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Hamburg, Germany - Copenhagen, Denmark

Woke-up and had breakfast, then Frauke took us into Hamburg for a quick tour. It couldn’t have been quick enough. The city is based around a port/waterfront area that would make the Gulf of Mexico look beautiful.       -Craig

We left and headed north towards Copenhagen, Denmark. The landscape was water, windmills, forest, and more water all the way there.       -Craig

Frauke escorted us into town, telling us along the way how beautiful it was. Craig and I were a bit disappointed as all the buildings were very plain and red brick. The canals were good, but nothing compared to Brugge. They did have a beautiful town hall though and very pretty town center.       -Jen

The drive into Copenhagen was pretty great with lots and lots of water, bridges, small islands, and windmills.         -Jen

Money Spent 4/11/09:  Euro’s and Denmark Krones - USD $54.18

Total spent at this point on the trip: $26,760.00 USD

Number of countries visited: 31

Plovdiv, Bulgaria…Happy B-day to me! A memorable one in Plovdiv, Bulgaria for sure!      -Craig

Happy Birthday to Craig!!! Because it was Craig’s day, we did everything he wanted to do, which was, of course, explore Plovdiv…First and foremost, we wandered around “our” area, had a wonderful cheese-filled pastry and coffee for breakfast, then walked across town to the Hill of the Liberators. This hill, of course, required climbing and I think I counted 600 steps up.      -Jennifer

We got up on the 13th, grabbed a pastry from a local shop, then started wandering. We shoppd in a 3-story shopping mall inside a renovated 19th century building, looked at art set-up along the center of a small square, found a Bulgarian flag patch, and wadered around the old town on cobblestone streets.      -Craig

The views from the top were nice though and the monuments were interesting.     -Jennifer

For lunch, we had pizza at a little trendy restaurant. The people here seem nice, intelligent, fashionable, and always looking ahead. This could very well be a nice country.      -Craig

After our naps, we headed out to have my birthday dinner at McDonald’s and then to the internet cafe. Got in touch with my mom and dad on SKYPE and told them that we are coming home to visit on February 20th. They seemed excited/confused. Mom cried a bit, dad seemed like he thought there was something more to the story.      -Craig

Craig’s dad thinks something is wrong, we think, and his mom is just pre-occupied with Grammar. I had no luck again with my mom.       -Jennifer

Money Spent 2/13/09: 73.13 Bulgarian lev = $47.42 USD

Extra for SKYPE credits, exchange fees, money kept = $20.00 USD

Total Spent at this point on trip: $21,801.15

Number of Countries Visited: 19

Pamukkale, Turkey…This morning we slept late. When we woke up, Craig tried to take a shower though it turned out to be cold water only- not sure why we expected any different.     -Jennifer

Got to Pamukkale, paid the outrageous entrance fee ($25) and headed in. We walked through the Necropolis of Hierapolis first and looked at all of the tombs. Sadly, these cities are beginning to look a lot alike. But, I don’t wanna get home and wish I had seen ‘em…Anyway, we really came for the “travertines”. It was a huge area covered in pearly white travertine with a thermal stream running through it! We took off our shoes and soaked our feet in the hot water awhile and enjoyed the views of the travertine and the mountains covered in snow in the distance.      -Craig

What an amazing place the Romans chose to build Hierapolis! Right on top of such a beautiful thing!       -Craig

The ruins were much like all the others we’ve seen, except the theater was huge and quite impressive. After wandering around for awhile, we visited the white travertines. Now this was amazing! It looked just like a snow-covered mountain and spread across a huge site.       -Jennifer

Turns out Adnan (our Couchsurfing host) isn’t so useless. He arranged a futbol (soccer) game and said I could play! Even loaned me a jersey…That happened to be #5! Oh yeah! Excited is an understatement. Elated. Gassed. Fired up. Torqued. “Legs, break out of your useless state. You are needed!”, I said. Jen can never understand how excited I get when I get to play. No one can. Except maybe Daniel Hodge. I believe he loved it as much as me. Maybe…         -Craig

The game was an hour long with no breaks, half-time or anything. Safe to say I was dead tired in no time. Very quick play. High scoring game. I played defense most of the time, but got a couple shots, both on target and good shots, but sadly both blocked. Got one assist. Saved a goal or two. Gave up a goal or two. Got hit in the groin with a ball. Busted my knee. Not a bad time at all. Actually, an amazing time though I played fairly poorly compared with my former play as a youngster.      -Craig

Money Spent 2/5/09: 125 Turkish Lira = $78.13 USD

Total Spent at this point on trip: $21,306.12

Number of Countries Visited: 18

Izmir, Turkey…We slept in a bit this morning and decided to spend the day with our Couchsurfing host and his friends to have a traditional Turkish experience. They said we were going to have breakfast, but we didn’t leave home until 11:00 am. We then drove two hours into the country to reach the restaurant in a beaultiful outdoor location.     -Jennifer

We had a long table outside with mountains and pastures all around. The place was really in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful country though. We ordered collectively and were brought tons of stuff! Honey, olives, 3-4 cheeses, eggs with pepperoni’s (weird), bread, butter, cheese fajita things, water, tea, etc…       -Craig

We ate, talked, and had a good time until about 2 pm, then drove out onto the peninsula and walked around the shoreline as a group. The water was blue green, the shore rocky and hilly. Very pretty.      -Craig

Back at the bottom, it was decided that we needed to go for coffee. Back in the car, we drove for another two to three hours to get to a bar…I guess the coffee urge passed in all that time. Craig and I split a cheeseburger and had a cappucino. Everyone else had beer and fries.      -Jennifer

Longest breakfast in history for me!    -Craig

Craig and I stayed home while Onur took his girlfriend home. He brought back another dinner…Some kind of meat with rice and veggies to put in wraps. It was pretty good. We also had baklava, a sweet pastry.      -Jennifer

Money Spent 2/1/09: 46 Turkish Lira = $28.75 USD

Total Spent at this point on trip: $21,126.56

Number of Countries Visited: 18

Istanbul, Turkey…we planned to do so many things, but wound up just visiting the 1500 year old Galata Tower, wandering around on Istikal Caddesi, taking a ferry cruise for 1.5 hours on the Bosphorus. Wandering in the city is quite nice, actually. We found several old bookstores where I was able to drool over old books and maps (but, alas could afford none) and some clothesshops for Jen.     -Craig

We awoke, had a shower and brekkie and set out on foot to see the city on foot!      -Jennifer

Istanbul is so amazingly spread out! It just goes on forever!      -Craig

Back at home, we cooked and ate dinner then showed some of our pictures to Serena (our couchsurfing hostess) and her mom and talked about our trip, then went to bed! :)      -Jennifer

Money Spent 1/27/09: $55.79

Total Spent at this point on trip (almost 7 months in): $20,887.92

Number of Countries Visited: 18

Spending the night in the Amman, Jordan airport was surprisingly not at all that bad. We found cushioned seats that we could lay out on, it was a pleasant temp. in the airport, and we could put our stuff between our chairs/bed and the wall for safety.     -Craig

We are currently on our way to Istanbul, Turkey! Finally a place in Europe. We are so excited!     -Jennifer

We met a very nice guy and girl from a university in Indiana that were coming from Baghdad where they had been working to setup academic programs. They are brave souls!     -Jennifer

They gave us first hand info. about the progress that Iraq has made as a result of the U.S. being there. Good job George Bush! Our conversation was interrupted by a Turkish-looking fellow telling me to ” move to the other seat ” and that my “American accent” was making him “nervous” and that “that is why everyone hates Americans”.     -Craig

….we tried to get $$$ at an HSBC atm and were turned down repeatedly until we finally tried successfully to pull out euro’s instead of Turkish lira. So stupid! Hate! Hate! Hate! HSBC!     -Craig

We followed the cobblestone streets through the very quaint area of town past old walls and city ruins, past nice shops with nice smiling faces, and through the many parks with monuments reminding us we were standing where Constantine founded Constantinople.     -Jennifer

We walked between the Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque and wandered up and down old cobbled streets until we found a cheap-enough hostel for the night. Got some spaghetti, ate it, settled in for the night.     -Craig

Today was a travel day. We drove the long trip back to Eilat from Afula today. Good desert scenery, so not a bad drive. Made it to Eilat, ate, and relaxed a bit. Going to Jordan tomorrow.          -Craig

Last thoughts on Israel: Israel has been a trip within our trip. At times, Israel ticked me off, made me sad, frustrated the crap out of me. Other times, I was amazed and blown away to be walking where Jesus walked, seeing things He saw, and praying where He prayed. This is an amazing country.         -Craig

This experience has taught me that people worship in many different ways and it encouraged me to define mine. I may not do two hours worth of rituals a day, but I certainly love the Lord and I think my worship will be forever enriched because of this experience.        -Jennifer

The Dead Sea was fun to float in, bad to taste. The Nigerians were plentiful and humorous when they banged their rocks against Lott’s wife’s remains. The Sea of Galilee was powerful with it’s remnants of the Jesus Christ. The ruins were on par with any we’ve seen in Tzippori.       -Craig

Money Spent 1/17/09: $97.36USD

The “Day in Our Life” series idea developed from a simple question asked of me by a co-worker yesterday. The question, “what were you doing on this day last year?”, led me off on a long explanation about my time in Israel and Egypt, since we were in that area on this day last year. I could not, however, remember exactly what I was doing on that specific day. So, without further adieu, this is the answer I should have given yesterday, January 14, 2009:

This morning we woke up and packed our things to leave Jerusalem. We headed straight to Bethlehem to see the place where Jesus was born. After passing through the walls surrounding the city and flashing our passports to machine-gun toting guards, we headed straight to the Church of the Nativity. This is the oldest church still in use today and sits on top of the presumed spot of Jesus’ birth.     -Jennifer

What is the world coming to when Jesus’ birthplace is surrounded by a huge concrete wall, tons of hypervigilant Muslim terrorists (or terrorist supporters) , and a few Israeli combat troops with semiautomatics? So anyway, we went to the Church of the Nativity and, sadly, there are several groups of “Christians” who fight over that site as well.        -Craig

I sang Silent Night and Away in a Manger to myself as I closed my eyes and imagined the events of that most holy night!                 -Jennifer

Then we headed north towards Galilee. This area is special because it is where Jesus did most of His ministering and lived for awhile. We finally made it to Galilee and stopped along the sea where Jesus walked on water, fed the 5,000 and 4,000, preached the Sermon on the Mount, healed people, etc. We touched the water and it was AMAZING!        -Craig

Then we walked to the shore where the people must have sat to hear Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount. Now this is what we were missing in Jerusalem and Bethlehem! Since we were stood up by our CS host in Tiberias, we headed to Afula to stay with some young 18-19 year old guys who were nice enough to host us last minute. Turns out the guys are German and volunteering for a year at a home for people who have mental retardation.        -Craig

I wish I had the words to explain the feeling of standing in such a place, but there are none - you can feel it in your soul! You feel happy and sad, so blessed yet so unworthy all at the same time. You’re not exactly sure whether to giggle in excitement or cry in amazement…     -Jennifer

The guys we stayed with, who didn’t know each other before, signed up to work in a home for mentally retarded people in Israel, knowing they would not only have a hard job but they’d also have to learn Hebrew. They lived on their own, with such responsibility, even cooking their own healthy meals. They were very kind to us and seemed to have such a love for the residents.What kind of 18-19 year olds can manage all of this while living in a foreign country? AMAZING!      -Jennifer