The Other Half of the Top Ten ... (You have to see this) ... Impressions

Bright Warm Sunshine at Lake Como, Italy

I started out with the first half of a Top Ten list of things that made a big impression on our trip. 

Here is the second half - five more items of note ... Please make sure to read all the way to the bottom of this post, you will be amazed - at least I was ... 

6. Climate 

     We were blessed upon our return to Oregon with some really spectacular springtime weather:  sunny, clear and warm.  Just perfect here.  It's nice to be home. 

     But I wanted to talk about the weather on our Around the World Trip, and the truth is we had really great weather almost the whole time. 

     The picture bwlow was taken as we were leaving Namibia, and there was yet another glorious sunset.  We were thrilled by several awesome sunsets, and I took a lot of special effort to capture them on camera when I could. 

     The day-to-day weather we experienced was consistently very good, with a couple exceptions.   We didn't know what to expect when we left home, and our clothing options were limited (the focus of a previous blog post), but we could have no complaints about the weather.  We were lucky.

     
     Most of the countries we visited were relatively close to the equator and thereby were warmer with less variations.  India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Dubai, Malaysia, Turkey and more were bathed in warm sunshine while we were there, which is the norm for those locations. 

     But outside that range, like Dublin, Ireland. for example, the weather was the best of the year, and we were fortunate to catch it at the right moment. 

     It wasn't all good.  Beijing China was very, very cold, and Poland and Iceland offered a dramatic snowy contrast to the warm climates where we spent most of our time.  

     All in all, we could not have asked for better weather than we had. 

7. Food 

    This is another topic that could be endless if one chose to drill down into all the amazing cuisine we encountered. 

    It seems like we somehow managed to hit all the places that had the kinds of food that we enjoyed.  Was that by design or just chance?  

    For instance, we were in the following countries that feature some of the world's best food and dishes:   Chinese, Thai, Indian, Middle Eastern, Turkish, Italian, Mediterranean, Polish, and last but not least, British Fish & Chips.

    And believe it or not, there were several Mexican restaurants on the trip.  One of the best burritos I ever had was in Dublin!

   This picture above shows a specialty of Turkey, stuffed baked potatoes.  It's a meal unto itself with sausage, olives, corn, cheese, and a whole bunch of other exotic options.

    And this picture below shows a delicious Italian Sundae complete with fresh strawberries and Italian Gelato and whipped cream - delicious!

     Maybe our favorite cuisine was in India, where we enrolled in a cooking class for curry dishes and other wonderful Indian food dishes.  We learned to cook amazing items and finished it off with Chai tea.  My mouth waters just thinking about it. 

    One of the questions we have gotten more than once was - did you guys ever get sick or have food "issues"?  We can honestly say that no, we didn't have any problems with food or illness, and we stayed healthy the entire time, other than a sore throat for Fiona in Poland. 
    I can't claim that all the food was good all the time.  There were a few pretty unusual things to eat.  Often we didn't exactly know what we were eating.  I think we took a pass on the item below. 

    Part of the joy of travel is to experience the delights and the range of food and cooking around the world.   And the good thing about all that food and all that travel is we ultimately both lost a little weight! 

8.  Music

     This is a topic near and dear to me.  Music is art, it is heart, it is painting a picture with sound.  It can express emotion in a way that nothing else can. 

     We heard so much music on our trip and it really added such another dimension to the trip. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed that.  I can't explain why, but music has a huge impact on me.  And it was a joy to hear so many cultures reflected in their music.  It is who they are. 

     It is almost like food - in some cases spicy, in other cases, heavy, rhythmic, and other times exuberant.  

     And the variety of musical instruments is astonishing.  They use whatever they have wherevet they are. Single string violins in Turkey, handmade flutes in India, Senegalese drums, even just their voices.  And people everywhere like to sing - always ready to break into song, everywhere. 

     Many a time, my mood was altered by the music I heard.  You couldn't help it, the time and place and the view were transformational.

     One more thing - in many places (most?) that we traveled, people had their hand out, begging.  You can't avoid it.  Frankly, it's a turn off. 

     But there were also street musicians, they usually had their hat out on the sidewalk, playing music and trying to make a buck.  And most of them were pretty good.  Some were really good.  
     I always throw some coins in their collection box.  I made a commitment a long time ago to do that.  If you are making music, I want to support you.  Music makes life better for everyone.  

9. Time

     When you talk about different cultures around the world, there may be no bigger topic than that of Time.   

     While traveling you have to adjust to a lot of things, such as language, currency, climate, food, etc.  But perhaps the biggest and most difficult adjustment is that of coming to grips with how different cultures treat time.  there is no bigger adjustment than to understand how people consider time. This is a huge topic.

     We constantly had to throttle back our Western World treatment of time to accommodate the local culture.  They do things differently than we do. 

     Westerners, especially Americans, are always in a hurry and want to maximize the use of every minute of time.  And we focus obsessively on efficiency.  This is a major component (flaw) of my personality.  My attitude is - There is always a better way to do things and save time.  

     Other cultures would find this concept alien.  Why do you want to save time?  Save it for what?  You can't stuff the time you save in a closet.  ...  you know, you really can't "save" time, the clock keeps ticking.  

    Let's spend time ... let's use time.  Let's have another cup of tea ... let's dance ... let's sit here and talk ...   

    One of the best anecdotes I heard about how other cultures view time came from this story from a European lady who lived in Africa:

     " ... they are on friendly terms with time, and the talk of killing time does not come into their heads. In fact the more time you can give them, the happier they are, and if you commission a local to hold your horse while you make a visit, you can see by his face that he hopes you will be a long, long time about it. He does not try to pass the time then, but sits down and lives."

10.  Sporting Events - (I just threw this in for fun) - Especially the The Grand National in Britain 

     I'm a big sports guy.  One of our favorite memories of the Round the World trip was racing around Beijing China trying to get to find the only place in town that had the Super Bowl on TV, it was 6:00 in the morning.   But the Super Bowl is a uniquely American thing. 
     At the beginning, everywhere we went the Cricket World Cup was going on, and people were fanatical about it.  I never did quite understand how that sports works ...
    And of course, most of the rest of the world loves soccer.  And there are a million other sports (well, maybe not a million ...) that people live for in their own culture. 

     I don't know why, but I took particular delight in the Grand National horse race in Great Britain.  We were fortunate to be there on the day of the event.  It was wild. 
     A little background:  We had been in Dublin Ireland the week before and they had their equivalent to the Grand National.  I was chatting with a bloke over a Pub lunch, and he told me, "This is  a race that is not friendly to man or beast".  
     Okay, I'm in, what's this all about? 
     I used to go to the horse races here in America when I was a young kid.  My dad loved the ponies and would take me to the race track to watch the thoroughbreds race at high speed around the oval track.  This would be like the Kentucky Derby or Santa Anita races.

    The horse racing in the British Isles is completely different.  It is a long race over a bunch of obstacles, they call it a steeple chase.  It is not a speed race, it is an endurance race and it is very tough - on both man and beast. 

     It's a really big deal.  The British and Irish love this stuff!

     I was fascinated with the event.  It's long, it takes up to fifteen minutes to complete, and there is considerable carnage on the track.  
     I will let the pictures tell the story:

They have to jump over some pretty high barriers  

There were 39 horses in the race, it was crowded

The tumbles were dramatic 

The riders and horses really had to work their way around the seeming chaos 

     Hey, I'm not making any judgments here.  This race has been going on for a hundred years or more.  But it is brutal, and horses die and jockeys get maimed.  It is crazy!  
     In the Irish Grand National, 29 horses started and six finished.  You can draw your own conclusion.  
     I have to admit, I thought it was great fun.  The fans were going nuts, and there was a tremendous amount of money wagered on this.   

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     I plan to maybe use this blog to share some thoughts from time to time.  I'll let you know when I do ... 
     Thanks,  
     Kevin 

Upon Further Review ... Top Ten Takeaways from the trip

     I wanted to expand on a few key topics that made an impression on the trip.

This is the first five of a Top Ten Key Impressions - in no particular order

1.  Plumbing - 

     America has the best plumbing in the world.  A corollary to that would be most of the plumbing in the countries we visited was terrible.  
     Why do I say that?  The bathrooms stink, they are usually dirty and often filthy, the toilets don't work (if they have them), the showers run out the door, there is no hot water, the drains are usually plugged,  there is no water pressure, they never have adequate venting so the smells permeate the room, and so on. 
     And public toilets?  The worst.  If you dare go in there, you are taking your life in your hands.  

     Many bathrooms are simply "squatty potties", a hole in the floor over which you have to squat and do your business.  The bathroom on one train trip was hazardous to your health.

     
     Let me expand on this:  I used to be a plumber in my earlier years, and I pay attention to plumbing.  If there is one thing I know, it's plumbing.
     So my only conclusion is that other countries just don't put a high priority on sanitary, clean, or functional bathrooms.   
     As an example, in one relatively nice hotel we stayed at, the shower was basically a hole in the floor with a curtain around it.  The drain was plugged and the shower head shot water out past the curtain, which meant the water ran out under the door of the bathroom onto the hotel room carpet every time you took a shower. 
     I thought "doesn't anybody care enough about this to fix it?"    Apparently not.  
     American bathrooms (for the most part) are far superior to most other countries.   

2.  Passport control and border crossings

     Along with airport security.  Okay, you may remember the trouble while leaving the Warsaw Airport. 
     here is a link to the story meltdown at airport security
     I'm glad I didn't get in trouble there.  But frankly, the application of security checks is so random and inconsistent that I wonder how they really provide any security.  Sometimes they check you to the point of excess, and it takes forever.  Other times, they could care less and pay no attention to anything.  
     For instance - taking off your shoes.  Sometimes they make you and sometimes they don't.  I've noticed that even in the same airport the different lines have different rules.  And they jump on your case if you don't know - 
     Security:  "Take off your shoes, idiot!"
     Me: (pointing to someone else) "he didn't take his shoes off"
     Security:  "But I'm talking to you, Bozo!"

     Another issue - Passport control.  Let me be clear, I am in favor of tight scrutiny of travelers coming and going across international borders.  This can be a dangerous world and we should pay attention to who is going where.  
     But again, passport control is usually very unevenly applied.  At one major first world European country, they never even looked at our passport at all as we entered the country!  How are you supposed to keep the bad guys out if you don't even check their passport?  Rather troubling if you ask me. 

3.  Speaking English 

     Anyone who speaks English as their native tongue is lucky in this world.  Especially as a traveler.  Using the English language comes easily to us, but not to most foreigners.  They have to learn it to get along and travel.  
     Everywhere we went, almost without exception, we could find someone who could speak English.  That's good because we don't have any other language at our disposal.   (Well, I do pretty well in Spanish, but we didn't go to any Spanish speaking countries.  I did draw on it to communicate in Italy, but it was cheesy, and they just thought I was stupid)  
     

     Let me tell give you a language illustration:  I was talking to this guy from Sweden (I'll call him Lars) - and I complimented him on his English.  
     And Lars the Swede said "of course, I speak English, everybody in Sweden can speak English"
     Me:  "why is that?"
     Lars the Swede: "because they teach everyone in school from an early age"
     Me:  "but why teach everyone English?"
     Lars the Swede:  "Hey, there are only nine million people in the world who speak Swedish.  There is no place in the world where I can go and find someone who speaks Swedish, I need another language to talk.  Anywhere I go, someone can speak English.  And I'm a business person, so everyone everywhere in business can speak English."

4.  Clothing

     This could be a topic where you talk until infinity happens.  In other words, it's a pretty broad topic, but I wanted to mainly address the  clothes that we took along with us, or bought on the way, or threw out the window of the train.
Fiona throws her pants out the window
     As we were preparing to leave, we had to decide what to take with us in our limited baggage.  We made up our minds to take as little as possible, and confine everything to fit into a backpack each, for greater ease of getting around.  You either take everything or nothing, and we chose (almost) nothing. 

     It was bit surprising to me that when we got home, Fiona said, "you know I could have actually taken less clothing than I did"
     And my internal reponse inside my head was:  really?  I sure got tired of looking at that blue sweater you wore everyday.  
     Only I didn't say that out loud because I was using restraint and trying to not say something offensive.  Which brings up another topic - if you're going to travel around the world with someone and be joined at the hip for three months straight, you'd better get along pretty well, because your relationship will be tested big time.  But I digress.
     I bought three shirts along the way, several socks, a scarf for the cold, some flip flops, and other stuff.  Fiona bought stuff too.  Often it was to replace stuff we threw away.  Most of the time, clothing we pretty cheap everywhere we went.  There were more things we could have bought because we liked them or wanted to own them, but we had to pass - we didn't need them.
     The first thing we did when we got home was wash everything.  The clothes were sticky, stinky, dirty, and worn out. 
     Several times on the trip, we washed things in the hotel sink.  I got some good advice and often just wore what I had on into the shower, got it good and soaking wet, and took it off and laid it on the shower floor and stomped on it while I was washing my hair.  
     Surprisingly effective. 
     Compared to what many people were wearing, we had good clothes.  Some of the places we went, people were wearing rags. 
     We will never complain about what we have compared to most of the world.

5.  Cost of Living in different places

     Along with the numerous currency change, we had to constantly adjust to the cost structure of different countries.  There was a huge range of prices from place to place, but for the most part things were a bargain. 
     The biggest reason is the exchange rate of the US Dollar right now is the best in years.  In some cases, against some currencies, it's the best in history.  
     So if you need to buy something in South Africa, or pay for your hotel room or taxi ride, it was not expensive because the Dollar has never been stronger against the Rand. 
     Let me give you an example.  We were going to take the train from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Bangkok Thailand.  This is an overnight train with a sleeper berth.  It was a twenty hour train ride and they served two meals.  
     Total cost for Fiona and me?  Nine Dollars!
     But that wasn't always the case.  Some places were more costly.  Dubai comes to mind, it was the most expensive place we went, probably followed by Iceland and maybe the UK.
     On the other end, most places were quite inexpensive.  Malta was a total bargain, as were India, Cambodia, and Turkey.
     There were a few things that were universally expensive, like gasoline.  America pretty much has the cheapest gas in the world.  Everywhere else it is rather costly - average price usually around seven bucks a gallon.  
     Public transportation is really cheap.  Kind of a pain half the time, but often just pennies for a bus ride.  
     A word about public transportation.  When Fiona and I travel, we want to get out there with the regular folks.  We like to wander into every corner of the city, often on foot, but more commonly to take a train, bus, Metro, subway, boat, or other method.  
     We rarely used taxis.  For two reasons:  One, it's too easy.  It's a convenient default choice but remote from the citizens of most countries.  Usually the people riding in taxis were foreigners, not the typical person.  We preferred to mix with the locals. 

  
     Secondly, taxi guys always rip you off.  It's such a pain.  You often have to negotiate with a taxi driver on the price, and it gets really old.  They see your white skin and hear your foreign accent and the price skyrockets.  And they can basically take you wherever they want, while the meter (if they have one) just keeps spinning.  We tried to avoid taking taxis unless we had to. 
     But overall, there has maybe never been a better time to take a trip like we did from an economic viewpoint.


     Okay, so this is the first installment of the top ten observations and impressions.  More to follow tomorrow. 

     Thanks for listening. 

A Final Chance to Touch Base Before ... Arriving Home?

This is it - the last blog post while on the road 

We are heading home ...

     We leave on Wednesday morning to fly home. It's an all day trip to Portland, and we land around 9:00 at night.  

     What a trip!

     I'm gonna miss doing this blog.  But I think I might just keep heading west ... forward? onward?      I've enjoyed writing this and I'm not ready to stop.  

     But if the trip is over ... then what?  I intend to follow up with a little review and some recap and such in the next week.  But maybe I can continue to share my thoughts on life in general.  And there will be more trips ...   

     We are going to a family wedding in Scotland in June, and that trip will include a visit to Holland.  And in August there is another family wedding in Toronto, Canada.  Followed by another visit to Senegal.  So the traveling is not done, and I hope it never will be.

Some thoughts on the blog experience

     As we were orignally preparing to leave, there were a lot of people who were hoping to hear about our trip while we were on the road.  I knew that I couldn't possibly email everyone all the time, so I set up this blog.

     Frankly, I've always wanted to write, and used to write a lot when I was younger.  I briefly pursued a career in journalism, and won an award in high school for writing.  

     And a side benefit, a big one, is that I have now recorded most of the significant events of this trip.  Honestly, when you're traveling and in the middle of things, and moving all the time, you tend to almost lose track of what happened.  

     So now I have this blog as a record, complete with pictures that Fiona and I can use to share and remember. 

     

     And really I'm very honored that so many have followed our adventure.  It's gratifying that all the effort that went into this blog generated some interest in our trip. 
     I received some wonderful  encouragement from many of you.  Thanks for reading and "listening" to the stories.  It's been great.  

     Keep your eyes peeled for a few more comments once we have returned home and had time to contemplate and process all that has happened.

     A word about writing the blog - it has taken a lot of effort.   

     one:  The interent access is pretty bad in many places and non-existent in others (China was very restricted - the hills of Sri Lanka - off-the-grid in Kilimanjaro - Senegal, Africa - to name a few).  It was a real pain to upload pictures and often the connection died in the middle of a blog post. Heck, even getting electricity to charge the laptop could be a real challenge.  

    We were in some real out-of-the-way places and access could be very inconsistent.  We will never take it for granted when there is fast, stable, reliable broadband internet. 

     two:  As mentioned once or twice, we hit things pretty hard every day, and were often exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel or guesthouse.

     Staying up late to blog is time consuming and takes some degree of proficiency (spelling, grammar, layout ... witty comments!), which is in short supply with jet lag, time zone changes, heat, cold, fatigue, lack of food and sleep.  

     three:  Travel days make it very difficult to blog, first because you are on the move all day, planes, busses, trains, boats, taxis, etc. lugging your baggage around, and secondly, not much happens while in transit (well ... maybe sometimes).  

     It was often anything but easy.  

    Thanks again for keeping up with us as we kept heading west.

Iceland, a fairly easy day today ... ?

     We were ready to take it a little easy after nearly freezing to death yesterday.  

     We actually slept in til 8:00 because we didn't have to be anywhere or catch a bus or train, etc. 

     After going for a jog (cold!) and cooking breakfast in our Air BNB accommodations, we set out for a couple destinations.  One was to tour the large Church near our place, the biggest church in Iceland.  It is spelled Hallgrimskirkja

******  Icelandic spellings are really bizarre. Remember the big volcano that erupted and closed down air traffic in Europe?  Try to pronounce that name = Eyjafjallajokull !  yikes!   ******* 

     So we were able to visit the church and there was a huge pipe organ, and some guy was playing some ominous music  (sounded like Phantom of the Opera stuff) that resonated through the giant church. 

     Then we went to the top, eight storeys high.  The view was amazing, and would have been even better had it been a clear day. 

You can see the statue of Leif Ericson down in the front!

     
     Then we checked out some of the old town and made our way to a local landmark, a popular Fish and Chips cafe, where we had lunch. 
     In fact, this was recommended by our daughter Beka and her husband Jake.  Indeed, she sent me this picture below, which I will include in the blog, because it still looks just like it did when they visited Iceland five years ago and took this photo.

     
     After lunch, the weather was still pretty bad, and the wind is the worst of it.  How is it possible that no matter what direction you walk the wind is blasting you in the face?  Uncanny!

     So we did the right thing and went shopping. 
     Actually Fiona has not had a chance to shop for almost this entire trip.  Why?  Because we had no room (and no time), traveling with only backpacks for three months.  It was just not realistic, and we made a pact before we left to leave any shopping until the end. 

     So after we did some shopping, we had to walk to the bus station to confirm our trip to the airport tomorrow.  Normally we like to walk and wander in most places, but in Iceland it's not feasible with the cold and snow and wind and rain ... okay, I'll stop whining.  

     We needed to get a couple things at the local store for breakfast, and passed a local museum with a very weird focus.  It was the Icelandic Phallological Museum, and for those of you who know your word origins, well, you can read the sign below.  We took a pass on that site. HA HA HA HA!

     ---------------------------------------------    
     So even with a fairly light day, we still hit 20,547 steps, over 11 miles!  - booyah!

     And on the way, we caught the sunset behind the big church.  
     Cue the music, Rick Steves comes on and says in his sing-songy voice: "So the sun is setting on our 2015 Around the World Adventure!"

     
     So here we are back in the room, it's 8:30 at night and I'm blogging.  I can't believe we're going home tomorrow.  
     However, I'm ready to see my kids and grand kids and family and friends, and sleep in my own bed. 

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    I will share some more thoughts in the next couple days on the trip.  

    My plan is to post a "top ten" list of things that made the biggest impression.  And maybe post some more pictures, and share some funny moments that never made the blog. 

     Love to all of you, keep in touch, we're not done yet!

We Can't Let This End Without A Little More Drama

We Can't Finish Up Yet!

At Least One More Day of Adventure!

Did You Know Leif Ericson was from Iceland?
He is credited with being the first explorer to set foot on North America.

   
     A near death experience in Iceland?  Not really, but it definitely got our attention. 

    A Story:  So we signed up for an excursion to see the sights of Iceland, with our time being short.  This excursion was headed into the interior of the island/country, which has some noteworthy geological highlights. 
    To say the weather was marginal is a severe understatement.  It was snowing and cold and windy and generally really ugly.   We had to catch a bus and did so willingly, at least at the beginning.

    We made our way to first stop, a "unique food experience" which turned out to be a highly productive greenhouse in the midst of the bleak Iceland landscape.  It was pretty interesting, they use heat from underground thermal sources, a recurring theme here in Iceland.  They grow prodigious amounts of tomatoes.  Loved it there.

    There some very sophisticated systems to enable growth all year round. 

    The whole structure was fairly extensive and covered several acres.

 

    Then things started to get gnarly.  

    Next we went to the geysers and boiling hot springs which were quite a ways off.  It was seriously cold.   

     
    We walked out to the geyser and watched it erupt right on schedule, a bit like old faithful in the Yellowstone.  We had walked a long ways.  There were a lot of people there.  
     Then it began to snow heavily with a bunch of hail.  It was really coming down.  We got soaking wet.  Everybody quickly abandoned their quest to be impressed by the thermal hot springs and high tailed it out of there.  It was super windy and it the conditions were absolutely miserable. 
     Hail was coming down sideways and stinging our face as we fought our way back to the visitors center.  I don't know how these Icelanders can do this. It was freezing, and we were totally drenched. I mean, it was bad. 

    
     So we had lunch at the visitor center.  I had some fish, hey ... Icelandic Cod ... We began to thaw out and gained some hope for the rest of the day.

     Then we eventually left and went to see some very dramatic water falls, like world class Niagara stuff.  It was called Gullfoss.  
     We had to walk a long ways.  Fiona was rather skeptical at this point and said, "we're gonna walk all the way out there and it's gonna start snowing and blowing and be miserable".  
     She turned out to be right.   In fact, I don't know if you can see in the picture below, but half the waterfall was frozen. 

     But I thought, "hey man, we're only in Iceland for a very short time and we gotta do this, c'mon".  So we set out and it was freakin' cold beyond belief.  And guess what happens?

     We get out there to the edge of this Abyss and the waterfalls are spectacular and we get some pictures and ... it starts to snow really hard again, with serious wind.  
     So we're still pretty wet from the previous episode last time and it is really coming down, with frozen snow/hail pellets that feel like tiny painful darts shot unceasingly from the devil himself, and Fiona throws up her hands and declares "I'm going back to the bus!  This is insane!"  and stomps off in a hurry.  
     
     However, I am committed to get a couple more pictures of this one-of-a-kind scenery, but I am getting hammered with cold wet.

***** full disclosure - I have been suspected of hyperbole on occasion, not without some possible merit to the accusation - but I did research the conditions with a wind chill calculator to support my facts, and my reseach is accurate *****

     With the blowing wind chill it was 15 degrees F ( -10 C).
     After forty-five minutes of this stuff, I had a legitimate fear that frostbite was beginning to set in.  I couldn't feel my fingers, and my pathetic wet, thin, inadequate gloves offered no protection.  It was unbearably cold.  
    I had to bail.  

    My teeth were chattering and I was shaking uncontrollably as I struggled my way back to safety.  I like to think I'm a pretty hardy guy, but this was beyond my capacity.  I was amazed anybody stayed out there in these conditions.  When you include the wet and the wind, it was probably the coldest I have ever been.  

    So I stumbled my way back into the gift shop and once inside I crumbled to the ground mumbling "thank you Jesus ..." for my survival (okay, maybe that's hyperbole, but not by much!).

    I applied the correct first aid, and since they didn't have any brandy, I got a hot chocolate.  I hugged the cup and sat there dripping wet, with the thousand yard stare, like someone who has just faced death ... and lived to tell about it.  

Only we were not done yet ...

    We had another stop.  By this time, I didn't care if we were stopping at Buckingham Palace, I was done ... come to think of it, we were just there a few days ago! ...  but you just have to press on.
     So we went to this historic place with cool features and it's where the two continental plates rub together and form Iceland and volcanoes and yadda, yadda, blah, blah and the person explaining it rambled on forever.  
     But I have to admit it was pretty cool, and the weather had let up a little bit. Either that, or we had gotten beyond the pain barrier. 
     Anyway, it was interesting and historic.  In fact, it was maybe my favorite part of the day ...

     Evidently, this is an ancient place where the Vikings and predecessors of the current Icelanders met to hold parliament and other meetings.  Dude!  Maybe Leif Ericson himself was there!
     And it is also the actual fissure where the two tectonic plates meet - from the North Atlantic and Euro-Asian continents - resulting in all the volcanoes and thermal activity and earthquakes and other commotion.  We walked right down the seam of the fault line, as shown in the picture below.  This fault line is still moving to this day, about a foot a year.  Personally I'm glad there were no earthquakes that day ...

    All in all, the day contained a whole lot more than we bargained for today.  But pretty exciting.  
     
     So we carry on with our journey, - oh well, just another day of travel ... not!

Heading Down the Home Stretch

Arrived in Iceland this evening, after leaving London

Around the World - are we really almost done?

    We have arrived at our last stop.  Iceland, shown in the relief map above.  At this point, you begin to look back on the journey and consider the places we've been and the wonderful experiences that have taken place.  An overview of some of the numbers is in order. 

By The Numbers - reflecting a bit on the trip  

    How many flights have we taken?  So far, it's been 24 plane flights with two more to go.  We fly home on Wednesday to Portland.  And that leads to the next question ....  

    How Many Miles is this journey?  I've got a program that calculates the mileage between points on the globe.  By clicking on each point that we've covered, you come up with a total number of miles traveled.  When I finally figured out that number, it was higher than I thought.   
    When we finish ... we will have covered 41,026 miles.  
    Actually there was a fair amount of north/south travel, along with "just keep heading west".  That racks up some miles.  A tape measure around the equator would run a slightly less than 25,000 miles.

      How many languages?  This is a good question, how do you decide how many languages we've encountered?  For instance, in India they have like 25 languages.  And China has even more.  The people from the North of China can't talk with the people of South China.  They use English to communicate!

     
     And check out this picture, it is the writing of the Sri Lankan language, maybe the most bizarre written language ever. Looks like a bunch of random circles and doodles!
     Near as we can tell, the total variety of languages we've run into is around 98. 
    How many currencies?  This was a real challenge.  The currencies changed all the time and you had to plan ahead so you wouldn't have too much money left over when you got on the airplane to leave.  
     For example:  Some countries - Kenya Shillings come to mind - you can't use 'em anywhere else in the world - or even exchange them - you're stuck, so be careful ... we were told "you won't find any other country (other than Kenya) that will recognize or exchange that money"
    We had to endure 22 currency changes.    
    How many visas?  Another challenge.  Every country does not have "open" borders, you have to get a visa to enter.  We're not talking about credit cards, like MasterCard, oh no ... it's a travel document that usually costs money. Sometimes they are a real hassle to get, like India or Senegal, or Sri Lanka.  What a pain ... and expensive too!  
   It cost us a thousand dollars on visas and passport entry fees. 

Last Day In Britain, Glorious Weather! 

     We had a great time in Great Britain, visiting with family and having a lot of fun.  And we hit the weather just right.  It can be nasty there in the spring (or many other times of the year) but we were blessed with bright warm sunshine. 

    Among other things, we went for several walks around Flitwick (pronounced flit-ick).  Some pictures follow. 

Springtime blossoms in full swing 

Walking down an English county lane ... hey check out the 360 degree telephone wires coming off the pole!

     There is of course the Flitwick Manor, where the duke or baron lived, a step down from Downton Abbey! 

     And the country side is magnificent for walking, with big billowy clouds. 

     Finished up with a grand dinner and all the trimmings at Paul and Katies house, where upon after dinner mayhem ensued with dancing contests ...  

A First For Me, to see a Bridge over airplanes.

    I've never seen this before, and I was amazed by it.  At Gatwick Airport in London, where we flew out today, there was a giant bridge that airplanes passed under.  I didn't think airplanes passed under anything, but there it was.  

     I even got a picture from the bridge looking down on a big old jet airliner.

     Here is the plane emerging from under the bridge.

     Here is the plane as it travels down the tarmac, after leaving the "underpass".  Pretty cool view of a plane, eh?  Looks like a toy, but it was a big 757.

     And here is the bridge.  It doesn't look quite as big as it was from this perspective. 

So much for the good weather, landing in Iceland ...

     You have to enjoy the sunshine when you can ...

     Landing in Iceland this evening - we were faced with some wicked snow and wind.  And they made us stand there waiting while they tried to figure out who goes on what bus.