trippin out

I have arrived! ... Kind of. Calgary->Edmonton->Winnipeg->Thunder Bay->Toronto->Montreal->Toronto->Frankfurt->Cape Town. It's been almost two weeks, and I have finally physically arrived at my destination in downtown Cape Town. I say physically, because mentally, who knows where I am. After my 7.5 flight to Frankfurt, 12 hours (awake!) in Frankfurt, and then 12 hours (dead to the world) to Cape Town, my mind has absolutely no idea what is going on. My body is happy to finally be done the drinking and 2am fried food extravaganza, and is (I believe) happy to be exposed to heat and sun again. I mean, it's been a little over a year since I went to Cuba, since this past Calgarian summer certainly does not count as warm&sunny weather. The flight, not going to lie, was a bit traumatizing. That might sound ... read more

I'm Deliriously Tired. So, Brad and I both puked on what was a 15 hour bus journey, with three transfers, back from the Mediterranean to Istanbul. Turns out we got a little too cocky- four days of drinking random spring water in the middle of nowhere, no problem, but drinking tap water back in what seemed to be civilization (STORES? Tourists? where the hell are we?!) got us both relatively ill. We are both back in relatively fighting form, we're back in Istanbul, we just made the most delicious dinner anyone has ever eaten so cheaply in Istanbul, and I'm feeling good- except that I think I'm so tired the room is spinning a little bit. In any case, the hike of ours was EXTRAORDINARY. Literally the most beautiful views, the most random and desperate side ... read more

Observations by day three in Turkey: 1) My brother and I know next to nothing about this country. This is good, yet horrible, as we are bopping around pretty much blind on what there is to see, what there is to do, and how far everything is from one another. 2) We are in Europe. Turkish people consider themselves European. Brad and I couldn't stop staring at the trams. 'Trains, fully functioning, in the middle of a city?" "STARBUCKS?" The closest thing I've seen to Starbucks in the last 9 weeks was the "Star & Bucks" men's coffee shop in Ramallah. 3) The prices are European. Brad and I went to Topkapi Palace; the admissions fees were so high, we ended up having to eat ketchup and mayonnaise packets straight for sustenance. This is still after ... read more

I haven't posted in ages, as my mom has pointed out, and it's because I have been on a veritable traveling marathon, and literally, this is the second time in 10 days I've been able to go on the internet. It's been a crazy, ridiculous, amazing adventure. The themes of the trip, we decided, are: "We love to wait at areas of transport, without actually going anywhere" and "GOOD WORD" It involves doing roundabouts with picking up Sally at the airport (and with the Israeli security), playing with our food, my addiction to hummous and felafel, befriending bedouins, walking for 8 hours straight in the Jordanian desert with 1.25 dinars between the three of us, traversing the country about 70 thousand times, me losing my passport/leaving it with a bedouin in the middle of the Dead ... read more

Yesterday was MADNESS. Literally, the most dangerous event that has occurred to me thus far in Palestine. And it had nothing to do with anything political, economic… not about human rights or civil society. It had to do with Dessert. Nablus is famous for its Kunafa, a ridiculously rich dish that, as my roommate and I have determined, is both sweet and savoury; insanely delicious but also kind of disgusting. It is vermicelli, with goat cheese, with sugar sauce; and I wouldn’t doubt if they slip some crack into these addictive bad boys. In any case, I have heard faint buzzing over the past couple weeks that Nablus, in its Shopping Festival, was vying to make the Guinness record-breaking kunafa in the city. And I’m thinking: who tried to break this record before? All of us ... read more