Transport back to Bulgaria wasn't a problem, although it did seem to takes ages. We decided to catch the overnight bus from Turkey back to Bulgaria becuase we thought that the bus coulldn't possibly be any worse than the train - we were wrong, the bus sucked even more. So we arrived in Bulgaria after about 30hrs of no sleep, and then had to drive from Karlovo to Veliko Tarnovo in the north as a half way stop over on our way to Romania. One thing we learnt was that in this part of the world the distances may look small on the map, but they take a really long tome to travel, due to poor roads, traffic, or just general sightseeing along the way. Anyhow, after another 3 or 4 hours we got to our hostel (which was awesome) and crashed for a few hours. It was a shame that we only had 1 night here as the town was really worth checking out and the hostel was fantastic - free breakfast AND dinner!! The town even put on a free lightshow in the castle which we coould see from our hostel balcony.
The following morning we set off pretty early as we had a fair bit of driving to do, heading north from Veliko Tarnovo we passed the border from Bulgaria to Romania without too many problems. It was interesting to note that there was a sign at the border crossing that said "Remember, you cant bribe border security anymore!" They needed a sign to remind people? I don't remember if it was on the Bulgarian or Romanian side, but really, I don't think it matters - and I'm sure they would both accept the odd bribe here and there.
Bypassing Bucurest, the capital of Romania, we drove right into the heart of Romania through the Carpathian mountainside into Transylvania. This was real Dracula territory, steep cliffs, dark spooky forrests, small Baroque villages, old churches with crooked steeples and abandoned castles on mountain tops. We stayed for a couple of days at a town called Sighisoara, which was the birth place of Dracula (or at least Vlad Tepes). Supposedly, Dracula's real name was Vlad Tepes and he was the on-again-off-again king of Romania when we wan't spending time in Turkish dungeons - which he did on multiple occasions. Vlad had a naughty little habbit of impaling people on large sticks through their spine (ensuring at least 24 rs of squirming before expiring) and hanging them up at the city entrances. Aparently it wasn't just the Turkish invaders that Vlad impaled but basically anyone who disagreed with him, he wasn't a very happy person. So anyway, Vlad got the nickname 'Vlad the Impaler' by the locals (who probably then got impaled for making fun of their king/despot) and his grizzly habbit passed in to legend. Eventually Bram Stoker heard of this legend and combined it with the local gypsy myths and legends of vampires to create his fictional character of Dracula. The name 'Dracula' means 'son of the Dragan' - Vlad's father was a night in the order of the dragan, a kind of Romanian solider elite class. These days everyone in Romania seems to be terrbily proud of their tyrant which is kind of strange really, I'm sure if Vald was around today the first thing he would do would be to impale everyone selling the dodgy cheap tourist Dracula crap... I would.
So, apart from Dracula stuff Sighisoara still had lots to offer. The original town was a 14th century fortified village built on the top of a steep hill. The town and walls are very well preserved and there are lots of little streets to explore and museams to visit. The weather was starting to turn the corner from winter in to spring, so we were getting a lot more walking and exploring in each day. We had a great afternoon sitting in a garden drinking beer from 2 litre plastic bottles and watching the sun set.
While we were staying in the hostel in Sighisoara we meet a couple, Paul and Alice, from Bunderberg. We got on really well with them and they tagged along for a little while on our way to the Romanian countryside. Along the way we stopped at Bran and visited the castle which people associate most with Dracula. The truth is that Dracula did visit this castle once, but in reality it was only for a bathroom stop on his way through. Still, the castle is as one wouold expet, very tall and spooky looking, sitting on top of a very steep windswept hill. The floors creak a little bit and the view over the small town below is just as described in the book - I could imagine Dracula scaling the castle and cliff faces like a lizard to bring back another victim, but then again I have an overactive imagination anyway. The crowds of tourists did detract a little bit, but it was still cool to see. I even ate "Dracula pizza" at the local cafe (lots of spicy sausages and tomato sauce for the blood effect. Nice)
Bran was meerly a day trip so after a few hours we all set off again in the direction of the Romainin mountians. We were booked in to stay at a really small hostel on the toip of a mountian, ony accessable via an unsealed road for 4-wheel drives. Of course we took no notice and drove our little diesel up the "road" (again I use the term losely), there were massive patches of mud, large rocks and drop offs. Our car bottomed out with a loud 'crunch' on multiple occasians, but it was fine. I wasn't too worried because the car was totally insured for everything imaginable. We really put the poor car through its paces, and by the end it wore a skirt of mud that would make any true four-wheel-driver proud. Eventually (after Paul and Alice had to get out and check we were going the right way) we arrived at the hostel, run by a bloke called Josef. The accomodation was much better than we had anticipated, and the grounds were cool as well. The hostel is actually a fmaily farm complete with animals and the freshest milk and cheese possible. We spent a few really fun days walking around the hills and treking through the mountians which in places looked for all money like Switerland - but at 10% of the cost.
Our short trip to Romania was closing and we needed to make our way west once more. We left the hilltop hostel just as it started to rain, if we had left it another hour or so the roads would have been impassible for our car so we realy timed it well. Our target was to make it back to Belgrade by that night where we would say goodbye to Paul and Alice, the next day we would continue our trip to Slovenia to see Heidi's family one last time. We had calulated that the drive from the Romanain hills to Belgrade would take around 8 hours, but we failed to take one crucial variable in to acount during our reckoning : sheep. It wasn't long after we had made our muddy hill decent that we realised we were going to really be pushed for time due to the local shepards moving their sheep to greener pastures. Unfortnatley for us, the shepards take their flocks along the roads, so on multiple occasions we had to make our way through huge herds, sometimes the shepard would run in front of the car to clear a way, other times we just had to drive really really slowly and creep through, trying not to smack any fluffy little lambs. A couple of times some sheep ran into a door or colided with a bumper, but I can safely say that there was not one sheep fatality that day - quite an accomplishement.
After a fairly epic 14 hour drive we finally made it back to Novi Sad, just north of Belgrade. The next day Alice and Paul stayed and explored Serbia while we continued our trip west. It was great travelling with our new friends, and espeially good to have some fellow Australians to travel with, I think it means something that the best travel companions we have found have also been from Australia.
After a thankfully short drive we reached Slovenia and were so happy to be back staying with Heidi's family. It really did feel like coming home, they were excited to see us again and hear of our travels. We spent a few perfect days in the Slovenian hills enjoying some walks in the hills that, only aa few weeks ago, had been under several metres of snow. We realised that it was only a couple of months until we were due to hike the Inca trail in South America, and the European winter lifestyle had taken a pretty hard toll on our fitness. We resolved to get up early every morning and go for a big walk before breakfast in order to get some ccondition back, but this new regemine of fitness lasted exactly 0 days. All too easlily we fell back in to our old habit of sleeping in and eating a huge Slovenian breakfsat, complete with a schnapps aperitif. We did make sure we did some walking during the day time, and we were quite impressed with one walk up the local peak called Kriska Gora, towards the top the peak gets steeper an steeper until at some points it's almost like climbing a ladder of pebbles. The summit is about 1500 metres above sea level and about 800-1000m elevation from the town we started in, so it was a good walk. The views were amazing from the top, and now that some of the snow had melted it was really hard to beleive we were in the same country as just a few weeks before.
It was only a quick stop in Slovenia, then we had to make our way back to Austria to say goodbye to more of Heidi's family. The drive was easy and quick compared to eastern European roads. Again, I got that same feeling like we were coming home. We had a few fantastic days walking through the Innsbruck mountains in the sun and then eating and drinkng with Claudia and Michael during the evenings. I was even fortunate enough to learn the secrets to cooking the best schnitzel in the world. While we were walking in the countryside we discovered the greatest sport on earth (after dung beetle racing) which is called 'Alming'. Alms are little Austrian pubs that are strategically situated on the mountain side. The idea is to walk up and up and up for about 2-3 hours, stop at an Alm for a refreshment, then continue to the next stop etc etc. In theory it sounds cool, in practice its amazing. I've never had a beer that I enjoyed more or with such a fantastic view. Most of the people that do the Alm walks are older retired folks, it must keep them in great health.
Continuing our way west, our next destination was Paris. We left Austria in the morning and arrived in Paris in the late afternoon. We had to drive around for an hour through crap Paris traffic before we found the drop off location for the car near the Orly airport. Lesson for young players: never ever ever trust directions given to you by a Frenchman over the phone. So we said goodbye to our little car that had so fathfully delivered us to so many cool destinations. When we had first picked the car up the guy told us that everything was insured except for the windscreen and the tires, and that if we exceeded 10,000km we had to pay for the first service. We had been keeping an eye on the odometer and I was happy to note that we dropped the car of in Paris with 9880km on the clock, and not a single dent or flat tire. We had picked up a chip in the windscreen, but we left the window covered with bugs and mud so it was almost impossible to see. I checked he trip computer just before we left and here are the vitial stats: Total distance travelled was 9880km, average speed was 68kph, and our average fuel consumption was 4.8l/100km which is pretty good. From these basic stats I could calculate that we spent just over 145 hours driving over the 2-and-a-bit months that we had the car and used around 474 litres of diesel. So there you go, the end of our epic road trip.
We stayed with some friends Kirsten and George in Paris, George was studying and had an apartment in the coolest location (the Paris end of Paris??) next to some embassies and houses where the diplomats stayed. It was a 15min walk to every site in the city, and we had such perfect weather. We used our time well an saw all the sights that we missed on our first trip and even had time left over to relax in the gardens of Paris and drink some wine in the sun. It was great to see the city in spring time and in winter, there was such a huge difference in the way the city seemed to come alive. In winter the city was dull and grey, people lived in shops and cafes and only braved the chilly outside air to hop from cafe to bar. We still had a great time but in hind sight we were pretty limited in what we could see and enjoy due to the freezing weather. In contrast to the frozen winter city, Paris in the spring came to life, full of colours, sounds and people strolling the streets taking their time to enjoy the late nights and warm weather.
It was a short stay in Paris, but an enjoyable one. We still had a bit of time before our planned stay in Hungary so we caught a bus north to Amsterdam. The bus ride was pretty long but compared to the eastern european trips we had taken not long before, it was a piece of cake. We stayed right in the heart of the busy older district and had really timed our visit perfectly as the Queens Day parade was that weekend. The Queens Day parade is exactly what it sounds like - the Queen gets in a bus, does a parade, waves a little bit, and then goes home. For some reason its one of the biggest days on the Dutch festival calander and for most of the weekend the city is packed full of pale white Dutch people dressed in blindingly bright orange. The streets turn in to a dense soup of people and walking 100m takes anywhere from 30mins to an hour, its absolutely crazy. DJ's set up a temporary stage on a random street and for a couple of hours the street is closed while people feverishly dance, then the DJ's pack everything up and head to the next spot. The canals were crowded with dangerously overloaded "boats" (read:anything that floated), full of people blasting loud music into the packed banks of onlookers.
We did also manage to see quite a lot of the city. We took a tour around the red light district and learned a lot about the history of the city and why it has also been so liberal. The short answer is: because its profitable. Its not surprising really, the city was built by merchants and crafty businessmen, so the golden rule is if it makes money, it stays. Everything is taxed, and even the famous prostitutes in the reaperbahn pay taxes and have a workers union. We toured the Heineken brewery and sampled the wares, visited the Anne Frank Haus and, yes, we may have partaken in one or two coffee shops (which don't actually sell coffee...) Incidentally the food in Amsterdam was pretty good (if you like junk food) and consisted mainly of chips with mayonnaise and waffles. Little carts selling this junk food seemed to pop up in the afternoon just around the corner from the local coffee shops to service anyone with the munchies. Unfortunately Heidi had her jacket pinched one day, and we had to spend some time at the police station getting all the paper work etc etc but apart from that minor hiccup Amsterdam was a fantastic destination to visit. I would have liked to have spent some more time in Amsterdam to do a couple of day trips around the Dutch country side but we had a flight to Hungary to catch.
I'd been looking forward to seeing Hungary for months, in fact before we even left for our trip we decided that we would spent over a week in Budapest. We had heard great things about the city from almost everyone we had asked who had been there. Our flight got in and eventually we made our way to the hostel, it wasnt as easy as I thought it would be. Hungarian is a very unique language and its almost impossible to understand someone talking or even read, usually we can pick up a word or two ("bus" or "train" is a fairly universal sign) but we were completely lost here. But we got to the hostel safe and sound, and soon went exploring. Budapest is a beautiful old city, some parts have buildings hundreds of years old, some parts have reletively modern architecture and some parts and looking run down. Actually I think the run down buildings add to the feel of the city, I really felt like this was the city that we were seeing, it wasn;t as though everything had been fixed up and given a shiny veneer for the tourists - somehting we had felt in a lot of cities. We found our way to a sidestreet full of bars, cafes and restaurants and stopped for a drink. The weather was beautiful and warm, the city was new and exciting, we didn;t need to pack up and move anywhere for a while and most importantly the beer was good and very cold. Pretty close to another perfect afternoon.
We had a while to explore Hungary and we were keen to see some of the country before settling in the city for too long (afraid that we might get sucked in to the city and not experience anything else). We decided on a little country town called Obanya, about 3 hours train ride away. Obanya is a very small town, closer to a village really, nestled in the foothills of the lower Carpathian mountians. We organized the requisite transport tickets, boarded our train and settled in for the journey. The cityscape soon gave way to the countryside and we saw forrests, rivers, plains, vineyards, and farms. We arrived at Obanya and had to get the guy from the hostel to pick us up. It turns out that the hostel is part of the guys restaurant so we always had some good food on our doorstep. We spent a few really fun days hiking through the mountians and exploring the countryside. We walked through some really cool, dark forrests (exactly like Endor from Star Wars - except no annoying little Ewoks) and then up and over mountain plains where we could see for what looked like a hundred miles all around. Our hostel also had the funniest mini gold course ever, complete with spiders and snakes as obstacles that needed to be played around.
We also took a couple of days to explore the Egger region, famous for Hungarian wines, specifically a strong red wine called 'Bulls Blood'. The legend says that during the days of the Turkish occupation, a young girl was taken from her home to be part of the Sultans harem. Her father gave the Sultan a bottle of the wine which he said was bulls blood, and told the Sultan it would make him strong and invincible. The Sultan drank the whole bottle, got so drunk (he was Muslim after all, and had never had alcohol) that he passed out and the girl could escape. There are dozens of little cellars throughout the town that you can just walk in to and get a taste of all the wines from the region - you can even bring in container and get them filled with your choice of wine (something we took advantage of when we left). Our favorite place was a little underground dug out that looked like it might have been a bunker from a 50 years ago, the walls were black with mould and the air was kind of damp, but the wine was fantastic.
So after exploring the countryside for a little while we went back to Budapest to spend several days looking around, enjoying the sun and generally relaxing. It's really nice to spend a bit of time in one spot and not have to worry about packing and moving bags every morning. We stayed in a really good hostel and made a bunch of friends on the first night, we all went out to a really cool bar that was almost a block in length, in fact it kind of looked like someone had bought an old apartment block and turned it into a bar. From the outside there was no way of knowing that there was anything inside at all, there was just a plain unmarked door leading to a small room, which lead to a bigger room and so on until finally we were sitting in a huge courtyard. We also timed our visit to coincide with the 'Palinka Festival'. Palinka is the local schnapps (strong!) and every year they have a party where dozens of stalls sell schnapps made from every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable. As well as schnapps they are lots of stalls selling sausages and beer, so really we had everything we needed for a whole day and night out.
Budapest is split by the danube into the towns of Buda (on the west bank) and Pest (on the east). We were staying in the Pest side which has most of the city these days. The Buda side has a lot of gardens, monuments and the famous castle which has been occupied by the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs. Its realy interesting walking around the old town of Buda and the castle district, in many ways its just like other old towns in Europe - crooked little streets, cobblestone roads and old, wooden framed buildings, but there is something unique about the area and that is the vast network of tunnels underneath the old streets. Orignally used as storage areas during the medieval times, the tunnels were further excavated, extended and linked up during the Ottomans and then later the Hapsburgs. The tunnels were used by the locals and the German army during world war two when they were under siege by the Soviets. One tunnel network has a history of being used as a hospital for decades, the hospital looked after local people and soldiers during the world wars, the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Soviet government, and was used as recently as 1970's as a secret underground nuclear bunker. The tour though the tunnels is amazing, the hospital was supplied fuel (used for heating and electricity) via secret pipes leading to a garden bed above ground. A milk truck would pass by every few months and pump fuel through fake flower pots to keep the hospital/bunker supplied.
After a very relaxing week in Hungary we packed everything up and caught a flight for Israel. I've always been fascinated by the history of the middle east so this was a part of the trip I was really looking forward to. I had heard from a couple of friends that Israel might be a difficult place to get in to, especially since we had stamps from Morocco and Turkey in our passports, however we found it to be one of the quickest and easy places to arrive in. Within 10 mins of landing in Tel Aviv we had our bags and were standing in line for the train. Tel Aviv was a cool city by the coast, built north of the old town of Jaffa (which is where Jonah supposedly boarded a boat before getting swallowed by the whale) and it's an easy walk between the two districts. Tel Aviv itself is pretty western, full of restaurants, markets and shops and of course the beach which is always full of people. It was a cool spot to stay in, but really not that much to see, I think I preferred the old town. Jaffa was one of the first port cities in the world and has had people living and trading in it for thousands of years. In the days of the crusade the city of Jaffa was called the Port of Jerusalem, as it was the first point that pilgrims and soldiers would set foor on land on their way to the Holy Lands. Since those times control of the city has changed hands every few hundred years between Muslim, Christian and Jewish states. Jaffa was also where Napoleon stayed during his conquest of the area, he spent time planning his attack on the northern stronghold of Acre (now called Akko) which was occupied by the British. In more recent history Jaffa used to be a pretty seedy area full of sailors, prostitutes and taverns but most of this has been cleaned up now and opened for tourists to explore, the markets here are really good and Heidi spent hours looking through all the stalls and purchased another jacket (about her 5th I think).
We only had a week in the middle east so we really had to try and fit as much as we could in to a small trip. We took a day trip to visit the citadel of Akko (previously known as Acre) which was the Christian stronghold during the Crusades. The city is surrounded by huge fortified walls which had been built, rebuilt and strengthened for over a thousand years. These days the walls are still in really good condition and at some point you can look from the wall down to the port and feel like you have stepped back in time. Unfortunately some parts of the citadel were under construction so we couldn't visit some areas but we did see some palatial gardens full of peaceful fountains, manicured terraces and ancient palm trees which provided peace and shade from the really hot sun. We also explored the port area which is still thriving to this day with fishermen and merchants. A few years ago a resident complained to the local council about always having blocked water pipes and during the investigation the workers discovered a network of underground tunnels built by the Templar knights during the crusade period from their headquarters to the port. Some people have suggested that this is how the Templars smuggled people and treasures without raising any attention or paying port taxes.
One of the main reasons I wanted to visit the middle east was to see Petra, the city carved into the side of a valley in Jordan. The ruins were created thousands of years ago but largely abandoned after the fall of the roman empire. In the 19th century a British writer and explorer 'rediscovered' the lost city of Petra and almost overnight it became a tourist mecca before being made famous in an Indiana Jones movie. We caught a couple of busses from Tel Aviv to the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat, near the border of Jordan. Eilat is a nice enough place, not exactly a must see destination but a good spot to stay in order to travel to Jordan. The weather was very hot, so we spent an afternoon at the beach with a million other holiday makers from Israel and other parts of the world. We had a tour organised for Petra so the next morning we got up very early and drove to the Israel-Jordan border crossing where we had to wait, and then wait and then wait some more. Eventually after filling out countless forms we were allowed to cross to the Jordan side of the border and continue. The countryside in southern Israel and Jordan is quite different to anything I've seen before - its a kind of desert that is made up mainly of rocks and pebbles. Of course there is sand, but its not like the deserts in Australia that are flat and mainly red dirt, these deserts were full of hills, sharp cliffs, and dried up rivers and streams. Its an incredibly baren landscape and its hard to imagine anyone living in these areas let alone fighting over these areas for thousands of years. When we arrived at Petra we were given a short introduction then we jumped on horses to take us from the national park entrance to the actual city of Petra. I couldn't help but sing the Indiana theme song in my head, it really was like re-living the movie. Walking through the ancient city was like visiting an alien planet, the types of buildings are like nothing I've ever seen.
Millions of years ago a sea slowly eroded a path through an underground mountain range, as the water dried up rivers and streams continued the work until the water completely dried up. What was left was a narrow passage through a rocky mountain range, on each side the cliff walls went 30-40 meters straight up, in some areas the walls were even higher. When the first humans settled here they used natural caves for shelter and over time extended the caves, and carved beautifully ornate facades for their new dwellings. It must have been a tough job, because you only get one shot at carving your building from a cliff face, if you make a mistake or don't line everything up perfectly it will stick out like a sore thumb. In the national park there are around 50 square miles of cliffs and stone carvings that can be viewed but unfortunately we didn't have nearly enough time to cover a fraction so we we only saw the most important and famous buildings like the treasury. From the outside the treasury was carved to look like ancient greek and roman temples and it looks very impressive, however the facade is a bit of a trick really because inside the building the 'rooms' are not nearly as high as the facade makes them out to be nor as deep as you might think. Most of the buildings that were carved from the cliff face only have comparatively small interior rooms. Its interesting to note that even though the temperature outside was around the low 40's centigrade as soon as we stepped a few meters in to the caves the temperature became a constant 15 degrees. The amount of work and craftsmanship shown is mind boggling, and to think that these people made all these places before power tools, excavators or electric lighting is even more impressive. Petra is one of those places that I will never forget, hopefully I can revisit his place with a little more time up my sleeve one day.
After the mind numbingness of Petra we travelled back north again to Jerusalem via Masada and the Dead Sea. Masada is a pretty important site for the Jewish people because it was where a small community of Jews living on top of a tabletop plateau tried to hold out against the Roman army. The Romans tried a few times to take the plateau but each time they were thrown down so after a few years of keeping the community under siege the Romans decided to built a massive ramp up to the top of the plateau which is still visible today. Instead of being captured the Jewish people chose 10 people to kill everyone (because suicide was not allowed) and then the 10 men killed each other. The only survivors were 2 old women who were chosen to tell the story to the rest of the world. The Dead Sea was pretty cool, there were large sheets of salt that looked for all money like ice bergs in the water. Around the edge of the water was a thick layer of crusty salt except for the resort areas where the salt had been more or less cleared for people to float in the water. We heard that the water is so salty that it it possible to overdose on salt if you accidentally ingest a small amount, but whether or not this is true I have no idea.
We arrived in Jersualem late in the afternoon and after checking in at the hostel we went for a wander through the streets. The old town of Jersualem is split in to quaters; the Christian quarter, the Armenian quarter, the Jewish quarter and the Muslim quater. The old city is a fantastic mix of history and cultures that is pretty unique, for thousands of years there have been different religions existing side by side with each other. The streets are lined with markets selling clothes, colored dyes, spices, herbs, teas, food from almost everywhere and of course the ubiquitous tourist crap. We ate some great food from the side stalls, things like humus and arabic salad, or kebabs with spicy sauces and Turkish delights, baklava and ice creams for something sweeter.
No other city in the world has as much religious importance for so many people. Three of the worlds major religions call Jerusalem home, and there are fascinating religious sites to check out. The stories of this area are really interesting, but to boil it all down to a long paragraph: Thousands of years ago a small bloke called David managed to kill the Philistine champion Goliath. He was crowned king shortly after and chose Jerusalem as the capital of the united Jewish state. Jerusalem was a good choice as the capital because it wasn't affiliated with any of the existing northern or southern Jewish tribes, so it was neutral, and in the middle of the country. The city thrived and, as directed by God, David's son Solomon built a temple to house the Holy Covenant, more commonly known as the tablets containing the 10 commandments that Moses received from God. (Incidentally the site chosen for the temple was in the south east limit of the old Jerusalem on a mountain that was already a holy site as it was the place that Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac). The temple stood for a several hundred years before Jerusalem was invaded by the Babylonians, the temple was destroyed and the Holy Covenant was taken back to Babylon. Later on the Jewish managed to retake the Covenant, and reclaim the city of Jerusalem as their capital. King Hezakiah had the temple rebuilt in the same location and the foundations of the mountain reinforced by 4 large walls (North, South, East and Western Walls). A lot of infighting between the Jewish tribes followed which weakened their armies and let a host of invaders conquer Jerusalem. Afraid that they would lose the Holy Covenant again, the Jewish priests hid their treasures in a secret location which remains unknown today. The second temple was eventually destroyed and later the ruling Ottoman empire had the 'Dome on the Rock' built upon the foundations of the old Jewish temples. (The 'rock' that the dome is built over is supposedly the spot where Muhammad ascended to heaven to converse with God). Ever since the fall of the second temple the Jewish people have been predicting the resurrection of the third temple - some people say that when the messiah comes he will rebuild the temple, others say that the temple needs to be rebuilt for the messiah to return. Naturally this is where a lot of friction arrises from, because the Dome on the Rock covers the place where the third temple would be rebuilt.
We spent a lot of time around the old temple area walking around the Dome on the Rock which is the holiest Muslim site, and the Western or 'Wailing' Wall which is the only remaining remnant of the second temple, hence the holiest site for the Jewish religion. We also walked the 'Via Delarossa', or the final path that Christ waked from the temple area towards a small hill where he was crucified. Today the spot where he was crucified is not the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and is shared between three Christian religions; Armenian, Greek Orthodox and Franciscans. The three Christian religions all sharing the one church doesn't really work out, and often there are fights that break out for trivial reasons. The situation got so bad that in the 19th century the 'Status Quo' document was defined which recorded everything in and about the Church and laid down a law that stated that all three groups needed to agree on any changes to the church. Unfortunately this means that the church is in a pretty bad way, and funny things are left just as they were when the document was signed. Example in case: a ladder which was leaning against a window has remained untouched for over 100 years because no body can agree on what to do with it. Madness.
Despite the three religions, Christian, Muslim and Jewish being in such a close proximity, everything felt very safe and there was not even a hint of unrest. I suppose that over the course of a couple of thousand years the locals have learnt some tolerance, and actually we heard from a few people that the when the trouble starts its usually from outsiders who don't understand the delicate balance that exists in the city. The sheer amount of history that you see when you walk just a short distance is incredible and just too hard to take in all at once.
Next stop after Israel and the middle east was New York. We had a painful set of flights to get, but arrived safely and emerged from JFK airport in the most perfect Spring day. It was such a relief to be in a country that spoke English (sort of), we didn't need to mime anything and buying bus and train tickets was a breeze compared to Eastern Europe or Middle East. We were due to stay in a hostel in the lower east, but due to a burst water pipe we managed to weasel a free night of accommodation in a beautiful/creepy old house just north of Central Park, it would have been the perfect setting for a ghost movie, complete with creaking floors and doors. Anyway, after a brief false start we caught up with Heidi's friend Rehka the next day and ended up staying at her apartment for a couple of nights. Exploring the city during the day and the bars by night really gave me a feeling of homesickness, I suppose the language and the bar/cafe culture was something I missed more than I realized. On the second night we made a hike out to Yankee stadium to see the baseball, something I've wanted to do for ages. We ate hotdogs, drank beers, yelled at players and felt very New Yorkish.
The next day was another perfect Spring day so we packed a picnic lunch and spent the day lazing in a Brooklyn park, central park is for tourists and rich chumps parading their designer puppies. The park in Brooklyn reminded me of the Botanical gardens in Melbourne, and it was full of people playing frisbee or bbqing. After the park we hit some bars and Rehka proved to be an excellent guide to some really cool places. We spent a couple of days not really doing much, just relaxing in the sun and drinking, and when the sun went down Heidi and I cooked up a storm in the spacious kitchen in the apartment, amongst other things we cooked some schnitzels using a secret recipe handed down from Heidi's Austrian family.
Of course Heidi was really excited to do some shopping so we spent almost a whole day looking at shops along Broadway and the side-streets, Rehka and Heidi had fun making me buy clothes because, to be perfectly honest, by the time we reached NY the clothes that I had were wrecked. I was in need of some new clothes, and really, a little help from someone who works in the fashion industry wouldn't go astray. After all, engineers are not known to be the best dressed bunch. So for a whole afternoon I was a rag doll at the disposal of two girls that could set records for shopping. After being though what seemed like thousands of shops and spending a small fortune I needed to do something a bit more manly, and what's more manly than an aircraft carrier full of old jets? Nothing, thats what. Safe in the knowledge that my sense of manhood would soon be revived I left the girls to more shopping the next day and walked up to the Intrepid air museum, only to find a line about a mile long (not an exaggeration, it was over 2 hours wait just to get tickets), I guess it would have to wait. We spent another night bar hopping in the warm temperatures, eating some great food and then walked down to see some live jazz. We even got a perfect sunset over the hudson, pretty cool way to end the day.
On the odd occasion that Rehka needed to work Heidi and I filled in time doing touristy things so our time was used very efficiently. We saw some art museums and I eventually got to explore the Intrepid air museum, and I have to say it's a pretty impressive spot. As it was the Memorial day weekend there was a whole fleet in port so there were aircraft flying all over the place, helicopters ferrying very important people around and water craft ranging from inflatables to frigates navigating the waterways. There was a really good selection of aircraft on static display ranging from 1940's era seaplanes right through to the 90's era Super Tomcat, everything had the smell of kerosine and oil, just the way it should, and I even got to visit the insides of a submarine (not somewhere I would like to stay for 90 days at a time without seeing the sun light by the way). For several sweet hours I could embrace my inner nerd and explore all kinds of impressively loud, large or fast machines. It's true I was a geek, but I was the best god damned dressed geek there.
We rounded out the required tourist checklist with the Frick gallery and a play on broadway starring Geoffry Rush about a mad king who tries to cheat death. We walked along Times square around 9pm and it was a mad crush of people, especially since parts have been closed to make it in to a pedestrian mall. Rehka showed us around another little hole in the wall bar that was located down in the basement of some old building. They had a small band playing jazz and the guys behind the bar were dressed up and serving strong rum and whiskey based cocktails, it was easy for me to imagine what the city would have been like during the prohibition period. There would have been dozens of places just like this that from the outside looked like any other building but on the inside were hives of activity
So that pretty much wraps it up for New York, we had such a good time, party because for a lot of the time we didn't feel like tourists. Sleeping in an apartment and visiting all the small local places at our own pace, not being rushed and forced to cram in 1000 tourist sights really make it feel like home. We have Rehka to thank for being a super-guide and letting us crash at her house.
The next stop after New York was Ecuador, where we are waiting for our trip to the Galapagos to begin. More on that soon.
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