An Alexipharmic for Boredom OR Bleh....'tis only a blog

World Refugee Day, Austin, TX

2009-06-20T14:42:00.000-05:00

Big bend return...

2009-04-20T15:42:00.000-05:00

Cheddar bacon scone at Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredericksburg.

Marfa food

2009-04-18T12:29:00.001-05:00

West Texas on my plate

2009-04-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

Comfort Suites has very comfortable beds...and creative meal options.
Signing in from Fort Stockton.

Voxtrot SXSW

2009-03-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

New missile sighting

2009-02-21T06:23:00.001-06:00

Watch out Raytheon.

High MPG vehicles in Europe

2009-02-21T06:21:00.000-06:00

Europe. Tell us how you really feel.

2009-02-21T06:20:00.001-06:00

Pacman sighting!

2009-02-21T06:18:00.000-06:00

Alert Namco immediately. That cookie eating maniac is loose in
Tarragona!

French kissing in the...

2009-02-21T06:16:00.000-06:00

.... Republic of Espana.

Seafood in coastal Spain....

2009-02-21T06:15:00.001-06:00

...is very nice (with Borat accent).

Feeling a little.....

2009-02-19T06:17:00.001-06:00

WIRED!!!!!!

Best real pron names

2009-02-19T05:42:00.000-06:00

High quality wine in BCN

2009-02-17T12:40:00.000-06:00

Buenos Aires - A Quick Photo Story

2009-01-02T21:08:00.008-06:00

A smattering of images that captured my attention....

La Boca....

Stadium Stop

Not sure what they were thinking with that cookie shape...

Step-by-Step Tango instructions

Caffeine and aspirin - always a great combo

Lots of paper pre-New Year

Pink cow - it's what's for dinner

Lines..BA Musings - part deux

2008-12-31T22:16:00.002-06:00

I don't think I've seen as many lines in any one country as I have in Argentina. I don't know if the country is seriously underbanked or what, but there always appears to be lines at bank ATMs (add to that bus stations, airport, taxi stations, tax offices, supermarkets (15 minutes in the express line)).
Men standing in front of apartment buildings seemed to be a big thing. Just - hanging out - not really doing anything.
Argentinian women look slightly angry..all the time. Maybe that's the definition of smoldering - it certainly makes the heart palpate. Maybe men are all children at heart who need a bit of stern discipline :-).
Steak - order it rare - because anything you order will be well done or near well done.

That's it - whinerish guy out.

La Bombonera!

2008-12-30T23:47:00.008-06:00

La Boca, the gritty, poor and blue collar neighborhood lies to the south of Buenos Aires and is home to the Bombonera ("the Chocolate Box'), the home stadium of the Boca Juniors, one the most popular sporting clubs in the country.

I was interested in touring the stadium as well as the museum in the stadium for several reasons. First off, CABJ has the same colors as the team I support in Turkey (although I am not sure what the origin story is for Fenerbahce's choice of colors - the myth around CABJ's color selection tells the story of the founders choosing the colors based on the colors of the flag of the next ship entering the port - which just happened to be flying a Swedish flag). Secondly, it seemed like a good jumping off point for checking out El Caminito, the, admittedly heavily touristy, area with pastel colored houses and tango performances galore.

All of my guide books contained strong warnings about walking to La Boca as well as walking off the beaten path when in La Boca. Despite the multiple warnings, after getting some instructions from my hostel I ended up walking down Defensa (known for La Feria - the all day Sunday antiques market) and rapidly hoofing it through a park and Avenida Almirante A. Brown. If you must walk to La Boca, I would advise doing it during the day - the streets off the stadium and tourist sections are actually fairly deserted and even the Argentinians I spoke to said they would be wary of travel to La Boca during the night.

The museum was pretty neat - worth a visit if you're a "futbol" fan. There was a section with tens of televisions showing highlights from prior national and international championships by the club - although for me the highlight was the stadium itself. I don't think they build stadiums like this one anymore. Completed in the 1950s, the seating is extremely close to the field, with barbed wired fences separating the fans from the players. Unfortunately they had just finished the season so I was unable to watch a game, but I can definitely imagine it being a real crackerbox of a stadium to play or watch a football match in.

The other interesting observation is the merchandising aspect of it. I'm so used to seeing heavy amounts of merchandising in the US for pro teams (and Fenerbahce is actually exceedingly good at this for a football club). CABJ had surprisingly little for sale at the stadium and a number of seemingly knock-off stores around the stadium.

Buenos Aires Pizza Roundup

2008-12-30T20:47:00.001-06:00

Someone in the hostel from London said "the only problem with Buenos Aires is that there are only 2 choices for food: pizza and steak". I punched him in the face and he didn't say much after that.

Argentina's largely (although not solely) a country of immigrants and large portion of those were of Italian origin so as you can imagine there's a lot of very good Italian food here, including my chewy crust obsession. Here's a brief overview of the pizza I had the chance to try (and there were countless places I did not have a chance to try - most notably La Mezetta and El Cuartito - which are on the list for the next trip).

Romario Pizza

I was not expecting to eat at a chain in my stay in BA, but Romario Pizza is not your grandfather's chain. First off, the woodburning brick oven pizzeria only has locations in BA. Secondly, it was heavily recommended by a number of locals as their place to pick up a pie. And last, well, I was quasi-lost (and although it was on my list for a later visit) and ended up making a pit-stop for a couple of delicious slices.

Highs: best fugazza I had in BA (thicker, pan style pizza with onions), excellent thin chewy crust on the plain pizza, cheap (2 slices and 2 beers for $5).

Senor Telmo

Situated in San Telmo, off the very busy Defensa street, this rustic cafe serves up some good pie. I got seated in here after wandering Defensa for several hours. Service was spotty but the pie was good and the beer cold.

Highs: good crust and robust sauce, cheap

Lows: too much cheese and not a huge cubed ham fan - just something about the texture doesn't work for me.

Pizza Guerin

When a pizzeria has been around since 1932, you figure it has to be pretty darn good. And in the case of Pizza Guerin, "pretty good" is an understatement. I ended up coming back to this pizza institution twice in one day.

Highs: delicate red sauce, "especial" with marinated red bell peppers a work of art, great faina (chickpea based crust) and supremely cheap (80 cents for a slice - are you kidding me?)

Lows: verduras (veggie pizza) good, not great. Crust is very good but on the thicker side (a cross between pan and thin)

The Verdict - I would visit Romario or Guerin any day of the week but I would have to give the edge to (gasp!) the chain. The crust was thinnner which was more to my liking. I also like the fact that they made the individual slices when I ordered them as opposed to it being part of a larger pizza that was simply reheated.

Buenos Aires knows its wireless

2008-12-29T12:38:00.000-06:00

Even in the subway. This city rocks.

MALBA

2008-12-28T19:29:00.006-06:00

I spent an afternoon at the MALBA - the last of my Palermo afternoons I should add - from here on out, I am going to be based out of San Telmo, which is a lot more central as far as access to multiple subway lines and general proximity of interesting sights/restaurants.

Back to the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) though - this may have been my best art museum experience in a very long time. Solely focused on Latin American art and artists, the place is a wonder. You get the feeling that you're in for something special when you enter the museum and are greeted with a blindingly white, visually expansive and elegant 3 floor space (who I wish UT had looked at before designing the Blanton (or maybe it should be called the Blandton from an architectural standpoint)).

The exhibits themselves are housed mostly chronologically and run the gamut from modern art to video art to set pieces featuring complex mechanical systems. I think I enjoyed the "Wrinkle" series from Liliana Porter as well the pieces from Antonio Dias. MALBA also has featured films, so if you're in BA looking for an art fix, I can't think of a better venue to visit.

The WT's Top 2(?!) Travel Accessories - 2008 edition

2008-12-28T18:04:00.012-06:00

Welcome to the second edition of the WT's Top X Travel Accessories. The inaugral edition can be found here.

Granted, this is only a week in Argentina but some of this gear deserves a mention (and there has been thus far no cluster of the type I experienced with my bag in 2006 - on the contrary..anyway you'll have to read on) - so here we go...

1. My netbook AKA the Samsung NC10 - I didn't realize how handy this thing would be when I got it. It weighs less than 3 pounds, has a usable keyboard, great battery life (I've hit close to 7 hours with the max battery settings), a large hard drive and built in wi-fi. I've got a number of movies on there as well as my music collection (and it also conveniently acts as a charger for my phone). There are a lot of great netbook options out there right now. The MSI Wind can be found for under $400 and the new generation of netbooks look to be somewhat cheaper and probably a lot more powerful (why really though - this thing, outside of hardcore dev and games, does everything one needs). Great value and definitely useful for the traveler on the go - most of the blog posts for this trip were made with this computer.

2.Osprey Meridian Wheeled Backpack - I was somewhat iffy on this when I first played around with it at REI - it seemed stiff to me and I was somewhat befuddled by the design decision to put the zipper to the daypack in the back of the daypack (with only a small access window up front). I ended up ordering it anyway and the more I've used, the more I truly appreciate it. The access from the back of the daypack is perfect for limiting access from pickpockets and the front parts of the daypack have zippers that are hidden and which need to be firmly pulled to open (i.e. you would definitely feel it if someone tried). The other cool thing is that the back of the dayback has a couple of layers, one of them being mesh. It's about as ventilated a day pack as I've comfortably worn. Other cool things include the ability to zip the dayback to the main bag, a perfectly apportioned mainbag with simply a superb back support system (unlike the Swiss Army Gear from my prior review) and tons of well placed nooks and crannies for organizing all your travel gear.

On the misuse of English overseas...

2008-12-26T20:48:00.004-06:00

There's something inherently funny when one is traveling and observes English phrases that don't quite make sense. Having assiduously trotted about into a decent number of corners of the world, these malformed phrases give me an odd feeling of comfort about the trustworthiness of a culture. I feel like, if these guys are not going to check with a native speaker about a particular phrase, the likelihood of them mugging me and then beating me to a bloody pulp is considerably less (an untested and likely incorrect theory for certain - but an intriguing one).

In any case, these are just a couple of the images I've captured in Buenos Aires so far. For more amusing mis-phraseology, check out James Fallows' recent posts, including one on the Amazing Slop that he's encountered in China (oh and while you're at it - he does have a cool article on his trip to Istanbul here).

p.s. of course, this post does not in any way excuse my constant butchering of Spanish on my short visit thus far.

One more quick Hotel shot...

2008-12-25T22:48:00.002-06:00

I live behind this....

Hotel 5 Cool Rooms

2008-12-25T21:40:00.003-06:00

My room is small, ascetic but oddly cozy and very functional. Definitely a single this one. Great terrace and jacuzzi upstairs and free wi-fi (with better speeds than Road Runner - especially on upload - no wonder we're 15th in global broadband ratings - kudos Argentina) and in the heart of Palermo SoHo. It should be good for 3 days, after which I will downshift to a hostel (and try not to think about any weird movies with the same name).

Arrival in Buenos Aires...Musings...

2008-12-25T18:04:00.006-06:00

It's been a little while since I've traveled internationally, not counting any recent trips to Turkey of course. I sometimes wonder if you looked at life expectancies, if those individuals with an enduring sense wanting to travel, discover, be curious, be active beat out the homebodies?

Any sense of superiority withstanding, I am stoked about what I've seen in Argentina and also how quickly I've been taken advantage of!

Some quick observations before we get the party in high gear...

My snookering: after reading in guide after guide that I should only ride in radio-taxis/remises, what I do after extracing money from seemingly the only ATM within a half-mile? I hop on to a taxi (in my defense I did wait for a little while and no radio taxis came by....). The final bill - 120 pesos - roughly 10 more dollars than what I've seen quoted in most guides. I was going to Palermo though, which is further North - so...who knows...
On the positive side, my cabby was jovial enough, even though he looked like a denizen of the 9th Ward. Also he did a Hail Mary every time we passed a church - 8 times within the 45 minute ride to the hotel. This was interesting to watch.
Buenos Aires reminds me of...Istanbul of all places. If you compare the cities - they have similar populations, account for a large population of their country (although Buenos Aires accounts for over a third of Argentina), feature a significant underclass and have a lot of cheap, really good food.
Even more so than just the numbers though, there's this odd sense of urban renewal amid a decaying, rotting old city in terms of architecture that makes me place the two together. Granted, Istanbul is the far older city - BA, simply cannot compete in the history department, but there's an intensity and energy about both which cannot be denied and especially the French influenced, older neighborhoods (like Beyoglu and Palermo) evoke one another for me. That and the mish mash style of it all....
And finally - yes - the women are gorgeous. This is after all the country that gave us Gabi Sabatini - my high school fantasy :-).

The force unleashed...with Stormtroopers

2008-09-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

Hammocks rule

2008-09-06T18:43:00.000-05:00

Amsterdam

2008-07-14T03:35:00.000-05:00

No smoking on a table cloth

2008-07-05T15:32:00.000-05:00

They are really cracking down....

Çesme book festival

2008-07-04T07:56:00.000-05:00

Feet..in their preferred habitat

2008-07-03T03:42:00.000-05:00

Tough life...

2008-06-30T23:47:00.002-05:00

Don Quixote on the Aegean...

2008-06-30T13:13:00.000-05:00

Out of Africa...into Çesme

2008-06-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

Shoulder

2008-06-29T15:56:00.003-05:00

(US) A part of a road where drivers may stop in an emergency

(TR) An additional lane to be used for passing, driving dangerously and inducing emergencies

Post match mayhem

2008-06-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

The sights and sounds of Istanbul

2008-06-12T21:41:00.003-05:00

Sorry - no photo - but wanted to get a small post in about the sounds of Istanbul (unrelated but interesting Fatih Akin documentary). I was laying in bed awake at 4:00am as only one can suffering massive jet-lag when I heard the first call to prayer. A second, less strong voice joined that first call and within minutes there was a mystical cacophony of competing voices which died down almost as quickly as they started.

That's the thing about this place. It's organically, intensely alive, from the birds chirping outside in my densely populated neighborhood, to the cat fights, to the occasional protesting tires of a cab driving by, to the call of the imam to the faithful....time for a run I think.

New York New York

2008-05-23T10:16:00.000-05:00

Tired but still standing.

The Raconteurs in Austin,TX

2008-05-04T11:32:00.001-05:00

Electric show....

San Fran

2008-04-30T21:11:00.000-05:00

Love the old motel sign. I need to go to Vegas. Exhausted and on my
way back to Austin.

The land of happy endings apparently

2008-04-27T12:26:00.000-05:00

Korean BBQ in SF

2008-04-26T22:06:00.000-05:00

I built this....

2008-04-12T13:59:00.000-05:00

Team Lord in Training

2008-04-12T08:54:00.000-05:00

Finally got my baby....

2008-04-12T08:01:00.000-05:00

The perfectly packed triathlon bag

2008-04-11T07:57:00.001-05:00

3 hours and counting..

Miami-almost a go......

2008-04-10T18:20:00.000-05:00

A lot to write..

2006-08-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

I am beset by lousy iınternet connections here in Ürgüp. That and there is a lot going on...I have copious notes though so expect something in the next several days....

Kayseri....

2006-08-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

After an eventless one hour flight, we landed in Kayseri at dusk on Friday and proceeded to take the shuttle service to Urgup to our hotel. As we passed the faceless buildings of downtown Kayseri, I saw a gigantic cloth sign hanging off an apartment block which read “You Wicked Zionists – May You Feel God’s scorn”. Believe me, this is not the kind of thing one sees in the larger cities in Turkey – my sister and I were quite shocked to see it. There is a lot of sympathy for the Lebanese people in Turkey and despite heavy military ties as well as cultural identification with Israel’s brand of secularism, there is an impatience bordering on anger with Israel’s heavy-handed approach to Palestine and the newer situation in Lebanon.

Additionally Kayseri is known as a staunchly conservative and nationalistic area (In fact Kurtlar – the Wolves – those are Turkish (ultra)nationalists – gather annually near Mount Argeus). The sign, the faceless and dusty nature of the city, emphasized for me that life further out East, in the somewhat lesser traveled areas of the country are a journey to a side of Turkey most of us city-folk don’t experience. And life is stranger than fiction the further out East one goes – there is palpable fear in the country about the destabilization of the situation in the Southeastern portion of the country with PKK bombings becoming a regular occurence along with an increased influx of soldiers and policemen as well as the retirement of General Hilmi Ozkok, the current top military brass. All of this is a sobering reminder of the economic and social chasm between the Eastern and Western parts of the country.

Cappadocia on my mind...

2006-08-24T14:25:00.000-05:00

With a flurry of unsustainable-given-the-temperature-energy, I made arrangements on Thursday to visit Cappadocia over the weekend. I frequently see-saw between just relaxing when I’m at home (effectively doing nothing) and stuffing my days full and I chose the latter for this trip. I have a flight out to Kayseri (which is famous for their pastirma - including a map for the geographically curious) with my sister. I have planned 2 days of hikes and guided tours, including a balloon ride over what I can only best describe as an other worldly landscape, formed by heavy volcanic activity millions of years ago....can't wait.

Grrrrrrrrrrr........ :-(

2006-08-23T16:47:00.000-05:00

Say no more...

Worlds collide...tonight!

2006-08-23T08:35:00.000-05:00

My sister surprised the hell out of me with a ticket to the Fenerbahce - Dynamo Kiev Champions League game tonight! We (obviously speaking for Fenerbahce) lost the first game in the Ukraine 3-1 and need to win this one 2-0 or by a difference of 3 goals. It's a lofty goal and the realist in me says there's a not huge chance of it occurring....but it's soccer and, the game is 90 minutes and did we stop when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor...and....(add whatever sports/underdog cliches you'd like on here).

One thing I do know is that I'll be screaming my guts out with 55,000 other similarly possessed fans. Going to a football (aka soccer) match featuring one of the 3 Istanbul teams (Fenerbahce, Galatasaray or Besiktas) is a very unique Turkish experience - it's a level of passion most Westerners will not have experienced at any sporting event. I highly recommend it if you can fit it into your Istanbul visit. The noise, the fanfare, the passion, the reaction, the buildup and the support throughout the game - if there's any one word to describe it - it has to be "extreme". One should be wary but I say everything in moderation, including moderation. You need to be a tad extreme every so often...

Things I need to get back used to....

2006-08-23T07:41:00.000-05:00

Improve my side step moves - I've been near-run over at least twice so far whilst navigating the sidestreets of Yesilkoy. The long time spent abroad has blunted my acquired 6th sense of impending metal on flesh collisions.
Having all windows in a house open because it is depressingly hot. Air conditioning is something we take for granted in Texas and with temperatures in the high 90s, with no A/C, let's just say the air has a certain organic, gooey feel to it - if one can "feel" air that is. Smells are magnified, and I mean that both in a good and bad way (I won't get into too much detail here - I don't want to reduce my readership from its high of 2 to 0).
With the windows open, one hears everything. It's pretty neat actually - although I think it would bug most Americans since personal space is highly valued in the US. One hears the call of the imam early in the morning, the rumble of the water trucks (and the water delivery guy shouting "Suuuuuuuuuuuu!"), the sometimes barely audible, but obviously blaring at its origin sound of someone watching a soccer match and of course the odd fruit and veggie salesman...Call it the sounds of the city.
Cats, cats, cats! They're everywhere - call them the equivalent of the ubiquitous possum in New Zealand - although Kiwis would argue they're far more beneficial then their brown, furry rodents (and I daresay they're right!)

Back home again…..

2006-08-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

One of the first things I do after I step foot in my parents’ apartment (most people own apartments here, not houses), is to take a walk around the neighborhood. My parents live officially in the Yeşilköy neighborhood, which literally translated means “Green Village”. The neighborhood is heavily wooded (for Istanbul) and is very close to the airport. Decades ago, people had summer homes around here. They would take the take the train from more central locations in Istanbul. Believe it or not, the area was considered outside the city. Now the city counts its inhabitants in the tens of millions. What was a quaint neighborhood with a government mandated height and floor limit due to its proximity to the airport, is part of a densely populated region that’s been swallowed up whole – now you have to travel an hour along a toll road to Silivri to find those summer homes that people are buying to get away from the hustle and bustle of city.

I’ve become flummoxed at the absence of things which existed for a long time. Take for example the florist on the corner of the neighborhood, which separates two neighborhoods, Yesilyurt and Yesilkoy. This makeshift shop called that corner its home for 20+ years. It’s where I would always ask the dolmuş (a share taxi which translates to “stuffed”) to drop me off when I got back from Taksim. Well – the florist is no longer – apparently moved by the municipality to beautify the area. Flowers definitely detract from the beauty of the area....

One other thing that appears less and less the "yali"s (see above for some in decrepit condition) – these are older, wooden, multi-story homes, sometimes dating back to the 1800s (ones along the Bosphorus are even older and many of those are classified as historical monuments). They are being torn down, and post-modern, architecturally uninteresting apartment blocks are being put in the their place.

Istanbul - it's like a highly prized antique, confined to the basement, given away to those who don't understand its value, the original beauty painted over with cheap varnish - yet....the original lives on. You know it's under there, lurking, struggling to free itself from the debasement that it's been witness to in the past 30 years, courtesy of mismanagement, poor planning, a lack of appreciation for the history and natural beauty which makes it the crossroads of civilization. It's engulfed by large swathes of concrete...yet...somehow, it survives. Strip beyond the facade, take those side streets into old Beyoglu...and suddenly as it emerges. Old, glorious, temperemental, sentimental and tolerant Istanbul. It's there...you just need to know where to look.

Farewell O’ Plane Peanut – We Hardly Knew Ye….

2006-08-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

So – I am off again, typing this up in that great city of cities – New York. What’s my final destination (let’s go ahead and stereotype since I seem to be in that mood)? The cradle of civilizations – Istanbul!

Dear reader (that’s not an “L” Kim Jong) – I will be swooping into the City, seeing family, undertaking some touristy as well as local stuff . At the end of the week I hope to gallop off on a 10 day trek featuring Bodrum off the Mediterranean coast, Tarsus (that’s where Paul (not Zito) was from for my readers of Christian leaning) in the Southeast of the country and ultimately Cappadocia in Central Anatolia.

I am going on a little under 3 hours of sleep – I don’t even know why I bother try to pre-pack anything anymore. I find the beginning of any journey, especially a longer one a good time to reflect. This is usually because I have not packed anything interesting to read, or I have packed something that is supremely interesting, but would give me a headache on a plane (I need to get a Maxim subscription for just when I fly)….

Anyway – to bring this relatively mindless post to an end….a few observations and one tip (yes – we’re short on tips today – check tomorrow):

I was once again selected for screening by the TSA. Amazing how the “random” screenings have randomly selected me the last 4 times I’ve flown. In fact I hope they get a little more random, because I happen to think a discernible pattern of passenger selection is not a good thing. I guess you do need to search the 3 year olds and grandmothers every so often.

I will say that the TSA staff has been approachable and polite every time I’ve had the privilege of getting screened. Kudos to those folks - it’s a mostly a stress-filled job dealing with crabby people, while looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. I think they do it with professionalism and a smile (at least in Austin).

In other security news, my fellow passenger had a liter water bottle he carried on with him and sipped away at it during the 3+ hour flight.

The mystery of the day: what the hell has happened to the omnipresent greasy, salty peanut bag? We flew 3+ hours and had one drink service. It seems the peanut bag has also been a victim of cost-cutting. I wonder what’s next? Drinks? Maybe we’ll pay for seat cushions or ice….I hope no airline execs are reading this…

Another sign Delta’s in trouble – I went to the Crown Lounge and I remember when I used to fly on business – there would be food galore in the Crown Lounge. I have an utter cornucopia of choices now between a green apple and some pretzels.

I tried solving a couple of Sudoku puzzles on the plane. I feel dumber than a box of bricks when I try to solve this stuff. I keep on hoping the light’s going to go off at some point (I did solve the one which looked like it was made for people with a lesser IQ with 60% of the squares pre-filled in).

And now - what you've eagerly been salivating for – the tip of the day: this really only applies if you’re a T-mobile customer. Normally, any decent place should have wi-fi available as an amenity – but airports are not decent places. In fact they're quite impudent. So here’s what you do: you can sign up for a T-mobile Hotspot account, which is basically broadband wi-fi access. The lowest plan is $19.99 a month. Here’s the kicker – once you’re done – go ahead and cancel it and pay the prorated amount (which in my case is going to be $0.66). Sneaky? Yes. Ethical? Eh. Does T-Mobile let you do it? Yes.

Anyway....my flight's going to be off soon - I hope to be writing the next post from beguiling Istanbul.

It's been a while....

2006-07-23T22:20:00.000-05:00

Never let it be said that I don't post to up my post count. I stoop to such depths frequently. And I use cuddly, cute pets to try and get away with it... That's a portrait of my cats, trying to digest the philosophical musings of Louis Mackey in Waking Life.

Anywho, I am planning my trip to Turkey which is boisterously waving its hands - a mere 28 days away - yes - I am counting the days down. I am looking forward to seeing family, friends and of all things, eating a lot of Turkish bread and drinking tea out of tiny cups with my mom. Oh yeah - there might be some travel in there too. Stay tuned (well...just come back later if you're really interested).

The Turkish Sarma aka Dolma Recipe

2006-05-29T15:54:00.000-05:00

OK - after what must seem like an eternity to my countless followers around the world, here it is: the family secret long assiduously guarded by each generation of Wandering Turks, revealed in a moment of weakness, after some comments on a blog and an ensuing hasty promise. This revelation is (obviously) bigger than Geraldo's wait outside the Chicago vault for Capone's long lost blood money. It towers heads and shoulders above the WMDs in Iraq. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with superlatives for it (I'll take $300 for things which don't exist Alex).

Before I fork over the recipe (like that? "fork" over - in a foodie post..yes, I'm brilliant and...modest), let's clear up a couple things up about this sarma versus dolma business. Dolma and sarma are stuffed vegetable dishes originating from the geographic area that Turkey currently occupies. The dishes are quite popular in various forms, typically consisting of different fillings and spices throughout the Middle East, Iran and the Balkans (especially Romania). With the exception of Romania, in most countries outside Turkey, no distinction is made between dolma and sarma (but there is one!).

Dolma, as a word, is a past participle of "dolmak" or "doldurmak", which means to "stuff". Sarma on the other hand comes from the verb "sarmak", which translates to "wrap" or to "roll". Grape leaves are rolled with their filling (sarma), and other veggies, such as bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini are hollowed out and then stuffed (dolma). This is an enormous distinction – right? Once Turkey gets into the EU (nobody hold their breath), maybe we can claim it to be traditional Turkish product and so everyone else will have to come up with their own name for it. We have plenty of time for such tomfoolery – underestimate our ability to waste time at your own peril.

OK - so now that I have that off my chest, and you now have the ability to go to your local Middle-Eastern delicatessen and huffily deliver a diatribe on the difference between sarma and dolma, let's move on to the recipe. First off, allow me to apologize. There was a grand plan to photograph all of this step by step, but it went by the wayside after the first sip of beer and once we started watching The Office. What I give you is a crapola end-product picture. For my lack of planning though, I will throw in a second recipe for free! (I feel like the OxiClean guy: (shouting) we’re going to give you the dolma recipe…but wait, we’ll also give you the sarma recipe! And yes! We’ll even throw in the sigara boregi recipe! That’s 3 recipes for the price of 1! Call us now!).

Ingredients:

- 1 pound (that’s roughly ½ kg) of Grape Leaves. If you can get them fresh – great – otherwise, a jar will work fine. Place the leaves a in bowl in warm water.
- 1 pound of ground beef – a little on the fatty side – 15% fat (they label them here in the US so we know to get the more fatty ones to feed our obesity craze).
- 3 medium yellow onions – mince as small as possible
- 2 (200ml) cups of short or medium grain white rice – initially let it sit in cold water
- Dry mint – 2 tablespoons
- Parsley – flat or curly leaf – a handful
- Sumac – 1 tablespoon
- Black pepper – ½ tablespoon
- Salt – ½ tablespoon
- Cayenne pepper – ½ tablespoon
- Tomato Paste – 4 tablespoons
- 1 juicy medium tomato - minced
- Citric acid, aka limon tuzu – ¼ tablespoon - mix in a small amount of warm water in a cup
- Some non-stick spray
- 50 grams of margarine
- Nice to have – biber salcasi – aka red pepper paste – ½ tablespoon
- You will need fresh bread (Turkish bread = best bread in the world but a French baguette will do if you don’t have a firin or bakkal close to you) and plain yogurt.

It’s prep time!

Dolma and sarma stuffing can get messy. Be sure to have some old newspaper or some washable underlayment before you begin. Other absolutely necessary items include a friend or two you can chat or gossip with while you stuff and roll and a really bad movie on the telly. Remember, this is meant to be a communal and fun experience!

Ah – we come to the easy part. Take all of the above, except the grape leaves, (the rice sans water), and mix it all in a tepsi (one of the most underrated contributions of Turkey to global cuisine IMHO), if you have one. Otherwise, you will need a large glass bowl. One thing I do is to slowly mix in the rice at the end. I don’t like my filling too ricey, and I feel I can get the mixture right this way. I end up using around 1 ½ cups of rice most of the time. Mix it all together for around 5-10 minutes whilst jabbering away. It should be relatively solid but slightly gooey filling concoction by the end of it all.

This filling can be used for sarma and dolma. Grab a small amount of the mixture in your hand and start your movie and chat with your friend. Wrap and stuff to your heart’s content. If you have questions on how exactly to fold the grape leaves, I refer you to the following link – it is quite easy and fun once you have it down. Lightly squeeze the mixture in your hand before wrapping to get excess liquid out. For dolma, you can buy fresh veggies and hollow them out. Do try to get bell peppers with thin skin. These are hard to find in the US, although most veggies produced South of the border and available at a lot of farmer markets in Austin, seem more similar to Turkish veggies than ones found in the supermarkets. I highly recommend (and this is what I ended up cooking), if you can get it, to get dried bell peppers, zucchini and eggplant from Turkey. These last forever and can be used at a moment’s notice, and require no prep other than getting placed in hottish water at the same time you place the grape leaves in their warm water.

As your inventory of sarma and dolma builds up, prep your pot by spraying it with some non-stick cooking spray. Put down a single layer of grape leaves on the bottom of the pot, such that there is a fair amount for intercrossing occurring between the leaves. These leaves are a buffer zone to ensure your sarma and dolma do not burn during the initial heating phase. The leaves can come up on the sides of the pot, up to an inch or so.

Start laying the sarma and dolma – you want to lay them horizontally so they form even layers. I’ve never encountered a difference in whether I lay the sarma or dolma first on the bottom. If you have bell peppers with thicker skin, I suppose it may be better to get those on the bottom first. Anyhow, not a big deal either way.

As you get done with a layer, cut several thin pieces of margarine on various sections on the layer (no need to spread or be exact), and then start laying the next layer. And…that’s it. You’re ready to cook and enjoy delicious sarma and dolma in one hour. Add 1 ½ glasses of water and turn up the heat to high. The water will start to boil within a minute or two. Put on the pot’s top. Keep the heat on high for 10 minutes and then bring it to a simmer for 50 minutes. Serve with yogurt and fresh bread.

Bonus recipe - Sigara Boregi

2006-05-29T15:53:00.000-05:00

Did you know that roughly 50 percent of Turkish men smoke? Besides the fact that Turkey is 5th largest tobacco producing nation, I personally lay the blame at the feet of sigara boregi. I avidly believe that this delicious cigarette shaped pastry which is filled with feta cheese and parsley is the progenitor of our foul addiction. I am addicted to it anyhow – it’s very easy to make and goes very well with tea, can be enjoyed hot or cold, packs great for picnics etc.

Ingredients:

- 1 pound of Turkish Beyaz Peynir, aka Feta cheese for those corrupted by Greek marketing
- A handful of curly or flat-leaf parsley - minced
- 1 egg white
- 1 egg yolk
- Filo dough (yufka), cut into isosceles triangles, with longer sides than a base.
- Canola or sunflower oil

Prep:

Crumble the cheese into small pebble like pieces. Add the parsley in. Add the egg white. Mix it all together. Lay out the filo. Wrapping our sigara boregi is very similar to wrapping sarma – so check out the sarma post for a link if any of this seems foreign. Place a small amount of the mixture at the bottom of the filo triangle. Roll up once, flip sides to make an envelope and roll to make a small, tight eggroll type concoction. Smear some egg yolk or water to close the seal. Repeat until you’re done.

Pre-heat a deep pan filled with enough canola oil to cover two thirds of the height of our pastry on medium-high. An oil splash-guard may be handy here. Before you place your sigara boregi in the pan, lower the heat medium. Have some tongs handy as you will be using this to turn the pastries over after 30-45 seconds.

I like to let these guys cool down a little bit before they literally meet their maker. You can also make them ahead of time and deep-freeze them (i.e. prior to cooking them). Enjoy.

The WT's Review of the Wide, Wide World of Beer: New Zealand

2006-04-30T16:14:00.000-05:00

Tiger Beer, Asia Pacific Breweries
Where: Auckland and Day 10 of the West Coast hike
So the question that comes to mind is why have a mass produced Singaporean beer when one is out and about in captivating New Zealand? For one thing, it tasted pretty good cold. And in Auckland, it was what the bartendress recommended at a cool little live music/jazz bar off Kitchener street whose name escapes me at this point. On the widely accepted WT Skunkiness scale, with Heineken rating a 10, I would give Tiger a 7, maybe even an 8. Tiger has a hazy, golden color and it goes down rather smoothly, with just enough of a bitter aftertaste to let you know you've been drinking beer.

Monteiths Summer Ale, Monteiths Brewing Company
Where: Near Okarito
Monteiths was recommended by Andre, our guide, so we picked up 2 six packs, one of them being the Summer Ale, on one our supermarket jaunts (incidentally one of our compadres was not allowed to buy beer because she did not have her id with her and looked a little too young according to the cashier. There are advantages to looking like you have a porcupine glued to your face after a week of not shaving). We enjoyed this tasty summer concoction as we sat on the West Coast beach, eating our first and last fast-foodish type meal (don't ask). Monteiths Brewery is around 150 years old and is brewed in Greymouth, on the West Coast so I can at least say that I've tasted some authentic New Zealand brew. The Summer Ale was quite lively, spicy and sweet at the same time. It also had a cinnamony taste to it and went down very nicely with my authentic Kiwi cheeseburger and kumara fries.

Monteiths Golden Lager, Monteiths Brewing Company
Where: Near Okarito
This was the second choice of six packs we had on the beach (don't we sound like a bunch of drunks?). Unlike the other lagers I've described so far, Monteiths Golden Lager had a distinctly sweet taste and was not bitter at all. I daresay it had a hint of honey, although it was nowhere near as syrupy as the Monteiths Summer Ale. Overall, it was a servicable lager with a classic golden yellow color. I guess I prefer my lagers a little more on the bitter side.

Monteiths Celtic Red, Monteiths Brewing Company
Where: Camping near Mount Aspiring National Park
Very red. That's how I would describe Celtic Red. And how does it taste? Bitter but a little watered down in my opinion but I would rate it higher than Killian's Red. I will say I don't drink all too many reds - so it's a little tough to judge. It did have a a roasty flavor of sorts - I could swear there was a hint of coffee in there. It did go well with the fresh salmon we roasted over an open fire. If you're a fan of reds, give it a shot - otherwise, you can safely skip it.

Speight's Pale Ale, Lion Breweries
Where: Queenstown
This was the first beer I had at a bar after the end of the hike. It's an odd feeling to be back in the cradle of civilization. Toilets (why does that come up first?). Restaurants. And oodles and oodles of people. Way too many people - despite being gone only for 10 days, I felt needed a day or two of reintegration and Queenstown, as beautiful as it is, was not the right place for reunite with the urbane world. Anyhow, Speights helped in this regard. We went to a bar, played pool and had a couple of pints of Speight's- all in all it went down easily, wasn't very hoppy, exhibited a hazy golden color and tasted slightly fruity.

TUI - DB Breweries
Where: Queenstown
Ah - my last local beer in New Zealand. I've had my share of stinkers in my beer travels - I don't think anyone would rate me a beer snob based on this set of reviews. So I will say the best thing about the TUI was that it was free. In an attempt to lure the gals and myself into a questionable bar, we were handed free drink tickets. Upon barely slithering up the stairs in our exhausted state to the second storey bar, we immediately sat down and I ordered my free TUI. There was dance music in the old fashioned Euro-trash sense. Anyhow...what can I say - the beer fit the locale. It was amber colored, bitter without character and...harsh is probably the best word for it. So, more importantly for this review to be worth a damn - what is a Tui? It is a bird of New Zealand - considered to be very intelligent, similar to parrots. So there you go - you learned 2 things. Don't bother with TUI the beer and don't have a chess match with Tui, the bird. Off you go now.

The WT's Review of the Wide, Wide World of Beer: South Africa

2006-04-15T09:44:00.000-05:00

Castle Lager, South Africa, SABMiller
Where: Kloof Street, Cape Town

Castle is the "king" of beers in South Africa. It is the Bud, the Miller, the Coors, all rolled into one - which is not necessarily a good thing (my overseas readers, pray you will be spared from drinking these watered down beers). So I had to try one. The scene was a hip bar, bustling with smartly dressed 20- somethings on Kloof Street in Cape Town. I will eagerly add that South Africa has the most beautiful assortment of women I have ever witnessed. Maybe it's because South Africa was both a home, an exile and a prison for people of so many backgrounds (African, Malay, Indian, European) and the intermixing of the cultures produced some stunningly appealing looking members of the opposite sex. Anyway, oh that's right - I'm supposed to be writing about beer, not women. So...Castle Beer..right. Well, Castle is a beer in the tradition of other mass marketed lagers. It exudes a clear, golden color, is fairly carbonated, slightly bitter and has a certain edge of skunkiness, for which Heineken is a poster child. In short, it's a good beer to drink cold, preferably on a hot day. Oh and visit Cape Town while you're at it.

Windhoek Lager, South Africa, Namibian Breweries
Where: Buchu Bush Camp
I had the pleasure of trying Windhoek at the Buchu Bush Camp, near Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa, right by the De Hoop Nature Preserve. I highly recommend the Buchu Bush Camp and the surrounding area - it was quite a find by Britton. The cabins we stayed in ran completely off wind power. And although we were frequently warned about scorpions and snakes and told to stay on the elevated, slated, wooden paths which led to each log cabin, it was nevertheless a lot of fun (that and being asked to keep my mouth shut about anything insect related as we went to bed). Anyway, the owner of the camp was an ex-SAA (that's South African Airways) executive chef and he made dinner for all the guests. It was tasty yet slightly compartmentalized, consisting of chicken and veggies and a salad, each in their own partitions - actually, it sounds just like an airline meal now that I reflect. He was quite high on Windhoek and I downed a couple to go with my meal. Apparently it is becoming the choice of South Africans, who want to branch out from Castle. Frankly, I didn't taste a huge difference between them. I think Windhoek is a somewhat better lager than Castle - but it has the same mass-produced slightly bitter (less so than Castle IMO), carbonated lager taste. Its color was a little less golden - I would classify it as pale. In short, not a bad choice on a warm evening, as long as it is cold. BTW Namibian Breweries brews all their beers according to the Reinheitsgebot, for any of you beer snobs out there.

Beers of the World Reviews...coming soon

2006-04-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

Holding extensive meetings with my experienced and world-renowned editorial staff, we're almost done touching up my beers of the world story from my trip earlier this year...Stay tuned....have a beer in the meantime....

Another year...or was it much more than that?

2006-04-14T09:02:00.000-05:00

Was it the best birthday ever? That's the question that fluttered around my, by then blown away, mind as the seconds ticked (digital watches don't really tick, do they?) towards midnight on April 13th. I reflected on birthdays past and came up with the (what else?) top 5 memorable birthdays in the WT's life.

Age 6 - the first birthday I can really remember. We're living in smog filled, gray Ankara (now the cleanest city in Turkey - and remember for your Who Wants to be a Millionaire appearance: it is the capital of Turkey - not Istanbul) and daily brownouts, gunfire, bombs exploding in the distance and doing homework by a kerosene lamp are the regular fixtures of my life. Turkey's in anarchy and inching towards what military insiders call a revolution for democracy and everyone else aptly names "The 1980 Coup" - the third one in 30 years. Sylvester Stallone later uses the same technique but a faster frequency to release multiple needed and unneeded sequels to the Rocky franchise. My baby sister is a twinkle in my mom's eye. Friends from kindergarden and the dreary Soviet style concrete apartment block we live in congegrate in our small yet functional 3 bedroom apartment. My grandmother and aunt are there. My cheeks are full of aunt-kisses - the technical term for someone leaving huge lipstick marks whereever they smooched. There is chocolate cake and the bully who beat me up just a couple of weeks ago. I am introduced to the concept that one receives gifts from people one barely knows for their birthday. Greed is awakened.

Age 10 - now living in opulent, cosmopolitan and for-women-utterly-constricting Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. My bewonderment about the fact that images on TV can exhibit color, although waning, is still in force. I have discovered Lego and most of my free time is spent constructing fantastical space stations and ships featuring tiny yellow men out of my 750 piece Lego Space Set. The birthday is a microcasm of my school experience in Saudi Arabia - there are at least 20 countries represented in our maroon carpeted, airy apartment. From Gambia to Senegal, to Australia, to the US, to Greece and beyond - kids being kids.We feverishly gallop about while my mom tries to keep a semblance of order, juggling food, kids and dad as she always has. Saudi Arabia is about excess - religion, passion and, to my delight at the time, consumerism. What did Marks (of Marks and Spencer fame) say? Malls are the opium of the masses. Actually I made that up. In any event, the gift-haul is stupendous and, of course, totally unnecessary. I don't know it at the time but the gift of the evening turns out to be a cheap board game featuring a pop-up clear plastic dome in the middle with dice in it. The game is called Trouble - this marks the beginning of a fierce rivalry between my sister and I. Through trickery (trickeration? strategery?) and conniving, I hold an insurmountable lead in the overall series at 100-31-3 (the last number reflecting the number of times that one of us has walked away in complete anger at the other, resulting in an abandoned game).

Age 17 - I am now in Munich, Germany, living at the CVJM (Christlicher Verein Junger Menschen - that's the Y yo). It's a men's only dorm and the highlight of my room is a shaggy green carpet and the printing press I can see across in the other building. The room is located on the third floor of a drab 70s apartment building, only a mile from the Olympic Stadium. The floor is dominated by an odd mix of Mechanical Engineering and Theology students. Arguments break out frequently over the physics requirements of miracles. Much muesli is eaten and compost piles are de rigueur. My boombox is dialed into Bayern 3 with its hokey mix of contemporary and 60s hits. The weather is unseasonably cool. I haven't seen my parents for 9 months and I'm lonely. I hate not being able to articulate exactly the way I feel, although my spoken and written German is good enough to gain college admission. My birthday is a solitary affair, culminating in a game of pool with a couple of other Turks and a lot of beer. I stumble home well before midnight and climb in bed and contemplate with a twisted sobriety that when I wake up, this day will be over.

Age 21 - I can finally buy alcohol again. Legally. I arrive in Austin, Texas in January with a liver which is in admittedly bad shape after 2.5 years in the land of beer (and chocolate), I am stupified to learn that I cannot devour any liquid bread until 4 months after my arrival. I live in the dorms, work on building a spare tire by eating Pizza Classics $4.99 medium pizza as often as possible. On this night, I break my vow against tequila shots. I love this weird, diverse, can-do, confidently-aggressive, all-accepting country which I've just arrived in. Austin feels alive - maybe it's the heat (not the humidity). I'm with a limited set of people but I drink - to excess - my paper on John Stuart Mill is due in a couple of days. His hieararchy of pleasures ensures I at least think about whether I should take the night off. I've just reearned my liberty - I don't drink hard again for some time (OK - a couple of months). I receive a phone call, CD and postcard from my parents - this becomes the classic gift from the fam going forward. Slowly I care most and look forward to the phone call - it makes my day.

Age 33 - well - this was just yesterday. And it makes the memorable list. Why? Because of Seda, Beth, Dave, Oscar, Beth, Pam, Jason, Lola, Sofia, Manuel, Eddy, Emory, Elias, Tina, Chris, John, Jim, Brian were there. The story: my sister organizes a surprise party which apparently was on, then off, then on, but somewhere else. This all takes place behind my back via a huge number of e-mails. Somehow, via a true comedy of errors, which features missed flights, fallen trees which cut off land lines, and umpteen changes of plan, in the true of spirit of Stoppard's Shakeseare in Love ("The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Strangely enough, it all turns out well. It's a mystery. ") it all spiffily climaxes with everyone making it on time to the happy hour while unsuspecting me slowly downs a Modelo. I stand flabbergasted at the San Jose Hotel on South Congress as my sister makes an entrance with Beth and the birthday cake. My sister is supposed to be in LA? I just spoke with her a couple of hours ago. My jaw drops and I break into an oafish grin which is tatooed to my face until this morning. What started off last midnight in an almost full moon and drinks at the Draught Horse, included a serenade in a boxing gym over a crackly speaker, concludes with a night with good friends, family, camaraderie.

'Twas truly a day to remember - this past year has certainly had its downs but family and a true group of friends helped guide me through most of the stormy waters. As we say in Turkish: teşekkürler y'all.

The Wandering Vampire Slayer..and other food stories

2006-04-11T20:34:00.000-05:00

Upon a friend's recommendation (thanks Julia!), my first foodie stop was The Stinking Rose where their tagline is that they spice up their garlic with food. I got the vegetarian lasagna, which included eggplant (I love eggplant - do not trust a Turk who does not like eggplant). Not only did it deliver the promised garlic nirvana, I subsequently enjoyed a 20 foot perimeter of personal space as I wandered the North Beach area. Buffy - eat your heart out.

Other food stories from the weekend included Dim Sum at Yank Sing (which was recommended by several people - so thank you - and special thanks to David and Kathy for driving me around) and Tiramisu at the Steps of Rome (also recommended by several different people - be sure to take some cash with you - no plastic accepted...). Photos? Say no more....

Enough of the allium sativum to drive most vampires away

Drool....

Sushi - sailing away....

Pre food-coma pic....

Side note...only in America

2006-04-09T20:24:00.000-05:00

I was having dinner at the bar at Vignette, when an order came in for an espresso. It was to be a decaf espresso. I locked eyes with the bartender at this point and he just shrugged. He said the best orders are those that ask for double decaf espresso. Geez - if you're going to go to the trouble of ordering an espresso, at least make it a real one....Live a little people! I wonder when we're going to export this notion of decaf everything to the world...It'll happen - just you wait.

Ayaklarima karasular indi!

2006-04-09T07:32:00.000-05:00

That would be something to scale....

I thought that post title might catch your attention. It literally means, "I have black water in my legs", which really means, I walked around for an insane amount of time today and yesterday and my feet (and calves and thighs and hips etc.) are killing me. It's funny, how living in even the most compact city in Texas, how little walking one does.

San Francisco is quickly climbing up the charts to become my favorite city in the US. I love the fact that one can walk pretty much anywhere. I love the fact that public transportation actually gets you to where you need to go. I love all the different cultures, harmoniously intermingling. I love the food (although my scale in Austin may be shuddering). I love the incredible variety and the freshness of the seafood that only port towns seem to offer. I love the rollercoaster walks that let one clamber up a 45 degree ascent before letting slumbering down a 30 degree descent. (preferably not after dinner though). I love the architecture - it's the only place I've been to west of Austin in the US which conveys a sense of history. I love that I can art-hop and spend an entire afternoon visiting one gallery after another. I love that Saints Peter and Paul Church has a street number of 666 (how many questions must they get on that?). I even, so far at least, love the chilly, windy air with its brief but adamant outbursts of sunshine.

Anyway, let me get a little more matter-of-factly on your collective behinds, since the incoherent musings of a man falling in love with a city, aren't necessarily that high on anyone's reading list...

The King George - famous quotes included

Saturday commenced with a check-in at the Orchard Hotel - a boutique hotel located on Bush Street. It's a nice hotel, with a great gourmet restaurant but I would deem it a little on the expensive side for a weekend getaway - check out the King George, which is where I stayed on Sunday (with a coupon declaring myself a member of the British American Business Council - a budding career move old chap), if you're looking for blingless chic. The King George also features a famous quote from someone of British origin in every room. My room featured a Churchill quote: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty". Methinks, Churchill would've been a great consultant.

Once checked in I heard an obnoxious groan. I looked around and then realized it was my stomach, informing me that while the 2 hour time zone switch did not present much of a challenge for my phone or watch, it was not going to wait until noon PST to get satiated. So off I took to North Beach for some hearty Italian...

San Francisco!

2006-04-08T20:26:00.000-05:00

After asking 782 people (OK - it was only 3-4) what exactly to do in San Francisco, here I am. And I got some excellent replies - surprisingly all very similar, which means that there are either only around 12 things to do, or everyone I've asked has read the exact same Frommer's Guide to San Francisco and verbatim thrown it up (out?) back on me... I keed...I keed. I actually got a very good variety of ideas - thank you all who gave me suggestions - you will see that I even followed some of them.

The toughest part of the trip thus far was getting up at 4:30am on Saturday, after going to bed around 1am on the same day. I have been averaging around 3 hours of sleep for the past 3 days, admittedly, entirely due to my own choices. So it was with some raw emotion (shall I call it anger? I shall.) that I executed a jab-upper cut-hook combination on my shellshocked alarm clock. Despite hurrying, I barely made it on the plane - for the first time hearing my name called out over the Austin Bergstrom loudspeakers: "Mr. Unshaven Terrorist Like Looking Guy, please hurry on to Gate 4!".

The flight was relatively harmless - I spoke to a girl next to me who was going to a hair show in Seattle to sell curling irons. Fascinating stuff...I started to feel giddy as the connecting flight left the gate at Denver - I have this feeling of unsuppressable excitement when I fly for pleasure. Not to sound like a "gosh-darn-cliche", there's something invariably bubbly about discovering a city for the first time - it's like a book you know has gotten excellent reviews and like a book, it has nooks and crannies that are unique and embedded in different places for everyone who has visited it. I hope to read my own San Francisco story over the next couple of days...

Thunderstorms....

2006-03-27T19:53:00.000-06:00

Man...it is pouring, there's thunder and lightning...terrific weather in short. Reminds me about a poem about rain :-).

The WT's Top 5 Travel Accessories

2006-03-26T07:42:00.000-06:00

Given the length of my trip there were certain items I found particularly helpful. Note - not all these items were required for survival, however they often lent a convenience and flexibility which made them crucial to a lazy-ass like myself. And yes - I am a gadget geek - so bear with me.

1. My phone! I am in love with my phone. I have an emotional attachment to it bordering on obsession. Imagine my dismay earlier this year when I got the screen scratched because I was deliriously mosh-pitting around when UT beat USC earlier this year and my phone was in the same pocket as my unnecessarily-yet-unabashedly-bulked-up key chain. I spent hours on the Internet trying to find a cure to no avail. I went to local cell phoneries (there's a word for you) to try to see if they could do something to cure my baby. I'm now chalking that up to experience now and find the scratches on the screen character forming. Enough nonsense though - the Sony W800 is an MP3/Camera phone that just works. It works as a phone. It works as an MP3 player. It works as a camera. The experience in each of these areas is seamless. I bought it because I wanted a phone which would work internationally and also allow me be able to listen to music on those 12 hour flights (I have around 30 hours of music on there now). The camera takes very good pictures and is a 2MPer, which means I can get very good quality 4X6 or 5X7s from photos I take with it. A good number of pictures on this blog were taken with this phone. And best of all, it has built in auto-stiching panoramic on pictures, something my "camera only" camera does not do. All the compliments I have gotten on my panoramic pics - I owe to my phone (and damn it Sony - you can put auto-stiching on a phone but not on a camera?).

2. My shoes! I can't over emphasize the need for quality hiking boots on a multiday hike.I bought a pair of Asolo Fugitive GTX hiking shoes prior to the trip. They are lightweight, breathable yet water-proof (at least when you don't submerge them) and kept my feet at the optimal temperature at all times. And they've dried quite nicely - you can barely smell the streams anymore (maybe I should send someone reading this blog the inserts as a reminder of home :-) ).

3. My Sleeping Bag! The REI Subkilo served me very well on this trip. It's the perfect size. It compresses to an impressive small volume, features natural goose down insulation, has nifty internal pockets and is rated as a 20F sleeping bag. We had some colder nights in New Zealand and I always felt supremely comfortable in the Subkilo - my only fear was waking up with a possum sleeping on face.... This experience reminds of my first sleeping bag which my dad bought for me in Saudi Arabia. It a blue tube, was around 5 times bigger and significantly heavier than the Subkilo. I remember freezing, unable to sleep when we trekked some snowcapped mountains east of Istanbul. And the internal material was anti-hairy guy - what were they thinking of selling this product in the Middle East? Ah...what a difference 20 years of technology (and a non-cheap purchase) makes.

4. My Rain Jacket! Fortunately I was semi-forced to buy a Zone rain jacket on the first day of the New Zealand hike. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I remember thinking to myself as I rummaged about the last vestige of an outdoor store we were going to see for the next 10 days, about what a waste of money this may end up being. Well - after the second day when I understood why the West Coast is sometimes jokingly referred to as the Wet Coast, I started to appreciate my relatively cheapo Zone rain jacket more and more... It's nothing fancy - no GoreTex or wicking action is included - but it was cheap, had some ventilation built in and kept me dry. You really can't ask for more.

5. My Watch! OK it's also nothing special, i.e. it does not have a compass, altimeter, barometer, doesn't take the temperature...But, it's cheap, small, lightweight, tells me what time it's in Turkey and let's me know exactly how slowly I run 4 miles (you don't want to know). And it's been with me on the shark and dolphin dives. Oh - and it turns itself off after an hour which prompts anyone who looks at it to tell me it's broken. The number of women I've impressed with this energy conserving watch...well....you can't even count on one hand.

Honorable Mention: My OR Sombrero - it would've made my top 5 had I been able to hang on to it. I used to lose so many clothes when I was a kid. This loss brings back "happy" memories of my parents berating me for losing yet another sweater or jacket. Guess what mom and pop? I paid for it - I can lose it just fine - thank you very much!

The WTF Item of the Trip: Swiss Army Travel Gear hybrid backpack. I had such high hopes for this item. I mean it was 2003 Outdoor Product of the Year. Obviously this was not awarded by anyone who actually used the bag. I thought I was growing a third shoulder at times during the hike. I had to get it repaired three times as it broke four times during the trip with straps coming off, the zipper not working (fun accessing your stuff from an opening around a third of the size it should be). And to top it all off, their customer service never answered any of my e-mails. Upon returning to the States I rang them up. They were courteous enough on the phone, offering to fix or replace the bag, while also mentioning that their e-mail was down for 2 months. I mean, seriously, what company does not realize that their e-mail is down for 2 months (that's 60 days people!)? Back to REI this puppy went - thank God for flexible return policies.

Photographology....

2006-03-25T07:21:00.000-06:00

I was briefly going through my pictures to try to figure out which ones I needed printed, after sending a batch off to my parents. That got me thinking (always a dubious idea). I took 3 gigs worth of pictures and movies on this trip. For the non-computer savvy - that's a shitload of pictures. The majority of my pictures consist not of famous places or picturesque settings but people, hotel and hostel rooms, meals and (to-me) out of the ordinary images (see my Weirdish Images posts). It's the ladybug on the window of the van which rode with us for over 50km. It's the sign which implores one not to park over 2,880 minutes (that's 48 hours) in a particular spot. It's a shot of the half eaten white chocolate blueberry muffin at Cafe e Vida. I guess these are the things I don't want to forget. They are the demi-glace without which the main course would be a chewy, dry encounter. They're the oiled ball bearings which make the bike tire turn (and I am the King of Bad Analogies!). Without them I would just be a tourist on a sterile trip.

One of the cool things about being back....

2006-03-22T08:39:00.000-06:00

I get to hang out with my cats.... I should say, I am allowed to hang out with my cats....

Final Beard Status! (how exciting)

2006-03-21T08:30:00.000-06:00

Last Shave: 12 days ago.
Overall: OK - I need to be back in Turkey where a real barber can take care of this. I've decided to spare my colleagues this sight....

The duality of being able to communicate anywhere and anytime....

2006-03-20T21:30:00.000-06:00

"As far as I can tell, devices meant to save you time and help you communicate actually take away time and give you an excuse to not to communicate. People like e-mail because they don't have to answer it. I don't even own a computer".

Enlightening owner of that quote....

This got me thinking: do we communicate more or less than we did just a mere decade ago? And what's happened to the depth and quality of our communications? How many many meaningful conversations do you have daily?

I believe volumewise, we're in the stratosphere in terms of communications and it's only a matter of time before someone figures out the ultimate anti-gravity equation for communications and we can warp beyond our puny limit of daily hundreds of e-mails, voicemails and junkmails. Call me a cynic 'cuz I live in the corporate world - sometimes it seems like half my day is either spent deleting e-mail or generating e-mail which will be deleted as soon as possible by someone else. This must be the Devil's version of the to-do list. How many times do you let e-mail sit there before answering, or not? How many calls do you allow to go to voice-mail?

At the same time - thanks to the Internet in particular, we make way more (often fleeting) connections than we used to or could ever think to. Are you interested in talking about a kite-swaying-cat-loving-vege-hating-post-feminist-neoconservative-environmentally challenged world? Well - there's likely more than one someone out there that you can connect with. And that's magic.

In short:

Volume - up
Connectivity/Range of Communication options - up
Standard Deviation of the Distance of the People We're connecting with - up
Quality of communications - don't know
People yearning for a shared connection - still there

Coming Home...Snowstorm

2006-03-20T19:53:00.000-06:00

My planned 34 hour trip, turned into a 40 hour trip (really that's not too bad) once I hit snowstorms in Dallas. Snowstorms in Dallas?! What the hell is happening to the world? It's frustrating to be 33 minutes from Austin and wait around 6 hours on the tarmac while planes get de-iced one by one. It's almost like waiting in line to get into a sold-out SXSW show (damn it - I really wanted to catch the Pretenders)....

Weirdish Images #2

2006-03-20T19:40:00.000-06:00

Here are some more weird images from my 6 week boondoggle. Nothing mind blowing - just small things which turned my head....

Here's the original Weirdish Images #1 Post.....

Auckland: No comment...

Auckland: it warms my heart to know Frodo is as kebab friendly as I am...

Near Okarito: 6 eggs - but there are 12 eggs in the carton. Ah - it's size 6 eggs... How...well thought out.

Near Okarito: 7 eggs?! But...oh you know the routine...

Copland Valley: Better keep that head above the water or that smile will be wiped right off your face!

Copland Valley: I travel halfway around the world and in a room full of Israelis, find a Turkish t-shirt.

On the way to Queenstown: our little hitchhiker....

Queenstown: Brings back memories of the Middle East and preprayer cleansing. Why is it in a hostel?

Queenstown: Just thought it was cool that a newspaper could use the term "Farts" on the front page....

Queenstown: See people - it's not a Lexus - it's a damn Toyota Harrier! Bet that makes you feel better about the price tag.

Queenstown: ahh...cheap I know...

As I depart Auckland...look you can watch departing passangers. Where are we, in a zoo?

Goodbye New Zealand... I will miss you

2006-03-19T22:32:00.000-06:00

I boarded my QT - Auckland Air New Zealand flight at 4pm from QT International and was back in Auckland in the evening. BTW Air New Zealand features the happiest yet most manly stewards I have experienced in the air. Well done lads! After a completely unmemorable stay at a motel close to the airport, I took off early in the morning with Cathay Pacific - 34 hours of planned travel time with 28 of that in the air. Really looking forward to it.

Goodbye New Zealand. You are one of a kind and I will be back.

NZ Hike Day 11: Wheeeee!

2006-03-19T22:29:00.000-06:00

Yes - the guy in the background had some issues later on...

One of the many things I learned on this trip, thanks to a good friend, is that no matter how little time you think you have, you can always squeeze in another experience. Queenstown bills itself (and probably is) the Adventure Capital of the World. So I had 4 hours to eat lunch, purchase some gifts, buy some Milo and Whitaker's dark chocolate (which I have become addicted to) and to find something interesting to do...

After some hemming and hawing on what exactly to do, I decided to go with paragliding. I had skydived back home in Austin and although the initial rush is pretty cool - it felt like an abstract experience: 30 seconds of freefall followed by 2 minutes of parachuting down. I had really enjoyed the slower portion of it - being able to take in landscape from a perspective that I would normally not to see.

I chose to go with Tandem Paragliding - they would handle pickup and dropoff in QT and Angus Tapper, the chief pilot I would be flying with, is the 3 time NZ paragliding champion and is ranked 8th in the world. Very reassuring to say the least.

We drove up a winding, pebble-strewn road up to Coronet Peak at an altitude of 3,800 feet. Apparently in the winter, one can go up to 5,400 feet and jump from a snowy peak - which sounds breathtaking. There was not much prep for the jump - except for a brief demonstration of what it would feel like as I ran off the cliff. Angus told me run as fast as I could while he held me back - this simulated what the chute was going to do. As we were going through this exercise I observed 1 crash and 1 near crash on takeoff - what was that about being reassured?

Look Mom - no hands!

I think the funniest part of takeoff in paragliding is how slowly it happens. You start running as hard as you can but there is so much resistance from the chute that as you near the peak that you are to jump off from - you feel like you're stuck in some crazy editor's hands and he's slowed the film speed to one tenth what it should be and that you really hope the guy strapped to you really knows what he's doing...and time is going so slowly that you get to think that over three to four times before you get to the edge.

As we jumped, we immediately started to get lift and I was on a high, literally and figuratively. It was truly awesome. In a mountainous area such as the one we were flying in, the lift for the chute comes from thermals - pockets or columns of hot air, heated by the sun and rising. A pilot, especially one as experienced as Angus, hones in on these thermals. Once we found thermals, we started doing circles around the thermals and spent a wonderful 30 minutes up in the air taking in the area around Coronet Peak - what a rush.

NZ Hike Day 11: Queenstown..more goodbyes

2006-03-19T17:49:00.000-06:00

I woke up really early today to get my stuff together, which was a feat after last night. You know when you get to the end of a journey and all of a sudden, somebody changes the rules of gravity, and walking becomes a chore, your legs feel like they have 20 kilo weights (yes - I'm going metric!) attached to them and you feel like you're on Jupiter instead of Earth? When you realize how tired you are after just a couple of beers? Last night was that night.

I strategically (AKA in a stumbling manner) maneuvered myself around the 2 pieces of the room floor which I could still step on, without stepping on my roomies' clothes, with the ultimate goal of getting outside the room to take a shower. I also simultaneously heaved all my backpack and other stuff outside the room, because one of my pet peeves has become the 45 minute rustling of plastic bags as fellow trampers repack before they leave at the crack of dawn, while the majority of everyone else is trying to sleep. The biggest packing issue turned out to be my boots which had ratcheted up the level of stink from the tannin laden stream water they had absorbed over the last 10 days. I made the odious but correct decision to carry them instead of packing them and let them air dry, and tied the laces onto my daypack.

Them's some good fish!

Officially the hike was over yesterday but some of the gang was still together due to most of us staying in the same hostel. Khanh, Steffi and I scurried over to Joe's Garage, recommended by a local over Vudu Cafe, which is what the Lonely Planet was touting, for a leisurely breakfast. It was at Joe's that I learned that pikelets are not some weird fish dish the Kiwis have for breakfast but are small, silver dollar sized pancakes served with jam, which I promptly ordered and devoured.

Some bittersweetness ensued after breakfast, as I bid a final goodbye to Steffi and Khanh. Trips like this one highlight for me the need we feel as humans to connect - we were strangers 10 days ago and I was saying goodbye to 2 friends, who I would love to meet up with again and explore. We will see.

At this point I had roughly 4 hours left in Queenstown and under a day left in New Zealand. When this whole trip started I questioned whether I was taking too long a break. I think we're conditioned in the US to feel uneasy over extended breaks. What we accomplish at work for many of us defines a large portion of our lives - we feel out of our element if we're disengaged from our professional lives. My dad also added to my initial uneasiness with a comment along the lines of: "you're taking how much time off!?". I can safely say at this point that the pendulum has fully swung the other way. I don't want to leave. Work is becoming the alarm clock set to go off at 5am that I keep on waking up every half hour during the night to check on.

NZ Hike Day 10: Beard Status

2006-03-19T13:11:00.000-06:00

Last Shave: 10 days ago.
Overall: Very itchy - but clean!

NZ Hike Day 10: Goodbye Fellow Hikers!

2006-03-19T12:56:00.000-06:00

One Last Meal...but a damn fine one

Today was the last official day of the hike and we managed to get everyone together at the Golden Elephant for a last meal (without porridge!) of delicious Thai Food (I love good Thai food and there's so much of it in this part of the world - and they know how to ratchet up the heat).

It's been such a gratifying hike and the people in our group had just as much to do with that as stunning New Zealand. If any of you are reading this - thank you. The experience was rewarding for me beyond what I could have imagined. And it's good to know that we all have beds now have in Frankfurt, Melbourne, Austin and of course lovely, lovely Feckenham.

NZ Hike Day 10: Queenstown!

2006-03-16T19:34:00.000-06:00

Almost there.....

We arrived late in Queenstown on the evening of the 10th and final day of the hike. We dropped Jan and Alan off in the suburbs, in the hopes of meeting them later for dinner.

The Remarkables.....from Wiki :-(

And then...a mass of people. Queenstown is utterly beatiful and also utterly touristic. The sidewalks are jampacked with backpackers, Kiwi-bus riders and the ultra-wealthy. Being back in the city, even one as small as Queenstown (official population of around 8,000) was an odd feeling. One gets used to having space and not really having to share it with a lot of other people. As you drive towards and through Queenstown, your jaw drops and you marvel at the Remarkables and the shore of Lake Wakatipu (did you know that the lake has a rhythmic rise and fall in water level - about 4 inches every 5 minutes? Crazy I tell ya).

I thought about this as I made my way to my dormroom. I opened the door and felt like I was back in college (that's university for non-Stateside readers). The entire, and I really mean the entire, floor was covered with clothes. 3 Canadian college chicks taking a break from the harsh semester of college in Australia. I yearned to be, well, younger....

NZ Hike Day 10: Queenstown...almost

2006-03-15T22:43:00.000-06:00

Think of this as a teaser trailer (Di)....

NZ Hike Day 10: Lake Hawea

2006-03-15T22:30:00.000-06:00

Avoiding multiple ass-breakage scenarios, while gingerly climbing down Brewster's Peak, Steffi and I had a chance to talk about "boys". Well - I guess the bottom line of the conversation was, men are assholes. Nothing all too mindblowing or revelatory but it's always fun to gossip as you twist your ankles and knees in angles which don't quite seem right.

Once we got down, we immediately headed South, past Lake Hawea, which is a popular and transfixingly crystal clear lake, which lies in a glacial valley. I think I got some of my best pictures here, and surprisingly enough, I was shooting them as we were speeding along in the van, next to the lake. I never could get as good shots once we had stopped.

NZ Hike Day 10: Climbing in Mt. Aspiring National Park

2006-03-15T22:05:00.000-06:00

The last day was a busy one. We started the day off at 6am, under the assault of the sandflies, which I imagine have tiny alarm clocks, as they sleep next to our tents. They check ours, set theirs 5 minutes prior and are ready to "be", the moment we step out of our shelters.

But the day was simply too enjoyable to care too much about those bloodsucking illegitimate offspring of unmarried parents. We drove for 30 minutes until we got to Brewster Path, which lies along Brewster Stream (sadly it was the last time my boots were to get wet in New Zealand!) and we started to ascend (surprise, surprise) Brewster's Peak. OK - I made that last part up - I'm not sure if the peak we climbed actually had a name but it was around 1,200 metres up and a solid 2 hours of fairly steep ascent, using tree roots as a natural stairway. It had rained fairly recently which ensured a lot of slip and slide and not of the fun variety. We broke the tree line at 1:45 mark and hurriedly clambered up for another 10 minutes until we got to the peak.

I think I could've spent the entire day on Brewster's Peak. It's so peaceful - not to sound too Bill Murrayish (check Groundhog Day) - but "I wish we could all live in the mountains at high altitude. That's where I see myself in five years.... "

The man who went up a hill and came down a mountain....

The gang...

NZ Hike Day 9: Beard Status

2006-03-13T21:31:00.000-06:00

Last Shave: 9 days ago.
Overall: Looking manly - I feel like a giant fuzzball. Hook Grass of the World Unite!

NZ Hike Day 9: Sad Moon Rising...

2006-03-12T16:40:00.000-06:00

It's the last night before hitting Queenstown tomorrow evening. There's not a sound to be heard. The skies are clear and starry. Everyone's gone to bed and the moon's rising in the horizon. I can't remember being this self-content in a long time.

NZ Hike Day 9: On to Mt. Aspiring National Park

2006-03-11T20:14:00.000-06:00

We hiked down Copland Valley today. What was an incline going up became a decline going down and despite a leisurely pace, and an unplanned stop for a walking stick which managed to find its way down a bridge opening in to some caves, we made it down in 7 hours, around a half hour faster than our climb up.

Everyone now was openly aware that the hike was coming to an end and at times there was an a solemn air about the group. We drove down further south, stopping at a salmon farm to pick up some fresh salmon (as well as beer and wine!) for a last night feast. Coincidentally, tonight was also the only night where I was doing any cooking thanks a to a very serendipitous schedule. And I did not pay anyone off, honest!

Jan strutting her stuff...

At around 7pm, we pulled into a DOC campsite, set up camp and Jan started stuffing the salmon with dill and lemon, rubbing the outside with lemon and some oil. I worked on the carrots, broccoli and the potatoes. It was a group effort though, as everyone pitched in to peel the potatoes, fetch water for cooking and cleanup and set the dishes (we were eating on non-plastic and non-bowl dishes - hallelujah!). As a side note, the trip's been wonderful in being able to cook some real veggie-laden, relatively unprocessed food. And tonight's fish was no exception. We cooked the salmon wrapped in foil over the simmering embers of our camp fire as we started on the beer and wine (my authoritative beer review will be coming at the end of the trip: South African, Australian and New Zealand beers to review...I could have a beer now, come to think of it). I daresay the salmon came out perfectly and may be the best fish I've ever had - it was flaky, fresh and lightly smoky.

The Last Supper...

On Hook Grass...

2006-03-11T14:05:00.000-06:00

Hook grass makes a worthy competitor to the despicable sandfly. It is not quite public enemy number one though because it has neither the geographic reach nor the equally devastating impact on everyone getting close to it and here's why: hook grass is a clever little plant with a devious method of spreading its seeds. The seeds, which hang on a stalk, which resembles a malformed wheat bush, have small hooks on them. These hooks attach themselves to anything with hair on them, usually attaching themselves to animals, such as deer, to fall off at a later point in time and spread this ignominious plant.

So, for those lovely ladies who shave their legs and those effeminate members of my gender, who are lucky enough not to have any hair on their legs (or are wise enough to wear gaiters), the hook grass can be safely ignored. But, if you're like me, and wonder why you're so hairy when both your parents are relatively shiny all over, hook grass becomes an enemy to be cursed over and over again, as you pull each seed out along with a tuft of your body hair.

Natural depilation, free of charge, thanks to hook grass! I am investing in some gaiters next time my friends.

NZ Hike Day 8: Punishment and Reward

2006-03-11T13:36:00.000-06:00

The eighth day of the hike was a mixture of clouds and sun, except when we undertook a 3 hour hike further up the valley, which ended in a roaring downpour. I don't think I've enjoyed getting wet as much as I have during this trip. As my clothes and I got fully drenched, absorbing the falling rain like thirsty sponges, I skipped happily across the longest swing bridge of our entire hike. You are not supposed to stop on the swing bridges but I could not help briefly halting in the middle to take it all in: a roaring glacier-fed river, bucketing rain and me: dangling several hundred feet above and below it all.

Yes - you can literally play with your plate afterwards...

This was our last night at the Welcome Flat. And we had a surprise guest appearence in the form of cheescake on a frisbee. As I've mentioned before - frisbees are extremely valuable, up there maybe even with the much ballyhooed towel as a travel accessory. We played a modified game of Charades in 3 rounds as we munched on our graham biscuit based cheesecake. As our laughter echoed off the walls and we made fools of ourselves in trying to describe famous and infamous historic personalities, I had a twinge of sadness creep in. 8 out of 10 days. It was 80% over. There were only 2 more days to go before letting go of this experience, these people who I had gotten to know in the past 8 days and felt like I could spend another 80 with.

NZ Hike Day 8: On Privacy...

2006-03-10T22:48:00.000-06:00

Ever since the South Africa/Dubai portion of my trip there hasn't been much of a notion of privacy. There was not much in the backpacker dorms or hostels I stayed in. And there certainly is none in the hut when there are 30 other people sleeping in the room with you. This is probably the Turkish military experience I have to look forward to. And you know what? It ain't half bad - in fact, I really like it. This notion of needing space is a modern day construct in my opinion. I notice it far more so in the US than I do in any other country. We live in the age of the individual and the US is the capital of the individual. Communal space is being annexed at a rapid clip - I am afraid by the time we're satisfied in with having our own space, we're not going to have anyone to share that joy with....

NZ Hike Day 8: The Hotpools in Copland Valley

2006-03-10T15:08:00.000-06:00

The Welcome Hut is a two storey wood cabin with a cooking and common area downstairs and sleeping quarters upstairs. The most fascinating aspect of the cabin is its close proximity to several natural hotpools. As the air cooled in the evening, we donned our swimsuits and dashed out to try out these natural hotpools. It was getting quite dark so we had our flashlights with us to guide us to the hotpools. It was an interesting experience to say the least. One the one hand, being in the warm to scalding hot water was quite comforting, given the windy, cold air around us. On the other hand, the pools sit in pure mud and and have a slimy texture. Anyhow, I guess it was not really my cup of tea as I've been in far clearer hot pools in Turkey (so I'm spoilt). There were hikers who spent hours in the hotpools though. I will also add that my brief experience did wonders for relaxation and sore muscles. And there's something very cool about laying your head back and looking up at the star-filled clear sky, sitting in a hot tub of water. Not quite Sanbona, but very fulfilling nevertheless.

NZ Hike Day 7: Beard Status

2006-03-09T19:53:00.000-06:00

Last Shave: 7 days ago.
Overall: I have now tied my hands behind my back so as not to scratch my face.

NZ Hike Day 7: Welcome to the Welcome Flat!

2006-03-09T19:04:00.000-06:00

As we neared the 4pm park we came upon the sign you see to your left. After hiking for 7 hours it was a simply delicious sign that we could not but help laugh at. We were almost there. Hotpools awaited us as well as a hut with fresh water and mattresses.

A quick word on the hut we were going to. The Welcome Flat hut sits in between the no frills-roof-over-your-head hut and the Great-Walk-Oooh-We-Have-Electricity-and-Flushing-toilets huts. It probably leans more toward the Great Walk huts in that it is maintained by the DOC and is a good size. It does have long drop toilets and no electricity. BTW - it's unnatural how easily your body reverts to following the available daylight when artificial light sources are no longer available. Be it at a hut or camping, everyone was in bed and sound asleep by 9-10pm.

NZ Hike Day 7: Getting in the swing of things

2006-03-09T09:41:00.000-06:00

After a snack break we were at Architect Hut/Creek. If I have not already done so, I need to commend the NZ DOC on how good a job they do in maintaining the tracks and the huts. Sure, the huts are not always in the greatest of shape but as a tramper it's so comforting to know that fresh water and shelter are never too far away.

Don't jump!

One of the things I have not written much about are the swing bridges which were relatively commonplace on our hikes. Above, you can see the Architect Creek swing bridge. I think we crossed at least one a day on any longer hike we did. I have been fascinated with swing bridges ever since I was a wee young lad and was reading staples such as Teksas or Tommiks in Turkish - comics about cowboys, Indians, the American Revolution translated from Italian (now that makes a lot of sense - as an American citizen now, most of my knowledge about the American Revolution is based on comics I read when I was 8).

The swing bridges had steel frames on both sides and were held together with rigid steel cables. Despite all that metal to assure you of the safety of the venture, you still felt a gleeful, adventurous thumping of the heart when you got on the bridges. The slight sway with every step, the sound of the rushing, sometimes crashing wild stream down below and the signs imploring hikers to go one at a time gave the swing bridges an aura of a perilous voyage. As I got to the other side, I felt like again that I was getting away with something - cheating Mother Nature and getting a spectacular view in the process.

We were slowly tiring as the ascent got steeper and the Welcome Flat seemed a despondent four hours away.

NZ Hike Day 7: Copland Track and Hotpools

2006-03-07T18:20:00.001-06:00

The day began predictably early - that is at 5am in the morning. We powered up with a breakfast of muesli and fruit and drove to get as early a start as possible.

Today we were going to be hiking up the Copland Valley, through podocarp forests which have been largely unchanged during the past 70 million years. We were also going to be keeping our eyes peeled for the endangered blue duck.

As we disembarked from the van we encountered an absolutely ruthless swarm of sandflies. I can appreciate most species of life including snakes, skunks and sharks. For the life of me I can't think of a species I would be happier to be rid of (screw biodiversity!) than these buggers. They swarm you like an endless stream of linebackers, like machines with infinite batteries, never tiring, always after your tiny bit of blood to help reproduce. And their life span is 4 days! How would our lives look if we sped them up by a factor of 60,000? Maybe it would not be all that different.

We quickly donned our gear, crossed the shallow seeming river, which immediately got my boots wet. Let me elaborate on a lesson learned here: cross rivers (and life?) with reckless abandon - trying to be ginger and keeping your boots dry is ultimately a futile attempt, it's like trying to live life without upsetting too many people. Now I'm not advocating that you go punch your boss in the mouth or anything like that, but a swift atomic wedgie, now that's the ticket!

Our ultimate destination was the Welcome Flat which was a distant estimated 7 hours away. First stop: Architect Creek.

People become stories,and stories become understanding: Word Cloud Shirts

2006-03-06T22:49:00.000-06:00

Womanwandering has a pretty cool post about a company called Snapshirts which makes word cloud t-shirts. Read up on it on her excellent blog here: People become stories,and stories become understanding: Word Cloud Shirts.

Just for kicks I did several websites:

This blog....

Whitehouse.gov

News.Google.com

RIM, Blackberry and Muffins...

2006-03-06T22:11:00.000-06:00

I just received a call from Blackberry at 9:43pm. OK, so it was from an "independent survey group" claiming to do research but when 98% of the questions are about RIM and Blackberry, you know the rest. Blackberry paid $600+ million to NTP today for patent violations (while obviously not admitting or denying guilt) today. A half billion dollars - that's a nice chunk of cash. In a classic demonstration of how much certainty is worth to a jittery group of investors (I'm sure everyone was adjusting their DCF models immediately), the stock price shot up 16%.

The funny thing about the call was that Jenny, from Denver (not to get too Catcher in the Rye but the phoniness of telemarketing scripts kills me), kept on referring to Blackberry as Blueberry. So I followed suit:

Her: "Has the recent news around Blueberry made you less favorable towards Blueberry?"
Me: "Somewhat - obviously Blueberry was far less original in the Duncan Hines mix than I originally thought.."
Her: "......."

And then we started talking about blueberry muffins. Anyway - it was a bizarre conversation - weird how you can make a connection thanks to Blue-I mean Blackberry. And for a company which is about connecting people, I have seldom heard as much marketing tripe as in the scripts Jenny was forced to read...C'mon Blackberry - chill out a little bit. And if I buy anything in the next 6 months, it's not going to be a Crackberry - but a Sidekick or a Treo.

On Sandflies...

2006-03-06T20:52:00.000-06:00

South Island, West Coast hiker! Meet your arch enemy. These bastards never stopped biting us. I thought I was immune initially and chuckled inwardly at the bitching of my trampmates during the first couple of days. A-ha - Turkish blood is thicker than what these blood sucking leeches can put up with. Unfortunately that was not the case - it just takes up to 10 days for their bites to start itching. And they are everywhere.

I made extensive use of my deadly DEET laden REI Jungle Juice during this trip. Screw natural insect repellant - I probably took a couple years off the life of my skin but what the hell.

Oh and ladies: apparently there are 6 species of sandfly. An interesting and not so ironic tidbit - only the females bite. An interesting parallel, would you not agree? (OK, OK - smiley face included!).

NZ Hike Day 6: Beard Status

2006-03-06T20:50:00.000-06:00

Last Shave: 6 days ago.
Overall: A shave! My kingdom for a shave!

NZ Hike Day 6: Hangi(ng) Around....

2006-03-05T16:02:00.001-06:00

I remember growing up as a kid in then-smoggy-now-clean Ankara (that's the capital of Turkey if you're ever on Who Wants to be a Zillionaire - don't fall for dependable but wrong Istanbul). We would spend countless hours playing alongside a hillside in Yukari Ayranci, outside our Soviet-era looking apartment. Besides the extremely entertaining game of grasshopper hunting, a favorite passtime was to heat up coals, bury them and cook some potatoes underground over their embers.

Well - we're not in Ankara anymore (and I don't have any heels to click) but I felt a certain nostalgia as we gathered rocks and wood for a hangi. This is a Maori word for cooking in an outdoor pit oven and in principle, is very similar to the potatoes from my childhood. But instead of a single dish meal we were going to have garlic and dill infused lamb, spicy chicken legs, kumara (NZ sweet potato), carrots, parsnips and other delicious veggies. In a hangi, the food gets steamed. The key to a successful hangi is threefold: digging a good pit, laying the wood right (did I just really write that?) and using the right rocks.

The pit needs to be dug at a roughly 45 degree angle. It does not have to be real big or deep but you need to be able to cover it back up pretty quickly to eliminate as much heat escaping as possible. It took us around 15 minutes to dig and shape a pit.

The wood structure you build needs to burn pretty hot to heat the rocks so dry but substantial wood (i.e. not wet and/or rotting) is essential. Also the structure needs to support the weight of the stones in an even manner. The driftwood we found on the beach worked real well for this purpose.

Lastly the rocks - igneous, i.e. volcanic rocks, work best and there are plenty of those around New Zealand.

The whole hangi affair was iffy at the beginning. Because the weather had been so on and off we decided to go for it late in the afternoon and quickly put together the food and the pit. Just as we covered the pit up, it started pouring and we all did Carl Lewis impersonations in trotting as fast as we could to our accomodation. Now, it was a 2 hour waiting game. There was also some praying as we were not sure the pit was deep enough to be safe from penetration by the rain which was now surging from the sky. Midway through through an interminable wait, feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of eating soaked lamb, I ran out to put a tarp on our creation.

The rain subsided at the 2 hour mark and we went outside to get our food. We dug gingerly with concerned anticipation. And....there it was! Unsoaked and very hot! We rushed the aluminium (I could write an entire post on the different pronounciations of this word during my travels...) wrapped food back to the house and had a gut busting feast with sumptuous lamb, fall-off-the-bone chicken and delicious veggies.

It's funny - every day seemed to be topping the previously untoppable day - I wondered how would I feel about this adventure coming to an end as I contentedly fell asleep, knowing things would be moving again tomorrow at 5am.

NZ Hike Day 6: Kayaking Okarito Lagoon

2006-03-05T15:55:00.000-06:00

After conquering Franz Josef Glacier, we sped along further South to Okarito Lagoon, which is the largest unmodified wetland in New Zealand. The lush beach town of Okarito lies at the tip of the lagoon and was a mining town during the gold boom (it appears there are a lot of ghost towns which had swelling populations in the area). Okarito's population ballooned to 1,500 residents before dwindling to a handful. The most famous current resident is Booker Prize winning author Keri Hulme and Bone People is now officially on my Amazon Wishlist.

Under a morose and uncooperative seeming sky, which was revving its rain clouds as we approached, we headed out into the lagoon in 2 person kayaks. I had doused myself in some supposedly organic sandfly repellent mixture in the hopes of neutralizing what was slowly becoming my arch enemy on this hike. The mixture had such a waxy texture that I might have given Charles Atlas a run for his money (then again, many of you are aware that I would have been playing in the NFL as a wide receiver if I had just had the fortified milk Americans drink growing up).

We were paired up in twos and Jan and I, my faithful dinner partner, were assigned to one kayak. Bruno and Alan paired up as did Khanh and Steffi, leaving Andre to take a single kayak and lead us into the lagoon.

A couple of personal comments on kayaking. First, apparently I was chosen to sit in the back due to my great kayaking experience which was a glorious total of nothing and nada. I have never kayaked in my life. Second, I made a sinister revelation as the initial butt of a cruel but quite funny joke and want to share: always watch out for your rudder as once it is lifted outside the water - well - it doesn't really work. Thankfully, I swiftly took revenge on the unsuspecting wretch who was responsible for what I shall refer from now on to as the "Rudder Conspiracy".

We paddled out to the lagoon which is an estuary (hey I'm reusing a word from my South Africa trip!). The tide is crucial in navigating these waters as some of the inlet canals are too shallow to kayak unless one times the trip right. Thankfully, in Andre and the kayaking folks we had experienced people who knew what they were doing. The kayaking on this remote wetland was so peaceful, with nary a word spoken or a sound heard, I felt completely at peace.

After a quick stop for lunch, things got more playful as we sauntered, rambled and meandered around the various inlets before playing a game of catch with kayaks. My forearms will not forgive for that day as Jan and I were "it" most of the time and catching up with our fellow hikers proved near impossible.

On of the highlights of the day was when we spotted a white heron along the coast line and slowly kayaked over in a stealthy feeling but likely not particularly looking parallel fashion. The migratory white heron is called Kotuku in New Zealand and is highly endangered. After observing this wonderful bird, we steadily paddled back to our starting point while the seemingly ceaseless rain continued to fall around us. It is hard to imagine a more fulfilling day.