Category: Discovery

Through the Turmoil

December 19, 2015

The hands on the clock of this adventure are beginning to wind to end. An impromptu trip to Holland gave way, rather quickly I might add, to our ten day trip through Germany.

The most significant amount of time was spent in the capital city of Berlin, in the northeasterly reaches of the country. Today the city is hailed as a hotbed of artistry, nightlife and progressive social movements. However, just a little over 25 years ago Berlin served as the forefront for the Cold War. Alas, Soviet occupation and iron-fisted rule of East Germany dissolved with the removal of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR in the late 80’s and early 90’s- all while I was just barely out of my Pull-Ups – yes, I am a big kid now! Rewind the clock another 45 years and this city played stage to one of the most dramatic defeats in all of modern war in Nazi Germany’s fall and Hitler’s shameless taking of his own life. Forgive the gruesome and rather down-trodden approach to the beginning of this post but our experience with the city of Berlin was marked by the feeling that the city has yet to fully shake off it’s dark and fairly recent past. This is not a judgement but rather an opinion based on my short stay in this large, international city.

Our apartment was very near the center of town and the infamous Checkpoint Charlie which served as an entry point into East Germany during the Cold War period of 1961-1989. Very nearby was an outdoor exhibit of the Berlin Wall, with a small portion of the wall still standing.

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As an East German citizen, you were forbidden to cross the border into West Germany without consent of the state, and you were sure to die at the hands of a mercenary should you attempt. Standing in the middle of the once “neutral zone” sent shivers down our backs.

We tended to stay very near this central part of town as there was so much to see in relation to the history of Berlin – the previous location of Fuhrer’s Bunker, Brandenberger Tower, The National Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, to name a few.

Striking was the contemporary look of the city. As a result of the bombings which took place during the later campaigns of WWII, the majority of the buildings we passed and roadways we walked were much more modern than that of those in other countries we have visited in Europe. The city required a near-complete rebuild once Hitler’s regime had been defeated, which came with an incredible financial burden. In order to mitigate the cost, many of the buildings throughout the worst-affected areas were prefabricated; out of these institutional-flavored neighborhoods flourished street artists aplenty, akin to The Rose That Grew from Concrete. These grey-colored buildings have provided a near endless canvas for graffiti artists to leave their mark. While many cities in the US label this medium a blemish on their perfectly clean appearance, Berlin seems to have accepted it as a means of reconciling the rather drab appearance of their function-over-form infrastructure.

Just outside the city of Berlin was the Sachenhausen Concentration Camp which we visited for a couple of hours on a very cold and foggy afternoon. This camp served as the administration headquarters and the architectural model for all concentration camps under Hitler’s reign and as such, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) made a concerted effort to preserve this camp. There is very little which remains today but the GDR have gone so far as to reconstruct some of the buildings in order to allow visitors to see how prisoners lived, where they bathed, ate and received medical care. We wondered around the camp, glued to our audio guide as we learned of the deplorable conditions people lived in.

Throughout the tour and the multiple exhibits, signs were posted in memoriam of those held in this camp and to serve as a reminder that the people of this world must stand united in the face of would-be oppressors in order to prevent such an atrocity from ever happening again. I don’t think we can say that we ‘enjoyed’ this tour but we certainly found it to be deeply moving.

The city of Berlin is thriving, even buzzing today and serves as the symbol of the progress which can be made, even after great tragedies; through hard work, perseverance, and an open mind anyone in this world can cast aside preconceived notions.

Cycles, Canals and Coffeeshops

December 12, 2015

Arriving to the Hook of Holland by way of overnight ferry, Tarin and I took the first train headed in to Amsterdam. The trains became more and more crowded the nearer we drew to the city and we found ourselves having to separate in order to make room for our gigantic backpacks. We landed at Centraal Station in Amsterdam  just after 11am. Yes, that extra ‘a’ is supposed to be there, according to the Dutch.

This would be the fewest days we were to spend in any one of our destinations on this entire trip and the time flew by. We found the city itself easy to navigate, but the transit system didn’t necessarily make it very easy to understand which bus/tram/train connected with one another so we did quite a bit of walking. Our apartment was fairly close to the Anne Frank Haus and just far enough away from the Red Light District that we didn’t hear the raucous crowds. Given the good fortune we’ve had with the places we’ve stayed, I suppose the universe has now balanced itself; the apartment we stayed in while in Amsterdam was, how do you say… a bit of a polished turd. Let me expand just a little: the kitchen lacked the basics needed to cook a meal, the washer smelled like Humphrey Bogart’s trailer & looked like a science experiment and we were awoken every morning at 6am to the sound of Tram #10 whirring by our front window. We ended up eating out for every meal which we ordinarily wouldn’t mind, except the extra cost and the time lost to the entire process of finding somewhere – “what do you want?” I don’t know, what do you want” – but we did enjoy nonetheless. All was OK!

While killing some time before a reservation, we wandered up a street thinking we were headed to a park when bells sounded, lights flashed and two barriers swung down in front of a bridge; moments later, the bridge rose to let a couple of house boats pass through.

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Tarin took great pleasure in the ability to not only peer into someone’s home but also to view this wonder of engineering.

One late afternoon was spent at the famous brewery Brouwerij’T Ij (now you pronounce it) connected to the iconic windmill design associated with Holland.

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Proof I didn’t make up the name

I fumbled along trying to order with the bartender and a couple of flights of the haus brew magically appeared at our table.

Their amber was by far the best, characterized by it’s hazy color, a creamy head, with a taste of malt and caramel hints. Smooth and easy to drink! 

After our libations we enjoyed dinner at one of the many Mediterranean restaurants in town. I had a huge plate of meats – lamb, chicken and beef – and Tarin had a baked, whole sea bass. Full and happy bellies carried us through The Red Light District and back to Centraal Station where we caught a ride on a canal boat for Amsterdam’s Festival of Lights. The nearly 90 minute boat ride was surely the height of our experience in Amsterdam.

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The diversity of the people in Holland was also something in which we took great pleasure. As nearly professional people watchers, we can assure you that a walk through the Red Light District provides a viewing populous like no other. We walked over a ridiculous amount of bridges, dodged countless bicyclists and passed by multifarious coffee shops. Some of the coffee shops had this awfully strange but familiar odor emitting from their doors – they were certainly roasting something, but not coffee beans. Hmm.

 

Opportunity Seized

November 14, 2015

About three years ago, dreams of travel to lands far away began to flood my mind as I listened to my future wife talk of her time abroad. I had a few ideas in mind, namely a visit to the land(s) of my heritage – I am a standard American-European mutt afterall. As dreams from the depths of my mind came to surface during long night’s sleep, other visions slowly became more clear. Eventually, the persistence of planning and the saving of money paid off and we were in fact able to set in stone an itinerary which would see us travel the world.

The beautiful game, A.K.A. soccer, is something that holds a special place in my heart. I played my first game as a youngster with my Dad as Coach. Since the age of five, the game has been a continued interest of mine. While continuing to dream of our travel, I felt as though I could not miss an opportunity to see the game played on the biggest stage so that I might experience the passion shared by the world over. Luckily enough, I was able to find a competition in the famed Champions League, an annually held tournament of the top teams throughout Europe, occuring during the calendar months we had planned to travel.

Of nearly equal passion to the sport of soccer, anything with wheels and an engine have always stirred my soul. In fact, some years ago a good friend of mine and I went so far as to purchase and begin making modifications to a late model Japanese car we had planned to race in the Hertz Hornets league near Marysville, Washington state. Our vision failed utterly and sadly we never competed. Thankfully, we are still good friends to this day as this pie-in-the-sky plan didn’t quite pan out and we ended up junking the car. I digress.

Naturally, very near the top of my list of desired destinations was Italy given their passion for both automobili and futbol. Morever, Tarin had never stopped talking about her love of the country – the food, wine, and people, not to mention the beauty of the architecture and land. Perfect, let’s add this destination to our list, I thought. The day-to-day itinerary would most certainly consist of food, wine and the typical sightseeing. The Vatican, the myriad museums and hopefully some of the countryside were to be included. An absolute for me was a visit to the land of Enzo Ferrari, the creator of the artistic and engineering magnificence bearing his last name. The sight and sound of these creations evoked such curiosity that I actually wrote a paper on Enzo in my very short lived college life. Surely I would have to visit the museum and perhaps I might have the opportunity to sit behind the wheel of one of these simply sublime creations.

Enter Rome, a massive city wrought with history, filled with people and the everpresent stench of cigarettes. We had planned a fairly typical trip including the aforementioned Vatican but I was most excited for an opportunity to see a Champions League game played between Serie A (top professional soccer league in Italy) team Roma and Bundesliga (Germany’s top professional soccer league) giant Bayer Leverkusen. The game was to be played at the famed Stadio Olimpico, home to the world’s first Olympiad. We arrived early to find a stadium of rather modern appearance, which was a bit surprising. True, these were the same grounds once used to showcase the very first Olympic games, but I had expected a much, much older building. My initial disappointment at the grounds quickly faded as the fans filtered in and the Roma team song began. None of the seats were used as every single Roma fan stood and proudly held their team’s scarf high whilst belting out the lyrics. The passion was palpable and I was instantly glued to the pitch and the players. The game’s first goal came at the two minute mark from a breakneck Roma counterattack via a throughball to the dynamic midfielder Mohammed Salah – he slotted the ball past the outstretched appendages of the Leverkusen keeper and the stadium simply erupted. Mind you, I’ve not been a lifelong fan of Roma but I, along with the true fans, exploded in a fit of cheers, so much so that I nearly lost my voice for the remainder of the match. The game ended with a Roma win as a result of a penalty kick awarded in the closing minutes of the match.

I was happy the team walked away with the win as I don’t think the Roma fans would be terribly happy, or civil, without!

Fast forward to our final day in Italy, spent in the northern regions of Modena and Maranello, land of the automobile for Italy. Of particular importance for me was a visit to the two Ferrari museums. The first museum we visited detailed the life of Enzo and his love of the automobile. I am certainly no expert of museums, but Tarin and I both agreed that this was a very well executed exhibit which included physical representations of his life’s work in the form of some of the most infamous models of Ferraris as well as an immersive audio/video presentation completed by a total of 19 video projectors and a surround sound system. The visuals of Enzo’s childhood and his prolific racing career were accompanied by the operatic sounds of Luciano Pavarotti, the world famous Modena-born tenor; Enzo and Luciano shared a friendship and admiration for one another in their adulthood as they were both hailed as the best of their craft and also grew up in the same region. This production playing out amongst the presence of the most beautiful cars to grace this earth moved me immensely, and left a feeling as though I had visited a world-class museum.

Enzo Ferrari Museo. The car in the foreground is the 1984 Testarossa - the one that started my fascination.
Enzo Ferrari Museo. The car in the foreground is the 1984 Testarossa – the one that started my fascination.

We then made our way to Maranello, home of the Ferrari factory and the official F1 Ferrari museum where I was delighted to find several third-party companies offering the chance to drive one of these works of art. I snapped up the chance and hopped behind the wheel of a 2009 Ferrari California, the “Family Car” produced by the Maranello-based design house. The experience didn’t disappoint and I had a couple of opportunities to open up the engine, even passing a slow-going sedan in the vineyard covered hills of Northern Italy. All the while, I had my best friend and wife in the back seat to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience.

Behind the Wheel of the 2009 Ferrari California
Behind the Wheel of the 2009 Ferrari California

Throughout my time in Italy, I often thought of my Uncle Joe who had recently been battling cancer. He underwent a significant surgery to remove the cancer earlier this year and was healthy enough to attend my wedding, which was very special for me as he was one of two uncles who was always present in my life. Unfortunately, after the intense surgery and recovery to remove the cancer, he fell out of remission and passed away just a few days ago. He had recently retired from a physically demanding and long tenured career and I can only imagine that he had plans to live out some dreams of his own. On two occasions in as many weeks, I had a chance to live out dreams of mine. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to do so and if not for my own personal enjoyment, I also lived these moments in remembrance and in honor of my family and my Uncle Joe. These experiences only solidified the need to truly live in the moment and take the opportunities life affords oneself.

Sleep Tight, Don’t let the Elephants Bite

November 4, 2015

It’s 12am and I am fast asleep in our luxury tent sitting high atop the Terengire valley. The ever-increasing strength of Tarin’s grip on my hand wakes me to a cacophony of animals just outside our canvas tent. I quickly sit up and realize that whatever is making the sound, it’s LARGE and it’s no more than 18 inches from where our heads had just laid. We sit on the bed, hands held tightly, and prepare for the worst; I reach for the aluminum extendo-pole for our GoPro, anticipating that I may have to fend something off. We hear the beast ripping off foliage and chewing, all while a constant “thwack, thwack, thwack” against the canvas of our tent lets us know that it’s definitely on top of us and wouldn’t have much trouble dispatching our tent through the air. Suddenly, a deep and slow rumble from the beast’s throat echoes through the air. We spring from this near-certain death bed and decide that we should hide behind something a little more substantial. The rear of the tent is partially constructed from concrete, so we think we would be safer back there. Shuffling to and fro and convinced that this was it, we ride out a period of about 45 minutes when the animal seems to finally move on. We peer out of the tiny screen windows to find a small family of gazelle appear, almost on queue with the departure of the much larger animal we had just heard. This seems odd, we think – wasn’t there some sort of a snarling beast here only moments ago ready to kill anything nearby? We continued watching the gazelle, in pure amazement of these beautiful animals when in the blink of an eye, they disappear as fast as they had showed up. I continue to look through the window when I see an elephant trunk appear from the left, and grab a tree branch in search of food. It was then that I realized that terrifying collection of sounds which caused our panic was an elephant! The longer we watched, the more elephants we saw. At this point, our fear dissipated and turned to pure wonderment at this rather peaceful looking family of elephants. They exercised their muscle power to snap off tree limbs to feed themselves and eventually moved on. By this time, it’s nearly 3am and we crawl back in to bed in order to catch a couple more hours of sleep. We poked our heads out of the tent at sunrise and waited for our required escort (a man quite a bit smaller than I with a flashlight – watch out one-ton elephants!!!) and make our way to the main lodge to find our safari guide, Mosses, waiting for us. We tell him of our incredible experience and he assures us that we were safe. He then follows this period of reassurance with a real fit of laughter. “Bwahaha…Mzungnu!” he exclaims. He and another guide continue to laugh for a period of several minutes and all we can do is smile and laugh along. Welcome to the safari mzungus (white people).

Our safari was nothing short of amazing. We managed to see nearly all of the big five: elephant, lion, hippo, cape buffalo and the black rhino (never did get to see the rhino!). They are categorized as the “big five” not only because of their large size, but also because of their strong ability to defend themselves and their family members. We witnessed gaggles of  grant gazelle, tons of tiny thompsons, lots of lions, zillions of zebras and enumerable elephants, among others (we’ll have plenty more where that came when we get home)!

Perhaps most special were our sightings of the normally shy and elusive cheetah and leopard. It was my birthday morning when we spotted our first cheetah walking along the road seemingly careless to our presence. We continued to follow the cheetah for several minutes when our guide told us that this was an animal on the hunt; not more than two minutes later, the cheetah bolted on a pack of small Thompson gazelles and disappeared over the horizon – all tail and elbows. Later that day, we were bouncing along the dusty road when we noticed a collection of other safari vehicles huddled around a group of acacia trees. We stopped and peered through the binoculars to find a well-muscled male leopard sunning himself on the large branch of an acacia. Not more than a few minutes later a family of unknowing warthogs came just a little too close to this opportunistic cat and we watched as the leopard leapt from the tree and scooped up a days-old warthog! He brought his prize back to the tree and devoured the snack just out of sight, behind the tree from which he was slumbering. We finished the day back at camp where Tarin had organized a small celebration of sorts with the camp staff. I had already enjoyed a few Safari lagers and had no problem joining in with the staff as they sang and danced as their way of saying “Happy Birthday”. *Pictures to come*

The following day, we witnessed something that Tarin and I both agree was the most special part of our trip. We were headed down a well traveled dirt road when a leopard stepped out of the long grass to show itself. As it continued directly in our path, our guide informed us that this was a female. While she sauntered along, she would occasionally let out a deep and short growl – this, we were told, was her call to her young. We followed her for quite a few minutes but eventually lost sight as she stepped back into the camouflage of the grass. Our guide didn’t waste a moment, and pealed out towards the opposite end of the field which the female leopard had disappeared. We continued along this stretch of grass for 10-15 minutes when I shouted to Mosses – “there she is”! We noticed the mother first and not more than a few steps behind her was one of her young she had found in the grass.

                                                        

Mama and Baby 1

She continued along, still calling out. Just beyond a line of acacia, another baby appeared and all three were reunited. They played and rubbed against one another, clearly happy to be in each other’s company. We didn’t get a chance to watch much longer as they quickly made their way out of sight.

We woke before sunrise every day and were treated quite well by all our hosts. Coffee, yogurt, bananas and eggs were made available every day before we would head off into the plains. All said and done, we visited Terengire National Park, Serengeti National Park, and the Ngorogoro Crater Preservation spread out over five days. It was truly an amazing experience, one that we are grateful to have included in our honeymoon adventure.

Monkeying Around

October 22, 2015

We departed the protected cove of our resort on Miniloc Island, each paddling our own kayaks. As we made our way out of the cove, we caught a glimpse of “Hiwa”, the resident three-flippered Hawksbill Sea Turtle.

Making quick time, we rounded two massive limestone cliffsides jutting out over the Philippine Sea to find throngs of tourists all hoping to catch a glimpse of the “Big Lagoon” on Miniloc. As the tides were quite low, most people were walking into the lagoon through the knee-high, crystal clear waters. Continuing forward we were greeted by an empty lagoon; the absence of boats and people milling about brought forward the sounds of the rainforest – teeming with birds and a rather mysterious jostling of tree branches. Just as Tarin started to say how badly she wanted to see the indigenous Long-Tailed Macaque monkey, I spotted one fishing at the edge of a limestone rock not more than a stones throw. We slowed our kayaks to get a better view when we realized that the tree branches moving about were Mr. Macaque’s buddies, munching on ripe fruits aplenty. The longer we observed, the greater the number we saw. Mom’s carrying their little ones, adolescents playing with one another and a watchful male (I am sure you can imagine how we decided we was a male) keeping eyes on us at all times. We estimated that this group was 20 strong. They never appeared too concerned about us floating along, all the while ooing and ahhing at a sight we had never witnessed.

We kept our distance so as not to disrupt their afternoon foraging but not without shooting some video. No recorded media can do this experience justice but we hope some of the serenity and beauty of this place is palpable.

Bidu Kudasai!

October 8, 2015

Lying here on my ultra thin “bed” placed on the tatami mat of our Ryokan… in a bit of a beer-induced haze from last night…

Another amazing night in Japan, this time filled with traditional performance arts (including Geisha) and modern brews. We spent the evening in the Gion district, famous for it’s centuries old buildings and regular Geisha sightings. We will post some pics soon!

For all you beer lovers out there reading this, craft brews have hit Japan and you MUST come try. I filled my belly with a delicious IPA and T had a caramel-filled amber ale. Japan is in love with their dry, crisp lagers (Asahi, Sopporo, etc) which are definitely easy to drink…but there had to be something else to try in this land of refinement, right? Just ask your Ryokan staff for a recommendation and, voilà! True to form, we had good service, oishi food and a unique setting.