador an advantage.

Basically 2/3 of the bullfight is designed to weaken and tire the bull so it is not as dangerous for the matador to do his capey thing. Yes, they actually do use a red cape, but by this time the bull is so tired that sometimes it wouldn’t even run at it. When the bull is heaving and about to collapse, the matador gets a different sword and thrusts it through the bull’s back and pierces the heart. When done improperly, the sword punctures a lung and the bull drowns in its own blood. Apparently fans of bullfighting look down on this because the bull deserves respect and is entitled to a “quick, painless death”. I’m sorry, but how exactly is a 20 minute spectacle quick, and how exactly are the multiple injuries sustained painless?

I have never really seen a large animal die; it was horrific. By the end of the first fight I had tears in my eyes and wanted to leave. Unfortunately 5 other bulls met the same fate that day. By the end I was hardened to the grim realities, and I could even still enjoy the first 2 acts. I never got over my disgust with the third act though.

We have pictures set up in a separate album for the bullfight. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: there is lots of blood and it made my stomach turn just to edit these.

Obviously you can see where I stand on this issue. In the end, I am glad I went because some parts of it are indeed fascinating, and it was educational to say the least. I would never classify myself as an ardent animal welfare activist, but I will never, EVER go back to another bullfight.

We had never been to Spain. You’re probably wondering why we waited so long and to tell you the truth, I really don’t know. Well we decided to correct that though… First we flew into Madrid, then took a train to Cordoba and then a train to Seville, and then back to Madrid, and flew back home. Then the very next weekend we flew to Barcelona and back. Consider Spain DONE! Four cities in 2 back-to-back weekends.

Barcelona will be covered in an upcoming blog entry but for now lets cover Cordoba and Seville. We began our Saturday early (10am) and headed out on a train from Madrid to Cordoba. Spain has a goal that every major one of its cities can be reached from Madrid in under 5 hours by high-speed train. Therefore, while Cordoba is 247 miles away and 4 hours by car, it only takes 1 3/4 hours by train.

We only spent about 2 hours in Cordoba but what we saw was really cool. There is an old (784 AD) Mosque called La Mezquita that was absolutely amazing. It’s the largest Mosque in Spain and is still in use, but the strangest part of it all is that Christians took it over during the Reconquest and created a cathedral nave smack in the middle of the thing. While this creates quite the spectacle, it protected it during the Spanish Inquisition (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!). There were a couple more things we saw in Cordoba but all-in-all we pretty much covered it in a couple hours. The city was small, nice, and relaxing… but we had more to see.

Our next train stop was Seville, pretty south in Spain and quite a large city. It had a lot to offer but we tried to hit the major points. We walked around the Real Alcázar, a palace with gardens, and tried to get into the Cathedral of Seville. Unfortunately for us it was closed by the time we got there (4pm or so) but it looked really cool from the outside. It was built after the Reconquest and on the very spot of the former Mosque… nice! It’s the third largest church in the world after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London but some argue that the Cathedral of Seville is the largest by volume. The coolest thing by far was the Plaza de España as it was composed of a large courtyard, huge fountain in the middle, and a long magnificent building surrounding it all. The building had many pieces of ceramic tile covering it and its bridges that were for a dried-up moat-sorta thing. The perimeter of the courtyard along the building had strange shrines almost like little sitting areas for each city in Spain. It was definitely the neatest part of Seville and I just found out that it was the filming location of the Planet of Naboo in the second Star Wars film.

At about 8pm we jumped on a train back to Madrid, had a siesta after our long day, and arrived at about 10:30pm. Perfect time for dinner! See, in Spain they eat late — REAL late. We thought the Italians ate pretty late with their 8:00-9:30 meals but in Spain it’s anywhere from 9:00-1:00am! I’m not kidding, when we were leaving a restaurant at 12:30 one night several groups were just sitting down to order… we were shocked. How do they last so long without eating? Supposedly they eat tapas (small plates similar to appetizers) in between meals although we normally ate them for our meal. Another thing about the Spanish culture is that they eat really sloooow. You can leisurely enjoy your meal, take your time, and spread it out for several hours. We’re cool with that normally, but this also means the service is really sloooow. If you want some water, another beer, or another tapa you may have to wait 10-15 min before you are able to flag someone (they don’t just stop by). The places we went to had about 30 tables or so, with only 2-3 servers running every which way for them. Don’t go to Spain if you have little patience

Saturday night — the same day we went to Cordoba and Seville — we decided it was time to put an end to the myth about the Spanish partying till the morning hours. Add to that the fact that Stacey and I have never been out partying past 3 or so, and before we got too old we had to give it a shot. We finished our meal at about 11:30 and headed to a cafe/bar for warm-up drinks. We did a bit of people watching and discovered that anyone aged from 14 to 80 is out after midnight strolling the streets, and a group of 60-year-olds even sat down in the cafe and had some coffee at 1:30am. This was truly a culture for the night owls. At about 2:00 we headed for the club and with some swift negotiating we were in (actually, we have no idea how we got past the guards… since we weren’t on the list and everyone else seemed to be denied). To make sure we made it all night, we promptly started on the Red Bull & Vodka. Yet another thing shocked us about Spain… the bartender poured us a triple-shot of vodka to fill the glass and topped it with a sprinkle of Red Bull. The drinks were 12 Euro though… but still. We started dancing and getting into everything and the club was quite good. It was fairly full at 2 when we arrived, but the party really started at about 3 when the lights started going crazy, another couple bars opened, and some professional dancers came out. That’s right, the club was just getting started at 3am (after all clubs in the U.S., Britain, and the rest of the world close). We partied and partied and partied… and the hours flew by… 3:30am… 4am… 4:30am… 5am… 5:30am… and we decided that 6am was our cut-off point. As the song goes, “Partying till 6 in the mornin!” We walked out the door at 6:10am shocked that the club was just as full as it was at 2am when we arrived. It closes at 7am and I think they were going to have to start kicking people out! What did we do at 6am you ask? Stop by the churros and chocolate place next door, of course! They stay open till 7am for people like us, and it was PACKED. There was a 10-minute wait with a line out the door. We were so proud of ourselves for making it the whole night, and we can confirm first hand… the Spanish LOVE to party!

We weren’t sure exactly how to see Madrid, so we basically wandered around to various sites like the central park (where we saw a counterfeit Pooh and Mickey Mouse) and large buildings that looked famous. We even found an area that supposedly resembles Times Square… without any of the really tall buildings… without a clock… and without the flashy lights… (yeah we’re not sure why it’s called that either). By far, the most memorable thing about Madrid was the bullfight — but this requires another blog entry on its own.

Sorry for the really long blog entry… but anyone that knows me probably also knows how long my stories go on for… so I tend to write quite a bit for my blogs (and hence hate writing them!). There was a lot to cover though — Cordoba, Seville, Madrid, Partying, Spanish culture — so hopefully future ones won’t be this bad.

Pictures are now live: http://pictures.joeyeager.com/main.php?g2_itemId=77439

The last holiday of the summer turned out to be just about the only weekend of the summer with summery weather. June, July and most of August were plagued by cold and rainy weather and left me feeling like I had missed out on summer this year. But this weekend it was a mild 80 degrees, and everyone was out in force to take advantage of it. We decided to go to Brighton on the south coast of Britain. Brighton has many charms, first and foremost in my mind was the lovely Royal Pavilion. I wish I had pictures to share with you, but the glittering dragons, palm trees and chandeliers took our breath away. The beach and famous pier were so-so. The pebbles were uncomfortable to walk on, and try as I might I could not find any taffy or corndogs!

We did enjoy laying on the beach though, and Brighton was a charming little town. The best part was that we found a candy importer. In amongst the shelves of crazy candy from Australia, Germany and Japan, we managed to find IBC rootbeer, Airheads, Nerds etc etc. It was a blast from the past and made us miss home just that much more.

The next day we went to Camden Town, a part of London known for its wacky shops. We saw lots of Goths and even one chick with a shaved head and pink mohawk. The shopping was interesting, but personally I liked the food market the best (no surprise there). There were food stalls from Africa, Spain, Argentina, Laos, Japan, Greece etc. Joe branched out and tried a goat curry from Ghana, and I couldn’t decide so I got snacks from the Middle Eastern, Japanese, and Vegetarian stalls. Yummy! If any of you are planning on visiting London I would highly recommend spending just a few hours in Camden Town.

Pictures are up of both places, so check out our pictures site (now accessible from the left sidebar)!

You’ve arrived at our new blog site, welcome! As you can see, we’re hosting this on http://www.joeyeager.com/ so please update your bookmarks. The pictures site has moved to http://pictures.joeyeager.com/ and can be accessed by the link on the top left. We tried completely integrating it to this site, but it had its share of problems that completely consumed my time until I finally gave up. The map site has been updated a bit as well, check it out: http://map.joeyeager.com/. Feel free to take a look around this site because there’s a lot to it!

I’ll be posting soon about Spain and some other places we’ve visited lately. As you can see below, Stacey has been pressuring me! We’ve been working on this site like crazy though, and on a bunch of pictures that I am uploading as I write this. I still haven’t even edited the Asia pictures yet!