¡brazil!

we spent the first 3 days in sao paulo just getting used to the time difference and the exhaustion that comes with traveling...aka jet lag. i haven't had the best of luck with jet lag this trip. i seem to experience the symptoms harder and longer than jay does. a two hour time difference and a few hours of flying can make me grumpy for at least a day after the journey. so imagine what jay had to deal with after flying for 25 hours and a time change of 12 hours. hehehe... we did manage to fit in a visit to the museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (masp) which is housed in a modern building designed by lina bo bardi. the modern art collection inside wasn't very impressive but once you've been to moma in nyc can anything compare?

sophia and flavia

the next couple of days we couchsurfed with flavia, luis and their gorgeous daughter, sophia. we had a great time with them over dinners often waiting for luis to translate flavia's enthusiasic questions from portuguese. the weather was not cooperating with us though which added to my jetlag grumpiness, so we didn't venture very far. we toured the downtown area which would have been much more fun on any other day...like a day that wasn't sunday so the shops are closed or a day that is sunny...or even just a day when it isn't raining in the torrential sort of way that it was on that day...

our first few days in rio didn't get much better weatherwise. we were staying at a hostel in copacabana that my brother, mark, recommended which i will not repeat the recommendation by naming it. we stayed in a 14 bed dorm with only one toilet/shower to share and, with the week of rain preceding our visit, the whole place was rank. i think we had been spoiled with our private double rooms with aircon and cable tv while we were in vietnam. we were a bit bummed but decided to hit the beach each morning before the rain inevitably started again. we lucked out one morning when the clouds broke and the sun shone its radiant rays upon us. our southeast asia tans were fading fast so this hit of sun was a welcome surprise...until we got back to the hostel and realized we managed to get a burn in 30 minutes of sun.

view of sugar loaf and copacabana from corcovado hill

we found a couple of cs hosts in rio for the rest of our stay. we stayed with naira and her family in the northern part of the city. she was a girl that mark had met at a party last year and she offered to put us up. i think we stayed in her room and she moved in with her sister for the three days we were there. every morning her mom would have breakfast laid out for us and generally kept us well fed. on the night we arrived naira took us to a forro (pronounced foh-ho) party with some other local csers and their guests. a forro takes place in a big room similar to a social hall you would find in manitoba. the forro band plays loudly as couples swing around the dance floor, the moves similar to a two step but with more hips swaying and with a bit more flair. the next day we decided to visit christo redentor up on corcovado hill which we didn't realize was under construction until we were climbing the final stairs up to the statue. the ticket attendant had warned us about the cloud cover but said nothing about the scaffolding. with less than favourable conditions the top of the hill was still packed with people and we still managed to get some nice views of the sprawling city below.

christ the redeemer

naira and her boyfriend took us to tijuca forest one afternoon and we marvelled at the lush greenery that surrounded us. the park was definitely the most jungle-like that we've experienced on our trip...even more jungley than our old front yard ;p it was sprinkling rain for most of the day but as we were descending the hill a downpour started. we were rescued by a nice man in a station wagon who took pity on us and drove us to the nearest metro station about 15 minutes away.

tijuca forest

andre and pilar

we moved to andre's place to an area called santa theresa near lapa. lapa is the happening center for all things fun...like forro parties, restaurants and bars. andre's place was the penthouse apartment of a block that climbed a hill. we had a great view of the neighbourhood, peeks into neighbour's windows and 4 different options for outdoor space. he had a friend, fabien, from italy crashing for a few months on his hammock out on the terrace. andre's girlfriend, pilar, plus me and jay made five of us in a one bedroom...sounds crowded but we made it work. jason didn't get a chance to flex his chef muscle at all during our stay. fabien took the role as head chef making us 4 cheese pasta, eggplant and tomato pizza and bbq fish. our excursion with andre et al. was to a popular fish market. the beer didn't stop flowing even after the bill was tallied...one more bottle ordered...always just one more...one more...

ipanema beach and 'two brothers' peaks

our last day in rio fabien took us to ipanema beach. we had an acai (pronounced a-say-ee) drink which is everywhere in brazil and is reported to have many health benefits. the variation we had was super sweet so perhaps the health benefits were outweighed by the sugar content. we enjoyed our day at the beach and found it really handy to have a translator with us. fabien knew what all the hawkers were selling and got us some yummy arabic pastry treats.

view of praia do meio, trindade

so brazil is huge! did you know that? we had hoped to see more than we did but 15 hour bus rides did not sound appealing and with our budget almost tapped out we couldn't afford to fly. we found a memorable place to visit anyway...on budget and with a beach nearby. trindade is a small community about 25km outside of paraty...which is between rio and sao paulo. we had heard alot about paraty but happened upon trindade while looking for a hostel online. the smallness of it appealed to us and so did the description of a forest meeting the beach. we spent our five days in trindade exploring a waterfall with a 'rock that swallows', getting pushed around by the ocean waves and reading on the beach.

praia da figueira, trindade

jay's photo - cat with tongue hanging out

historic centre, paraty

we headed back to sao paulo via the coastal highway bus to stay with luis and family again before catching our flight to santiago, chile.


¡chao!
corina

top that!

dubai is a city of the biggest, the tallest, the fastest built, you name it...it's here and it's the best of anywhere else in the world. we were told it was a national obsession by someone that lives here. dubai has also recently hit hard times maybe bigger and faster than other countries. rents have plummeted from astronomical to merely expensive. while the construction of dubai has slowed slightly there are still many cranes and active construction sites.

dubai is a city for cars...no pedestrians allowed. trust us...we tried. most of the roads are freeways with no sidewalks in sight. crossing a freeway would be certain death for anyone that dared. one day, after spending the afternoon at the beach, we decided to walk back to our couchsurfer host's place. he lived about 6 blocks away...6 dubai blocks (ie. biggest, longest, fastest) but nonetheless only 6. we walked along the freeway on a sidewalk that turned into a boulevard that abruptly ended because of construction. not willing to give up easily we crossed the road and walked through a complex of hi tech companies called internet city. only to be confronted with sheik sayed freeway with...of course...no pedestrian crossing. our only option was to flag down a taxi. yup. in dubai you need to take a taxi to cross the road.

the tallest building in the world - burj dubai at 800m

we were in dubai during a muslim holiday known as eid al-adha (in turkey they called it biram). on another attempt at walking through the city we came across this goat. we weren't sure why a goat would be walking through dubai dressed to the nines...but eid is a celebration of sacrifice so...

poor poor goat

not everyone celebrated the weekend off with a sacrificial goat. our host, haytham, prepared an eygptian bbq for us and some friends. it was a feast...rice with chicken liver, okra, bbq chicken, yummy green stuff (can't remember what it was called but boy was it good), tahini sauce and jay's contribution of mango salsa.

haytham, nancy and monika preparing our feast

jay chilling with pink panther at haytham's

on our last day in dubai we decided that since we only had a few hours we would not attempt to walk yet again. we relented and called a taxi. we had yet to see the famous 7 star hotel, the burj al arab, which is built on a man-made island.

the burj al arab in dubai

dubai was on my must see list. am i glad i saw it? yes. would i go back? probably not. at least not for 20 years or more. maybe by then they will have the sidewalks completed.

ma'a as-salaama,

corina & jay

one great city

i'm stealing the old slogan for winnipeg and applying it to istanbul. now that winnipeg is 'the heart of the continent'...i'm sure they won't mind. we really liked istanbul...it was definitely one great city. and i say that even though we missed a bunch of stuff. you know how it goes...travel planning, getting acquainted with the area you are staying in and then resting from exhausting travel days all gets in the way of actually seeing the sights. that said we were able to stay in all sides of istanbul by the end of our trip to turkey. there are two european sides, the first is the area between the sea of marmara and the golden horn and the second is between the golden horn and the bosphorus strait. the third side is on the asian continent.

most of the touristy bits are in an area called sultanahmet which is where we stayed our first night. we arrived after our night train from greece without planned accommodation which i supposed i'm getting used to. other than the smelly bathroom, which we would soon learn is a common problem in turkey, our hostel was adequate for the one night we stayed there. we were once again fortunate to find a couchsurfing host...mehmet. we met him our second night at the kadikoy ferry terminal with a handmade sign held in front of us like we were limo drivers waiting for our passenger. we drove for a long time to reach his apartment but were treated to endless amounts of tea upon our arrival...at midnight...before bed. apparently, in turkey, you can't ever have too much tea, no matter what time of day.

breakfast at mehmet's was a turkish feast set out on a low slung table in traditional kurdish fashion...mom-made cheese, omelete, olives, bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, honey with the comb still in it and rich creamy spread which reminded us of clotted cream...oh yah, and tea. so delish. so not vegan. luckily he had some time off that day and he was able to show us around after breakfast. we spent the day wandering through sultanahmet visiting the spice bazaar, the blue mosque, hagia sofia museum and the grand bazaar.

blue mosque on a hazy day

one of the side entries to the blue mosque courtyard

column in the hagia sofia

beam detail in the hagia sophia

the grand bazaar - this was a calm area

i really wanted these...all of them...so beautiful

turkey, of all the countries, has been the place that we have couchsurfed the most. before we left winnipeg we attended a couchsurfing karaoke night where we met a turkish fellow named tacettin. we met up with him and his wife marija for dinner during our first stay in istanbul. they extended the invitation to surf on our return to the city which we gratefully accepted. our last host in turkey was avsar, a young designer type living in a young designer type neighbourhood called besiktas. this was our favourite area of istanbul. crowded, lively and hip. lots to do and near to everything. we had a night out with avsar and some american student friends of his at a local pub with a live traditional turkish band. good times.

unfortunately our very last experience in turkey was not a good one. we were warned about scammers and taxi drivers in particular by others that had been to istanbul before us. we experienced nothing but friendly people and good service our whole time in turkey. until we had to resort to a taxi to the airport. when we called to confirm our flight the ticket agent warned us that there may be a transportation strike the next day. avsar called the morning of our flight to make sure the trams were still in service. and although there was indeed a strike, the trams were running as scheduled. well, we did catch a tram but it only took us up to sultanahmet which is quite far from the airport. we had no idea if what bus we could catch or what was actually still in service so we opted to spend a bit of cash and catch a taxi to the airport. the strike had already caused a delay and we were running about 1/2 hour behind.

we ran up to the first cab we saw and asked what the fare was to the airport. the driver assured us that he had a meter and took our bags. neither jason or i saw a meter but neither of us questioned him about it. we were in a rush. we were stupid and naive canadians. the driver engaged us in some small talk as we made our way to the airport. on arrival he turned around and said '38 lira' in his thick turkish accent. jason handed him 40. a second later the driver turned around with 25 lira in his hand and said '38 lira' again. jason looked bewildered and told him that he just gave him 40. i thought perhaps the driver had said 48 lira and was now asking jason for the rest of the money. i said to jason 'maybe he is saying 48'. then the driver said '48 lira'. we didn't have anymore lira as we hadn't planned on taking a cab so jason pulled out his hidden travel wallet where we kept the rest of our cash. he tried to discreetly look through the wallet for an equivalent amount in euros but the driver brazenly started grabbing for the money. somehow he managed to get all of our cash out of the wallet and into the front seat. he was fanning out the money showing us all the euros and american money we had. we were stunned. this was all happening way too fast. i grabbed the money out of his hands and gave 30 euros back to jay. once again the driver took the money out of our hands so that now he had 30 euros and 40 lira fanned out in his hand. both jay and i were shouting that 30 euros was more than enough...worth at least 60 lira. finally after much protesting he threw the 40 lira back at jay, grumbled about how we were cheating him and told us to 'get out, get out'. we were already late to check in for our flight so we just took our bags out of the trunk and left.

i was flustered and upset that this was our last impression of turkey after such a great 3 weeks. once we were settled at the gate and waiting to board our flight jay decided to count the cash we were able to pull away from the cabbie's grubby hands. we were short $40 american. so a cab ride that was supposed to cost 38 lira (approx. $27 cdn) ended up costing us over $90 cdn. i was so angry...at the cab driver...at jason...at myself...at our stupidity and naivety and our canadian-ness. stupid. naive. canadian. just what the scammers live for.

i have to remind myself that it could be worse. jason could have been beaten and taken for alot more money. we are safe. we are healthy. and we still have very fond memories of turkey.

gule gule,

corina

it's worth the trip to turkey

those of you from winnipeg will recognize the slogan "it's worth the trip". usually it refers to the trip from winnipeg to steinbach when you are purchasing a new vehicle. in this instance i will use it to refer to the long, extremely expensive trip we made from greece to turkey. a long story that doesn't really make for interesting reading. what you need to know is that we made it...finally!

our first stop was istanbul. we spent 3 days there before taking a bus to denizli. we will tell you more about istanbul in a later post as we are due back in a couple of days before flying to dubai. denizli was a means to an end. it's not a tourist destination in itself but we stayed there because it was close to pamukkale (one of jason's coveted UNESCO sites). AND because we found a couchsurfer, patricia aka wizzy, to host us. so even though denizli wasn't the reason for our trip south it ended up being a memorable stop.

pamukkale, turkish for cotton castle, has been a tourist destination for many years...like a millenium! in the last 50 years hotels have been built and then torn down when UNESCO declared it a world heritage site.

our tour of the area started at the hilltop ruins of hierapolis, an ancient city. wizzy instructed us to stay on the domus until it reached the top, walk through the ruins and then walk down the travertines. good advice as it meant we could walk downhill all the way :)

ancient building surrounded by the cottony white travertine

theatre of hierapolis

spas are not modern inventions. the greeks, the romans and the byzantines all recognized the benefits of the natural thermal pools of the area. they settled here to take advantage of the curing properties of the baths. today, turkish people and visitors from around the world, come to swim and bathe among the ancient ruins. unfortunately we were not among them. we had to pay an entry fee to the hierapolis and pamukkale which did not cover the cost to enter the pools. due to budgetary concerns we did not pay the extra 23 lira.

thermal pool with ancient ruins

we did, however, walk sans footwear, down the travertine and dip our feet into the hot spring pools...well, the runoff of the hot springs. the pools in the travertine ranged from cool to lukewarm. some of the water running down the channels was quite warm but nothing i would call hot. by the time we reached the bottom my feet were tender from the rough travertine and pretty much frozen.

jay standing near a waterfall from the hot spring above

patterns in the travertine left by the water flowing downhill

stalactites formed by the calcium deposits

our next destination was izmir, a port city on the aegean sea. jason was not well while we were in izmir. he caught my cold and then it got worse. he ended up with a nasty chest cold that keep us both up at night. so during the day we lay low and only ventured out a couple of times. our cs hosts, barbara and jeff, were very understanding and help nurse him back to health.

our first day in izmir we wandered down through the traditional market place called kemeralti. as we walked through the streets shop owners and touts hollered at us to buy their stuff. buying stuff hasn't really been high on our list of priorities as it would mean we would have to carry it for months and months. we did stop and watch this candy man make colourful taffy pops. he had a few people waiting patiently as he skillfully piled six different colours of sweet goo on a stick.

candy man and his sickly sweet goo

how could we...i mean...I...pass it up? i couldn't do it. so for 2 lira i got my own pop and for the record it was disgusting.

me eating the candy pop...not exactly enjoying it

on our way over to the bostanli side of izmir to our hosts' place the first night we saw an incredibly beautiful sunset. the red was brilliant, rebounding off the mountains and reflecting off the water as we watched from the ferry. we went back the next night but sadly were not treated to the same beauty...but the fisherman made it an interesting shot.


gule gule,
corina

tired of ancient ruins?

too bad. we went to athens and therefore you must endure more photos of more ancient buildings and ruins. there might be more to athens than the acropolis but we didn't experience it. well...that's not completely true. we, once again, landed a sweet couchsurfing host to help us navigate our way through the huge metropolis that is athens. vasilis was super friendly and outgoing and made sure we had something to do every evening. he took us to one of his haunts and we tried his favourite brazilian drink, caipirinha. vasilis is obsessed with brazil and is even learning portuguese...his 7th language. what better city than athens to be hosted by an architect?

view down to the temple of apollo and athens from the acropolis

odeion of herodes atticus

the parthenon front facade

our day exploring the acropolis was uneventful until we pulled out the flat people for a photo op in front of the parthenon. jay was down on his knees holding up flat hannah, flat ellie and flat sasha high above his head in front of the famous athenian ruin as i focused the camera on their flat forms. my concentration, only on the flat penners, was broken when i heard a woman say, "you can't do that, it's forbidden!". i wasn't sure at first who she was talking to. i took the picture and turned to see what the fuss was about. she came towards us and said again that it was forbidden..."what? is forbidden?", i was wondering. well, apparently you cannot take photos with representations of things or any type of symbol with the parthenon...not even the greek flag. she warned us that if the guards saw us they would confiscate the photo. funny...cuz in the next 15 minutes we took the photo of us in front of it with me wearing a barcelona tshirt and no one said a thing. PLUS we saw many other tourists with logo tshirts doing the same.

temple of apollo corinthian columns

temple of hephaistos

that concludes this segment of all things old in greece. we won't bore you with anymore ruins...at least until we get to turkey.

ya sas,
corina

pain au chocolat and other reasons i liked paris

we arrived in paris via a night bus from utrecht, netherlands. the savings of taking a bus vs. a train plus the advantage of not paying for accommodations seemed too great to pass up. i have to wonder if monetary savings ever actually benefit travelers' sanity, comfort or general well-being. six hours on a bus, in the middle of the night may have been the cheapest option but it cost me 3 days of a cold & flu, a day of sightseeing spent exhausted & catching up on sleep and the pain & suffering we had to endure while other sleeping passengers let 'er rip.

onto the good stuff...

we met some really fantastic people while we were in paris. most of them were spanish friends of our couchsurfing host veronica but that doesn't mean there aren't friendly parisians, we just didn't meet many. our first night veronica took us to a party at jose's flat. on the weekend we went to fontainebleau with some of the same people...sonja, teresa, andrew (he's a cdn from toronto not spanish), jose, and miguel.

a quick lesson in boating with our new friend jose acting as translator.

the highlight of our trip to fontainebleau was the opportunity to try boating on the canal. some of us were more eager to try than others but we all took our turn eventually. jay and i were in the last group to go. jay kept saying, "i'm gonna fall in" and we all assured him that he wouldn't. well, you can guess what happened. shirt, pants, hat and wallet...ass over tea kettle...

after the fall

on our last night in town we got to meet our san francisco blog buddies, alison & ron of 'leap...and the net' fame. we met on couchsurfing and had hoped to meet in san fran when we were there in march for evan & mary's wedding and never did. so it'd been a long courtship of reading each others blog posts and exchanging emails before the inevitable first date. we over paid for our french onion soup and got dirty looks in the bar-where-you-must-wear-black but i feel confident that we'll get a second date...

alison & ron from san francisco

of course we did some obligatory touristy things like visit the eiffel tower, arc de triomphe, and the louvre. but we also did some bonified parisian things like carry a baguette home from the bakery, avoid dog poo on the sidewalk and sat in the park on sunday afternoon eating the aforementioned baguette.

arc de triomphe

eiffel tower right up the guts

notre dame front facade

notre dame gargoyles

the famous louvre pyramid

jason trying to get kicked out of the louvre but they make it pretty hard to do...flash photos, people hugging statues and lax ticket checking. how very french.

next post: how we missed our train to bordeaux and other french delights ;p

salut,
corina

rewind to berlin

as we flew over germany and specifically the area surrounding berlin, both jason and i felt a familiarity with the landscape. square plots of farmland, trees skirting the dividing lines...a patchwork of fields and colours. i became oddly homesick while in berlin. i'm not sure if it was this familiarity, the time frame that we had been away...i was starting to miss people from home and the comfort of my own space/bed...or if it was that berlin was the first city we'd been to where english wasn't spoken everywhere. all of the above i suppose. it was an overwhelming time for me. looking back at how much we'd already seen and looking ahead to the remaining unknown.

we were fortunate to find couchsurfing hosts again in berlin. we were first hosted by florian and rhea in their gorgeous apartment in a neighbourhood that reminded me of osborne village only older buildings with bigger floor boards, bigger windows and higher ceilings. i just wanted to stay in the apartment all day because the space was so soothing. flo and rhea were amazingly warm and generous people and it would have been nice to hang out with them more than we did.

our living space for 3 days in berlin with flo and rhea - "i could live here" said corina to jay

our second hosts were mark and andrea. mark actually contacted a radio station from winnipeg to request a song for our arrival. the dj´s talked about the email they received, jay and corina from manitoba, and couchsurfing. it was definitely a unique way to be welcomed to berlin :D

on our last night in berlin we tried to get into a club with mark and andrea...why not...we hadn´t really experienced any real night life on our trip yet so here was our chance. we waited in line for about 20 minutes, were let through by the first bouncer and waited in the 'you are almost in...wait patiently' line. when we reached the front of the line the second bouncer told us we were too dressed up and could not enter as it was casual tshirt and jeans night. 2 of us were wearing jeans, i was wearing a tank top under a cardigan, the boys were wearing button down tops (not high fashion by any means!). we had seen girls entering wearing skirts and teeny tiny tops before us. andrea tried to call his bluff but he held firm. i still shake my head in bewilderment whenever i think of this evening. i'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with what we were wearing and everything to do with our age. sigh. my first experience with ageism...

reichstag dome redone in the 1990s - cool views of berlin from here for free!

we saw some cool stuff while in berlin. it wasn't my favourite place so far but we probably missed quite a bit in our rush to get to amsterdam. we saw bits and pieces of the berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, brandenburger tor (which was completely surrounded by a construction fence as they were preparing for the 12th IAAF world championships in athletics), and the reichstag dome at night.

flat penners hanging onto the berlin wall...they just want peace, man!

flat petroffs join flat penners in the 'hang in' for peace

corina's feet crossing the berlin wall marker, 20 years ago she would have been shot

flat petroffs hanging out with the irish bear (of buddy bear fame) in berlin

flat penners in potsdam, germany...oh no is flat ellie going to be squashed even more while flat hannah and flat sasha just smile for the camera?

we are definitely finding that in larger cities 5 days is not enough to see and do everything. one day is spent traveling to get there or catching up on sleep from traveling all night, and at least one day is spent planning the next phase of the trip and doing laundry, etc. we've been in paris for the last 5 days and tomorrow we move on to bordeaux. we could definitely spend at least another week in paris alone but we booked our train tickets to bordeaux before getting to paris and now have to stick to the plan...lessons learned...we hope to slow it down in spain and i am insisting on 10 days in barcelona :D

guten tag,
corina

p.s. if you are a penner like i am you may find this a bit funny...

when our host andrea found out my last name was penner she kind of giggled. apparently penner means begger in german. when we went out to dinner with them jason gave my last name to the server so that he could call us when the food was ready. needless to say he called out 'PENNER' with extra enthusiasm. snickers could be heard throughout the restaurant and patio.