Wa ha ha ha. This time it worked, and Ive been accepted without relinquishing my internet time or computer control. Just in case you were wondering.
And now we are packing up, and we plan to leave tomorrow. This is good because this place is nice, cheap, and clean, it lacks things like full internet access without censorship, and forget about a tv lift cabinet because there is no TV. Last night we tried to rent a movie on line to watch on the laptop and thats blocked as well. But not before being teased with the trailer. We figured if we could watch the trailer we could definitely see the movie. Nope.
Its true, I know nothing about code or the like. There its out there I confessed. Though the blog has its own domain everything and anything that involves playing with the code of the layout (such as adding widgets) is done by Patrick, not be me. He has tried to show me and I zone out, gumdrops and lollypops style. I tried to add this blog to blog catalog under my gypsy princess, and it wants a widget or a link. I linked in the corner and it didnt work. Now Im linking on this page, and if it still doesnt work I give up. Because as soon as I relinquish control over the computer for even a minute, Ive lost it for the next 5 hours!
And I have to admit I like the way Joscha wrote the written into!
Episode 1 - Planning of Action
Who hasn’t dreamt of packing up and just leaving their daily lives behind for a while…
Sherrie, an English language teacher from Canada, and Patrick, an IT consultant from Sindelfingen, Germany, are doing just that. They are escaping their daily routines for three months by embarking on a motorcycle adventure with their two new best friends “Betty” and “Wilma” — two BMW F650GS travel enduros.
Their destination is Mount Nemrut — also known as the throne of the gods due to the ancient burial sites and enormous stone statues found at its tipp — in the south east of Turkey.
Their route will bring these two adventure travellers through Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and most of Turkey, where they will no doubt encounter many exciting new adventures. On the way back they will cross through northern Greece and all of the Balkan states. Have we made you curious about what Patrick and Sherrie latest adventure?
Their stories and pictures can be found on: www.journizer.com/fernweh (Patrick’s site - mostly in German) and www.journizer.com/gypsyprincess (Sherrie’s site - in English).
But I do not know for how much longer. We are taking a little break before we head into Greece, so we expect to be in Greece by next week, or another 2 or 3 days here with internet (flickr is not working here however, its blocked, and though Patrick found a way around it, I dont think i can upload pics sadly, just look at them. This of course is heartbreaking! They did load up to my Journizer account however) .
The crazy part is that after about 6 weeks on the road we are on our way back. Last night Patrick pulled up a picture of our apartment and I could barely believe it. It seems like forever ago, and yet not that long at all. Just 6 weeks time and we will no longer be thinking about where we will sleep each night, but rather worrying about being late for work, planning lessons, and doing upgrades for the apartment like at Schlage. But fear not, we are already planning for the 2010 reunion at La Posta.
my poor mother! She has seen enough pictures from this trip to turn her hair gray (or so she keeps telling me ). And knowing that I am mostly camping wild does not help the fact that I am on a motorcycle trip. So the poor women turns on Dont Leave Home Without Your passport and there is a special on Mt. Nemrut, and how dangerous the area is, especially at night.
Now everyone needs to decide their own safety levels and act accordingly and within these limits. Your intuition is a great tool. Trust it. However when it comes to terrorism it really seems like everything is blown out of control. The episode said that one group was stopped 13 times on routine checks. we have never been stopped. ever. We have never felt in danger here. We are not going any further east because the night time security may change. That is our decision, others will go farther and have no problems. its all personal choice.
The nice thing is my mother does trust me, even when I left home for the first time to go to Russia and was in Moscow for the underground bombing. Ive put her through a lot, she has earned those hairs. Ahem, should they exist of course!
But I always want to be able to say I went out and lived life the way I wanted to live it, not the way others say I should, or even worse, listen to those who are afraid to take risks tell me mine are insane. I live life. I love every second. I only get one, and I want to live it to the best of my ability. Which means making me happy, and those who love me happy as best as I can within those limits. And I know my parents are secretly proud of my journeys, if not a little less stressed when I return. But I still say I can get hit by a bus in front of my house or riding down some crazy mountain in India. Given the choice Id like to try to make some headlines with it.
Yes you can buy the moon, or at least buy a piece of the moon, even from the world´s leading lunar real estate property. Apparently a romantic leader for V day presents is a small acre of moon. This is what you buy the person who has everything. Myself I am much more greedy. I want a book that I can read with the chocolate and the wine. It has to be tangible and in my hands. Preferably of use. We tend to give each other things we need for the next planned trip. That backfires sometimes though, now Patrick has way too many maps of Africa.
Just with really dodgey internet (if and when we get it) and 2 people for one computer. Yes I am a little behind in my computer stuff, including visiting my regular blogs. I still read you! I am just not commenting. But the big news here, well really there are two big pieces of news. The biggest is that we met it to our most Easterly destination! Mt Nemrut!!!
Us checking the final stretch of drive out:
And the Gods :
The other piece of cool news is that I am now not only comfortable off roading, I even like it, AND 2 mornings ago when Paricks bike went down, mine stayed up. Once we got here everyone had travel deals for getting up there, saying the road was too dangerous for ME! Apparnetly a man can drive up to Mt. Nemrut, but the litttle girl should take the bus. I did not drive my bike from Germany to here to take no bus. And neither did Patrick, he would have driven my bike up for me if he needed to I think. But 6000 kms on my bike and I didi. And I never dropped her to the very top when I went to ark. herrrrr
So our two days of having a dodgey internet connection are over (and dodgey is better than none!). We are now leaving Pammukcle and we are heading south. Although this first 29th birthday was good, I have to admit I was a little disapointed in Pammuckle. All the tourist shots show people in the springs, and once you arrive you are told you cant go in the springs. I do not know if this is new or not. The only ones you can enter are the ones that are made by the Turksih government. Once I got over that disapointment however I fell in love with the palce. But I would recomend it only if you really want to take the pictures, because this is the one natural site that I have ever been in that I actually think the pictures are nicer than the actual place! (So I will not be looking into a sales job search because I cant sell anything that I do not love.)
I am debating a swim in the hotels pool (its still well above 35 here and its 10 after 6). Tomorrow we will spend the day at the Pamuckle springs. Today I looked forward to relaxing a bit, but when I went to wake the boy up he surfaced for only about 2 hours and is now down again. He is sick. I will kick his butt if he is sick tomorrow. He has not slept since the night of the boar shooting. Last night was the abduction, and the night before that the boars, for those who do not read Journizer here is the main exc erpt:
Beautiful blue lake, amazing mountain roads, and a field with boars. But no worries our farmer friends told us, the boars do not like the fence. the fence shocks them and they fall over dead (this was not said in words so much as acted out with fingers for tucks and belly up motions). Only we were not to touch the fence, that would be very very bad.
That is because unlike the regular electric fences that just give you a jolt, these farmers had rigged up the fence direct to the power line. 220 volts for any hairy bastard that tried to dig up their potatoes.
And our last night there not only did I NOT hear them grunting outside the fence, (Patrick went out to check it out while I slept), I also failed to hear the gun shots as the farmers started shooting them.
Needless to say the heat and lack of sleep is killing him. I only hope that sleep and hydration refreshes him. Because as cute as the vicious little kitty that keeps clawing her way up the table cloth is, there is a reason I dont like cats, and a lot of it has to do with the litter box, the other half I prefer dumb blind devotion.
As always I never came close to getting everything done I wanted. I have uploaded a few pics,´no emails, and a couple of blog updates, I have not even finished my Journizer entries (where I am trying to write a more detailed day by day account of what has been happening). A few pictures uploaded, and not much else has been achieved! I have not even finished sharing the links like Slingbox, because that is one thing that I am really interested in. Samara has one back home, and I love that she can watch American TV in Germany. But alas I have let the boy sleep for over 2 hours, and much more and he wont sleep tonight. We were abducted last night, I will try to recreate what happened over on Journizer and then post the link over here for those who are interested!
