People in Amsterdam are internationally recognized for their ability to party, but I think they take partying to a new level on the Queen’s birthday. We arrived in Amsterdam on Thursday, the day after the Queen’s birthday. Once we received our book of scavenges, we sought out a food challenge, a habit we often did, and headed out for lunch. On our walk to the Pancake house, we could not get over the amount of litter. Beer cans, bottles, and random orange colored litter. Orange is the color of the Queen. I basically got the feeling that there was a great big blow out and the clean up was just starting. The Pancake house was great. They have 56 different types of pancakes! Basically savory and sweet. Mom and I decided to go for the ... read more

Cairo is an interesting place. I had been to Cairo about eight years ago and it was a very different experience for me. We have mentioned earlier, that in this ‘competition’ we are staying in very nice hotels. In some instances that is really great - we are relaxed and fitted with luxury. On the other hand, we are seen as super rich people. Taxi drivers wait outside the gates to pounce on you. When I was here before, I stayed in a dingy hostel and I didn’t feel that people tried to ‘take me for a ride’ as much as this time. For example, we asked our taxi driver to take us to the place to ride the felucca boat. We knew there was a place by the Hyatt that had a set up, ... read more

Hello all We are just sitting here in the airport of Bahrain. We arrived last night because we could not get direct to Cairo and our flight is not delayed, oh the joys of travelling. I thought that I would take the time to write a quick little note. The blog for Nepal is written, but on my computer and very long...we had a great time. One thing that I was going to mention and haven't so far was the transportation aspects. In the game, there is a secondary contest for the team that can use the most forms of transportation. Mom and I have decided to pursue that route. So far we have travelled on a camel, donkey, elephant, car, bus, taxi, airplane, rickshaw, trishaw, wheel barrel, cable car, street car, canoe, and jeep...to name ... read more

If you want to go to Club Med and relax, this is not the way to do it; having said that, this is the way to see a lot of things in a short period of time. Krista commented on the blog the other day that she was tired just reading about the things that we were doing…believe me, it is tiring. Not only that, I have decided that body odour and sweat are just a part of me and I am learning to accept them, mom’s too. Then again, isn’t what this is all about? We have seen so MUCH. Planes are our rest time. I am kind of hoping that when we find out our scores from the last leg in Malaysia that we are far enough behind that we will stop trying ... read more

Hi everybody, Well, Leslie and I are sitting on a plane right now headed for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I guess this is our day off, although we had to get up at 4:15 AM to go to the airport and get on the plane at 7:45AM. /Anyway, we’re not running our asses off for a day! Yesterday was another hectic one. We walked all along this street that was closed to traffic and lined with stores and shopping malls. When we got to the end, we took this ‘cab’ that was basically a box stuck on that back of a motorcycle. From the sound of it, I think the motor cycle needed a tune up and the driver was coughing his lungs out from the pollution and fumes. We didn’t get killed though!! We checked ... read more