Travel Blog

I spent 4 days in Istanbul and fell in love.  As I check into the hotel, I went to the rooftop per the concierge’s recommendation, and arrived to a view of the Blue Mosque, The Hagia Sophia on one side, and the Sea of Marmara on the other.  I stood there stunned with the view with a grin stretching the width of my face and I hear "Would you like to sit down?"  Two turkish women invited me to have coffee with them.   

Ipek (ee-peck) and Sertac (sar-touch) both worked for foreign firms and happened to come to this roofdeck for their regular catch up session.  Ipek then invited me for Turkish coffee and then offered to read my fortune, a skill they acquire from a lifetime of practice.  Turkish coffee is extremely thick, with the coffee grains sitting at the bottom of the expresso cup.  You drink the liquids, then put the saucer over the top, flip it over and let it sit for 5 minutes.  The coffee grains then settle on the saucer, creating amazing shapes on the side of the cup.  You then pick up the cup, and use the coffee grain residue on the side of the coffee cup to read a person’s fortune.  (The person who drank the coffee get’s read, and must turn the coffee cup himself/herself). 

My reading: I am filling in a swamp that no one else sees the potential for.  I will have to overcome 4 main obstacles to succeed, which I apparently will sooner than I expect.  Ipek then said that I should plan for what happens after I succeed or else I will lose it all.  —Very criptic.

The thing to do while in Istanbul is to sit around and drink tea.  Try the apple tea, a favorite amongst westerners; but definitely ween yourself off that and start drinking flower tea or just regular Turkish tea.  There is a nice cafe just south of the Blue Mosque, where they play traditional music, serve Hooka pipes.  Hookas in Turkey make you drunk and dizzy.  Highly recommended.  Out of nowhere, everything turns off, and you hear the call to prayer from the mosque.  The arabic singing is beautiful.  I can only imagine the audition for that job.  Ipek thinks they should change with the times and put the prayer to techno music.  I love Ipek.

Drink more tea.

You would never believe it if you heard it from someone at a party.  Zurich makes the top 10 list of clubbing cities in the world.  Oh yeah,… Ibiza, Amsterdam, London, New York, Los Angeles,…..and then not far behind…Zurich.  Known better for secretive banking laws and stuffy conservative pin stripped bankers, these same people tear off their suits and ties and rage as hard as any city in the world. 

I was lucky to have friends there to show me the local side.  Lynn, formerly a San Franciscan, had moved there a few years back to be with Hao, a Zurichian (I just made that word up).  We went out to an old converted carriage house for dinner, then to a club called Supermarket.  Don’t let the name fool you.  Not everyone can get in and you can’t just pick up any produce to leave.  The bouncer at the door had the power of Mao Tse Dong.  He decides if you’re going to have a good time or not that night.  Going with the same line of imagery, everyone was beautiful.  Hat’s off to Mao’s quality control.  So SUBMIT or face exile.  Martinis run about US$15 and I think they charge you $3 for every time you sneeze. 

Zurich is not to be missed in a European tour.  It was an amazing city and absolutely unexpected, which is what we all want in our travels.  Be prepared to sell your car for a night out on the town.

Rome is a wonderful place because you can’t help but eat through it.  The pasta, in any shape or size, is amazing.  The gelatos are an absolute addiction.  I wonder why it hasn’t been exported with enthusiasm.  Every corner you turn, there is some relic of the old Roman Empire.  A thousand years here, a thousand  years there.  My Roman holiday was just perfect. 

This is the first thing I see when I come out of the Milan train station.  United Against Ugliness aka UAU.  I joined it right away and am now a card carrying member. 

The thing you have to understand about Italians, especially in Milan, is that everyone is ON, all the time.  "Hey honey! I’m off to the 7-11 for a pack of cigarettes.  Have you seen my Dolce & Gabana sandles?… No, not the ones from last Spring."  I happened upon a street called Montenapoleone, which is right in the middle of the city and home to most of the fashion houses.  I sat and watched the prefectly attended bodies walk by.  I then wonder why what I was doing then was not the national passtime. 

Having been inspired, I purchased a range of pink ties.  Long Live the UAU! 

Prague is an "in" city.  Meaning…if you really want to understand the city, you have to stay long enough to be "in" the know.  Then you really see and understand what Prague is really about.

This is the second time I’ve been there in the last 2 years.  So I skipped all the touristy stuff (which is amazing, by the way), and spent my time trying to meet locals.  I did and met the right ones at that. 

Going out in Prague is going under.  On the street level, you will never be able to guess the activity that happens under the street level.  Case in point: there was a bar right next to the hotel, which at first glance, looks like a small coffee shop a la Amsterdam.  A couple of middle aged hippies smoking and doing their thing.  Soccer was on the tube because the Confederation Cup was in play.  But then, you walk pass all these people, turn the corner around the kitchen, take a stairway down to the cellar, which opens up into a room full of fooz ball tables and pin ball machines.  You continue to go down and it opens up into a cavern full of young Czechs sitting around cafe tables and chairs drinking beer (The Original Budweiser is from Czechia, also Pilsner Urquell).  Go deeper, and you find a DJ spinning loud house music and people tearing up the tiny dancefloor.  The cellars have brick archways and the walls exposed. 

In the 4 days that I was there, I must have found 4 different caverns.  So when in Prague, the only way to have some local fun, is to GO DOWN.

I was in a little town called Weinheim, just outside of Frankfurt.  It was the most picturesque little German town anyone not having been to Germany, but tried to imagine, would conjure up in imagination.  Complete with castle ruins on the hilltop, cobble stone streets with outdoor cafes full of Germans drinking beer and eating asparagus, the seasonal harvest.

I really need to learn German, fast.  This is a good language to know. 

I was lucky to have met Milan, a 27 year old extreme sports Czech who LIVES by the seat of his pants.  NO JOKE.  Some of his stories include: Trying a 360degree jump (unsuccesfully) on his first day EVER of snowboarding; Trying a downhill mountainbiking race where he crashed and rashed his butt over 25 ft of asphalt. 

I met him on the train from Nurnberg to Prague.  He wanted to check out my Ipod Mini (always a hot topic).  Since the joining of Czech Republic with the EU, he was lucky enough to find work in Germany, where he works part time as an auto mechanic, and spends all of his Euros (to his mother’s disgust) on Bike Parts.  "Live Life!" was his motto.  Always with a smile.