Falling out of the blogging habit

Forgive me, dear readers. I’m embarrassed to say that it’s been 130 days since my last blog entry. I am at risk of being a statistic – one of hundreds of people who start blogs and then let them fade into obscurity. If not for some vigilant readers who send me friendly reminders every once in a while, I’d still be neglecting my blog-duties.

In my defense, however, here’s a brief synopsis of what I’ve been busy doing since March 29, 2009:

1. Getting engaged

2. Planning a wedding for September

3. Finishing, defending, and submitting my thesis

4. Writing 3 papers, 2 of which are now published and 1 that awaits its fate at the hands of the editors. And I thought I wouldn’t become a slave to the ‘publish or perish’ world of academia…

5. Going to Paris for a long weekend with friends from Amsterdam and Canada – four glorious days of friends, sun, food, food, food, and a great apartment in the Marais.

6. Going to Chamonix, France to finally see the Alps in all their glory, including Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps. We had 5 days filled with great food, cheese and bread, hiking up mountains, coming down mountains in thunderstorms, and getting lost on a mountain. We wondered if 2 Skor bars and 1 litre of water would see us through a wet and cool night. Thankfully, we didn’t have to find out.

Arc de Triomphe

Metro stop with a great sign!

Mmm…couscous!

The French Alps

Hiking in Chamonix

The ascent of the sandwich

7. Receiving a surprise gift of tickets to see Andy Murray play on Centre Court at Wimbledon. We enjoyed the driest and hottest Wimbledon in years, and were only disappointed that the match didn’t last more than 3 sets. But we’ll remember our amazing seats for years to come. Unfortunately, C is even more determined that I should work full time so he can spend his year traveling the tennis circuit.

8. Reading FOR FUN and generally doing nothing at all, and not feeling guilty about it. It took me a few days after finishing my thesis to realise that I didn’t need to get up every morning and park myself in front of my laptop for 8 hours. After a few days of adjustment, I’m getting quite used to a life of leisure (punctuated with small spells of frantic wedding planning, of course).

I suppose I really have no excuses now to be absent from the blogging world. Hopefully this post will inspire me to write more. Stay tuned!

Bahir Dar

Situated on the southern tip of Lake Tana, Ethiopia’s largest lake, Bahir Dar was our first stop on our tour of the country’s northern historical circuit. The guide books describe Bahir Dar as a “booming business centre”. You soon learn to take anything the guide books say with a large pinch of salt while travelling around Ethiopia. To place the words “booming” and “business” in the same sentence to describe any town in Ethiopia is to demonstrate a great deal of imagination. Bahir Dar has two dirt roads running through it, continuously travelled by UNAIDS trucks, other NGO trucks, and the crowded minivans that serve as buses.

Having arrived in Bahir Dar a day late after our bmi debacle, we decided to take a raincheck on our friendly hotel host’s persistent offers of a boat tour and instead crash in our hotel room until 3pm, at which time we ventured in search of, yes, you guessed it, food. After some careful cross-referencing of guide books, our first meal in Ethiopia would take place at Tana Pastry, an inconspicuous, two-storey restaurant popular for its fresh fish dishes. Our first meal in Ethiopia would, in fact, turn out to be the best, and would be our introduction to real Ethiopian injera (a ubiquitous (no exaggeration), grey-ish, soft, steamed, hole-y flatbread made from fermented teff flour), and fir-fir, a stew of minced meat or fish cooked in a spicy berbere sauce.

Tana Pastry menu

Fish fir-fir and injera

Fish cutlet

Lake Tana is known for its many orthodox monasteries, almost all of which are dotted around the lake’s many islands. For a fee, a guide will take you around a selection of these, which you can enter (for another fee) and view with the help of the local priest. There are some, however, that allow entry only to men. The monasteries themselves are simple, round mud buildings with thatched roofs. Inside is a square structure, with colourful biblical scenes depicted on all four walls. The interior houses the “holiest of holies”, the most sacred part of the monastery, which only priests can enter. Some of the monasteries also house “treasures”, so it was with great intrigue that we were guided to the “museum” at the Bet Maryam monastery. The local priest made a great show of opening the doors of the museum for us, which constitutes a small glass cabinet with some silver crowns.

Bet Maryam museum of crowns

Monastery paintings

Goatskin book

Thatched roofs

Bahir Dar is also renowned for being close to the source of the Blue Nile, which travels northwest from Lake Tana to join the Nile in neighbouring Sudan. Your boat guide will also take you there, and point to something which he insists is the source of the Blue Nile, but which, as far as you can tell, could just be a bunch of reeds. Allegedly, you can also see hippopotami and crocodiles early in the morning, but we were too late to see these. The lake is also popular with bird watchers and our hotel, located right on the shore, was a perfect place to sit with an afternoon coffee and catch a glimpse of a whole host of colourful and unusual birds.

In Bahir Dar, we also learned of the Ethiopian obsession with gum. Meat and fresh produce may be in short supply, but there is certainly no shortage of gum, in any flavour you might care for, sold by enterprising children eager to make a buck.

Not surprisingly, one great disadvantage of being by the shore is the predominance of mosquitoes. Our hotel room conveniently came with a mosquito net. Unfortunately, it was full of holes, for which we had to devise some ad hoc strategies (tip: band-aids appear to be a popular method of sealing bednet holes. Trust me, it doesn’t work…..).

Our man in Amman

Loyal readers, apologies for the delay in continuing the tales of our adventures in Ethiopia.  We’re not quite there yet, but stick with us, and in the mean time read on about Amman…

The intrepid young travelers you met in earlier blog posts ended up spending almost 24 hours in Jordan.  Despite wishing and hoping for a morning flight, they eventually found out that there was no way out of Jordan until the next evening (unless you wanted to pay $1000 – ha!).

What do you do when you and 20 other people are stuck in a hotel in the middle of the Jordanian desert for a day?  You go to the conveniently located travel agent (in the hotel lobby), who miraculously has a 6-hour bus tour of Amman and surrounding areas, and even more miraculously, they have enough room for everyone stranded by BMI.  I sense a back-room BMI business…

After ensuring we actually could leave Amman that evening, we signed up for the bus tour, and spent the next 5 or so hours in large vans, driving around the desert and the city of Amman.  Unfortunately for C, we never did see the Dead Sea up close, but our trusty man in Amman pointed out a hazy body of water in the distance and claimed it was the Dead Sea.  He also pointed to a hazy patch of land, and said it was Jericho, on the other side of the Israeli border.  We assume he was right…

Our tour included an old Greek monastery with beautiful mosaics, a visit to Mount Nebo (with more lovely mosaics) where Moses is said to be buried, and a tour of the city of Amman.  Oh, yes, and plenty of stops at ‘touristic’ shops, hawking all manner of Dead Sea beauty products, leather and mosaic patio tables.  I think these were primarily to allow our man in Amman to have a cigarette every 20 minutes.

The city tour began with a drive through the wealthy and ostentatious neighbourhoods (read: ugly and over-the-top).  There’s something amoral about lush lawns and gardens in the middle of an arid desert.  This neighbourhood is also home to the US Embassy in Jordan.  Where the other embassies are large, semi-well designed buildings, the US Embassy is a hideous fortress with a line of black Hummers parked outside the gates, and machine guns at the ready along the roof.

Our favourite part of the city tour, though, was the drive through what we like to call ‘real’ Amman.  This is the older and poorer part of the city, built on hills, with buildings that look like they’re piled on top of one another.  Narrow, steep roads are barely wide enough to accommodate modern vehicles, and the innermost parts of the city seem to be a warren of alleys.  We drove up to one of the highest points of Amman to look over the city.  As our eyes adjusted to the hazy sky and the stone buildings that seemed to blend in with the desert, we realized we were also looking at hundreds of kites.  It was an amazing sight…small kites bobbing up and down, scattered through the sky.  It was like gazing at a starry sky – the longer you looked, the more you saw, until the sky was filled with small, flying objects.  I finally understood what was described so beautifully in The Kite Runner.

Mosaics in Greek Orthodox Church

View of Amman

flyBMRoyalJordanianEgyptAirI…how NOT to fly to Ethiopia (Part II)

[Scene 2: London's Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3, 11am  GMT. A young man and woman have just entered from the central bus station and are looking intently at the Departures screen above them]

Young man: “Hey, wasn’t our flight direct to Addis Ababa? This board says that BMI 913, leaving at 13:15, goes via Amman.”

Young woman: “Really? Jordan? How weird… I’m sure we booked a direct flight. Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter too much. Our flight from Addis to Bahir Dar isn’t until 7am tomorrow morning anyway, so we have plenty of time.”

Young man: “I’ve always wanted to go to Jordan. Hey! Maybe we’ll get to see the Dead Sea!”

Young woman: “From the air at night?  I don’t think they’ve put floodlights around it…yet.  You’ll just have to imagine that you saw it.”

**********************

Flight attendant: “Chicken or beef?….. Chicken or beef?…….. Excuse me, sir. Would you like chicken with pasta or beef with rice? There you go, sir….”

[Note to readers: chicken with pasta is never a good idea on a plane. I mean, think about it. Imagine yourself eating chicken with pasta. OK, now imagine yourself doing that strapped onto an airplane seat, 10,000 metres above sea level. See? Doesn't work. And really, it's a matter of consideration, too. Do you think your fellow passengers can enjoy their own meal when you have mushy, stringy bits of tagliatelle drenched in a gloopy mess dangling from your mouth? Yeah..... nobody wants to see that.]

[A few hours go by.....]

Young man: “Wow, 13 channels and nothing to watch….”

Young woman: “You can’t find ANYTHING to watch with 13 channels?  Maybe you should play some video games.  It’s a brand new plane – they might have new games too.”

Young man: “I’m getting kinda hungry again. Do you think they’ll serve us dinner?”

[A few more hours go by, still nothing to watch....]

Voice over PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I hope you’ve had a comfortable flight. We are now preparing for our descent into Amman. Weather conditions are favourable, with clear skies and a light westerly breeze. The temperature in Amman is currently 27 degrees Centigrade; the local time is 8pm. If you are leaving us in Amman, we thank you for flying with BMI and wish you a safe onward journey. For those of you continuing with us to Addis Ababa, we will make a quick stop to take on a new crew and refuel. Please remain on board and we should be back in the air in about 45 minutes.”

[90 minutes later....9:30pm Jordanian time.....]

Voice over PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I’m afraid we’re experiencing some delays due to the developments in Sudan, which you may have heard about. Unfortunately, the airport in Khartoum has been closed, which means that we cannot fly over Sudanese airspace. We are trying to find a new route to Addis Ababa. I will keep you informed, but in the meantime, please accept our apologies for the delay to your journey.”

Hushed, concerned voices among passengers: “What happened in Khartoum? Do you know what happened in Khartoum? What did he say about Khartoum? I’ve heard that rebels have raided Khartoum and taken over the city!”

Young man: “I’m hungry….”

[One hour later.... 10:30pm Jordanian time]

Voice over PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain again. I have some good news for you. We have managed to find an alternate route to Addis Ababa via Saudi Arabia. We just need to negotiate permission to fly over Saudi airspace, but as soon as the legal proceedings are completed, we will be able to continue on our way to Addis Ababa.”

[Voices of tired, but once-again optimistic passengers can be heard cheering]

Young man: “Do you think they’ll serve us dinner now?”

[One hour later... 11:30pm Jordanian time]

Voice over PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking once more. I’m afraid I have some disappointing news for you. Although we have tried our best to negotiate a new route to get you to Addis Ababa, the Saudi authorities have refused to grant us permission to fly over their airspace. I’m sorry to inform you that we have no option but to cancel this flight. Please make sure you collect all your belongings and make your way off the plane and onto the airport concourse, where our ground staff will take care of you.”

[Deflated sighs of resignation from passengers]

Young man: “But we didn’t even get dinner!”

[One hour later.... 00:30 Jordanian time.... a coach carrying 23 tired, hungry and mildly dispirited BMI passengers passes by a heavily armed guard at a desert checkpoint and arrives at Queen Alia hotel, five minutes away from Amman airport. Our young protagonists line up, waiting to check in. A clearly frustrated passenger is complaining to the hotel receptionist]

Female passenger: “Will you be serving us dinner?”

Receptionist: “Dinner? No food now. Sorry, our restaurant is closed at 10:30.”

Female passenger: “But we haven’t had dinner! We haven’t had any food for hours!”

Young man: “I’m starving….”

[One hour later, 1:30am Jordanian time. Our young travellers are tucked up in bed, in the darkness of a strange hotel room in a distant land, exhausted by their long journey, stomachs groaning in hunger, slowly drifting into slumber.... Suddenly, the phone rings, startling both of them]

Young man, half asleep: “Huh… hello…..?”

Voice on other end of ‘phone, speaking in thick Jordanian accent: “Hello, sir. I am very sorry to disturb you. But I have to inform you that we are serving dinner for you downstairs in ten minutes.”

Young man: “Uh… ok. Ten minutes?”

Voice: “Yes, sir. Ten minutes. Good night, sir.”

Young man: “Uh…..yeah…..ok……..good night.”

Young woman: “Who was that?”

Young man: “The guy downstairs. He says they’re serving dinner downstairs in ten minutes.”

Young woman: “Are you hungry? You wanna go?”

Young man: “Ah… screw it. I ain’t getting out of bed now!”

[Ten minutes go by]

Young man: “Hey! Maybe we’ll get to see the Dead Sea tomorrow!”

Young woman: “Maybe we’ll be on a plane tomorrow morning and you can wave goodbye to the Dead Sea from the window.”

Hundertwasser House

After seeing a picture of this amazing housing complex in a guide book, I put it on my list of ‘must-sees’, and was mildly obsessed with making sure we checked it off the list before our trip to Vienna came to an end.  I naively assumed that this was far enough off the beaten track that there would be few visitors on a cloudy Tuesday morning.  Apparently not – this is one of the most visited sites in Vienna!  Thankfully, there were no tour buses the morning we arrived.  The walk to the Hundertwasserhaus led us past a very intriguing magic shop, which stocked supplies for all sorts of things, including ventriloquism.  You need supplies for that?

As creative and imaginative as his buildings and his art was the architect’s chosen name: Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. According to the all-knowing source, Wikipedia, his name means “Peace-Kingdom Rainy Day Darkly Multicoloured Hundred-Water”.  For more entertaining tidbits and trivia about Hundertwasser, check out the entry in Wikipedia.

Hundertwasswerhaus was built between 1983 and 1986 as a social housing project (or, as someone rather untactfully put it, “where the poor people live”). Hundertwasser reportedly accepted no money for it, arguing that the project was worth it, if only to prevent some other monstrosity being put up in its place. Favouring naturalism, Hundertwasser rejected straight lines, declaring them to be the work of the devil. The building features undulating walls and floors, and colourful, Gaudi-esque mosaics.  Well, straight lines might be the work of the devil, but curves are the enemy of IKEA… quite how people arrange their furniture on undulating walls and floors remains a mystery, although Hundertwasser doesn’t sound like a man who cared much for practicality.

It’s unclear whether this is still being used as a social housing project.  There definitely are private residences, which means that all you can really gape at are the intriguing exteriors.  We were in the tourist-oriented gift shop at the base of the building when another tourist walked in and asked to see one of the apartments.  Sadly, not only could she not see the interiors, but she was treated to a dose of Austrian ‘hospitality’.  The exchange went something like this:

Tourist: Is it possible to see inside one of the flats?

Charming gift-shop attendant: No!

Tourist: Oh, so not now?  Maybe in a few hours?  Maybe this afternoon?

Charming attendant (with a clearly disgusted look on her face): No!  Not now!  Never!

I didn’t know if I should feel sorry for the tourist, or commiserate with the attendant, who obviously gets these kinds of questions on an hourly basis.  Nevertheless, I thought her reaction could have been slightly tempered, or at least accompanied by an explanation!

In addition to the Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna is full of amazing buildings and grand edifices.  Stay tuned for more Viennese art and architecture…

Sucker for Sachertorte

I resisted the temptation to title this post ‘Suckertorte’, because, well, that would have been unkind……

The story goes that, in 1832, the Austrian minister for foreign affairs ordered his chef to create a dessert for a special dinner. The chef fell ill, however, leaving the task of devising a suitable dessert to Franz Sacher, then a second year apprentice in the kitchens. The result was the now-famous Sachertorte, a chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam, covered in chocolate icing. Franz Sacher’s son, Eduard Sacher, founded Vienna’s Hotel Sacher and registered the trademark for the “Original Sachertorte”, which is still made to this day from a secret recipe and served daily to hordes of tourists (us included).

The rights to the “Original Sachertorte” have been the subject of a legal dispute between Hotel Sacher and Demels, which claimed to have acquired the recipe from Sacher. The Hotel Sacher won the exclusive right to serve the “Original Sachertorte” based on the family connection. Demels still sell their version of “Ur-Sachertorte”, the main difference being that their apricot jam is layered underneath the icing instead of in the middle of the cake.

All this pre-amble aside, the Hotel Sacher is a nice place for a mid-afternoon pit stop if you feel like getting out of the Viennese rain and indulging in a piece of culinary history accompanied by a frothy cup of mélange (a Viennese cappuccino, usually served with whipped cream). In my opinion, the cake itself is over-rated. Apparently, the reason why it’s usually served with whipped cream is because most Austrians find it too dry to eat on its own, which makes one wonder why they don’t just make the cake more moist. It’s also not very chocolate-y. Oh, and Austrian coffee, while nice, is over-frothy, although the Viennese don’t seem to care too much about the size of bubbles in their cappuccino froth (no latte art here….). If you’re ambivalent about the Sachertorte, you can try their apple or cheese Strudel, both very good. And there is a bewildering range of other Sacher-related drinks and confectionery, all involving some or other combination of chocolate and apricot liqueur.

Original Sachertorte

Viennese mélange

A brief interruption…for Vienna

We’d like to take a small break in telling you about our adventures in Ethiopia to bring you tales of our travels in another direction, and on another continent. Never fear, loyal readers, we are far from finished with Ethiopia and promise to bring you more episodes shortly. But… in the not so distant past (i.e. last week) we flew off to Vienna for an extended weekend. It was a meeting of the siblings (G and N) and their close associates (CCT and R), on the tail end of N and R’s travels through Europe. Never being ones to pass up an opportunity to check out the people and the food of a new city, we were quick to book our flights to Austria. After our rather arduous journey to reach Ethiopia, we shouldn’t have been that surprised that we’d need to run through the Zürich airport with 10 minutes to catch our connecting flight, that our onward flight to Austria would be held up due to a hostage situation in Vienna, or that, despite the delay, our luggage wouldn’t make the dash across the tarmac, meaning that we would arrive in Vienna with nothing but the clothes on our backs, which we would have to wear until our bags finally made it from Zürich the next morning.

Secession Building

Nevertheless, we made it safely, picked up the rest of our party at the Südbanhof Wien (the south train station) and had a great 4 days in Vienna – a city overflowing with Mozart kitsch, an abundance of beautiful architecture, museums and palaces enough to make your head spin, and an equal number of restaurants offering Wiener Schnitzel and Turkish specialties.

Majolika House

My list of ‘must-see’ places in any city I visit always includes a market, so of course we had to visit Vienna’s famous Naschmarkt. Crowded with local Viennese and tourists alike, the market is a feast for all your senses. Mountains of fresh vegetables and fruits, dozens of barrels of vinegars, the mandatory beer and wine stands, and stall after stall offering stuffed olives, tomatoes, cheese and humous met our eyes.

The city is also known for being the home of the Viennese Secession movement, as exemplified in the architectural works of Otto Wagner and the paintings of Gustav Klimt, most of which are displayed in the grand Belvedere museum.

Belvedere

And, of course, there’s the Sachertorte. Ah, yes…. the Sachertorte. More on that to come…

flyBMRoyalJordanianEgyptAirI…how NOT to fly to Ethiopia (Part I)

Plot summary: a heart-warming sequel to Planes, Trains and Automobiles, with two young travelers taking on the role of John Candy on their way to an exotic African country, and falling victim to a series of misfortunes, often with comic circumstances.

[Opening scene: a group of about twenty strangers having buffet breakfast in a non-descript hotel in an unfamiliar country, scattered in small groups around white-clothed tables. Hushed murmurings can be heard. Close-up of centre table nearest to entrance, where a young couple are complimenting the houmous. A tall, thin, bespectacled man approaches and starts talking to them:]

Tall man: “Any gossip?”

Young woman: “No, we haven’t heard anything. Have you?”

Tall man: “The latest I heard – mind you, this is third hand – we might be here all day.”

Young woman: “Really? We were just talking about whether we’d be able to go outside. Did you notice on the bus last night that we had to go through a military checkpoint?”

Tall man: “I don’t know. I wonder if we need a visa. Did you hear about the Ethiopians? They had their passports confiscated at the airport.”

Young man: “Yeah, and have you noticed that this place is in the middle of the desert? We’re probably in a detention camp and they’re never letting us out.”

Tall man: “I heard that two passengers traveling in business class paid $1000 to fly out this morning via Dubai.”

Young woman: “No way!”

Tall man: “Guess they must really need to get somewhere. By the way, my name is Bob.”

[Camera pans out to long shot of arid, desolate desert. Dramatic orchestral score in minor key. Suddenly, screen blacks out. Sound of tape rewinding. Title appears on screen: "24 hours earlier"]

Hello China! Namaste India!

A tukul - traditional Ethiopian hut

…and welcome to Ethiopia! As most of you know, the month of May brought a new and exciting stamp in our passports. One of the many great perks of living in London is that when you are accepted to speak at a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the relatively short flight gives you an added excuse to extend your trip and experience more than just a passing glimpse of one city. That being said, our trip from London to Addis Ababa was anything but straightforward, and added an unexpected Jordanian stamp to our passports. Stay tuned for another blog entry in which we will relay the FULL adventures of BMI flight BD913.

Ethiopia is a country that defies preconceived notions, and it’s safe to say that if you ever travel there, it’s best NOT to have any expectations. The western media love to portray it as a country of drought, famine and misery. While there certainly are parts of Ethiopia that suffer from a growing water shortage, and poverty is widespread, we found Ethiopia to be a beautiful country, in parts lush and green, with a rich history and culture.

We spent a week traveling through northern Ethiopia, on what the guidebooks call the historical circuit. We started our adventures in Bahir Dar, on the shores of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile river. From there we traveled by minibus (using one of only 2 paved roads in the country outside of the capital) to Gonder (not to be confused with Gondor, which is in Middle Earth). Despite many offers to trek into the Simien Mountains to see baboons and ibex, we skipped the mountain adventures and went to Lalibela (formerly known as Roha [beginning to see a pattern here....?]) before returning to Addis Ababa for the last 4 days.

The most common greeting we heard throughout our two weeks were: ‘Hello-mister (or Mrs.)-how-are-you-what-is-your-name?’ said in one breathless phrase. People, especially children, were quite keen to know what country we were from. Confused faces surrounded us when we tried to convince them that the person who LOOKED like he should be from China (or Korea or Japan) was in fact from Spain. Some refused to believe it, and some even excitedly called out, ‘Jackie Chan!’ as we walked by. Sadly, my accent meant that there wasn’t too much room for error, and young men seemed quite pleased when they guessed, correctly, that I was from Canada. Predictably, no one had heard of Edmonton.