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    We have had several people ask us about where our favorite places have been on our trip so far. Actually, we get that question almost daily. We have no idea how to really categorize these things, but I will try to give you just a few of our favoite natural landscapes here. These are all great places for a view into the best of what God has created here:

1. New Zealand - Yes, the whole dang country is amazing! Whether it is beautiful beaches, snow-capped mountains, fjords, forests, glaciers, cities, or green rolling hills that amazes, delights, and entertains your soul; New Zealand will not disappoint! The great thing is: It’s all so close together and accesible in NZed! Wake up in the morning with a view of beautiful snow-capped mountains, drive to a geothermal park and see mud bubbling up and geysers, then drive on to the beach for the afternoon. How much better could it get?
2. The Pelopponese, Greece - This is a spot where renting a car is imperative! Hop in and drive around for a week or so. You won’t be disappointed. From the coastal drive down to Monemvasia to the drive trough the Messinian Mana, this area has some of the most beautiful coastline, flowered paths, and groves of various fruits and olives that one can imagine.
3. Fjords, Norway - Wow! That’s all we could say as we drove through Norway and around the fjords. Imagine shimmering water reflecting snow-covered mountains and little villages scattered along the coast. Now multiply your best imagining by 100! That’s Norway! If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to stay with someone in a village right along the fjord as we did. Then you can awaken each morning to look out and see one of the most amazing views in the world!
4. Pokhara, Nepal - A tranquil lake surrounded by several of the tallest mountains in the world. Still wonder why this is a top pick? Add in some of the nicest people in the world, some amazing hiking opportunities, and the fact that it is so so cheap to stay there and you have yourself a world-class kick back and relax destination. Did we mention our little boy Sagar lives there? That makes it even more special.
5. Ko Phi Phi Island, Thailand - I’m not much of a beach person really, but Ko Phi Phi came as close to making me one as any beach I have ever visited. White sand, friendly people, schools and schools of bright-colored tropical fish, and I saw my first sea turtles while diving there. We rented a kayak for a day for just a few bucks and paddled out to find our own little secluded bay with a beautiful white beach (the location of which I will NOT reveal to anyone!). Snorkeling and diving around the island provides a window into an amazing array of coral and underwater creatures. Watch an amazing sunset from the viewpoint (381 steps to the top) then stay out at night, don’t forget your camera and tripod, and catch beautiful pictures of the (almost nightly) heat lightning show. Ko Phi Phi will not disappoint.
6. Nukumbalavu, Qamea, Fiji Islands - If you can find this place, and it won’t necessarily be easy, Ruthie and her beautiful slice of Heaven on earth will leave you grasping for superlatives in order to explain it to your friends. With a white sand beach with crystal-clear water in a little shielded bay, Ruthie sure does have a sweet spot. The little bure’s (read- thatched roof bungalows) are decked out with four-poster beds with pillowtop mattresses and white flowing canopy covers, open air showers with fruit trees growing close enough to have a snack while bathing, and a selection of books to enjoy on those lazy afternoons while soaking up the sun. Included in the $25/night price tag for Nukumbalavu, Ruthie cooks three meals per day that could just as easily be served in a Michelin-graded restaurant (*****). Turns out, Ruthie was a chef at one of the local resorts at one time. Free activities available include snorkeling in the bay, hiking to visit traditional Fijian villages, sunbathing, swimming, and just relaxing (yes, relaxing counts as an activity there). Contact us for more information if you want to go visit her. 
7. The Cotswold’s and Peak District, England - If it’s quaint villages and green green rolling countryside you’re looking for, you can’t go wrong with these two areas. The Cotswold area is full of little villages that live much as they have for a thousand years or more. Flowers abound! The many walking paths that cut through the countryside along stone walls built hundreds of years prior are, for lack of a better word, stunning. The Peak District promises much of the same, though the villages are maybe not as quaint and old-world seeming. Here, however, the hills are more rugged and the stone walls, more abundant. The place is absolutely lovely! And to make it better, it is, as they used to say in these parts, “from whence I hail”! Check out Alsop-en-leDale village if you head up there!
8. Scotland - The whole country! Filled with many of the same treasures as the Peak District in England, Scotland has an even more abundant variety of landscapes. From lakes (lochs) and rivers, to mountains and green rolling hills, Scotland is a country truly blessed with some of the best of God’s creation. Even the cities have beautiful green hills all around! Get there, that’s all I’m saying. Get there!  

    Italy….Thoughts of sun, pizza, sand, art, and beautiful words come to mind at the very word…Italy. Our time in Italy was divided between Venice, Verona, Florence, Rome, Terracina, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Pisa, and the Cinque Terre.

Venice is an absolute marvel! We arrived from Slovenia and went out to wander the canals and streets around the city. Before we arrived in Venice, we had several people tell us that Venice was filthy, smelly, falling apart, and packed to the brim with tourists. “You’ll hate it”, they said. Well, Im here to tell you that they are nuts! In fact, let me go ahead an air a bit of frustration right here and now: TRAVEL SNOBS!!! Listen to me! You know who you are! You people who sit about, nose in the air, Rick Steves books in hand, minds jumbled with questions like: “Which city has the best escargot? Paris or Lyon?”, yes you. Listen up! Next time you decide to tell someone how badly they will hate a place, how there are much better places, how the BEST thing to do in a place is such and such, remember that everyone is different! We heard this crap so many times before arriving in Venice, that we were a bit worried about it before we even arrived. But guess what? We LOVED Venice! Next time, give your opinion, but be sure to preface it with one little line: “This is how I felt about ___, but you may love it”. Venice was to us what a fine wine must be to an old french man; a reminiscence of a time long past. A time when a town could sit on water and have a majority of its streets impassible to automobiles and bridges that sat in interesting locations that made walking about the maze even more of an adventure. We spent the day wandering the streets along green canals, listening to street musicians, watching gondoleers push around in long gondolas, and looking for a man wearing what we consider the quintessential Venice outfit: white or tan trousers, striped button-up shirt, white or tan sport coat, and white hat. Guess what? We found him and got a picture! We spent the next two days wandering in Venice, never tiring of its beauty.

Verona is one beautiful city! The architecture is magnificent. The old town area is encircled by a winding river which is crossed by nice bridges. We camped high above the city and had amazing views from our camping area out over the city and surrounding countryside. There were flowers all around. Yes, the town that Skakespeare used as a base for his most famous writing is truly pristine. Romeo and Juliet could not have found a better home.

Florence is the nicest city that we have ever visited. Every corner is graced with some statue or fountain created by this or that famous sculptor. Each building has an impressive facade. Each Piazza (square) has a beautiful church that has been standing around since Michelangelo and Da Vinci wandered past hundreds of years ago. The sun sets perfectly each night over the most lovely bridge (Ponte Vecchio) that God ever inspired man to build. There are free public sculpture areas that would rival (and generally top) the galleries at any of the world’s top museums. There is Piazza Michelangelo, which, when climbed, provides views over the city which would inspire poetry from Ebenezer Scrooge. So romantic, such magic abounds in ths city! We will be here again!

Rome was one of the places along our trip about which we were most excited. Rome did not disappoint. We took the train in and had a full…very full…day exploring Rome. We visited the world’s smallest independent state: Vatican City and gazed upon Michelangelo’s works in the Sistene Chapel. To tell the truth, there were much more impressive paintings in the museums there. We wandered over to the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain (which was absolutely amazing!!!). We visited the old Roman forum and the Colisseum, and gazed upon Michelangelo’s statue of Moses. Rome was a feast fr the senses! The smeels drifting from the various pasta and pizza restaurants, the sights that are absolutely unparalleled, the buzz of the cars passing as the (crazy) Italian drivers whip in and out of traffic…It’s all so wonderful. Majestic even.

Naples. Napoli. Whatever you call it, you’ll never go wrong with calling it Filthy. The originators of the pizza. The home of much Italian mafia activity, Naples could easily be placed in a third-world country somewhere and no one would bat an eye. We parked outside of the city where we planned to camp for a couple nights and took the metro into the city center. We should have known that this was going to be an interesting experience when the man across from us began to sing to himself in a tone that was more than slightly reminiscent of the sort of singing that one might hear in a psychiatric treatment facility (and I have 1st hand knowledge of this, mind you). A further clue as to the state of this city came when we realized that all of the windows of our train and the ones we passed along the way were covered in the wretched paintings of the local “graffiti idiots”. Still, we continued. When we noticed another meth-addict looking guy sit down beside the singing wonder across the way, we thought that someone was playing an evil joke on us. Maybe we had found ourselves on a hidden-camera show or something. But alas, that was not the case. Within a minute, the two (who had not spoken a word to one another, nor taken their beady eyes from us to look at one another) began having a bit of a ‘dueling banjos’ ‘hey, I’m a lunatic’ sing-along together. Before we could reach the little red glass-breaking hammer hanging from the wall in order to break the glass and jump from the moving train or bash the two over the heads (which would probably have been the greater benefit to society), we made it to Naples. Perseverance, my dear friends, perseverance. Stepping from the metro terminal, we expected to find an Italian city. Instead, we found a city that looked more than slightly like the more run-down areas of Kathmandu, Nepal. “Great”, Jen said, as our eyes focused on the piles of trash laying about. We almost, almost stepped back into the terminal and headed back to the car. Happily, we did not. We instead began to walk in a weaving pattern around the piles of crap that lay around covering the streets. When we stopped in a cleaner spot of concrete sidewalk, we peered up at buidings that that had seen their better days…Maybe a hundred or more years ago. About the same time that they were last cleaned. There were sheets and underwear and bras, and every other sort of tattered garment hanging frm each window we passed, drying in the filth that was the air in Naples. I couldn’t help but wonder if, when taken off the line, the clothes were any better smelling or more clean than before they were washed. We walked on, making our way towards the pizza restaurant that we had received recommendations to visit. Making it to Sorbillo’s, we noted the trash across the street and the tattered building, then gingerly walked inside. A whole new world greeted us. People were sitting about obviously experiencing various degrees of pure ecstasy depending upon whether their massive, greasy, thin-crust pizza’s were just arriving and gracing their smell receptors with their wonderful scent or, if they had had a bite or two, their taste buds were being ravaged by the wonders of the sweet sauce, or, if they were just finishing, their stomachs were sending up various ‘thank you’s’ and ‘I love you’s’ to their brains. We found a seat in an empty room upstairs and began to pour over the menu. Within minutes, the entire room was full of about 100 people, each looking like a hyena at a pig roast. We ordered one margherita pizza, but on the advice of our waitress (who had a bit of twinkle in her eye when she suggested it), we ordered one for each of us. The pizza’s came out only a few moments later and we began to fight the urge to hug the waitress and tip her massively as soon as our smell receptors got a whiff of the stuff she placed in front of us. The pizza’s were each the size of a Pizza Hut large pizza, only adding 3-4 inches all the way around, and were dripping with olive oil. Hungrily, we each took our first bite, and, if the pizza were a man, the look in Jen’s eyes showed that I would have been cast aside without hesitation. We began to eat, much like I would imagine the hyenas that I mentioned a moment ago would have eaten. With abandon. Lapping up the last of the oil in my plate only a few minutes later, I looked to Jen and realized she was about to finish off her pizza as well. We sat for a few minutes afterwards and reminisced on our experience. When I die, I hope to be buried with a Sorbillo’s pizza. That’s all I’m saying. We walked away from the restaurant, after debating on whether we should just stay there until dinner time and start the process over again. Back through the filth we walked, though our ’high’ from the wonderful pizza practically lifted us over it all, and onto the metro again. That was the end of our Naples experience. We left to go to Amalfi that afternoon.  

Our next stop was the Amalfi Coast. It is dubbed as one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in all of Europe, maybe the world. It was truly a gem. The rocky coastline juts up to tiny villages clinging to, and sometimes cascading down, the cliffs that rose above the crashing blue waters. The villages were all in pastel, all the cutest little village you’ve ever seen. One after another…For miles and miles. We stayed in a little hostel at the top of the cliffs where we could look down over the coastline and just try to soak in the beauty of the place. We spent a couple days relaxing and trying to get a grasp on such beauty.

Pisa was another gem of a place. All we knew about Pisa before we arrived was that they had some kind of tower there that some idiot (or possibly brilliant?) architect had built that was leaning. Well, boy were we surprised when we walked around the corner, through the almost completely intact city walls, and found the loveliest square that I have seen in all the world. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, as it has been dubbed, was only a backdrop to this wonderful square. In the foreground sits a colorful domed church with one of the larget domes that we have seen. The entire square, less the walking paths around it, was covered in a brilliat green grass that was picture perfect. Especially after seeing so many concrete and cobbled squares in every other European city. Finally, a bit of grass in what seems in Italy to be a stone world. Beside the majestic domed church was a long building that is now a museum. It is the most beautiful mustard yellow color, though mustard yellow is not generally my ‘cup o tea’. Sitting at the rear right corner of another building is the towering tower that is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It is to Pisa what La Tour Eiffel is to Paris. A symbol. The symbol. It lives upto its reputation, as so few symbolic building ever do. Each level is intricately designed and colored in various whites, greens, and reds. And yes…It is leaning a great deal to the right. Actually, it’s leaning as if it will topple over at any moment and crush the buildings and people that surround it, flinging those who pay a king’s ransom to climb it as far as, say, Rome perhaps? Warily, we walked all around it, always keepig an eye on the top for any signs of further tilt or breakage. Then we noticed something: the top couple levels actually lean the opposite way from the rest of the tower! Turns out, they were built at a much later date (over a hundred years later) and were built leaning against the rest of the tower in order to keep the tower from toppling. A bit of a rigging I think, but I guess it worked, since the tower is still standing and still raking in the millions ($$$) for Italy!

The Cinque Terre was another gem of Italian blessed-ness. The Romans gained and lost a lot of ground in their time, but it seems they held on to some of the best parts of their empire, at least. The Cinque Terre was a bit Amalfi-esque in it’s geographical blessings, but the villages along its coast had a more beachy feel to them. More relaxed. We did a bit of hiking along the Lover’s Trail (which was grueling!!!) and enjoyed the beach and blue water views from the mountainside.

Italy was another amazing adventure! It completely restored our hope that Europe is not just a seemingly endless repertoire of green men on green horses, big cathedrals in stone squares, and old towns with cobbled streets and rude people. Before Italy, admittedly, we were getting burnt out on Europe because of the similarities of the cities that we visited. After Italy, we are refreshed, renewed, and excited about tomorrow!              

    Continental drift: Definition - The state of exctitement and heightened awareness in which a long-distance traveler consistently finds him/herself. It may produce elatement, sweaty palms, huge expenditure of cash, and bugged eyes.

    Yep, boys and girls! It’s almost time to shove off to a new continent for awhile! Europe has been fun, but Africa is calling us back. This time we will head to the southern tip of the African continent to just a handful of countries that we travelers like to call “South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, and Namibia”. If you are a non-traveler, you probably call them “South Africa, Huh?, Excuse me?, Where’s that, and Is that near the Congo?”. We recently bought our plane tickets through Air France flying from London, England to Johannesburg, South Africa. Air France means we get to enjoy a bit of wine, cheese and a few croissants on our way, so that made us very happy in itself. The plan is to rent a car and drive to all 5 countries over the course of around a month. We fly to Africa on July 6th and return to England on August 4th. Our trip to Africa shoud include (hopefully) all of the following: Some type of volunteer service (let us know if you have any ideas), several different types of safaris (walking, 4×4, car, horseback), and visits to see cave art as well as dinosaur tracks. We have our mental lists prepared of the animals that we are most interested in seeing: zebra, rhinoceros, giraffe, elephant, leopard, lion, hippopotamus, cape buffalo. The Canon Rebel XTI is in full sports mode with the zoom lens ready! With any luck, those of you living vicariously at the moment should have an idea of what southern africa looks like in just over a month. Hope you’re as excited as we are!!!

    We also purchased our tickets to fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina after our return from Africa and our week-long trip to Iceland in August. Whew! This is going to  be one busy summer, or winter…Whatever…The idea is to travel in Argentina (including the glaciers of Patagonia), Uruguay, Chile, Peru (Macchu Picchu and Nazca Lines here we come!), and Ecuador (including a tour through the Galapagos Islands…oh, the turtles we will see!!!). South America should be a real treat…and I don’t just mean the massive steaks!!! Then we will be off to Central America and back home shortly after, but more on that later…

    Yeah! That’s right! Just the other day we took a little visit to Dr. Sigmund Freud’s office in Vienna, Austria. I know it is maybe a bit cliche for a psychology guy such as myself to visit Herr Dr. Freud’s office, but what can I say? The guy still intrigues after all these years. Freud, um…Dr. Freud I mean, was one of those guys that maybe you wouldn’t want to keep around as a best pal or anything, but he was definitely important when it comes to the field of Psychology. Yes, he did a bit of experimenting with drugs, cocaine for instance, and he did have quite a few ideas concerning dreams and sexuality and such that seem a bit stange at first glance. But who wouldn’t have some strange ideas after experimenting with the afore mentioned drugs? I’m not taking up for the guy, I’m just saying I felt like a bit of a celebrity stalker when I climbed the steps to the apartment that served as both home and office for Dr. Freud for around 30 years. I admit, I took pictures of almost everything, pretended to sit along a wall where I imagined his couch would have been, and stared out of his window as I imagined he would have done on countless occasions when developing this or that groundbreaking theory. It was all marvelous! I mean, Sigmund Freud is probably the very first name that a person learns when studying psychology. He has a certain punk rock/Elvis kind of persona surrounding him. A true visionary and, for lack of a better term, dreamer. He was the “King of Psychology” just as Elvis was the “King of Rock and Roll”. I also admit that Jen basically had to drag me out of his place as I read letters written by Dr. Freud (captions anyway), his research articles, and even his grade reports from his university years. If that is not enough to make a person do well in school, I don’t know what is. His actual report cards from university were plastered up for millions and millions to see. Just in case I ever do get truly famous, I’ll have to work really hard to get perfect grades during my Ph.D. (or Psy.D. with any luck) studies. You never know who will be looking!!!

    Jen finally got me away from Dr. Freud’s office and, with only a tear or two, we wandered out and around the streets of Vienna. Vienna, unlike many of the other European cities we have seen, was almost devoid of graffiti. Vienna also had seemingly many more beautiful old buildings than the other European big cities that we have seen. It was as if the big beautiful buildings never ended! Clear all the people out, and Vienna could as well be a big movie set. We wandered in complete amazement at the architecture and cleanness of the city. any of the other European cities that we have visited only have a small area of nice buildings (town center) that are surrounded by graffiti-trashed, crumbling, dirty buildings. So, we had a great time in Vienna! More about our European adventures coming soon!   

Once I went shopping in Warsaw

It was the 1st war I ever saw

The women lined at the door

Ready to bite, snatch, and claw

Like Walmart debutantes

On a post-Thanksgiving crawl

The manager opened the door in fear

And women rushed in, some with a tear

First to the shoes, then to the dresses

As they moved, the manager stared at the messes

They rushed with their items to the front

With a gleam in their eye

And as they left,

The store gave a great sigh

Never have I saw such a war before

I think I shall go to Warsaw no more.

– Inspired by our recent secondhand store shopping trip in Warsaw.

    Okay, so it took us about a month to get this together and actually take the time to post it. Here are some things that we have come to realize after being on the road for such an extended time:

1. Before we left home, we knew nothing of the world outside of Mississippi. Now we know just a very small amount.
2. Life in the USA is easy/much more privileged as compared to life anywhere else that we have been.
3. God is good. Seeing so much more of His creation has really improved our view on this fact.
4. Long-distance or extended travel is much more difficult than we expected it to be.
5. We have much less patience than we previously thought we had.
6. People in Fiji tend to have an extremely high tolerance for hallucinogenic drinks (kava). At least they are happy all the time!
7. Bus travel in many places (such as Turkey…the BEST!!!) is much more efficient and clean as compared to good old Greyhound USA.
8. Cold showers aren’t so bad…if you’re in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. However, they are awful in the Himalayan mountains in Nepal in 30-40 F temperatures!
9. The proper technique for using squat toilets.
10. Speaking of toilets, it turns out that they are NOT a basic human right. (Silly American us!) Some cost upwards of $1 with no tissue or cleaning provided.
11. Clothing is much cheaper in SEAsia than in the United States. Little shopping trip anyone? Nepal for cold weather clothes and Thailand, Vietnam, or Malaysia for warm.
12. Snowy mountains beside sunny beaches are not just in fairy tales! They are in New Zealand!
13. Trying the local food usually does not equal health or happiness for me or Jennifer.
14. We will never be able to see it all. Sadly.
15. Time really does seem to fly when one is having a marvelous time!
16. Everyone (almost) seems to hate us Americans. Turns out they are just jealous though…(Ha ha!)
17. It is possible to remain in absolutely awful shape even when a person walks 10 miles per day on average over the course of 8 months.
18. There are far more sheep in New Zealand and more kangaroos in Australia than there are people in the respective countries.
19. We are enormously blessed to have been born in a country where true Christianity is still practiced and applauded. More specifically, being from the south (the Bible belt) is an enormous privilege.
20. Photographs cannot do this world justice. It must be experienced through sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell in order to even understand half of what is going on around oneself. 

    As stated in my previous post, we got a car to drive around Europe. Now, to normal people this might not be such an exciting adventure. Just driving from place to place, stopping in some great cities along the way…Not exactly an ADVENTURE. For us, however, every day seems to end up in some adventure or another. Call us unlucky…Or maybe we’re lucky. At least we have stories to tell! We began this adventure by driving across eastern France. Beautiful countryside, quaint villages, Jen learning to drive a standard. What!?! Learning to drive a standard in our brand spankin’ new sports car? Well, did we mention that it carries full insurance with no deductible? No time like the present! She did great. Until she stopped in a town at a red light, that is. On a hill. With a line of cars behind us. With drivers who were in a town of 500 in the middle of nowhere but for some reason were in a real big hurry. Maybe their cows were having babies…Anyway, she did well overall. That’s what counts. She didn’t even yell at me or get mad when I told her how to work the clutch. Now that’s saying a lot.

    The next day, we were going to drive around in Luxembourg, a baby country crammed between Germany, France, and Belgium. We crossed from France to Belgium and then into Luxembourg that morning. After driving around for awhile, we were driving along a river and saw a sign that said Germany was just over the next bridge. We looked at one another, laughed a bit, and I took the turn onto the bridge. One minute, Luxembourg, the next, Germany. Drove around the little German village for a few minutes, then crossed back into Luxembourg. Our third and fourth border crossings of the day. Then we got a bit lost. How we managed to get lost in such a teeny tiny country, I don’t know. Long story short, we ended up crossing back into Germany accidentally, driving on a bicycle path (good thing we have a really small car!!!) for a few miles and getting ugly looks from cyclists, and crossing back into Luxembourg through some miracle. The 5th and 6th border crossings of the day. Later in the day, we crossed from Luxembourg into Belgium again…Good thing we’re in the European Union! If we were not, our passports would definitely be running out of pages!

    As a general rule, European road signs seem quite confusing and chaotic to us at the moment. On the expressway, there may be 2-3 names for every section. Road signs may show a city for awhile, then stop showing it with the driver having to rely on intuition to know when to turn. In the cities, one road may change names 10 times within a few short miles. No slight rights or left, just straight roads that change names for no apparent reason! Speed limits range from 35 or 40 miles per hour in towns to 85 miles per hour on the expressway. And no one pays any attention to the limits! Roads in the city may have lanes that cars and trams share. A bit nerve racking indeed! There are bicyles everywhere! I have ended up driving on random sidewalks and bicycle paths accidentally on several occasions. One way streets? Forgetaboutit!

    Well, since we got our car, we have seen a bit of France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and are now in Denmark. Stay tuned for all of our future adventures driving around in Europe! Wish us luck!!!

    Hi! We just wanted to add a short note to ease the confusion about the change in itinerary and location from eastern to western Europe so fast. We recently found out about a program called “Eurodrive” through the french car manufacturer, Renault. We signed up fast, since we love to have the freedom to drive around as we did in New Zealand, and because the publc transportation is so expensive in Europe anyway. We will have the car until August 1st, then will head out to Iceland on August 5th from London. We will write more on it later, just wanted to send a little update… 

   We are now bouncing around in the Balkans and having a great time doing so. Not so long ago, however, this would have been impossible. The closest we have been to being shot by a sniper or bombed since we arrived here was when we waited too long to buy our tram tickets and an onboard monitor tried to charge us a $15 fine. We have felt the troubles here a bit though. In Macedonia, we saw buildings that bore the grime and ugliness that can only come from Communism and corruption. Much of Skopje and all but the tourist area of Ohrid were a big heads up that we were no longer in Greece. Wooden doors hung, barely grasping hinges that must have held them up for 200 years. Some buildings seemed ready to cave in on the businesses that must have gotten a HUGE discount for agreeing to rent spaces below them. In Skopje there was a concrete jungle that left one wondering whether architects there had ever left their mother’s basements. Gray concrete. Blah. It ain’t purty, but it’s functional…Traveling to Belgrade, Serbia we were confronted by even more stark concrete dullness. The dilapidation of the buildings was only furthered here as compared to Skopje and Ohrid. Many buildings appeared to have some beauty under the grime, but pretending it wasn’t there was a bit difficult. So far, no sure signs of war or destruction, however.

    That didn’t last long. We arrived in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina to find that war relics were all around us. Stepping out of our bus that led into town, we walked right over our first “Sarajevo Rose”. If you do not know, Sarajevo Rose is a nickname given to the red painted indentions in the sidewalks and streets of Sarajevo that originated from bomb blasts that rocked this city during the mid-1990’s. We stopped, turned, and stared at the “rose” for a few minutes before wandering on towards town. This was almost a surreal experience. A bit like our experience in Phnom Penh, Cambodia when we visited the Tuol Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields. Here we are, wandering with our backpacks and Ipods over ground that has been bombed and bled upon by many. Surreal. It is amazing and sad to see the depths to which the human being can fall. Day 2 found us wandering down a lane that was once dubbed “Sniper Alley” as a result of the Serb snipers who picked off people on this street from the surrounding hillsides. What?! Boy, let me tell you. That was a bit scary. A short 15 years ago, walking down this street would have been a literal death sentence for the two of us. That day, it was just an ambling down a busy lane while looking at remnants left over from those perilous times. Bullet and shrapnel scarred buildings stood everywhere. Almost every single building had scars to show that it made it through this disaster of human decree. The buildings that crumbled under this or that bombing were still here and there. Sometimes a shell of a building stood defiantly with no roof or guts. We saw many more “Sarajevo Roses” along our path. We saw monuments standing to take into account the people that had died in a certain building or area. The Holiday Inn with its mustard yellow outside where international journalists were stationed to cover the war still stood along sniper alley. Across the road was a monument with 30-40 names on it. The hostel where we stayed had a poster that summed it up best. It was a street map of Sarajevo that showed the city completely surrounded by various tanks, artillery weapons, snipers, and soldiers. Throughout the map, splatters of red represented the areas being bombed. Moving. Let me tell you.

    We continued on to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mostar seems to have been bombed out as bad or worse than Sarajevo. We found some pictures from during the war and were aghast at the basic complete destruction of the city. Everywhere that we walked in the city, the scars were still all too visible. Bullet holes and shrapnel gouges in the sides of many buildings. Some completely destroyed still. Pictures of the famous Stari Most (bridge) falling into the river below as a bomb blasted it in 1993. The town was in shambles then and is just coming back now.  

    After all this doom and gloom, I may as well do something to try and end this on a positive note. Our time in Macedonia was made much more interesting and fun as a result of the kindness and assistance provided by several Peace Corps volunteers. We met Karen, our first Peace Corps volunteer, in Ohrid. We messaged her asking if she had a couch that we could sleep on (www.couchsurfing.com) during our stay there and were saddened to find that she did not. She invited us to meet her for coffee, however. Our meeting at a local coffee shop turned out to be the highlight of our trip to Ohrid. Karen is from North Dakota and had friends meet us who were from Alabama and Florida, as well as a few hilarious local guys. We sat and had good coffee, some laughs, and “small world” moments as the girl from Florida, another Karen, attended William Carey University, a school in the same city as the one where we attended university. Small world, huh? It got smaller. She also knows several of the same people that Jennifer knows including her cousin Melanie. Small small world. Way over here in Macedonia, we met people from the United States who are helping us to meet locals and understand more of the local culture. We talked a bit about their work as Peace Corps volunteers and gained a real respect for them and their willingness to give up so much of their lives and their comforts to come to help this country get back on its feet. Amazing!

    Our travels in Macedonia continued with our trip to Skopje, the capital, where we met Vince. Vince is also a Peace Corps volunteer. He currently teaches English and has gotten a grant to setup an animal adoption program in the city. The guy is in his mid-20’s and really seems to have his head on straight. So good to meet people like this. Vince took us out to have a traditional Macedonian dinner one night and introduced us to several of his other Peace Corps friends who were no less remarkable. We were given a real taste (yum, all kinds of meat and salad!) of culture, some language lessons, and a great time. This may seem odd, but it seems that sometimes the best way to get an idea of how a culture really functions is to find someone who is also on the outside looking in, but who has been there long enough to get involved with locals. Macedonia turned out to be an amazingly refreshing and interesting place for us. The buildings, though they were sometimes dirty or stark, were being slowly, slowly upgraded and transformed. This will be a real place to be in a short while. Just watch.

    I would hate to leave anyone with only a partial, pessimistic view of any place, so let me try to remedy that a bit with regards to Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Mostar. Belgrade seems to be moving into the 21^st century after virtually sleeping through the latter half of the 20^th century. Things are being cleaned up, statues razed. Buildings are being renovated and rented out or sold. High-end shops and restaurants are appearing. The place is really on the move towards a more positive (and hopefully eye-pleasing) future. Bosnia, man Bosnia has made a lot of progress in the past years since the war. Sarajevo has some of the most beautiful buildings that we have seen anywhere and the ones that were beat down or bombed out during the war are being cleaned up and/or replaced with little shops and cafes or trendy hotels. They even have the first skyscrapers that we have seen in quite a while. Mostar has rebuilt her bridge as of 2004 and continues to clean up and rebuild the many buildings that were destroyed. The scars still show, but now buildings show significant improvement over pictures taken during and just after the war. The region really appears to be looking forward into the future…And the future looks promising.        

    Yes, you read right. New Zealand has a close contender for our favorite and most beautiful country debate. Greece is that power-house. Since our arrival in Greece, we have seen so many different amazing things. We have seen Athens, with her ancient ruins such as the Parthenon, Theatre of Dionysus, and Roman Agora. Our time in Athens was filled with oohs and aahs and for yours truly, dreams of being a historian or archaeologist. I know. I know. I’m a nerd. Then we went home for a short break and returned to Athens with a renewed spirit and renewed energy for traveling and seeing this beautiful, amazing world of ours. Our first stop in Athens was the bus to head over to the port city of Piraeus. We landed ourselves at our couchsurfing hostess’ house a short while later and Greece began to rise in the rankings a few moments after meeting her. Vasso, our hostess, is a physician in Piraeus, but may just have a secret identity as a stand-up comedian. From moment one, she had us rolling on the floor with her stories of plant love, bad luck, and other crazy Greek humor. She showed us souvlaki, which we found ourselves eating almost continuously over the next several days. She drove us around the port and even up to see the teenage “nookie” spot that thrives on Saturday nights as in almost every city in the world. After helping us with more Santorini and Pelopponese knowledge than any guidebook could have provided, we experienced the humor of her locking her keys in her car on a busy street…in the middle of it actually…while it was still running!!! Luckily, we had a rental car and took her to get her spare keys!  

   Our foray into the Greek islands did not disappoint either. We headed out from Piraeus on the 8 hour ferry to Santorini island in the Cyclades. From the things that we heard prior to going, it was beautiful. The island is basically a volcano and volcanic crater. We were not disappointed as we arrived to see the beautiful red and black vocanic rocks jutting up high as cliffs far above the turqoise/blue sea below. We took the hotel van up onto the top of the cliffs and soon found that the people of Santorini are living in one AMAZING place! They have built entire towns and cities that cling precariously onto the sides of cliffs overlooking the sea far below. It is one of those things that a person has to see to believe. It is also a thing that cannot be described, as far as the sheer beauty of the place goes. We were in absolute awe of the place from moment one. That was before we rented a car and drove all over the island, picked up nice hitchhikers, saw unforgettable sunsets over beautiful blue waters, rented a 4-wheeler (quad) and drove along the beach and in the surf. We had an outstanding few days in Santorini. We walked through picturesque villages with ruins and ancient homes all around. We lay in our hotel room and looked out of french doors to see flowers, farms, green green grass, and turqoise water…Ah…It was wonderful! Santorini is definitely a place to come back to.

    We are now in the Pelopponese region of Greece and are having yet another key experience driving around to see the countryside here. We looked at turqoise waters, ruins of an ancient castle, snow-capped mountains, a little village, and palm trees all at the same time a couple days ago! Further along our drive through the Pelopponese, we found beautiful, tranquil Monemvasia. The village is accessed by driving along a small road connected to the mainland by a small strip of land, parking the car next to the city gates, and walking through past doors that still housed the metal strips used to deter invaders God knows how long ago. The gates lead to a short tunnel and after walking through the tunnel, BAM! there is a village. Surprise! The village appears just as if it were 1000’s of years ago. I could have just as easily rode in on a noble steed named Drexler rather than a Volkswagen Golf. (By the way, if I had been a knight, my steed would def. be named Drexler) Seriously. This place rocks! We wandered/stumbled forward in complete George Bush “shock and awe” and discovered not one, but many little narrow cobbled passageways leading up or down to quaint old stone houses that would have looked just as fitting in any Shakespeare play set. We ambled down lanes that ended as walls overlooking the sea which crashed 20 feet below. We climbed towards the castle…oh yeah, there was a castle here too…and looked down over the red-tile rooftops of the homes and churches below and saw all the way to the sea. Wow! “It doesn’t get any better than this”, Jen said. I concurred.

    Our further ramblings in the Pelopponese have landed us on a magnificent drive along the Messinian Mani coast. This was a drive to be remembered. We passed countryside that appeared to be a transplant from southern New Zealand at times, then crept along narrow lanes through small villages that looked more like Cotswolds England. We took a short hike up a little path past the ruins of yet another, less controversial, Agia Sophia church (read Istanbul-Agia Sophia). The path was lined with stones with just the right amount of moss on them to make them look like they had been there a long long time. There were flowers all over the path and the sides of the path that were in every shade of pretty imaginable. Reds, yellows, purples, blues, pinks, whites…Oh my! They were wonderful, and I’m a boy. Just imagine how much Jen was fretting over them! Beside the path were olive trees and little meadows fenced in with piled stones. Jen and I found a perfect meadow and had a little picnic before heading back down to the car. Incredible!

    So, after all of the pomp and elegance of Greece over these short moments exploring, we have decided that New Zealand had better keep on her guard. Yep, Greece is moving on up, just like Goodtimes!