Across the Globe and Back - Part 2

Part 2:

As you can see by the photo below, I am still

in Qatar and "Americana" has spread to all

corners of the globe. First of all, I apologize

for the quality of some of these photos, as I

took a lot of my photos from a moving car,

most on the way to my next airport.

Ahhh, nothing like a Turkish coffee to increase

your heart rate early in the morning.

And nothing like a local Turkish beer to

dust off those weary, traveler blues after

multiple flights.

One day on our way to one of the local

historic sights I started snapping some

photos of the local village. We stopped

in this local village to grab some

supplies for our lunch that day. I wasn't

sure how the locals would have felt about

me getting out of the car and shoving the

camera in their face, so I rolled down the

window and surripticiously snapped a few

of the local scene from the back seat. I

think the owner of this bike is a supporter

of a Turkish football club.

Here's a typical scene played out throughout

the countryside. I saw tons of men sitting

outside shops, smoking, joking and lazily

watching the day go by. Of note, very few

woman were out and about.

A local fruit stand. You may see a theme here,

something in particular was definitely in

season while I was there.


A local man hawking his goods...

During our journey we hit a toll booth and this

character happened to catch my eye.

Certainly an enterprising young man.


And here he is returning to his spot,

"one" item lighter.


And when I get to "Part 3", we will talk about

some of the ruins I got to see during my trip.

Here's a sample...

Across the Globe and Back - Part 1

I recently had the opportunity to travel to the
Middle East. I am back in the US now, but still
on a different time zone. It just so happens that
my body clock said it was time to wake up
at 3:30 am this morning. So, what better way
to spend the wee hours of the morning than putting
together "Part 1" of my travels.

It did take me over 20 hours to get to my destination,
but just so you don't feel too sorry for me, here's the
lobby of my hotel. Kind of cool to see the locals
in their traditional dress at the check-in counter.

After a long journey and cramped quarters on

multiple planes, it was great to climb into this

monster of a bed.


You know you are in a high class hotel

when you see one of these. And no, it is

not a drinking fountain for all of you

Crocodile Dundee wanna bees.

Here's the view outside my hotel room...

One of the many mosques....


Took a walk around town and snapped this

photo...

OK, now back to reality. This was my next

accommodation...

Woohoo, bunk beds! And dang it, if I didn't

get stuck with the top bunk. Climbing up that

thing at my age, believe me it wasn't pretty.

One of the local road signs...

Who says they aren't civilized????

Well, there is more to the story. I'll continue

this blog when I have some more free time

on my hands.

The Joys of Moving

Well, what can one say about the trials and tribulations of the moving experience after moving almost every three years for the last 45+ years. Well, it doesn't get any easier that's for sure. OK, you do pick up tidbits of wisdom on "best practices", but bottom line is that is still takes a lot of hard work/patience and the ability to remain extremely flexible (semper gumby as they say). Here's my better half plugging away at the 150+ boxes of stuff. What a trooper!



About half of our stuff did not go to Norway and was in storage for the past 3 1/2 years. I guess you could say it was sort of like Christmas (on a large scale) as we opened up some of the boxes and discovered some of our long last treasures. Both of us are looking forward to the day we can display them on a permanent basis. Each piece has its own story, whether purchased on some Navy adventure, handcrafted by Chris, or handed down from a past generation.




And the down side of moving....your stuff ends up like this poor globe!


On the bright side, you also get to experience new and interesting restaurants. After experiencing quite a few "bad" food experiences in the past, we now look for verbal recommendations before taking the plunge. Our prospective builder gave us a tip on a good Italian place in Asheville. The small, family run restaurant is in a strip mall along a busy road, somewhere we would not have thought twice about, but with a good word on its food we went to it the other night. And to our delight, the recommendation was valid. Here's a small portion of their menu...


The atmosphere was cozy and it was packed with locals. We started off with an appetizer of fried calamari. The batter was light and came with a nice dipping sauce, some greens, olives, roasted peppers and a deep fried lemon on top. A nice start to the dinner...


As we sat eating our appetizer, the plates of other patrons started to roll out. Of course the portions were huge, but looked very appetizing as well. Our interest was peaked. And I think our service started to get better as well as we started discussing our food, taking pictures of the menu, our food and the interior of the restaurant. I almost think that they thought we were food reporters or food critics, well whatever works!

Here's Chris' Farmhouse Rigatoni....


And my Penne with Sunday Gravy....


All in all a very good food experience. We will definitely go back to this place. And to top it all off we got a Cannoli to go. The Cannoli ended up as part of breakfast, but hey nothing like dessert for a quick "pick me up" in the morning.

Speaking of breakfast, oh no wait that was in my younger days...here is another benefit of moving. Finding a store that specializes in import beers! This place is downtown Asheville and boasts approx 700 beers from around the world, although I think they over exaggerated the numbers of beer. Anyway, it is called "Bruisin' Ales" and here's their website: http://bruisin-ales.com/index.php. And below is my haul for the visit. A dabbling of various beers, one even comes from a way far off place called Baltimore. The "Below Decks" beer is made by Clipper City Beer Company and is modeled after an English Barleywine style ale. Can't wait to get underway with this 10% beer.