Adventure of the month

Like every other sentient being on this planet, I have a long list of things I want to do/ places I want to see that I never seem to get around to. It is only when I find myself with a lot of time on my hands and feeling restless (the two do generally go hand in hand) that I started mentally reviewing this list, eager to go into planning mode. This is what happened to me last month, when crap weather had me stuck in a hotel room in Leipzig (or soggy and looking for Hefeweisens, but that's another story). While surfing the internet, I stumbled upon a saved link about kayaking with Orcas in the San Juan Islands, something that has always been high on the afore-mentioned list. I sent said link to my friend, Diana. Diana was enthused. I was enthused. We were going kayaking. I called and set up the tour with the helpful people at SeaQuest. They responded by e-mailing me a comprehensive list of what to bring, what to expect, even a helpful suggestion that I might want to consider ...

Last Friday, I got on a plane bound for Leipzig. But since I was still on a month-long journey of the unexpected, of course, I ended up in Shannon, Ireland instead. At this point, there were only two viable options: lament the cancelled plans in Leipzig or get busy making news plans in Shannon. OK, scratch that. There was only one viable option. With the help of the hotel staff, we quickly lined up a driver and guide to take us to the ever elusive Cliffs of Moher. I should stop here to acknowledge that it is a bit odd to describe Ireland’s most visited attraction, which has existed for 300 million years or so as ‘elusive’, but I have been trying to get to this place for ages and something (usually a combination of not enough time and/ or Guinness on tap) has always intervened. These Cliffs have eluded the hell out of me.

Ulaanbaatar is an ugly city.  I say this with full awareness of the subjectivity of beauty.  I appreciate the cultural norms and probably biased expectations that I possess.  I take into account the effect that my mood, at any given moment,  can have on my perceptions. Yet, even factoring all of this together, I return to the same conclusion ‘Tis an ugly city Or as my niece would say “U-G-L-Y! You ain’t got no alibi! You’re ugly!..”, but she is a bit of a bully like that. The prevailing architectural trend is standard Communist-era block buildings.  The main road, Peace Avenue, is beset with the Asian equivalent of strip malls. The use of bright colors appears to be frowned upon.  And this may have been specific to the time I was there, but a persistent dust storm had everyone and everything finely coated in a layer of gritty sand.

This latest adventure that began with the Killer Volcano of 2010 gifting me with surprise visits to Abu Dhabi and Kuwait continues. I was slated to hang out in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for a few days, where there was no ash plume anywhere on the horizon. Instead, they went one better and had an all-out Presidential coup, which continues to flare up into violent street protests a mere couple of blocks from our hotel. Instead of risking ending up as CNN's resident tourist on the scene, we were thus re-routed to Tbilisi, Georgia. My first reaction was delight with this chance to add to my Country Count (#84, Baby!). The rampant tales I'd heard about the exceptional quality of Georgian wines factored into my excitement, as well. But based on noting more than misguided speculation, I expected the capital city to possess the same dour grayness that inhabits most of Bishkek.

Early last week, I had simple plans. I was going to take a job-related flight to Athens, spend the night, eat some olives, drink some raki and continue on the next morning to Heraklion to do more of the same. These were plans I was perfectly content with and which I entertained up until the moment I arrived, bags packed, boarding passes in hand at the starting point for this journey, Miami International Airport. It was here that I was claimed as yet one more victim of the ash cloud of 2010. Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport was one of the few European airports still receiving and dispatching flights, but Delta Airlines, in what appeared to be a fit of frustration, threw up their hands and declared "Fuck it! No flights to anywhere in Europe. Period." Thus began my unexpected detour through the Middle East, in an ultimately successful attempt to eventually reach European shores. We were quickly routed to New York's JFK, where we boarded a direct flight to tha...

The day before last, I had a day off in Nassau, a criminally over-developed island habitually besieged by sun-burned cruise ship passengers and bored Miamians fresh off of gambling junkets. Not surprisingly, it is not my top pick for a vacation destination, but when in Rome, or some such cliché… In other words, I had no choice but to make the best of it. My generic chain hotel had hand written signs at the activity desks offering a snorkeling/ lunch/ booze cruise for $60.  I like snorkeling, have a habit of eating lunch when time permits and am loathe to turn down an open bar, so this was among the easier decisions I had made this week. The passengers on board were a mixture of spring breakers, Midwestern cruise folks and assorted singles, such as myself, Ekaterina, the Brazilian girl on a beach destination tour of the Caribbean and Alex, the Kenyan banking whiz on a last lost weekend before taking a new job in New York.

1. The walled city is a UNESCO world heritage site and justifiably so. It is one of those places that has, in an odd twist of fate, benefited from years of poverty. The historic fortifications and colonial architecture were never subjected to the whims of modernization and thus remain in much the same state as they were in 16th and 17th century. It is still possible to walk along the walls and ramparts admiring, to one side, the Caribbean and to the other, the colorful historic town. When that gets old, one can visit museums dedicated to the gold or emerald trade, or less romantically, to the practices of the Inquisition. Or if museums are not to your liking, it is possible to simply stroll through the charming little lanes, knowing that in a town this small, the probability of getting lost (even for the directionally challenged, such as myself) is slim.