Travel Meme
First and foremost: Andrew received his medical clearance. It took less than two weeks, which is really surprising since the first clearance when he didn't have a history of febrile seizures (well, one seizure) took three weeks. I'm not sure why a more complicated clearance would be faster.
Anyway, the next step is travel orders and then we're looking at leaving in March or so. Anybody want to rent a house in Virginia?
So, in honor of Andrew's renewed medical clearance, and the upcoming travel it entails, an appropriate meme:
Gacked from pinkfinity.
A: Age you went on your first trip.
My first plane trip was when I was three months old. We flew from Oakland, CA, to Las Vegas, where my mom's family lived, to spend Christmas with them. There's a picture somewhere of Baby Me propped up on the seat, with the seat belt across my lap.
B: Best (foreign) beer you’ve had and where.
I am not, nor ever shall be, a beer fan. However, my my memorable alcohol was outside Osh, Kyrgyzstan, about a week after I arrived in Kyrgyzstan. We went to Apshirsay with some of the locals, and then had dinner at some orchards in that area. We had wine and vodka, and I got a crash course in how to toast in Russian. (You don't toast individuals, but ideas - the more flowery, the better. You're also not allowed to toast or participate in a toast with an empty glass, or even worse, water. MUST be alcohol.) The wine was cooled by placing the bottles into the nearby stream, which was extremely cold.
Incidentally, that was the night that I involuntarily went on the Kyrgyz Diet Plan (best diet plan ever, btw, and very closely related to Montezuma's Revenge). I still don't know if it was the alcohol that did me in, but I suspect as much.
C: Cuisine (favorite)
I'm a big sucker for Thai and Indian (but who isn't?). Not that I've ever been to either country. Of the countries I've actually been to, I'd say my favorite cuisine was French. (There's a reason you don't know Kyrgyzstan for the food. The national dish is overcooked pasta with horse meat.)
D: Destination (favorite and least favorite).
I love London because there's never any lack of things to do there. I love Istanbul because it's comfortable and foreign all at the same time. (Actually, Turkish food is pretty darn yummy, too.)
The only time I have ever been utterly miserable while traveling was in Frankfurt. I really, really, really do not like Frankfurt.
E: Event you experienced abroad that made you say “wow.”
Huh. You know, I can't think of one. Which is really weird, since I've done lots of neat things overseas, in particular in places where most Americans aren't likely to go. (Europe: pshaw, I say. With a few exceptions, anyway.) Then again....the only time I remember actually saying wow was in Europe, after a 14-hour travel day and in Paris, on top of the Arc de Triumphe, when I turned and suddenly saw the Eiffel Tower, and realized, "Omg, I'm in Paris." Because for some reason, despite the fact that I knew we were in Paris, it hadn't actually occurred to me that we were in Paris, as crazy as that sounds. Maybe it had something to do with being able to see a landmark that everyone recognizes as a landmark. After all, the stuff you see in Tbilisi and Bishkek and even parts of China and Istanbul are cool, but they're not necessarily instantly recognizable.
(Then again: I was watching some television show, I forget which, and they showed a picture of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It was definitely the Blue Mosque, as the building being shown was blue. The voice-over identified it as the Haghia Sophia, which is red. So maybe not everything in Istanbul is instantly recognizable.)
F: Favorite mode of transportation.
Hmm. I have the feeling I would really enjoy a tram car, if I ever get to live in a place that still uses them. (DC did, back in the day, but while the tracks are still there, the cars are not.) Istanbul has an excellent light-rail line that is wonderfully easy to use and very clean. I kind of liked the marshrutkas in Bishkek (picture a very tall van being used as a makeshift bus line), but I didn't dare use them without a local in tow, because they were really confusing. I like trains, too, but I don't get to ride them very often.
G: Greatest feeling while traveling.
That moment when I'm thinking, "Mwahahahahaha, I am the ONLY PERSON I KNOW (not counting Bill) WHO WILL EVER GET TO DO THIS." Which is probably horribly petty, but there you are.
H: Hottest place you’ve traveled to.
I have never been anywhere hotter than Yuma, Arizona, where I grew up. 128 in the shade, people. Not many places can beat that. (None that I've been to, at least.)
I: Incredible service you’ve experienced and where
More Bill than me, but I've reaped the benefits. He traveled a lot in Kyrgyzstan, and there were some restaurants where he frequently ate, so much so that everyone on staff recognized him by name. One trip, we went along with his parents. At the same time, the ambassador traveled to the same city. Anyway, for dinner, Bill took us to one of his favorite restaurants. When we walked in, we saw a long table filled with the ambassador, his guests, and various other people, all of whom were presumably important. Everyone still had their menus before them, and there was only water and bread on their table, so it was clear they hadn't really been helped much. The waitstaff, however, saw Bill, and immediately jumped to, came over with big smiles and greetings (and this was in Kyrgyzstan, where no one smiled, e.v.e.r.) and immediately showed us to a table.
They got us drinks, bread, menus, took our orders, brought us appetizers and snacks, more drinks, our meal, additional snacks, dessert, again more drinks, and our check. We were done with our meals and were walking out the door - and the ambassador and his party were just getting their appetizers.
Now, that's either a commentary on how slow the ambassador's party was willing to take for dinner....or it was that the entire restaurant stopped to take care of us. I'm pretty it was the latter, especially since it wasn't the first time that a restaurant gave Bill preferential treatment. It was kind of fun.
(Although I did feel sorry for the ambassador, who was a very nice man and did look rather hungry when we left!)
J: Journey that took the longest.
I think that was the trip from Bishkek to Tbilisi through Istanbul, when I was taking my foster cats to their new home. The flights themselves weren't all that long - four, five hours tops - but there was a seventeen-hour layover in Istanbul. So long, actually, that Turkish Air gave me a hotel room in the city where I go and rest in between flights. It was the longest, but it was one of the best: I went to the hotel, dropped off my stuff, and went into the city to explore (and shop! and eat!) before returning to the hotel to shower and take a nap. The day flew, no pun intended.
No, scratch that. Any plane ride with Andrew, the Screaming Toddler. That would be the longest journey ever. And I'm totally counting the last one, where he screamed during the entire descent into D.C., because he refused to drink or eat anything and thus never was able to pop his ears, poor mite. I'm sure the entire plane hates me still.
K: Keepsake from your travels.
Too many. You have no idea how many stupid tchotckes we have on our shelves from Kyrgyzstan, where we went slightly insane with buying stupid little things with the intention of giving them away. Problem is most everyone we know is overflowing with stupid little tchotchkes from Kyrgyzstan, so no one wants any more, and yet we still have overflowing shelves. Bill and I went through them when he was home last and we filled a box with the ones we definitely didn't want anymore - and there's still plenty left.
(On a side note, does anyone want a box of random Kyrgyz souvenirs? Seriously. I will mail them to you.)
Frankly, I like my memories of places more than the stuff I purchased.
L: Letdown site and where.
Frankfurt. I don't know why, it's not like I expected much since there really isn't much to see there, but I think I was surprised how much I really disliked it.
M: Moment where you fell in love with travel.
I think I've always liked traveling. I don't remember not enjoying traveling. Well, I don't know that I liked it much at three months old!
N: Nicest hotel you’ve stayed at.
Probably the hotels in China were technically the nicest, but the hotels I've enjoyed the most are the bed-and-breakfast in Osh, because the owners were terribly sweet and gave us extremely good breakfasts. And the hotel in Istanbul where Bill and I stayed: after we arrived, the concierge invited us to the rooftop for coffee and tea and he helped us plan our week to make sure we got to see everything we wanted. It doesn't sound like much, but I think the reason I liked those places the most was because they were the hotel that tried most to be home.
O: Obsession. What are you obsessed with taking pictures of while traveling?
Graffiti - for some reason, I love taking photos of graffiti. The older the better!
P: Passport stamps. How many and from where?
So basically, this is a way of saying what countries I've been in? Okay, here you go, in order that I visited:
Canada
Mexico
France
Monaco
Switzerland
Kyrgyzstan
Turkey
Germany
U.K.
China
Georgia
I think that's all of them: I feel like I'm missing a few. Some of those were repeated: I've been to France twice, and the U.K. and Istanbul three times each. I was only in Switzerland for a day, though (and no, it wasn't all the airport).
Q: Quirkiest attraction you’ve visited and where.
Unless you count the tourist-trap factories in China (silk factory! cloisonne factory! jade factory! tea house factory! etc), I have to think that the funniest attraction would have been something in Kyrgyzstan. The National History Museum was pretty good, but that was mostly the tour guide, Hamida, who spoke only Russian and would point out the holes in the walls and tell us, "There used to be something there, but then the Russians took it with them in 1991." (Bill translated. How he kept a straight face, I have no idea.)
Really, though, I have a great desire to see the World's Largest Ball of Twine, which is probably the quirkiest of quirky, and for me, everything pales in comparison.
R: Recommended site, event or experience.
China. Yeah, yeah, communism is Evil and yay capitalism and blah blah, but I really had a fantastic time in China and I think everyone should go at some point if they can, even if it's with a tour group like I did. (Granted, it was a tour group of embassy folks so we all knew each other already, and there were only five of us so we actually were able to overrule the schedule once which was totally handy, but it was still a tour group.)
I do think everyone should go somewhere new by themselves once in their lives, especially if they haven't ever done it before. There's something an awful lot of fun about going to a strange (or even familiar) city and being completely on your own, able to do exactly as you like, with no other companion with an opinion of their own. Traveling alone kind of rocks.
S: Splurge. Something you have no problem forking over money for while traveling.
Food and safety, which sometimes go hand in hand. I don't pay attention to how much food costs when I'm traveling (but I also don't tend to dine in five-star restaurants, not that they exist in most of my destination). I also don't mind paying to take a taxi instead of public transportation, especially when I've got luggage and a plane to catch. The nice thing about going to third-world countries, bargaining is still the rule of the market, so even if something is pricier than I want to pay, I can often bargain them down to something more reasonable (or get Bill to do it).
T: Touristy thing you’ve done.
While we were in Istanbul, Bill and I overheard the following conversation between some Norwegian tourists and the local Turkish cabdriver.
Tourists: We'd like to go to a belly-dancing show. what can you recommend?
Driver: There should be some brochures in your hotel. Ask the concierge.
Tourists: But we don't want those shows. Those are tourist traps. We want an authentic belly-dancing show, one that you would go to.
Driver: .....We don't go to belly-dancing shows.
(For the record, Bill and I went to the uber-touristy belly-dancing show. It was pretty corny, but probably one of the corniest touristy things I've ever done was at the rest stop for Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana, where they had an animatronic show telling us how awesome the swamp was.)
I will say this, though, which sort of borders on the next question: so I was sitting in the Louvre because I was exhausted and this American couple go barking through the corridors, complaining at the top of their lungs about how they can't find the Mona Lisa. All sorts of lovely paintings all around them, but none of them are some weird Italian chick with a stupid smile, so they can't be bothered to look. The couple comes up to me sitting there, and the following happens:
Them: Hey, do you know where the Mona Lisa is?
Me: Izvenitzia, ya ne panemayou. Ya gavorite pa Rusky.
It should be noted that the person sitting on the other side of the bench (not Bill) just about broke into laughter as soon as the people went away, because they'd seen me looking at an English-language guidebook a few minutes earlier.
U: Unforgettable travel memory.
Too many to relate, I think. The time I was transporting the cats to Tbilisi, and the airline crew let me go on the tarmac so I could see the cats on the plane in person. Sitting on an overlook in southern France, looking out on the Mediterranean and gossiping about various royal families. Walking the Great Wall of China and joking about how, according to Mao, we were now men. Eating at Yo! Sushi on Oxford Street with a bunch of other American expats. Every minute of the last time I was in Paris.
V: Visa. How many and for where.
The problem with a diplomatic visa is that you generally need visas for just about everywhere you go, even if you wouldn't on a regular passport. I even have visas for countries that I never visited. I did use the visas for Turkey, China, and Kyrgyzstan - I can't remember if I had a visa for Georgia, but if I did, it was an airport visa.
W: Wine. Best glass of wine while traveling and where?
None. I don't much care for wine, either. I am extremely boring in the alcohol department.
Incidentally, I'm kind of surprised that there are more questions regarding alcohol than actual food. I've had some extremely memorable meals overseas that had nothing to do with alcohol. Bill and I had dinner at the fancy-schmancy restaurant at Chateau Frontenac on our honeymoon, and then another fancy dinner at Kiz Kulesi in Istanbul; both were extremely enjoyable. Drinking koumiss on a mountaintop in southern Kyrgyzstan - you don't forget that in a hurry either. The lunch I had in Beijing at Mr. Liu's house, when he showed us his fighting crickets (the picture was my laptop wallpaper for years). Best of all, a Caesar salad in Paris, which was so good, I stopped what I was writing and made a notation of eating the best Caesar salad ever.
If you ask me, wine pales by comparison.
X: eXcellent view and from where.
One of my favorite views - though it's probably not the best view ever - is from the Gargoyle Balcony on Notre Dame in Paris. I recommend it to everyone I know going to Paris, because most people would pass it by. After all, it's a 45-minute wait to get to the front of the line, and then you have to climb all the way up to the top. And even then, the Notre Dame is not even close to the tallest building in Paris.
But there's something about being up there, next to the gargoyles everyone recognizes, and able to look down on the Seine and the city, that puts you right into the medieval mindset. It's so easy to pretend you're Esmerelda or Quasimodo, you almost start walking with a hunch. It was absolutely, completely, 100% worth every minute in line and every twisty step up.
Y: Years spent traveling.
No idea, and no idea how to figure that out. Nor do I want to, frankly.
Z: Zealous sports fans and where.
Bill and I went with our friend Rachel to the Kyrgyz Independence Day Bouzkachi Tournament. Bouzkachi goes by several names depending on where you are, but basically it's headless goat polo. No, seriously. You take a goat, and chop off its head, and tie up the neck so it doesn't leak anything anywhere, and then you ride around on horses and throw the carcass into the goals or holes or agreed-upon areas on either side of the field or meadow or hillside. It's pretty basic. It's also extremely fun to watch, as long as you're not a member of P.E.T.A.
Anyway, the tournament was basically pitting the provinces within Kyrgyzstan against each other, and it was almost as much fun watching the spectators as it was the game. I took lots of photos, though none came out quite as well as I would have hoped.
Anyway, the next step is travel orders and then we're looking at leaving in March or so. Anybody want to rent a house in Virginia?
So, in honor of Andrew's renewed medical clearance, and the upcoming travel it entails, an appropriate meme:
Gacked from pinkfinity.
A: Age you went on your first trip.
My first plane trip was when I was three months old. We flew from Oakland, CA, to Las Vegas, where my mom's family lived, to spend Christmas with them. There's a picture somewhere of Baby Me propped up on the seat, with the seat belt across my lap.
B: Best (foreign) beer you’ve had and where.
I am not, nor ever shall be, a beer fan. However, my my memorable alcohol was outside Osh, Kyrgyzstan, about a week after I arrived in Kyrgyzstan. We went to Apshirsay with some of the locals, and then had dinner at some orchards in that area. We had wine and vodka, and I got a crash course in how to toast in Russian. (You don't toast individuals, but ideas - the more flowery, the better. You're also not allowed to toast or participate in a toast with an empty glass, or even worse, water. MUST be alcohol.) The wine was cooled by placing the bottles into the nearby stream, which was extremely cold.
Incidentally, that was the night that I involuntarily went on the Kyrgyz Diet Plan (best diet plan ever, btw, and very closely related to Montezuma's Revenge). I still don't know if it was the alcohol that did me in, but I suspect as much.
C: Cuisine (favorite)
I'm a big sucker for Thai and Indian (but who isn't?). Not that I've ever been to either country. Of the countries I've actually been to, I'd say my favorite cuisine was French. (There's a reason you don't know Kyrgyzstan for the food. The national dish is overcooked pasta with horse meat.)
D: Destination (favorite and least favorite).
I love London because there's never any lack of things to do there. I love Istanbul because it's comfortable and foreign all at the same time. (Actually, Turkish food is pretty darn yummy, too.)
The only time I have ever been utterly miserable while traveling was in Frankfurt. I really, really, really do not like Frankfurt.
E: Event you experienced abroad that made you say “wow.”
Huh. You know, I can't think of one. Which is really weird, since I've done lots of neat things overseas, in particular in places where most Americans aren't likely to go. (Europe: pshaw, I say. With a few exceptions, anyway.) Then again....the only time I remember actually saying wow was in Europe, after a 14-hour travel day and in Paris, on top of the Arc de Triumphe, when I turned and suddenly saw the Eiffel Tower, and realized, "Omg, I'm in Paris." Because for some reason, despite the fact that I knew we were in Paris, it hadn't actually occurred to me that we were in Paris, as crazy as that sounds. Maybe it had something to do with being able to see a landmark that everyone recognizes as a landmark. After all, the stuff you see in Tbilisi and Bishkek and even parts of China and Istanbul are cool, but they're not necessarily instantly recognizable.
(Then again: I was watching some television show, I forget which, and they showed a picture of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It was definitely the Blue Mosque, as the building being shown was blue. The voice-over identified it as the Haghia Sophia, which is red. So maybe not everything in Istanbul is instantly recognizable.)
F: Favorite mode of transportation.
Hmm. I have the feeling I would really enjoy a tram car, if I ever get to live in a place that still uses them. (DC did, back in the day, but while the tracks are still there, the cars are not.) Istanbul has an excellent light-rail line that is wonderfully easy to use and very clean. I kind of liked the marshrutkas in Bishkek (picture a very tall van being used as a makeshift bus line), but I didn't dare use them without a local in tow, because they were really confusing. I like trains, too, but I don't get to ride them very often.
G: Greatest feeling while traveling.
That moment when I'm thinking, "Mwahahahahaha, I am the ONLY PERSON I KNOW (not counting Bill) WHO WILL EVER GET TO DO THIS." Which is probably horribly petty, but there you are.
H: Hottest place you’ve traveled to.
I have never been anywhere hotter than Yuma, Arizona, where I grew up. 128 in the shade, people. Not many places can beat that. (None that I've been to, at least.)
I: Incredible service you’ve experienced and where
More Bill than me, but I've reaped the benefits. He traveled a lot in Kyrgyzstan, and there were some restaurants where he frequently ate, so much so that everyone on staff recognized him by name. One trip, we went along with his parents. At the same time, the ambassador traveled to the same city. Anyway, for dinner, Bill took us to one of his favorite restaurants. When we walked in, we saw a long table filled with the ambassador, his guests, and various other people, all of whom were presumably important. Everyone still had their menus before them, and there was only water and bread on their table, so it was clear they hadn't really been helped much. The waitstaff, however, saw Bill, and immediately jumped to, came over with big smiles and greetings (and this was in Kyrgyzstan, where no one smiled, e.v.e.r.) and immediately showed us to a table.
They got us drinks, bread, menus, took our orders, brought us appetizers and snacks, more drinks, our meal, additional snacks, dessert, again more drinks, and our check. We were done with our meals and were walking out the door - and the ambassador and his party were just getting their appetizers.
Now, that's either a commentary on how slow the ambassador's party was willing to take for dinner....or it was that the entire restaurant stopped to take care of us. I'm pretty it was the latter, especially since it wasn't the first time that a restaurant gave Bill preferential treatment. It was kind of fun.
(Although I did feel sorry for the ambassador, who was a very nice man and did look rather hungry when we left!)
J: Journey that took the longest.
I think that was the trip from Bishkek to Tbilisi through Istanbul, when I was taking my foster cats to their new home. The flights themselves weren't all that long - four, five hours tops - but there was a seventeen-hour layover in Istanbul. So long, actually, that Turkish Air gave me a hotel room in the city where I go and rest in between flights. It was the longest, but it was one of the best: I went to the hotel, dropped off my stuff, and went into the city to explore (and shop! and eat!) before returning to the hotel to shower and take a nap. The day flew, no pun intended.
No, scratch that. Any plane ride with Andrew, the Screaming Toddler. That would be the longest journey ever. And I'm totally counting the last one, where he screamed during the entire descent into D.C., because he refused to drink or eat anything and thus never was able to pop his ears, poor mite. I'm sure the entire plane hates me still.
K: Keepsake from your travels.
Too many. You have no idea how many stupid tchotckes we have on our shelves from Kyrgyzstan, where we went slightly insane with buying stupid little things with the intention of giving them away. Problem is most everyone we know is overflowing with stupid little tchotchkes from Kyrgyzstan, so no one wants any more, and yet we still have overflowing shelves. Bill and I went through them when he was home last and we filled a box with the ones we definitely didn't want anymore - and there's still plenty left.
(On a side note, does anyone want a box of random Kyrgyz souvenirs? Seriously. I will mail them to you.)
Frankly, I like my memories of places more than the stuff I purchased.
L: Letdown site and where.
Frankfurt. I don't know why, it's not like I expected much since there really isn't much to see there, but I think I was surprised how much I really disliked it.
M: Moment where you fell in love with travel.
I think I've always liked traveling. I don't remember not enjoying traveling. Well, I don't know that I liked it much at three months old!
N: Nicest hotel you’ve stayed at.
Probably the hotels in China were technically the nicest, but the hotels I've enjoyed the most are the bed-and-breakfast in Osh, because the owners were terribly sweet and gave us extremely good breakfasts. And the hotel in Istanbul where Bill and I stayed: after we arrived, the concierge invited us to the rooftop for coffee and tea and he helped us plan our week to make sure we got to see everything we wanted. It doesn't sound like much, but I think the reason I liked those places the most was because they were the hotel that tried most to be home.
O: Obsession. What are you obsessed with taking pictures of while traveling?
Graffiti - for some reason, I love taking photos of graffiti. The older the better!
P: Passport stamps. How many and from where?
So basically, this is a way of saying what countries I've been in? Okay, here you go, in order that I visited:
Canada
Mexico
France
Monaco
Switzerland
Kyrgyzstan
Turkey
Germany
U.K.
China
Georgia
I think that's all of them: I feel like I'm missing a few. Some of those were repeated: I've been to France twice, and the U.K. and Istanbul three times each. I was only in Switzerland for a day, though (and no, it wasn't all the airport).
Q: Quirkiest attraction you’ve visited and where.
Unless you count the tourist-trap factories in China (silk factory! cloisonne factory! jade factory! tea house factory! etc), I have to think that the funniest attraction would have been something in Kyrgyzstan. The National History Museum was pretty good, but that was mostly the tour guide, Hamida, who spoke only Russian and would point out the holes in the walls and tell us, "There used to be something there, but then the Russians took it with them in 1991." (Bill translated. How he kept a straight face, I have no idea.)
Really, though, I have a great desire to see the World's Largest Ball of Twine, which is probably the quirkiest of quirky, and for me, everything pales in comparison.
R: Recommended site, event or experience.
China. Yeah, yeah, communism is Evil and yay capitalism and blah blah, but I really had a fantastic time in China and I think everyone should go at some point if they can, even if it's with a tour group like I did. (Granted, it was a tour group of embassy folks so we all knew each other already, and there were only five of us so we actually were able to overrule the schedule once which was totally handy, but it was still a tour group.)
I do think everyone should go somewhere new by themselves once in their lives, especially if they haven't ever done it before. There's something an awful lot of fun about going to a strange (or even familiar) city and being completely on your own, able to do exactly as you like, with no other companion with an opinion of their own. Traveling alone kind of rocks.
S: Splurge. Something you have no problem forking over money for while traveling.
Food and safety, which sometimes go hand in hand. I don't pay attention to how much food costs when I'm traveling (but I also don't tend to dine in five-star restaurants, not that they exist in most of my destination). I also don't mind paying to take a taxi instead of public transportation, especially when I've got luggage and a plane to catch. The nice thing about going to third-world countries, bargaining is still the rule of the market, so even if something is pricier than I want to pay, I can often bargain them down to something more reasonable (or get Bill to do it).
T: Touristy thing you’ve done.
While we were in Istanbul, Bill and I overheard the following conversation between some Norwegian tourists and the local Turkish cabdriver.
Tourists: We'd like to go to a belly-dancing show. what can you recommend?
Driver: There should be some brochures in your hotel. Ask the concierge.
Tourists: But we don't want those shows. Those are tourist traps. We want an authentic belly-dancing show, one that you would go to.
Driver: .....We don't go to belly-dancing shows.
(For the record, Bill and I went to the uber-touristy belly-dancing show. It was pretty corny, but probably one of the corniest touristy things I've ever done was at the rest stop for Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana, where they had an animatronic show telling us how awesome the swamp was.)
I will say this, though, which sort of borders on the next question: so I was sitting in the Louvre because I was exhausted and this American couple go barking through the corridors, complaining at the top of their lungs about how they can't find the Mona Lisa. All sorts of lovely paintings all around them, but none of them are some weird Italian chick with a stupid smile, so they can't be bothered to look. The couple comes up to me sitting there, and the following happens:
Them: Hey, do you know where the Mona Lisa is?
Me: Izvenitzia, ya ne panemayou. Ya gavorite pa Rusky.
It should be noted that the person sitting on the other side of the bench (not Bill) just about broke into laughter as soon as the people went away, because they'd seen me looking at an English-language guidebook a few minutes earlier.
U: Unforgettable travel memory.
Too many to relate, I think. The time I was transporting the cats to Tbilisi, and the airline crew let me go on the tarmac so I could see the cats on the plane in person. Sitting on an overlook in southern France, looking out on the Mediterranean and gossiping about various royal families. Walking the Great Wall of China and joking about how, according to Mao, we were now men. Eating at Yo! Sushi on Oxford Street with a bunch of other American expats. Every minute of the last time I was in Paris.
V: Visa. How many and for where.
The problem with a diplomatic visa is that you generally need visas for just about everywhere you go, even if you wouldn't on a regular passport. I even have visas for countries that I never visited. I did use the visas for Turkey, China, and Kyrgyzstan - I can't remember if I had a visa for Georgia, but if I did, it was an airport visa.
W: Wine. Best glass of wine while traveling and where?
None. I don't much care for wine, either. I am extremely boring in the alcohol department.
Incidentally, I'm kind of surprised that there are more questions regarding alcohol than actual food. I've had some extremely memorable meals overseas that had nothing to do with alcohol. Bill and I had dinner at the fancy-schmancy restaurant at Chateau Frontenac on our honeymoon, and then another fancy dinner at Kiz Kulesi in Istanbul; both were extremely enjoyable. Drinking koumiss on a mountaintop in southern Kyrgyzstan - you don't forget that in a hurry either. The lunch I had in Beijing at Mr. Liu's house, when he showed us his fighting crickets (the picture was my laptop wallpaper for years). Best of all, a Caesar salad in Paris, which was so good, I stopped what I was writing and made a notation of eating the best Caesar salad ever.
If you ask me, wine pales by comparison.
X: eXcellent view and from where.
One of my favorite views - though it's probably not the best view ever - is from the Gargoyle Balcony on Notre Dame in Paris. I recommend it to everyone I know going to Paris, because most people would pass it by. After all, it's a 45-minute wait to get to the front of the line, and then you have to climb all the way up to the top. And even then, the Notre Dame is not even close to the tallest building in Paris.
But there's something about being up there, next to the gargoyles everyone recognizes, and able to look down on the Seine and the city, that puts you right into the medieval mindset. It's so easy to pretend you're Esmerelda or Quasimodo, you almost start walking with a hunch. It was absolutely, completely, 100% worth every minute in line and every twisty step up.
Y: Years spent traveling.
No idea, and no idea how to figure that out. Nor do I want to, frankly.
Z: Zealous sports fans and where.
Bill and I went with our friend Rachel to the Kyrgyz Independence Day Bouzkachi Tournament. Bouzkachi goes by several names depending on where you are, but basically it's headless goat polo. No, seriously. You take a goat, and chop off its head, and tie up the neck so it doesn't leak anything anywhere, and then you ride around on horses and throw the carcass into the goals or holes or agreed-upon areas on either side of the field or meadow or hillside. It's pretty basic. It's also extremely fun to watch, as long as you're not a member of P.E.T.A.
Anyway, the tournament was basically pitting the provinces within Kyrgyzstan against each other, and it was almost as much fun watching the spectators as it was the game. I took lots of photos, though none came out quite as well as I would have hoped.