My Favorite Pictures of Europe 2008

Tarifa, one of the most beautiful places in all of Spain.  Columbus started a few of his voyages here, and it has a great small town vibe.  The beaches here are seriously my favorite in all of the world.  It also has an edge of the world feel, since it used to be literally considered the edge of the world, passed the Pillars of Hercules that flank the Strait of Gibraltar.  I once had a deepwater sole at a restaurant on the waterfront that made me weep tears of joy.  Another great thing about Tarifa is that you can catch a 2 hour ferry across the Mediterranean to Morocco.

 Kristin and I relaxing on the beach, staring out across the Atlantic, Tarifa

 This overexposed photo is proof that the sun comes out in Ireland.  I lounged by this little brook in Wicklow County and had a nap.

A little stream in Ireland, very cold, very clear water.

Granada from the Alhambra

I climbed to the top of a Moorish castle that rests in the hills behind Malaga, Spain.  I took this picture on the way up.  Side note, notice the shadow in the bull fighting arena at left.  If you arrive late to a bull fight, you will be forced to stay on the sunny side of the stadium.  The shady seats go quick.

 I am not a fan of London, but love the homes.  I like trying to imagine what goes on behind closed doors, especially when the doors are a vibrant shade of blue.

Prague Castle from the iconic Charles Bridge.  Prague is such an amazing city with great art, history, and character.  It was never really bombed during the wars, so much of it is preserved very well.  It is an unreal place and you have to pinch yourself to legitimize its fairy dreamlike ambiance.

    The Charles Bridge which separates Prague is lined with statues and packed with people.  It is surreal to walk across late at night and feels like the statues are ghosts watching you pass.  I highly recommend it.  

Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague.  Very creepy place.

 A quiet room in Berlin

June 1 is the day

June 1 marks the day that we return to Asia.  Are we excited?  Absolutely.  It feels like returning to a long lost love left mid sentence across the world.  I have missed the area dearly, anxiously, from the living seas of Indonesia to the crooked smiles of mainland Asia.  This trip, will be our most ambitious yet.  We will search for forgotten temples in Cambodia, swim with camouflaged cephalopods in the Lembeh Straits, seek out the hill tribes in Laos, and traverse through the splintered Union of Myanmar by train.

There will be gorgeous beaches, and too many flights.  Choppy boat rides and dangerous nights.  This trip will be ambitiously insane in any right.  And yet, I will take the time to tell our tale.  Our adventure will be laid out across the page screaming out from little typed words and big bright pictures.  That is how we have done it around here, and will continue to do.  

 

This time around, 4 of us will be making the trip.  We have Kristin and I, along with my brother Ryan and his friend Meagan.  I will do my best to keep things entertaining, so you do your best to keep up with the blog.  Hell, tell your friends and their friends, and your friend's friend's mom.  Tell your golden retriever and the opossum that lives in the back yard.  Trust me, no one will think you are crazy.  This is an expensive hobby, and I want more readers.  To say that I do this for free would be a vast understatement, a considerable investment takes place before even one stupid little word scurries out from my fingers and onto this glowing page.

   

I used to want to change the world.  Now, I just want to see it.  That is either a beautiful or horrible thing, perhaps both even.  In the coming weeks, I am going to post my favorite pictures from some of the places that we have been.  Enjoy the blog, our adventure starts in Vietnam in early June. 

 

The Story behind Tweet

Born Tweetsworth Herringbone Yellowhead in the Fall of 1993, he was, at first impression, simply a stuffed yellow "Tweety" bird given as a Christmas gift to a young girl.  Since receiving this bird into her arms, Kristin has taken it to bed with her on 99.9% of nights.  An unbreakable bond has been established between girl and bird, and as a result, anywhere she go, he goes.

So much more lay under his emotionless face and pillowed veneer of simplicity.  His background remains a mystery.  There have been whispers that he came from a small town Fair, sold by a crooked magician to cover dental expenses.  Some speculate that he is not from this planet at all.  I heard from an elder Rajasthani Shaman that he lost his arms in a cockfighting match gone horribly wrong on the busy streets of Kolkata.  Regardless of where he came from and why, he quickly made a lasting impression on a blossoming Kristin Dushman.  Boasting an immensely proportioned head, 1 frail leg (the other was gnawed off by a dog), and a complete lack of any features resembling arms, he had a quirkiness about him that belied his true intentions of becoming the biggest hanger-on travel freeloader that I have ever met.

At Sea

Fast forward, and there I stood, at customs in a one room shack called an international airport.  Limon Province, Costa Rica.  We had just landed on a beach runway, and even the local fire department arrived to greet our harrowing descent.  Dangerous vibes.  These are always best experienced after the fact.  I waited in a long line to have my bags inspected.  Kristin and I had just met a few days prior in Panama, and I was about to be treated to my first bird sighting.  Kristin was holding up the line with multiple bags.  In these days, she traveled like mid-nineteenth century aristocracy, with large bags no fewer than three, taking with her blankets, pillows, curling irons, and all manner of unnecessary creature comfort.  As the customs official pulled a large frumpy yellow bird out of her suitcase, a look of befuddled confusion creased across his sweaty Latin American brow.  The act resembled a magician hesitantly pulling a dead rabbit out of his hat.  He knew not what to make of this creature.

And neither did I.  I was familiar with baggage, but this was my first experience meeting a girl that had a large yellow bird.  And he was large, with a head size doubling that of a human being.  The officials joked about it in Spanish, folding him back into his powder blue luggage home.  I was awestruck.  

Getting sun with Friends in Mexico 

Within the next few weeks, Kristin and I begin falling for eachother, and as a result my fate became inexplicably linked with this yellow fellow.  As we planned out first trip together, I remember asking her, "Really, we are bringing that huge thing with us?"  So far, he has not missed a single trip.

Travel Index

Venice 2010  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )

         Rome 2010  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )

Cairo 2010  ( 1 )  ( 2 ) 

Dahab 2010  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )

Florence 2010  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )

Pisa 2010  ( 1 )

New York 2010  ( 1 )  ( 2 ) 

Montana 2009  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )  ( 4 )  ( 5 )

Singapore 2009

Borneo 2009  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )

Kuala Lumpur 2009

Bali 2009  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )  ( 4 )  ( 5 )  ( 6 )  ( 7 )

Phi Phi Islands 2009  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )

Phuket 2009  ( 1 )  ( 2 )
Cambodia ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 )

Bangkok 2009 

Macau 2009
Hong Kong 2009  ( 1 )  ( 2 )  ( 3 )  ( 4 )  ( 5 )

Everglades 2009

Key West 2009
Miami 2009
Bavaria 2008

Salzburg 2008

Mexican Riviera 2008
Montana 2008
Berlin 2008
Prague 2008
Amsterdam 2008

London 2008

Gibraltar 2008

Spain 2008

Ireland 2008

Dublin 2008

Bahamas 2008

Tortuga 2008

San Jose 2008

Tortuguero 2008
Limon 2008

Panama 2008


Justin's Flickr Page

Sistine Gaze

So, I was writing the blog earlier today, and while captioning the Vatican Pictures, realized that we completely forgot to see the Sistine Chapel.  An honest mistake, but probably not forgivable to get that close and not see it.  We raced out the door, grabbed a cab, and were standing there an hour later, taking it in.  You know, things have a tendency to seem smaller in real life.  The Sphinx, Tom Cruise, and Snickers bars all come to mind.  The Sistine Chapel was about twice as large as I thought it would be.  Just huge and beautiful.  Overwhelming, really.  As a whole, the Vatican Museums really blew us away.  The set up takes you through everything before finally leading you into the Sistine Chapel for the finale.

 Very beautiful day today.  Here is St.  Peter's Basilica on a decent day.

 Horse

 We walked through the outer rings of the piazza, trying to locate the Vatican Museum, which was around the corner and down the street.

 We really needed this weather yesterday.

 The area surrounding the Vatican

 The dome from the museum 

 The museum is stuffed with castrated statues

 A very ornate affair awaited.  This museum was very well laid out and decorated.

 Room after room of treasures

 Everything seems so opulent

 You have to remember to constantly look up.  It is sensory overload.  We were thankful for our necks that they floor was not a canvas as well.

 Statue close-up

 Kristin really liked this piece

 Hey buddy

 This hallway was full of tapestries

 This was our favorite room, the map room. It is full of all types of maps.  Before google maps, you could just roll up in here and map stuff out. 

 More of the map corridor 

 Each map is painstakingly detailed

 I believe this is in the Sobieski room

 This was in the Immaculate Conception room

 Side

 Front and center by Immaculate Conception by Podesti

 Very very busy, could spend a day following the action in this one.  Room of Constantine by Raphael.  Does not get much better than this.

 Raphael 

 Raphael and the room of Heliodorus, which contains the art of several masters

 SO you pass through room after jaw dropping room and begin to wonder,

 When do we see the Sistine Chapel?

 They make you come down from the second or third floor to the entry level and then you turn a corner and,

 there it is

 Pictures are forbidden and there were about ten or so guards in the room,

 I carefully squeezed these off from around my neck while Kristin coughed 

 Definitely worth seeing

 The exit stairs 

 We got lost, and then boarded the subway.  I saw a lady nursing her kid smushed in a totally full car

 Circo Massimo - where the Romans once held chariot races