Delayed and Detained
My trip got off to an adventurous start. First, our flight was delayed by at least an hour, giving us plenty of time to watch Anderson Cooper's extensive coverage on the recent terrorism in London and where he thinks the "next" attack will be. Just what hundreds of British Airways passengers want to see as they board the flight to Heathrow.

Once we landed and I had waited in the queue at Customs for nearly 45 minutes (longest I've ever waited to get through Customs anywhere), I must have sneezed incorrectly, because the official confiscated my passport and detained me for more than an hour and a half. I had honestly listed on the entry card that my occupation was "unemployed," which apparently raised a red flag for the Customs official. She asked for proof of my return to the States, which I had packed in my checked luggage, thinking there'd be no need for it for nearly three months. When I told her this, she then asked how much money I had for my stay. Not being one to carry much cash, I said that I had £100, but had access to plenty in my bank account, a statement for which, of course, I was not carrying on my person. After confiscating my passport for 45 minutes, another official came to take me to collect my luggage, one of three bags still circling the carousel. He took me to the side and proceeded to unpack everything, including my unmentionables, in my "rucksack" and two small carry-on bags, all the while asking me a barrage of questions about my former job, my parents' jobs, my education, my sister's education, my love life, my contacts and friends in the UK, etc. Once he had satisfied himself that I was neither a terrorist, a drug dealer or a mooch wanting to live off the system, he took me back up to get my passport stamped, a process that took not just my passport, but also all my tickets for my future flights out of my possession for another 20-30 minutes. And then I was free.


I can't be mad or even too frustrated at them for doing their jobs. But it's ironic that they spent all this time and personnel investigating harmless me while the doctors who were British citizens who carried out the recent car bomb attacks would probably have breezed through security with nary a red flag raised. From now on, I know to carry everything that documents my travel plans when passing through Customs. I'm just thankful that I learned this when entering a country I'm familiar with, and not, say, Vietnam.




Allez, Londres!
I headed into central London to watch the Prologue time trials for the Tour de France this afternoon. I've never been to such a major sporting event, so it was pretty cool to witness it. I got there soon enough to squeeze a place at the railing along the route right beneath Big Ben. Unfortunately my camera battery ran out halfway through the event, which was before any of the big names started their time trials. I don't know any of the names of the cyclists in my pictures, but I'm pretty sure that most of the people watching and cheering them on didn't know their names either. Once my camera died, I left the rail to claim a spot on the grass in the park between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, where they had set up one of several gargantuan screens showing the trials and broadcasting commentary. Right about then jet lag caught up with me and I passed out on the lawn in the midst of thousands of cycling fans. If only I could have recharged my camera battery at the same time I was recharging my internal battery.

Pictures will be updated as time allows

London 2007

International Scavenger Hunt, of Sorts

The countdown to my departure is getting quite low. In just one week I'll be boarding a trans-Atlantic flight to Heathrow and won't set foot back in the States for another 90-ish days. Whew! Of course, I plan to update the blog as often as Internet cafes are available and I don't have something better to be doing, like practicing my Thai on the locals or trying to learn to like beer on a Munich pub crawl. In efforts to make this trip somewhat interactive, I've stolen an idea I read in Budget Travel a few months back. Between now and next Thursday, I'm asking for your picture requests. Now, this is no boring, me-in-front-of-the-Eiffel-Tower picture hunt. I want your wacky and challenging photo requests. For example, here's a request I've already gotten in:

Me standing on the slope between the up and down side of an escalator, accompanied by a total stranger, both of us pretending to surf, taken by another total stranger.

Ideas could involve food, transportation, well-known monuments, people. Your requests can involve me in the frame or not and they can reference specific countries or be general. The only stipulations (that I can think of right now) are that your requests be creative, that they not require nudity (at least on my behalf), and that they not involve anything illegal (my grandparents will be reading this, folks!). Please submit all your photo ideas as a comment to this post so I have a list all in one place. As each image is successfully captured, I'll post it to the blog for your amusement. All ideas need to be submitted by next Thursday.

Ready, set, go!

Terra Incognita Endorsements
The Grand Canyon Trek Version

+ A Camelbak filled first with ice, then with water will actually stay cold the whole hike down.
+ Flip flops for wearing around the camp when you can't stand to be in your hiking shoes any longer.
+ A disposition unspoiled by wearing the same pair of underwear two sweaty days in a row.
+ A bandana to wet and wear around your neck to cool down.
+ Talking to fellow hikers along the trail.
+ Learning German so as to communicate with half the hikers along the trail. I don't think I've ever been so self-concious of my status as an American in my own country before.
+ Rim-side indulgences such as ice cream, a full-sized pillow and hot, 5-minute showers.
+ A hiking companion willing to massage the sorest calves you've ever had.

Terr Incognita Un-endorsements
The Grand Canyon Trek Version

+ The unnecessary rain fly and poles when camping in June. It's true that an ounce at the start of the hike is a pound at the end.
+ Half-eaten packs of tuna. If you bring the tuna down, eat it all, otherwise you'll smell it all the way up and the scent infuses into your backpack so much that even 5 days later you find the dog delieriously licking the inside of your pack.
+ Bug spray that spills all over same said backpack. (There's no returning it now!)
+ Extra clothes you think you might need. You won't actually need them.
+ Trail mix – damn stuff is heavier than you think, and the chocolate melts. If you're set on bringing it (because it does taste pretty good and offers an alternative to peanut butter crackers and jerky) eat as much as you can on the way down so you don't have to lug it up the canyon walls.

Photoblog
I picked a camera. It's a Nikon D40x and I love it so far. Here's a quick sample of some of my favorite pics from the past two weeks.

The Bandito Burrito


Fun with Photoshop


All smiles


Picture-taking at the Grand Canyon


Hiking all afternoon and still we're nowhere near the bottom


Fun foreign graffiti


"Bad Spellers of the World UNTIE!"


A lit candle in Sedona's Cathedral on the Rocks


See more in the following albums:

Testing out the new camera

A Grand Hike

Necessary supplies
In anticipation of my travels, I have been stocking up on the following throughout the past year:

+ Extra pairs of contacts and glasses. All those pretty sites (and sights) will mean nothing if I flush my last lens down the hostel sink.

+ Comfy, comfy footwear. I was apprehensive about buying any new shoes when my current kicks seemed to be treating me just fine. Then I realized that they treat me fine while I sit at a desk all day, not while I walk around a city paved in cobblestones or dirt all day. My grandmother was good enough to remind me that happy feet don’t mean just a box office hit; they mean a happy traveler.

+ Tank tops with shelf bras. Because regular bras are a pain to pack (and quite frankly, to wear). Furthermore, this trip is all about letting myself be free, right?

+ Jeans. In the past year I’ve dropped 20 pounds*, which, besides being awesome, means I don’t fit into hardly any of my old pants. Wanting to be prepared to cover up in malaria-ridden S.E. Asia, I figure long jeans are akin to body armor to fend off armies of nasty mosquitoes.

*The 20 pounds I gained in the first six months of sitting at that desk all day. Recent graduates, beware the desk job dozen.

All in the Family
A couple weeks ago I got to catch a screening of Mr. Brooks, the new Kevin Costner movie. It was a great thriller, surprisingly hilarious. But I never could accept Kostner or the actors playing his wife and daughter as members of the Brooks family. I know what a Brooks family looks like and a murderous father and college drop-out daughter just doesn't fit the profile. Mearly hearing Kostner called "Mr. Brooks" throughout the film kept reminding me that he was an actor playing a role, and I was never really able to suspend my disbelief. No matter, I still had a lot of fun at the movie, especially because the audience was so reactive. I love it when my fellow movie-goers become an entity that laughs and cringes with the lines and action in a movie. It was one of those audiences where the theater experience far out-weighs the DVD experience and one where I think the actors would have loved to have been present. I haven't kept track of what critics have been saying about it, but I certainly recommend it.

Digital SLResearch
I'm probably putting way more thought into my search for a good digital SLR camera than I need to. Over-analyzing as I am prone to do, I just can't seem to make up my mind. So I thought I'd see if any of you have any insight. I've narrowed my search down to the Canon Rebel XT and the Nikon D40 (or maybe the D40x with 10 megapixels instead of 6?). Any of you have any personal experiences with these cameras? I've been really pleased with my Canon point and shoot, and the SLR uses the same memory card. But I test-drove the Nikon this weekend and was really impressed with it. Since this is my first SLR of my own, I want to make sure that it's a good base camera that I can build on, without being way over my novice head. Any insight you might have would be much appreciated.

RTW in 91 Days
Last Wednesday I bit the bullet and purchased my round-the-world flights. Beginning in Phoenix and ending in San Francisco 3 months later, I'll hit the following cities, among others:

London
Edinburgh
London (again)
Paris
Brussels
Amsterdam
Munich
Salzburg
Vienna
Prague
Krakow
Bratislava
Budapest
Prague (again)
Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City
Bangkok
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Sydney

To see what all this looks like, I spent way too much time putting the above map together. There are a few more details if you follow this link (as long as it works the way I think it will), including links to the Intrepid Travel tours I'll be taking. Let me know if that link doesn't work.

I had planned to write a bit more about how excited I am about this trip, and what I'm looking forward to for each of the destinations, but that dratted map took up so much time my prime sunbathing hours are wasting away. But first, before I relax on a raft in the pool, I have an announcement...

I am Seriously Seeking a Cycling Tour Sidekick
The Tour de France arrives in Paris on Sunday, July 29 and I plan to be there. However, it would be infinitely more fun to experience such an exciting event with a companion. In all seriousness, I am asking if anyone wants to join me for a weekend in Paris. I'll be reserving my hostel by next weekend, so you have a little bit of time to think about it. I'll get in to Paris probably on July 27, and I'll leave July 30.

A Candidate by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet
Upon Dan's recommendation, I took SpeakOut.com's VoteMatch quiz to see how my social and economic views aligned with today's politcal players; in particular to see if I fit more in the Hillary camp or the Barack camp, or someone else's camp all together. I was also interested to see how this quiz differed from OkCupid's politics quiz. Just as I was a year and a half ago, and as I suspected, I'm still a Hillary girl and a "hard-core liberal". But my presidential vote is still up in the air. Besides my belief that it's way to early to be choosing sides, I'm genuinely concerned about the prospect of having another Clinton in the White House. This isn't any conservative concern, of course; it has nothing to do with the Clintons in particular. It has to do with my concern that our country is built on democratic principles, not some kind of impromptu monarchy where the persiency is passed from family member to family member. If Hillary is elected in '08, she'll be in office at least until 2012. That means an entire generation will have grown up with heads of state that are either Bush or Clinton. We don't need two "royal" families battling it out. While I don't have any solid reason to think that a monarchial torch-passing of this sort could have a ruinous influence on our conutry, it's raised a red flag for me. As the '08 primaries creep closer, I'll be looking for Hillary, Barack and the others to convince me of their worthiness. I refuse to be swayed by name, (Ba)rock stardom or pretty face.

Indecision, Oh Indecision
I need to start making plans for my trip. If I wait too much longer, the pound will be three times the dollar and everything I've saved up for this trip will go into my one-way ticket to London. Plotting out where I'm going to travel means having to decide which destinations I'm not going to be able to get to. I'm still not ready to admit the fact that I can't fit the world into 3 months. But I'm going to put off making decisions for a little while longer by asking you for your advice. So, my friends, you well-traveled lot, where in Central/Eastern Europe have you been and really enjoyed? Where would you love to go? The following are high on my list:

+ London (duh)
+ Edinburgh
+ Dublin (maybe)
+ Paris (but only if I make it for the end of the Tour de France)
+ Munich
+ Prague
+ Vienna
+ Salzburg
+ Amsterdam
+ Brussels
+ Split
+ Bled
+ Budapest

I'd love your thoughts and suggestions. Pipe up, yo.