seanandjeannie's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member seanandjeannie on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/seanandjeannie en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:37:08 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Aqaba — Aqaba, Jordan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1178196000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1178196000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1178196000/tpod.html Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:37:08 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Aqaba, Jordan

Jeannie here. We left Petra and headed to Aqaba in order to catch a ferry to Egypt tomorrow. While an important port city in a bizarre neighborhood of countries (Israel and Saudi Arabia are visible from this town), it is relatively unexciting to visit. Sean's high point was discovering Cincinnati-style chili in a downtown restaurant, while my high point was taking a shower.

We're off to Egypt tomorrow!

Sean here: So far, we've been holding ourselves back by not mentioning "Lawrence of Arabia" on an obsessive basis. It hasn't been easy, but we've managed. Arriving in Aqaba pretty much ended that streak, as in for the past day, I pretty much kept say to everyone I talked to, regardless of if they spoke English, Arabic, or Armenian, such killer quotes as: "We must get to Aqaba!", "You are mad. To come to Aqaba by land you have to cross the desert, and that can not be done", "We'll cross the desert, damn it, it can be done, we'll get to Aqaba!", and "You know why I like the desert.... because it's clean". Yeah, I like "Lawrence of Arabia" under normal circumstances, but going to Aqaba has changed that to an obsession. I bought a pirated copy of the movie in Amman for a single JD in hopes that I get access to a DVD player while still in the Middle East, thus getting a few more killer quotes burned into my consciousness.

When we finally got to Aqaba, the town was sort of a let down, as we didn't storm it on camels while over running enemy artillery positions. Instead we came in via a bus and check into a half-decent hotel. The town seems nice enough as a rest and restocking stop over, as it has friendly shops but not many attractions, as most of these were replaced by the modernization of the port and city. No big deal there. What was a big deal was the fact that Cincinnati-style chili (think Skyline) is available in a port city in Jordan. I mean, that's just weird. However, as we travel around the world, things we don't expect keep showing up. Some things, like hearing a song from 1993 by The Cranberries every day or learning that we export the worst movies pretty much a given. Others things that combine the very familiar with the unfamiliar are just jarring, like chatting with a guy from Bangalore that is a hard-core Ohio State fan while hanging out on a beach in Malaysia is just a bit odd or eating a cheese coney standing next to a woman in full burqa while looking across the Red Sea at the coast of Egypt.

As Jeannie says, we're off to Egypt tomorrow. We'll be taking a hydrofoil to the Sinai, thus avoiding the massive customs headaches and problems of transiting the two hundred yards of Israel to get from Jordan to Egypt. Wish us luck, as this crossing has a reputation for being unpleasant and time consuming.
]]> We're back..... — North Lima, Ohio, United States http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1182181980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1182181980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1182181980/tpod.html Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:18:30 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
North Lima, Ohio, United States

Sean here: We're finally back and our trip is over. We're going to take a few days to relax before we start the entire process of getting back in touch with our old lives (bills, possessions, etc.) and starting our new lives (figuring out where to live, where to work, etc.).

When we were in the airport in New York waiting for our flight to Pittsburgh, I found out that our flight was overbooked and that the airline was looking for volunteers to get bumped. Now, while Jeannie and I are disturbingly compatible in most ways, we are entirely incompatible when it comes to getting bumped. Since I once got a free ticket from Baltimore to Santiago, Chile for simple catching a flight two hours later, I think that one should strive to get bumped under all circumstances. In my world view, getting bumped is one of the greatest things that someone can achieve. Jeannie is more of a plan person. If she has a scheduled departure and arrival time, she will not deviate from it, regardless of the incentive. You can see where we have trouble here. Perhaps there's some sort of marriage counseling or self-help book focused solely on couples disagreements regarding airline voucher programs.

So while I was chatting with the airline staff about how they were going to delay my flight to Pittsburgh by two hours and in return provide me with free tickets to keep this little trip of mine going, Jeannie was even more adamant than normal that we had to be on this flight. She wouldn't say why, but I trusted her promise that it was worth it. It was worth it, as my youngest sister, Susan, was waiting at the airport. It was great to see her and get a big hug for making it back home.

We're now both staying at Jeannie's parents house, where my primary plan for the next few weeks is to spend time out on their boat fishing and teaching their dogs nifty tricks. Over the next few days, we'll try to post one or two more times about what we really did and did not like on the trip, what we learned, and what we would recommend.

Sean's Fun Fact of the Day: If a statue in a park of a person on a
horse has both front legs in the air, the person was killed in battle.
If the horse has one of its front legs in the air, the person died from
wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the
ground, the person died of natural causes.
]]> Evora — Evora, Portugal http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180810500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180810500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180810500/tpod.html Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:18:17 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Evora, Portugal

Sean here: Bulimia. It's a scourge of young teenage girls in America, yet unknown in other parts of the world. It is less fun than just about any other dieting technique, yet also one of the more effective. It is also something that I considered doing for the first time in my life last night.

Yesterday afternoon, just outside the city walls of Evora, Jeannie and I stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that specialized in grilling various animals. I started suspecting that we might be onto something when two blocks away I smelled the combined smells of the best Fourth of July grill-outs in history combined into one. Then, at a half block range came intense amounts of smoke. Just outside a non-descript door was a collection of grandmothers, businessmen, and some sort of group from a local trade union. Of course we went in to check things out and were amazed. Jeannie took one look at the small cooked pigs waiting for customers and a few chickens being cleavered apart and politely offered to go to a market to get something to drink. She's always so polite that way. I ordered what turned out to be the very best grilled chicken I've had in my life and thus began down what could be a terrible road of gorging myself on Portuguese chicken followed by bulimic episodes.

Last evening, when walking back to our hotel after diner in the city, I discovered that the BBQ restaurant was not just open for lunch but dinner. The smoke, the smell, the vaguely menacing crowd, the grilling abattoir, it was all there, just like before. Unfortunately, I was too full to eat. Jeannie suggested that even though I had just had dinner, I should try to eat again. There was no way I could, yet a dark, desperate corner of my mind started to think otherwise. By the time we had dropped off our things at our hotel room and I made my way back to the restaurant, it was closed, and I narrowly avoided years of therapy. Despite this, I will always be haunted by missing another opportunity to have the best grilled chicken in the world.

Jeannie here. Let me just add that Evora is a charming city. We saw beautiful churches, lovely squares, landscaped parks, and Roman ruins. We really enjoyed walking through and outside of this walled city - it is a quaint place without the hordes of tourists. (Although the bone chapel was creepy.)

As a postscript to Sean's very dramatic account, we were able to stop by the grill's restaurant for lunch on our last day in Evora. He was a little bit sad that he wasn't able to lick his fingers clean and eat the bird like a ravenous wolf, but he did -politely - enjoy the food again.
]]> New York was once New Amsterdam — New York, New York, United States http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1182057540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1182057540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1182057540/tpod.html Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:09:24 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
New York, New York, United States

Sean here: Jeannie and I realized that Iceland has magical properties that keep affecting us even after leaving. Sure, it never gets dark there in the summer, and yes, the entire island is essentially powered by volcanoes. One thing we didn't realize is that Iceland has power to make everywhere else feel incredibly cheap, including Manhattan. Yes, that's right, New York City feels like a bargain compared to Iceland. Perhaps it was a good place to stop before returning to America.

We had an uneventful flight into JFK, but were surprised to have Jeannie's sister, Joy, and her husband, Ethan, waiting for us with a great sign welcoming us back and highlighting just how well my facial hair experiments worked out. Since we both have been tourist for seven months and make it to New York at least once a year, we are proud to say we didn't do a single tourist activity. This includes taking pictures, hence the total of three pictures that I took.

While in NYC, we did get to enjoy some great Mexican (hooray!), American beer and pizza (hooray!), and American TV (hooray!). Joy used her massive clout in the New York entertainment culture to get us tickets to two Broadway plays. One, "Avenue Q", was an outstanding version of Sesame Street for underemployed twentysomethings. The other, "Intimate Exchanges", was more of a concept play where the entire play changes every night into one of sixteen different permutations. As always, we enjoyed staying with Joy and Ethan so much at their Upper East Side apartment that we started talking about how we need to move to NYC for a few months ourselves.

New York was a great way to ease back into America, wind down our traveling lifestyle, and finally get some decent Mexican food twice in one day.

Sean's Fun Fact of the Day: The average person unintentionally consumes 1.1 pounds of insects every year.
]]> Soaking in the Blue Lagoon — Reykjavik, Iceland http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181921820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181921820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181921820/tpod.html Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:51:02 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Reykjavik, Iceland

Jeannie here: We are in Iceland enjoying the near-24-hour-daylight, meeting up with our dear friends Beth and Jason, and spending a lot of time in outdoor thermal pools. It is cold in Iceland, but we have spent so much time soaking in hot water and basking in conversation with old friends that our time here will always be a warm memory.

We have only been here three days, but Sean and Jason agree that short trips to the world´s most expensive country are best (every night is ten dollar beer night). The landscape is eerie and beautiful - so barren except for lichen, and the birdwatching has been fun - especially our puffin-spotting boat ride.

We have pretended to be Vikings, of course, and we have a photo of the four of us in the Viking ship sculpture ready to send off to the Miami Alum magazine. We also visited two thermal pools, a public one yesterday with seven or so different thermal zones (36-42 degrees Celsius in range) plus water slide, and the Blue Lagoon today (a massive set of pools resulting from the discharged hot water from the geothermal power plant).

The constant daylight and overcast skies have been very confusing to our body clocks, but it is fun to guess what time it is, especially while having dinner and watching kids play soccer at midnight.

Our flight leaves in about an hour, so I better wrap this up. We are excited to come home, but sad to end our adventure. We´ll post one more time and add photos once we reach Ohio.
]]> Picturesque castles and winding streets — Lisbon, Portugal http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181041320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181041320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181041320/tpod.html Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:50:05 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Lisbon, Portugal

Jeannie here. We have been in Lisbon for two days exploring this beautiful city. The first day we wandered around as it was a sleepy Sunday. We managed to find our way to an old, tiny neighborhood with steps instead of streets. A charity club was hosting a cook-out to raise funds for school supplies for needy kids, so we decided to stop for dinner. We met a very outgoing woman named Philomena who used to be married to an American, and she joined us for a drink and some wide-ranging conversation. She shared her political views, her life story, and some Portuguese moonshine with us. She was born in the neighborhood, and she is raising her son and her grandson there, under the watchful eye of her elderly mother. We met the whole family, and witnessed her mother telling her to go to bed twice, at which point Philomena poured herself another drink.

The next day we spent touring the Castle of St. George, trying out some local salted cod dishes (baccalau), and making friends with some French people who were staying at our hostel.

The city is beautiful right now; wisteria is in bloom all over the place and we have wandered into squares of vibrant purple by tracking the sweet fragrance. One square near our hostel is filled with the scent of ten or so trees, and as you sit on the park benches the petals waft down onto you.

Today we made a day trip to nearby Sintra, famed for its beauty and spectacular castles. We started our tour in the village with the National Palace, and then we headed way uphill to the whimsical Pena Palace. It is such a strange combination of pastel colors on the exterior, sea monster motifs throughout, and beautiful woodworking and floors inside. We were charmed by the eclectic tastes of the designer/king, and the gardens surrounding it were a tranquil respite from the hordes of tourists.


Once back in Lisbon, we finally made it to the Cloisters of St. Jerome's order. We spent quite a while there enjoying the eye candy that is the white, carved courtyard and the refreshing fountain.


After the full day of tourism, we decided to track down a restaurant Sean had read about that serves Goan food (particularly of interest since Goa was a Portuguese colony). While similar to Indian cuisine, it did have an interesting twist. After dinner we walked through the Barrio Alto neighborhood and heard live street musicians playing Fado music. We also finally tried the port, and we found the white port to be especially good.

We are quite happy with our visit to Portugal, but ready to settle into our apartment in Paris for a week.
]]> I love Paris every moment... — Paris, France http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181576880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181576880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1181576880/tpod.html Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:41:59 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Paris, France

Jeannie here. We are finally in Paris! I have been looking forward to this for a long time, and now we are savoring every minute of it. The city is in bloom, and regardless of the cloudy days, it is fragrant and green and wonderful. We have walked everywhere, seen all of the highlights, and also truly relished in our apartment life on one of the best market streets in town.

We are living on Rue Mouffetard, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. We can easily walk to the Latin Quarter and Notre Dame; but more importantly, the bakery, the cheese shop and the wine store are within mere steps of our apartment door. I suppose it should embarrass us that the cheese lady no longer says goodbye to us, but see you later, and that we have our correct change counted before we even enter the bakery. The wine saleswoman knows that whatever she recommends we will go for - it is just such wonderful wine every time! We don't know much about French cooking, but the heirloom tomatoes and incredibly fresh raspberries with real whipped cream (from our cheese lady) cannot be improved. I psyched myself up to trying to apply for a video card in French, so now we also know the Video lady. My French is beyond rusty, but everyone is being super polite and patient, so I'm speaking more all the time. We love our neighborhood!

Lest you think all we do is eat and watch movies, we have been robust tourists in Paris as well. We have visited the Louvre, The Musee D'Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe, the Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, the Cemetery at Montparnasse, The Sorbonne and Pantheon, the Marais district, The Tuileries, the Luxembourg Gardens, and of course the Seine. We have one day left to see the Musee Rodin and the Paris city history museum, and then we are off to Iceland, our last international stop.

I finally got Sean to admit that he thinks it's a wonderful city yesterday - quite an achievement considering his "Freedom Fries" tendency towards bad feelings for the French. We are having a wonderful time and truly loving every moment.
]]> Seville — Seville, Spain http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180457760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180457760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180457760/tpod.html Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:32:40 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Seville, Spain

Sean here: As we've been travelling, we have noticed, along with everyone we encounter, just how few Americans are travelling. In some places, like the Middle East and China, this made some sense. Even outside of these areas and Americans are still relatively rare. To put it in perspective, New Zealand has around four million people. America clocks in at around 300 million people. They are both fairly geographically isolated and prosperous (though Americans on average are wealthier). With these basic facts, you would assume that we would meet 75 Americans for ever single person we meet from New Zealand. The reality is that we meet around ten to fifteen Kiwis (as New Zealanders insist on calling themselves) for every American we meet. After six months of puzzling over this mystery of why there are no Americans travelling and failing to explain where they all are to everyone that asks, I now have an answer. They´re in Spain. All of them.

American accents now really jump out at Jeannie and I due to their rarity. Now, we feel like we´re trapped in a city that is hosting a casting call for a radio talk show called "Thoughts from a lobotomized American Sorority Girl". It seems as though half of the voices we hear in Madrid and Seville are those of 21 year old female undergraduates doing their life altering, like really meaningful, incredibly unique, let´s-get-drunk year abroad here. When considering that Spanish is the second language of choice in America, it makes sense that fathers across America are opting to send their daughters to Spain rather sending them off to get dismembered in the jungles of El Salvador or Paraguay. Anyway, we´re hoping that Portugal will be a bit less overrun by tourist.

It´s been almost ten years since I was last in Seville. The last time I was in Spain, it was with my parents when we came over to visit my younger sister, who was studying here. At this point, let me just say, that she loved it here and was in no way was like the vapid coeds clogging Spain. Anyway, I remembered loving it last time I was here, so Jeannie wanted to come and check out what was so great. Seville is a great city due to the amazing architecture and food and seems to share the reputation of being the best city in Spain along with Barcelona. So, we came back to check things out and see how the Spainiards go about living life the way it is meant to be lived.

In Seville, like most of Spain, there is a well understood schedule for living your daily life. If anyone, Spanish or tourist, tries to deviate from this well understood way of living life, they will quickly starve to death and quit bothering anyone with their go-getter lifestyle. In Spain, people get up around eight or nine. They go to work for an hour and then head over to a coffee shop for an hour of eating churros dipped in chocolate. After this, they return to work for two hours or so. At this point, it´s 2pm, and chatting with people at work while occasionally actually doing work has proven to be exhausting. Thus, it´s time for a siesta. A siesta actually involves several things prior to taking an hour long nap. It also calls for eating a salad, two main courses, a desert, and downing a bottle of wine. It also involves hitting a bar to chat with friends, and then making your way home for a nap. Around 5pm, it´s time to wake up, stumble back to work, and spend two to three hours there. Around 8pm, everyone leaves work, and walks around the city streets with the entire population of the city, called paseo, occasional stopping for coffee or beer. Around 10pm, restaurants are open, and everyone can now go out for dinner.

It took awhile for me to get adjusted to this type of wonderful lifestyle. Jeannie is still struggling and will most likely starve to death due to her stubborn nature. While she still can move around, we´ve been enjoying the sights of Seville. We spent most of a morning in one of the largest Cathedrals in the world, the creatively named Cathedral of Seville. There, we were able to see the final resting place of Christopher Columbus and walk up 300 feet to the top of a bell tower that overlooks the city. After that, we mainly wondered the streets and enjoyed tapas at a few of the 4,000 tapas restaurants the populate the city. Since this will be our last stop in Spain, we're eating and drinking well.

Seanºs fun fact of the day: A minimum of three out of the current ten Republican candidates for President do not believe in evolution.

Seanºs fun parasite fact of the day: Lymphatic filariasis is caused by several different types of parasitic worms that live in the lymphatic system. The swelling that this parasite causes in the legs and genitals is amazing to behold. One of the classic symptoms of this parasitic infection is hydrocoele, which is where the testicles swell to the size of basketballs. There are 120 million people with this disease in the world, 40 million of which are incapacitated and disfigured by the disease..
]]> On to Portugal — Salema, Portugal http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180628640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180628640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180628640/tpod.html Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:50:20 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Salema, Portugal

Jeannie here. We took the bus from Seville to Portugal today and landed in a cute little fishermen´s village called Salema. A nice elderly man met the bus we were on and anxiously offered to show us his apartment. He kept using different languages - German, Spanish, Portuguese and English - within the same sentences. I was Madam, Sean was Senior - it was pretty hard to follow. He was very nice though, and he continued thanking us and shaking our hands until we had agreed to a price and to rent his apartment for two nights. His eyeglasses were unbelievably thick and magnified his eyes to surprising proportions.

We took a long walk on the undeveloped and beautiful beach, visited the supermarket, and took a nap. Sean made black beans and rice for dinner (a la Portugal). The next day we were beach bums and unfortunately read ourselves out of good books. Hopefully we´ll find a good book swap soon.

As we were wandering down the beach, Sean decided to take a photograph of a fisherman hauling in his nets from about 30 yards away. The fisherman saw him and started cursing him in English. Who knows why he was so insulted, but hopefully the fish we had for dinner last night was from his haul - we have to find some karmic balance.

So far we are enjoying Portugal. It is laid back and slow paced - qualities we were definitely looking for during this part of the trip. I´m tickled to be this close to what once was the end of the known world.

It is hard to believe we only have two weeks left on the road. We really have gotten this traveling thing down to a science.
]]> Fiesta Forever — Cordoba, Spain http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180284480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180284480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/seanandjeannie/worldtrip/1180284480/tpod.html Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:40:57 -0400 East of the sun, west of the moon - where in the world are Jeannie and Sean?
Cordoba, Spain

Jeannie here. Depending on how you look at it we are very lucky or unlucky in Cordoba. We arrived without accommodations, and we found a place almost immediately for a good rate (lucky). Almost every hotel in town was full because the town is celebrating its Fiesta - a larger version of a county fair with rides, fast food, and flamenco dancing in huge private tents. The unlucky aspect of this is that most of the town was closed for the weekend to attend the fiesta, so we decided we´d better check out the party.

We really enjoyed the people-watching at the Fiesta. The women and girls were decked out with traditional dresses, lace shawls and mantillas. The little boys wore bolero jackets and cuffed pants. Everyone was dancing in their tents, which we could glimpse from the midway. We also saw a very little girl flamenco dancing on the bar in one tent.

Unfortunately, we didn´t really blend in our traveler´s chic of pocketed pants and fleeces. We also don´t really have a tent of our own, unless we want to claim to belong to the Immigrants to Cordoba Society.




We did manage a good visit to La Mezquita, an amazing mosque/cathedral in the center of the historical area. Sean and his family have visited here before - it´s easy to see why he wanted to come back.
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