New Travel Tips

I have a list of travel tips on my website. Here are some new things I came up with during our trip.

Bathrooms are always a necessary thing to find when you are traveling. In Turkey they were marked as WC. This comes from the British water closet. Many of the mosques had public toilets. Many of the toilets had a small fee. They are all nicely maintained.

Don't know why I hadn't thought of this. Bring your back packing water filter to filter the water in countries where you can't drink the water.

Lots of hotels do not give you wash cloths. Bring your own if you like to use one.

For some reason cereal and yogurt was served with large spoons. Bigger than a soup spoon, more like a serving spoon. Bring a small one if you don't like eating with a big spoon.

Speed limits are slower. It takes longer to get places. It seems like most people obey the speed limit.

Bring post it notes or stickers to put in your guide book.

Get business cards printed with your name and email address. Hand them out to your fellow travelers. Write the date and place you are at so they remember when they go through their stuff.

Bring a small string backpack to take a few items to the beach. They are small so can be packed in your bag.

There isn't much space in the overhead storage on the tour bus. You might need a smaller bag (like the string bag I just mentioned).

If you don't want to hand cash to your driver and guide for tips, bring a few empty envelopes.

At most of the hotels the wifi was free, but the PC in the lobby cost money. I think they do that to make sure people don't sit at the PCs all day.

The inter-city buses leave on the time posted. You need to be on the bus 5 or 10 minutes before it is scheduled to leave.

Bring a pedometer to see how far you walk each day. I know we walked a lot and we were tired by the end of the day. A GPS would do the same thing.

Keep a running list of items you buy so you can report them for customs when you return home.

Bring a few rubber bands.

When going on a bus tour ask how large the group will be. 24 was a nice size for us. The more on the bus the longer it takes to eat, get in and out.

Ask if there will be stops at stores with sales pitches. The guide does this to help out the business. If you don't want to see leather coats, carpets, ceramics, or gemstones find out if this will happen.

See if every day is full. It is nice to have some afternoons open so you can relax and do things on your own.

Remember to walk when you are at the rest breaks.

Word origins

When we were in a Turkish gemstone store (jewelry store) and the woman talked about the different types of turquoise, Turkish, American. I don't remember the other places it comes from. What came to me at the time was the similarity of the word Turquoise and Turkey. So I looked it up. Sure enough, the name of the stone comes from the area of Turkey.

turquoise
precious stone, 1560s, replacement from M.Fr. of M.E. turkeis, turtogis (late 14c.), from O.Fr. turqueise, fem. adj. "Turkish," in pierre turqueise "Turkish stone," so called because it was first brought to Europe from Turkestan or some other Turkish dominion (Sinai peninsula, according to one theory)

Home after 3 weeks

We made it home. Almost 14 hours of travel time, airport to airport.

We are tired but glad to be home.

In Paris again

We are in Paris again. This time it is scheduled.

We are on our way home after 3 weeks away.

Starting our voyage home

We are awake and getting ready the leave the hotel for the airport. We have been sleeping in lately so it is early for us. We should be home in 20 hours or so.

Tired feet, rested minds

ok, we are returning to the USA tomorrow- our three week vacation is almost over. Sure went fast, telescoping time. At first we looked out over an ocean of water and now only drops remain!

Have thought about work a few times while we have been away. Joel has checked his work e-mail occasionally. I will wait until we are home!

Yesterday we spent the day in the town of Plovdiv. The old town is very picturesque- wait til you see the photos! It was a fun excursion, we enjoyed taking a bus trip out of Sofia through the rolling hills and golden fields of Bulgaria. In Plovdiv we toured the old town and saw several Roman ruins in the city. Archeological preservation is at a different level ( no pun intended!) than in Turkey. Some areas are cordoned off, however other areas contain trash and grafitti. We toured an excellent Ethnographic museum. This is the common word used in Bulgaria to mean the cultural history museum.

Today we did our final walk about in Sofia. Went inside some of the buildings that we first saw during our walking tour. Went to another street market and bought more fresh peaches. Yes, they are delicious!!!! It is warm here, around 75F and sunny. Later on we found a small shop selling croissant sandwiches and we found a park bench near a fountain and rested our tired feet.

Even though our Bulgarian vocabulary is pretty small we have been successful communicating our needs. Not everyone speaks English! My spanish words show up when I am talking to the vendors.

Soon we will be back in the real world... it's been a great vacation.

Buses in Sofia

On Saturday we went to the Bloyana church. After that we went to the History museum.

We caught a bus on the way back. It was a tired old bus. One thing you have to do here is punch your ticket. There several are punches in the bus. I thought you stick it in and it would punch. I gave up. I kept looking at it and figured out it was mechanical. I went back and pushed the handle. Then it worked.

We got off the bus and got on a light rail trolley. With the help of the GPS in my camera we knew where to get off. We walked a bit back to the hotel.