We visited Berlin recently, the first time for both of us. A great city and, largely, a great trip. We explored on foot mainly but also took advantage of the superb public transport system. At just Euro6.50 for a daily ticket valid across the whole network of S Bahn, U Bahn, trams and buses its great value. One night, walking back to our hotel and chatting animatedly about the sights and sounds of the day, we passed a Charlottenstrasse bar. “Newton’s” it was called and it was a lively looking place, full of people clearly having a good time. We fancied a nightcap, we went in. “Newtons” then, named not after Sir Isaac it seems, but rather Helmut, photographer son of Berlin. Adorned with some of his edgier images and a self portrait at the bar, fingers cocked in the shape of a gun pointed at the camera with the testimonial “To Jo and all at Newtons from the bank robber”, a nice touch. It seemed a good choice to enjoy a little of Berlin’s famed night-life.

We push our way through the crowd to the bar and I shout at the bartender over the thumping background soundtrack to get his attention. A beer and espresso for me, just an americano coffee for Jan. The barmen boogies away to make up the order. He quickly returned with the beer and espresso. I remind him about the americano, he says its coming. Moments later he returns and delivers an americano cocktail. Campari, Vermouth and club soda, apparently. He swivels and disappears.

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Many years ago I played Stella in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.  It has always been one of my most cherished roles, largely due to the way that Williams paints New Orleans in the play.  Ever since then I have wanted to experience New Orleans and at last I am here.  If I played Stella now, after taking in just one night of Nola it would be an entirely different character.  New Orleans is hot, sticky, sexy, a familiar lover.  She takes me in her arms but does not relinquish her secrets.  She is full of mystery, joy, pain and music.  Especially music.  It’s a cacophony of sound.  I walk through the French Quarter and I feel eerily as if I have walked these streets before.  I move away from the noise and chaos and suddenly it’s just me walking through the middle of the street, the howl of a train piercing the night air and I am filled with emotion, remembering some long ago time, some fragmented memory.

I am here with my friend Julia.  I wasn’t going to do the trip after I lost my job but I did anyway.  I have to be so careful with money and in one day I have spent so much.  I will be better for the rest of the trip, I must.  Julia picked me up at 1.30AM and we drove to Buffalo for a 6.15AM plane.  I slept on the hard floor of the airport while Julia got a pedicure.  After a rather bumpy and diverted plane ride we arrive and make our way to the hotel which is located right off the French Quarter.  We freshen up and head to a restaurant called the Crazy Lobster that overlooks the Mississippi.

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Going on a vacation in Egypt, but knowing absolutely nothing about this weirdly-cultured country? Don’t you fret, don’t you fear -here’s what those other guides didn’t want to tell you.

The Guide to Surviving Your Vacation in Egypt will save you a lot of embarrassment and pain during your vacation and will make it problem-free: guaranteed.

1. Camels will settle for no less than to be treated like gods. And they will make the life of anyone who thinks otherwise miserable. They have a new strain of superiority complex. Remember to bow before them, kiss the ground they walk on, worship their perfection, and you’ll be safe. Say: “Mastah, I apologize for not being worthy of your presence.”

Warning: Studies show that camels may be the only species out of the 1.8 million known to mankind to catch sarcasm.

Warning 2: After long tests with brave tourists (paid handsomely) scientists from the CSRA (Camel Scientific Research Association) concluded that camels do not like sarcasm.

2. If a camel spits in your face, don’t act disgusted even for a second. You risk a painful or smelly death (the creator of this guide can’t decide which is worse). Furthermore, it only causes the angered camel to spit more. What you should do is walk slowly backwards, while bowing repeatedly (See Rule 1).

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Considering that we had had to travel six and a half times around the planet to earn the miles to fly from LA to Istanbul, Business Class was looking a little tired.  The lumbar-massage support pad that was supposed to enhance my general flying experience was stuck in the “full-on Shiatsu” position all the way to Heathrow, causing me the sensation of lying on a sleeping Golden Retriever. Dearly Beloved’s seat spontaneously and without warning collapsed into full-recline at random intervals, annoying Mr. Charisma-Bypass in the seat behind almost as much as it did her.  Anyway,  whichever way you slice it business Class is better than Goat Class, so we made the best of it.

Two Ambien, a contorted spine and some synthetic scrambled egg later we arrived in London and staggered over to Terminal One to while away the three-hour layover before our flight to Istanbul.  The brilliant minds who run Heathrow have developed a fiendish technique of not announcing the departure gate of any flight until immediately prior to boarding. This means that hapless travelers must stand beneath the display boards like so many hungry chicks, necks craning upwards, waiting for Big Board to regurgitate a succulent gate number. Each time this happens it looks like the start of a marathon as sixty or so people suddenly launch themselves into a jog, their places immediately taken by jostling new arrivals. That day, the crowds beneath Big Board rivaled a decent size colony of Boobys, each squawking it’s discontent at the lack of information.  I left Dearly Beloved to check out the sandwiches in Pret a Manger and wandered off in search of better information. The information desk turned out to be a study in advanced oxymoronics and it took a ten-minute hustle to speak to a representative from British Airways.  I pointed out that although the time was 6:00 pm, the board insisted our departure time was now scheduled for 5pm and that it further informed us that our gate would be announced at 5:15, which was after the flight would have departed, had it left at 5:00, which it clearly hadn’t.  Ms. Brain-Dead responded unhelpfully that I should “watch the board for  the latest news”. I remarked that she might as well go home as she was simply wasting perfectly good oxygen by being there.  A look of bovine incomprehension was the best response she could muster. 

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Traveling up the north coast of Kenya:

The ultimate safari

By Michael S. Wolfe

I’ve been in Kenya for about six weeks, teaching at a school in Nairobi and then a different school near Diani Beach, when I decide to do my first major bit of solo travel. I end up leaving a day earlier than planned, walking out in the pre-twilight onto the road that leads to Mombasa. A few cars pass, then nothing for awhile.

Five in the morning is a hard time to catch a matatu – a mini-bus style share taxi that is usually crammed to the max – but eventually one comes out of the darkness and picks me up. We drive past partially shrouded palm and coconut trees, past minarets. The women we pick up along the way are all wearing burqas. Though Kenya is mostly Christian, the coastal region is mainly Muslim, something that becomes more and more obvious the farther north one travels.

By the time we reach the Mombasa ferry station, daylight has broken through. Once on the other side of the water, I find the crowd of matatus where I can find one heading up to Malindi, my first destination. The touts shout out the prices, “Only five hundred shillings!”, “only three hundred shillings!”

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Travel’s Plans

I am 10 years old. My sister and I’s newest game involves collections of little creatures called Russ Trolls. Hers stand in a neat line in front of her, mine before me. It will be later as an adult looking for direction that I stumble across this memory, seeing the image with new eyes. Her dolls are costumed in apparel indicating home and family – mama, papa, baby trolls, birthday trolls, wedding trolls. Mine represent dolls from the four corners of the world: Ireland, Britain, India, China, Italy. They are a family as well, but with different clothing, habits, and accents. It seems even at this age, Travel was calling.

As a child, I did not have the lifestyle that was able to experience more than the garden variety trip to family in the neighboring state. But Travel had other plans. An aunt with the financial resources and some serious travel mojo took it upon herself to take my family with her on vacations. New York, Chicago, Santa Fe…I was seeing some of the most traveled to destinations in the States. And I was seeing them in style. It wasn’t random restaurants or lazy strolls down lanes for us. She knew what the hotspots of each city were and she knew we had limited time to truly experience the city — Broadway, subways, delis, Little Italy, China Town, high rise hotels, museums, historical buildings. I thought my feet would fall off, but I was seeing and truly experiencing places I had only heard and read about. When my aunt couldn’t take us with her, she would arrive home with trinkets from exotic places. These lined my shelves – a lapiz box from Chile, tiny replica clogs from Holland, a Navajo crafted doll from New Mexico. I would look at them often…and dream.

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Several years ago my friends and I instituted a birthday celebration journey. On our respective birthdays we would travel to a destination of our choice with pals in tow. I choose Las Vegas as my celebratory venue. Wanting to see the surrounding area, I booked the four of us on a slow float down the Colorado River. The guided raft departed from the Hoover Dam and floated downstream into northern Arizona over the course of about 3 hours.

The combination of the green water against the craggy canyon walls proved very soothing. The lack of electronic devices and the occasional sighting of a big horned sheep along the steep slopes made the trip seem very serene. The enormity of the canyon walls made us feel so small in comparison. With the sun on my face, I could imagine being on a primitive raft guided by an early explorer. Midway through the trip, we stopped for lunch along some rocks with a small shoreline. I spent more time exploring and taking photos than dining. We got to see some great petroglyphs and a cave when we continued down the river.

The following day, we rented a car and drove to the outskirts of Las Vegas to Red Rock Canyon. It was spectacular to see elements of the desert, wildflowers, and red rocks all in one place. There were so many forms to behold. The lighting and shadowing allowed for some great photography. Though we travelled by car and foot, it was easy to get a feel for how it would have been to traverse the land by horse or stagecoach. The rocks were quite mesmerizing and we scanned every unique feature, often discovering subtle human or animal characteristics. Afoot in the Wild West, we could have easily channeled Calamity Jane or Ansel Adams.

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Yesterday, my sister-in-law, Miki, and I went to Mother Farm in Futtsu, Japan, which is in the Chiba prefecture. Mother Farm is an amusement park/farm where urbanites and children can learn to pick fruit properly, milk a cow, do crafts, and pet or ride animals. There are also a host of shows and amusement rides like a giant Ferris Wheel, a roller coaster and bungy jumping. I found this place on the internet and told my sister-in-law, who is such a city girl, and she found an all-inclusive rate for us. The round-trip ferry ticket between Chiba and Yokohama, a round trip bus ride from the port to the park, and park entry all cost 3,300 Yen (approx. $40). Oh, and you get a free gift!

So, we get to the park and go to pick up our free gift and it’s a coaster that says “I LOVE MF”, written in the same vein as the I Heart NY t-shirts; except for them MF is Mother Farm. Having such an appreciation for low humor, I immediately ask for a T-Shirt because low and behold, I love MFs too! They had no t-shirts, but the fact that they printed these coasters and the fact that I had to explain the joke to Miki, lead me to believe that they probably didn’t get many American tourist up there. If this were a movie, then this little language hiccup would have been MAJOR foreshadowing for a later event…

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So far I’ve been doing the backpacker thing (e.g. hostels, trains, walking, hanging laundry on the line, etc.) and I’m surviving; as a matter of fact, I’m thriving. I never imagined living with so few resources or access to “everyday luxuries” and loving it. Now, my mother took a vacation from her job (“like regular people do”) and decided to join me as I travel through Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand and I wasn’t sure that the “backpacker lifestyle” would suit her, so I warned her beforehand.

Her Response: “I’m cool. I’m down. I can do it.”

I responded, “Okay,” while I simultaneously booked a hotel instead of hostel for our first stop in Hanoi. (Upgrade!)

I know my mother…

The hotel picked her up at the airport and she bounded in wearing Fila Skeletoes and carrying her reinforced backpack with its anti-theft straps that she ordered online at some specialty travel store. “Where did you find this place? It looks crazy outside! I hope you registered this address with the US Consulate,” she said as she unpacked her backpack chocked full of pharmaceuticals and immediately began cleaning up our hotel room. After she demanded that I have the hotel launder my clothing instead of doing it myself (Upgrade!), I began side stepping her questions by telling her our plans for the next few days.

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I’d wanted to go to Libya for a while but had been put off by what had seemed to be mountains of red tape and the apparently prohibitive expense of having of having to sign up for an escorted group tour. After looking into it a bit more deeply, however, I discovered that it was possible to visit Libya for 48 hours without having to join an expensive package tour. I found that I could combine a longer trip to West Africa – where I could fly into Cotonou in Benin, and then fly home for Bamako in Mali – with a short break in Tripoli. The visa would cost me 90 Euros but there was no extra change for the stopover. As Afriqiyah was the cheapest option from London to West Africa, anyway, I thought I’d try and make it to Libya before all the crowds arrived.

After emailing my credit card details and a scan of my passport to the Sarah Guardian Hotel, they promptly emailed me back a visa number that I simply presented at Tripoli airport, to be given my proper visa. I seemed to be the only passenger on my flight from Gatwick, that wasn’t just switching planes in Tripoli on the way to a variety of destinations in (mainly) West Africa. I had opted to pay another 10 Euros to be picked up at the airport by a driver from the hotel, and sure enough, as soon as I walked through customs (with minimal fuss), there he was, holding up my name on a piece of cardboard. I couldn’t believe how easy it had all been.

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