After Thoughts

An extra day in Toronto gave us a chance to unwind, collect our thoughts and review our experience. But first back to the Hockey Hall of Fame to do it justice, took me 4 hours to drag Janice out of there. Of course the Shoe museum for an hour was a must.....NOT!

We felt strange, and even a bit lonely, to be in the lobby of our hotel and to not be meeting any of our fellow travelers as they had all gone home the day before. No one to stir the pot with, no one to tease, no one to chat with , no one to strategise with. We realized then, it was all over but the crying! I still felt guilty asking the concierge where the nearest Starbucks was. Looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching as I asked my 2nd and 3rd questions.

We will never forget this travel experience, good and bad, and there were both to be sure. We are certainly thankful and appreciate what it takes to put one of these travel adventures together. The details and all the advance planning, along with shooting from the hip as issues arose. For that we want to recognise Bill, Andy and Pam.......................ela for their efforts and diligence.

As for the contest itself.....well everyone is a critic and I only listen to those critics who have been there and done it. Just to remind everyone as one of my good friends will tell you, history has no statues of critics. But all the same, we had 30 separate daily emotions, disappointments, celebrations, despairs, angers, joys, satisfactions and frustrations. As organizers, referees, arbitrators, and judges, it must of felt that you were running an adult day care center!

We want to recognize those travellers who gave it their all and did it honestly, in the spirit of the game. We want to to wag our finger at those who maybe didn't. You all know which category you fit in. Over time we hope that our relationships will develop into long term friendships, as all of you fellow contestants have a special place in our memories and thoughts, never to be forgotten one way or another, for sure!! We look forward to seeing or chatting with all of you again in the future. Thanks for all the memories.

We are now Savvy travelers who got a snapshot of the world. I don't need to visit any more mosque's, temple's or church's. I've had enough of breakfast buffets and late-nite room service. I will never tire of the impromptu meetings over a beer at the nearest bar to discuss the day or the morning as it sometimes happened, or the early morning coffee's to clear cobwebs and figure out the day ahead. The cultural experiences and these meetings were certainly our favorites and we won't forget them soon. Erwin: I apologise if I offended anyone in anyway and want you all to know that I love you guys! Janice: I feel the love :) too

For all our friends and relatives who made the daily visit to our blog, we hope you were informed and entertained. If you managed to live the experience vicariously through our words and descriptions, then we are very pleased we could be of service. Thanks for visiting and caring about our adventure!

We'd also like to put out a challenge to anyone reading this.....limit your use of plastic bags, reduce, reuse & recycle. There's a LOT more pollution than you think on the other side of the world, and it's not going to get better until it gets a whole lot worse!

Some final pot stirring.....

*Still missing those travel guides

*Google... What Google?

*Hired car... No it was a Taxi.. Honest

*No train service there

*Concierge... no he was a luggage attendant..really

*Concierge....it was a really long question

*Blackberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, Who knows

*I didn't hear you say that....honest

*It was closed..... at 5:00 am it would be!!

Until we meet again.......Erwin & Janice

jvd@rooter.ca

Hockey Day in Toronto

With everybody as rested as we were going to be, the scavenges started at 8 in the morning down in the lobby of our hotel. The final scavenge would be scaling the CN Tower to walk on the glass floor, with everyone meeting at the restaurant above no later than 3:10 p.m. With everyone putting in their last effort here in Toronto, we decided to finish strong and do as many scavenges as possible. There was bonus points to go to Niagara Falls, which sounded tempting, but we knew it would take the whole day. As we've seen the Falls already, we opted to explore Toronto.

The Hockey Hall of Fame should have been an all day scavenge (going back today to do it justice). Didn't realize there are 3 Stanley cups, the original (in the vault), the display (touchy,feely) and the travel cup. Gretsky's bar & grill and the set of Hockey Nite in Canada, and a walk by at the old Maple Leaf Gardens are definitely some of Janice's favorite things to do. She dragged me along kicking and screaming.

Things started out great until we were hit with the great monsoon in the late morning. Nothing like wandering around a strange city, getting soaked to the skin! The subway and PATH system were well-used, not only for travel but for keeping dry as well.

Several surprises in Toronto. We found out Canadians really are friendly and were always ready to help us, even offering to help before we could even ask....that was great to see.

We also were reminded of places we had just visited. Over a lunch of dimsum in Chinatown, we felt transported back to Beijing. Along our walks I spyed a hookah in a store window, and was reminded of our Egyptian forays into Cairo's markets to smoke sheeshah. Looking around, we realized Canada really has a diverse culture, and we felt very comfortable with that.

With our final leg ending at the top of the CN Tower, we handed in our final scoresheet and relaxed with a drink and some great company with previous strangers who now seemed to know us a little too well.........how did that happen?!

Back to our Roots

Even though this is land of our forefathers, we still managed to make a mess out of the train schedules! Den Haag was on our list to see the Peace Palace, as well as the Grote Kerk in Haarlem. Great, we'll scoop up Haarlem on the same train line once we're finished in Den Haag. Well, somehow we chugged past Schiphol instead on the fast train and landed back in Centraal Station in Amsterdam. No problem, we headed north to a little place called Zaanze Schans, a quaint little town with 7 working windmills,this time taking the fast train again instead of the stop train. No problem...stop at the next station and back track. We nicely had two short stops to go before getting to our destination, when our tickets were checked and we stupidly found out we had purchased only 1 way tickets instead of return. We barely got out of paying a 30 euro fine if we promised to leave the train at the next station. So we slinked off and got the proper tickets. Now we still hadn't made it to Haarlem, so Erwin pushed and pulled me to get back on the train and complete that leg. You know how sometimes you're in a strange city and you started passing the same scenery time after time after time?.....well in the end we got our scavenges done, but it took forever!

One high point was seeing the tulip fields in bloom from the train - wonderful!

We landed in Amsterdam right in the middle of another holiday season. they are celebrating the Queens birthday, Mayday, Labor day, Freedom day and Accession day, all in the same week. So just like Athens, we had to juggle our scavenges as to what was open or closed. It was a lot of fun to practice our dutch language skills, and have locals try to figure out our accents, We got some wierd looks especially with Janice strapped to my backpack.

The most enjoyable time was renting some bikes and touring thru central Amsterdam. Many sights and experiences, especially in the red light district. Most of our scavenges happened in this central area, and included getting 3 quotes for services that can't be posted here. The cheapest was 47 Euros for half hour, that's like 150.00 bucks an hour.

Even though this was one of our most enjoyable times, we managed to have our backpack stolen at our second last scavenge. Nothing of great value was in it, except our expensive camera, lost all our Amsterdam pictures but all the rest are downloaded to the computer. Our last scavenge was the sex museum so no pictures there, just lasting memories of stuff we never knew existed. Naturally coffee and a smoke came right after....not!

We really enjoyed the food scavenges and even added a few of our own...dutch frites, croquettes, pannekoek, chocolate, cheese, herring, I think this is the first time we stuffed ourselves on mandatory food.

Everyone found their own way back to Schiphol (no problem for us, we'd passed it twice already) to get ready for the flight to Toronto, our FINAL LEG!

See you soon I guess......

Amsterdam!

Just a quick note as we have to meet everyone downstairs to begin our scavenges in Amsterdam. We never thought we'd get here as it wasn't on the list of countries, but as you can imagine, we're pretty happy to be in a place where we feel a little at home. We literally have just 24 hours here, then we're off to Toronto for the final leg of this journey. I'll try to update tonite.

By the way, the streets are a mess of garbage here (very un-Dutch ) There's been a lot of celebrating going on last night in honour of the Queen's birthday. As you share her birthday, Dad, cheers to you and we hope you had a nice day.

Tot siens!

Bucharest, Romania

As everyone should see the Acropolis when in Greece, and since all museums were closed for Easter Monday, we waited until Tues morning to climb up the narrow streets of the Plaka on our way to the Acropolis, which lies on a high hill above the oldest part of town. We had a nice surprise once we got to the top - all museums are free today because of the holiday!

This afternoon we were one the move once more to Bucharest, a city in a country I know almost nothing about, except that during the late 80's, thier dictator, Cheausescu, was killed during the revolution to overthrow communism. Remember all the stories of children in orphanages? So I was very interested to see what this country was now like.

Our initial impressions of this city have been positive. The city seems to be coming back to life....there are some wonderful old grand buildings plus new construction as well. It's not crazy like Beijing though......work seems to be set at a steady pace here.

Look up the Palace of the People, the monument Cheausescu built to glorify himself and his wife, Elena. This guy was a huge megalomaniac that let absolute power almost destroy the country by by building a Versaille like monster palace that took all the resources of the people over 5 years to complete; actually it's still not finished. I felt a little sick thinking of the sacrifices the Romanians had to make in order for this building to be built.

In a lovely afternoon of partly sunny skies and fresh, smog-free air, we took in the Village Museam. Set in a huge park, old homes, barns, churchs & mills from all areas of rural Romania were dismantled and re-built in this park, for all to enjoy.....a beautiful outdoor museum.

After we headed back to the hotel....I must admit I'm finally coming down with a bit of "Romania's Revenge" and am not feeling great today. Imodium is a wonderful thing! Last night on the way to the hotel, Erwin twisted his kneed somehow and could barely walk; I was quite concerned we might have to see a doctor for it here. As luck would have it though, we're travelling with an orthopedic surgeon, who gave it a quick look, made Erwin wince (I think on purpose!) and quickly perscribed Advil to reduce swelling. A few hours later all was well. I can tell we're on the last leg of this race....we're all getting tired and cranky and want to wear clean clothes. We're still trying to have as much fun as possible, but our bodies are breaking down! A piece of my tooth broke off a few days ago as well, so I face the fun of seeing the dentist as soon as I get back.....oh that's just wonderful :(

So...... enough complaining!!!!!! Sorry..............

We have to pack tonight because we're spending the day travelling out of the city into Transylvania country....we should even see Dracula's castle. I'm really looking forward to this trip. Erwin wanted to go to the Black Sea, but I think Dracula is a once in a lifetime thing to do, so we hired a van for a bunch of us to go together. We could definitely come back to Romania and spend a few weeks here.

Athens, Greece

This morning we were slapped in the face with the challenge of trying to figure out how to achieve our local and future scavenges in several different countries and regions during this leg of the race, not knowing what would be open today or tommorrow. As you know, it's Greek Easter sunday that apparently stretches into Easter monday as well. All museums are closed as well as most shops. Teams are scurrying around trying to drum up info on trains, planes, and buses......this is the leg of the mass confusion! All the travel adds up to more than 24 hours on a train to get to the final destination of Bucharest, Romania.

We decided we wanted to enjoy Athens for the next 2 days as Erwin's never been here and we wanted to take full advantage of this area. Today we managed to take in some beautiful sites even though the gates were locked on many national treasures. We've heard the Acropolis will be open tommorrow and are crossing our fingers that we'll still be able to see it. It's the one place everyone has to see while in Athens, just like the Great Wall in China.

To give you an idea of what prices are like here, we spent 50 euros on a mediocre lunch, because "it's a holiday today, you know?" Now that we're in Europe, everyone is costing that much more....no more great deals.

The view from our hotel roof is spectacular as we're a stone's throw from the Acropolis, which is lit up at night for everyone to enjoy. Our room is a lot smaller than what we're used to....we've been spoilt during this trip with our hotels. We've got a bidet, though, I don't think I'll ever get the knack of using it correctly.

We're getting down to the finish line, only this week left to go.....I don't think we'll really understand how far we've come on this trip until we've been home for awhile. I feel much more confidant travelling, we've learned to push our way through crowds, to ask questions from anyone, anywhere, and to rely on complete strangers because "it's all Greek to us!" ha...ha...

Last night we had a team meal in a local restaurant where we really cut loose, I think we're all tired and needed to just forget about the game for a few hours. It didn't last long though, as one of the first challenges was attending midnight mass......after beer and ouzo, it was tough to get up enough energy to join the rest of Greece in their Easter celebration. I tried to get Erwin to go on his own, but he dragged me out so I had no choice. We seem to take turns getting tired and/or being the one to push the other to complete what needs to be done.

We're excited about Romania, a country we never thought we'd see, and hope to be able to get a whirlwind tour before we head out to another destination on Thursday morning.

Arrilval in Cairo

Blazing 110 degree heat on the airport parking lot, waiting for the shuttle bus, is how this leg started. From then on it became one of the most enjoyable legs we've had. Naturally, we did the camel ride and pyramid tourist thing, King Tuts tomb and the rest of the artifacts at the Egyptian Museum were a highlight, following by a wade in the Suez Canel, watching massive tankers being piloted through.....that's after a 2 hour drive through the blazing Sahara Desert.

We enjoyed a special experience with our taxi driver after he invited us back to his home to meet with his family for tea and desserts . The desserts were part of our scavange.

We also had a special experience in a downtown restaurant where over an enjoyable cup of strong, turkish coffee with the owner and his grandson, we were invited down into the basement where there was a bar set up especially for the Egyption resisstance movement against their then King Farouk, who was overthrown and exciled in 1954. The resttaurant still had the press for printing leaflets during that period and a secret door behind the bar for escape when police raids occurred.

The same evening, we took part in the night bazaar, which is a maze of shops, literally elbow to elbow, everyone vying for your egyptian pounds. We had some apple flavoured hookah in a cafe that seemed to be so full of people, we wondered where they all came from. We had to purchase a headress and robe, so Erwin could pretend he was the mafia shiek of arabia at our mandatory stop at 6pm the next evening.

Added to this, naturally we had to include a visit to the tomb of the disposed Shah of Iran, who we found out was the brother in law of the exciled King Farouk (that's your history lesson for this blog entry).Sailing on the Nile river and visiting the spot where baby Moses was hidden was an awe inspiring experience.

We are typing this blog from our new location in Athens, Greece, where we will be starting our next leg of this adventure called The Balkins. This will be a 4 day adventure with stops in Athens, Thessoloniki & Macedonnia. From there we move on to Sofia & Plovdiv in Bulgaria and wrapping up in Bucharest, Romania. We are on our own from now untill then including travel and accomodation, with massive bonus points for the team finding the cheapest hotel and actually staying for a nite. This leg is quite daunting and will definately make or break a teams effort for a top finish.

We have found our pace and are really enjoying ourselves. Tonite we had a celebration of sorts with a great Greek dinner and the many obligatory ouzo's. Janice started this blog but I'm finishing it, as she is having a nap before we head out to midnite Easter service. It is Easter Sunday tomorrow and most of this country will be shut down for the day, adding to our challenge of traveling and getting access to our scavenge points.

We will try to keep you all informed as best we can for the next few days depending on internet access, etc.

We want to wish our youngest son a happy 20th birthday....what a milestone, no more teenagers in this family. Dylan, we hope you day is special and can't wait to be home to celebrate properly with you. Hope you're enjoying Rock Band.