Arabian Nights

Somehow I've managed to avoid the Middle East in the last few years of my travels, but over the last three months, I've ended up there on three separate trips. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I immediately realized I wasn't in "Kansas" anymore.

In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I wasn't allowed off of the plane until I covered myself up in an abaya. You are not allowed to show your ankles, arms, neck or most of your face if you are a woman. It is required that women and men sit in separate sections in restaurants and in waiting areas such as the airport, women are required to sit behind a screened-in area. We stayed in Jeddah for five days. I was not allowed to use the gym or pool, or even eat with the pilots, so I enjoyed lots of in-room service. At least the food, and especially the hummos was good!




Every room in the hotel had a sign pointing to Mecca for prayer - Mecca is only about 45 minutes drive from Jeddah and people make the pilgrimage from all over the world.



Security was pretty good judging by the machine guns surrounding the hotel:




Cairo, Egypt was another stop and where my love of camels began. Eric was with me on this trip and we were so excited to finally be able to see the ancient pyramids! We were in Egypt during the holy month of Ramadan, so unfortunately we were not able to go inside the pyramids. We did take a long camel ride around the desert near the pyramids near sundown, which was absolutely incredible!

A line of camels in the desert:


Eric and I sharing a ride:



It was surreal seeing a structure that was built over 3,800 years ago!



We also stopped at a papyrus shop where the proprietor showed us how the ancient paper was made and served us some tasty Egyptian tea.

A few weeks later, we went to Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is a growing city with lots of construction, but is much more clean and modern than most cities in the Middle East.

Eric, Andrew and I on the Corniche:




There was lots of shopping in the malls. Eric bought some beautiful spices at the market, which would have been extremely expensive to get back home. Some of them wouldn't have been available at all, like the bright orange Kashmiri Chili Powder.



One evening in Abu Dhabi, we decided to take a desert safari. A gentleman picked us up from our hotel in a utility vehicle and took us out to the Arabian Desert on the sand dunes. The ride was death defying - but really really fun. We took our vehicles into the wide open desert and our driver sped over the huge sand dunes and very high speeds. I thought the jeep was going to flip over for sure a few times:




We saw a baby camel in the desert - she was so cute and a bit lost:



Camels are so photogenic!



After the ride on the dunes, we were taken to an area in the desert where tables were set up under the stars. We were served Arabian tea and coffee as our bbq dinner of kebabs and other local fare was being prepared.



Our dinner:



After dinner, a beautiful belly dancer came out on stage:




At the end of the evening, all of the lights were turned off as we sat on big pillows in the sand. All was quiet as we watched a zillion stars twinkle in the Arabian night sky as we drank tea and enjoyed hubbly bubbly.

After Abu Dhabi, or next stops included Kuwait, Oman, & Qatar. Here is a video of the prayer from our hotel balcony in Doha. The first prayer started at 4am and was broadcast so loud that it shook the windows in our room and woke us out of bed. This was the second prayer of the day and you can hear the hymn being sung throughout the city:



Our tour through the Middle East was quite an experience. We met a lot of wonderful and hospitable people while we were there. We learned a bit about culture and experienced some places first hand that we had only heard about on TV and in the news. While we had to be vigilant in many places, it was cool how we were thrown into a culture so completely different than our lives at home. Trips like these definitely open our eyes to a very different way of life and helped us to understand different cultures beyond what we just read about and see on TV. That being said, we were happy to trade our hot weather clothes in for our warm jackets and boots as we headed back to Switzerland...

Where the Buffalo Roam

I started off the rotation with a five day trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I had heard of Jackson Hole as a world class destination for skiing and snowboarding, but didn't realize its close proximity to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons.

My passengers got off of the plane, which was parked on the ramp . As I walked down the stairs of the plane and looked up, I couldn't believe my eyes - the Grand Tetons were right there in front of me! Enormous, craggy mountains shooting out of the earth. It was a pretty spectacular sight. The ladies at the airport told me that we were only about 4 miles from Teton National Park and about 100 miles from Yellowstone and that this was the only airport actually inside of the National Park. The captain and I drove into the little town of Jackson where we checked into our motel and waited for Eric to arrive from Paris. A little photo opp on the Bear Chair:



That evening we checked out the little town of Jackson. Went to a local restaurant that served the best burgers we've ever had and a few beers from the Snake River Brewery. We decided to get some rest so that we could wake up early and take a tour around the Teton National Park and hopefully view some wildlife.

We saw a huge herd of Buffalo wandering around on Antelope Flats Road, here is one little fella having some dinner:



And holding up traffic:



They made funny noises:



We saw wolves hunting antelope:



And gorgeous mountain views:



Here is a photo of a barn that is over 100 years old with the Grand Tetons behind it. We saw this photo on a lot of postcards in town. We woke up at 5am in order to make sure we were there by sunrise. We made it to the field, along with a few other photographers that had much more professional equipment than we did - but I think our shots turned out alright:





The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in downtown Jackson:



They had saddles for bar stools, naturally.

We left Wyoming for Miami, Florida. The weather was hot and humid and the location of our hotel afforded us the ability to take advantage of the beach while we were on "hot call." The water was clear and as warm as bath water, which is much different than the Pacific ocean that I'm used to!



Eric taking a dip:




In the evenings, we'd walk around to find a place to eat at the various restaurants in South Beach. One night we decided to stop into Puerto Sagua - a little Cuban diner that has been around for years. We tried the Ropa Vieja, beef stew and fried sweet plaintains.

The highlight of our trip was seeing the space shuttle launch! Even though we were about 300 miles south of Cape Caniveral, we were still able to see the bright orange light of the shuttle launching into space around midnight on Friday. It was spectacular! After 5 days in Miami, work called to tell us we had a trip schedule from St Maarten to Geneva, Switzerland. I was excited to leave Miami - and the heat!

Summer 2009

Here are a few photos from recent travels and a little of what we've been up to this summer on the road:

Anchorage, Alaska - taking a break from the Vegas heat by the glacier:



Cute homes in Seward, AK:


Geneva, Switzerland - the big fountain in the middle of the lake:
Beautiful city, but extremely expensive!





In July, the company rented out L.A. restaurant, Xiomara for the summer party this year - fabulous mojitos, Cuban food and lots of dancing. There was a woman rolling the cigars by hand!






Narita, Japan where we found a sushi restaurant that has been around since 1934. The Sushi Man showed us exactly how to eat our sushi properly. He told us not to use chopsticks with our sashimi! You take the sashimi, turn it over with your fingers to dip the fish in a little bit of soy sauce (not the rice) and eat it all in one bite! He told us that It's important to eat it all in one bite because the filet of fish is marbled with fat, and better to eat it all at once to get the most intense flavor of the fish. We tried Salmon, Tuna, Eel, Mackerel, Scallops. The salmon was my favorite. He seared the outside with a blowtorch - the whole thing was TASTY!







Scottsdale, Arizona during a 4 day layover - Eric enjoying the water slide. Our hotel had a lazy river! Great for the 113 degree heat. Pretty view of the golf course from our room.







One of my favorite (but short!) trips of the summer was going to - Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We enjoyed an evening eating lobster and clam bellies on the water during one of those East Coast sunsets that I miss so much.

Lago Di Como

We arrived in Como by train. Italian train stations can be weird. Maybe they are weird here in the States too, but since I don't use the train maybe I'm unaware of the process. We exited the train in Como, looking for a bus to take us to Bellagio. Finally, I asked someone for help on how to find this specific bus and he told me to go talk to the lady who was selling croissants and coffee. After I explained to her where I was trying to go, she gave us 2 bus tickets to Bellagio and told us to wait on the steps outside. A little while later, we boarded the bus with our suit cases in tow and were in for the ride of our lives!

First of all, we should have noticed that this bus had some serious looking seat belts at each seat. I think they are only for the novice, because during our death defying ride to Bellagio, the only people who almost fell out of their seats were myself and Eric. The bus took us around some extremely windy roads on the side of cliffs. The views were absolutely spectacular, as we were riding along the edge of Lake Como with gorgeous Italian villas lining the shore. That said, the roads were so extremely narrow that the buildings and houses had some sort of protectors on the corners of them, so that when the bus scrapes the sides of them, but building doesn't crack!

When we got off of the bus in Bellagio it reminded me of Dorthy stepping out of her fallen house into Munchkin Land. I think it was the vibrant color and perfectly shaped hedges that reminded me of this. There were these BEAUTIFUL Italian buildings of all colors set beside the mountains around Lago di Como.



Gorgeous awnings were shading lounging patrons as they drank their refreshing drinks at cafes alongside the lake. You could hear the small waves crashing on shore and it smelled like a freshwater lake - which reminded me very much of my summers in Skaneateles when I was young. We made our way to our little hotel - Hotel Centrale. Here is Eric dragging our bags up to the front door:



We were greeted by the very friendly owners and shown to our room. That night, we went out to a lovely dinner of fresh pasta e fagioli, lambrusco and veal.

The next day, we decided to take a trip on the ferry across the lake to Cadenabbia. We didn't have a plan once we got there, so we just began walking. A man who was sweeping the sidewalk of a hotel asked us where we were headed. We told him that we weren't sure, so he told us to follow the road up the hill and we could have a picnic at the church on the side of the mountain. We still didn't know what church he was talking about, so we grabbed a proscuitto baquette, some water and headed up the hill.

Here is a photo of Cadenabbia. Click on the image to make it larger and you can see the church we were about to walk to (circled to the right of the photo) up on the hill:



Along the way we passed a few small towns. These towns had no more than about 10 houses each, but they were all clumped together. The houses looked like they were built centuries ago and the narrow alley ways left a feeling that you were in someone's backyard.

Can you see the church in the distance in the photo below? Click on the photo and look for the tiny white dot on the side of the rocky mountain above the yellow house:



The walk up to the church was incredible. Just on the other side of the mountain is Switzerland and I actually felt like I was more in Switzerland than Italy. You could hear the dinging of cowbells in the pastures as they grazed on the grass. As we walked up higher, I kept hearing a Cuckoo clock. Eric had to convince me that it was an actually bird, not a clock that was making that noise! Who would have known!?

When we finally reached the top, it made the entire hike worth it. We were the only people at the church on the side of this granite cliff overlooking all of Lake Como and Bellagio. We took a few photos and sat down on the bench to enjoy the view and our lunch.






Later that evening we decided to reward ourselves from the hike with a few glasses of Italian wine. We found a little enoteca, which was actually a cave built into the rock and used in the 18th century as a wine cellar! The wines were kept at a perfect, constant temperature.



Taking a ferry into the little town of Varenna:



View of some homes from our little table on the water:



Shopping for a few Italian handbags:



We decided to stay in Lake Como one additional night because we were so relaxed and enjoyed it so much. We found the most perfect bed and breakfast type place - but it was even better than we could have expected. We ordered lunch at a restaurant one afternoon and the lady who cooked our meal and served us mentioned that she also had a room available. We decided that since her hand made pizza was so incredible, we couldn't turn down her offer for a place to stay for the evening. The next morning we met her out front of the restaurant with our luggage and she brought us up 5 flight of stairs (no elevator!) and unlocked a door on the top floor. We weren't expecting anything nice, but the room was so cute!

It was perfectly outfitted with colors that complemented Bellagio with two large windows with green shutters that opened up with street, lake and mountains views.



To make it even better, the food from her restaurant was cooking below and we could smell the sauces that they were preparing for that evening. We mentioned that we had to take the ferry to the train station the next morning, so she said to come downstairs at 8am for breakfast. This is what she served us!

Baked croissants FRESH from the oven with warm jam and hot nutella inside!



She also served us fresh bacon and eggs that were the best I've ever tasted. No preservatives, no additives, completely fresh and tasty.


This was the best breakfast we had our entire time in Italy and what made it even more special is that she served us downstairs with the rest of her family. You can't buy an experience like that!

Eric thinks espressos in Italia are better than anywhere else:



A short clip of our ride from Como to Bellagio!