Looking Back: Sense of the Moment September 23, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, post-trip
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(First of all, I realize I’ve managed to go two months since my trip ended without blogging about some of the ancient sites we saw. That’s going to change in the next few weeks. Good times!)
This is probably the most difficult entry to write since I came home. It’s not an especially emotional entry or anything like that; instead, it’s actually the most difficult subject to articulate. It’s all about the sense of the moment.
What is the sense of the moment? I cribbed the phrase from one of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons. If I remember right, he never explicitly defines it. But one’s “sense of the moment” is their awareness of what’s happening around them and the ability to rise to the occasion. In the context of basketball, having a sense of the moment happens when a really good player realizes what’s at stake and takes the game over, leading his team to victory. Or it’s a baseball player who comes up huge in the big game.
When hanging out with groups in Egypt, I sought out the folks who had a “sense of the moment.” In this context, those were the people who realized, “Hey, we’re on an all-expense-paid trip to Egypt! What do I have to complain about? Let’s have fun.” They were also the most fun to talk to, swap stories with and listen to. They were there for the experience and didn’t let much get in their way. They weren’t obsessed with themselves. They were generally the most easy-going of the bunch.
For instance, the heat was a big one. Some people complained about the heat and were incredibly self-conscious that they were sweating (as if everyone else wasn’t). There were others, like Anthony, who would say something like, “That’s part of the experience! You don’t go to Egypt in March, when it’s 70 degrees! This is the desert!”
I think a lot of that was embodied by the guy who organized our trip and led the tour through its first few days. Sameh would say “No worries” a lot, and that attitude rubbed off on a lot of us. By the end of the trip, I was annoying the other students with my constant mantra of “No worries.” And since I’ve been back, I’ve tried to embody that ideal a little bit more. Instead of worrying about every little detail, I’ll just shrug, say “No worries” and enjoy myself. It works. Most of the time, anyway.
Another example of having a sense of the moment is when we asked what the day’s itinerary was. A lot of people wanted to know where we would be, when and for how long. It was almost as if they needed to be back at the hotel by a certain time. And that’s cool, that’s how they keep their day in order. But for me and some of the others on the trip, it was more like, “Well … whatever. We’ll get to all that other stuff when we get to it.”
I think my favorite example was in Alexandria. Kevin and Anthony were on their balcony shortly before we had to be downstairs at the van to depart for Cairo. I joined them, and we chatted about everything we had seen and done to that point (it had been about a week or so at this point). The whole time, the Mediterranean Sea served as the perfect backdrop. We talked about how you would need to make expensive reservations months in advance for similar views in the states. (I know I’m repeating myself here. Sorry about that.)
We were all a little shell-shocked about everything that had happened to that point: There were all the monuments and ruins. There was the amazing falafel. There was the best seafood dinner I’ve ever had. The pyramids. All of it was amazing, and at that point, it had only been one week! So we just sat back, all agreed that it was an insane week and went from there. It was great.
They had a sense of the moment, and when you’re halfway around the world, those are the people you want to surround yourself with. Shoot, even back home, those are the people I enjoy hanging out with the most. They don’t get caught up in what I refer to as Stupid Shit. That’s a rare quality sometimes.
That’s why you won’t hear me tell very many negative stories about the trip. I made a conscious effort to hang out with people who were having fun. That way, my stories are more along the lines of, “Oh man, this was so awesome!” instead of “I would have changed this or that, or I wouldn’t have done this.” I didn’t buy many souvenirs for myself, so in 5 or 10 years, all I’m really going to have are my photographs and stories. And I’d much rather have fun, kick ass stories than sad tales of what went wrong. Bad shit passes. The good times stick with you.
(By the way, I hope I don’t come off like I’m putting anyone down. That’s not it at all. I’m just saying that there were others who really seemed to relax and enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime trip and all the speed bumps that came with it. Those were the people I enjoyed hanging out with the most.)
Looking Back: Alexandria September 2, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, hotel crillon, post-trip
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Again, my apologies for long delays between updates. I had a cold all weekend; before that, I was busy pretty much every night last week. But the schedule’s clearing up a little bit in the near future, and I’m feeling good. So hopefully this is the last long wait between posts.
In the Ancient Egypt class I took this spring, I learned just a little bit about Alexandria. I knew that Alexander the Great established it the first time around. I knew there was a pretty famous library there, but it had burned down. And that’s about all I knew. With regards to today’s Alexandria, I knew even less.
It turned out to be one of my favorite stops on the trip.
(Again, another apology is due here. The photos here are huge, I know. But in case you wanted to click them for a bigger shot, I uploaded the photos without resizing. If that’s causing headaches or too-slow load times, let me know, and I will upload smaller photos.)
Arrival
After arriving in Cairo and spending 3-4 days there, we took a van north to Alexandria. We were told the trip would take 2-3 hours, when it wound up taking 5 (including a stop at a Coptic Christian montastary, which I will cover in a later post).
No worries, though. We arrived and, before seeing the hotel, grabbed lunch at Mohamed Ahmed Restaurant. Our tour guide told us that he and his friend would drive 2-3 hours to Alexandria just for the falafel. I’m no falafel connoisseur, but I scooped up nearly every piece of available falafel in eyesight. It was a bit of a mish-mash of different foods for lunch, including foul (beans), French fries, falafel, pita bread and scrambled eggs.
(I suppose the American equivalent would be going to T.G.I.Friday’s with friends, ordering one of everything on the appetizer menu and sharing with everyone at the table. But the food at Mohamed Ahmed was way better.)
Bibliotheca Alexandria
Then we went to the Bibliotheca Alexandria. Now, back in its earliest days, Alexandria had the largest library in the world. Every ship captain who came to Alexandria had to turn over his manuscripts so scribes could copy them for the library. Unfortunately, the library burned to the ground, and everything inside was lost forever.
Today, the Bibliotecha Alexandria stands in its place and has room for up to 8 million books. Some of us started out on a tour of the library but, taken aback by the interior architecture, we wandered on our own for awhile. A lot of the architecutre is pretty amazing, too; the holes along the walls are meant to mimic the holes into which the rolled-up manuscripts were placed in the ancient Library of Alexandria.
The hotel
My room wasn’t the best. But other rooms offered picture-perfect views of the Mediterranean Sea, with balconies and wide doors that allowed the wind to cool off even the warmest room. Our final morning in Alexandria, three of us chilled on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, talked about the trip and took in the view that would have cost hundreds of dollars in an equivalent American hotel. Here are photos looking to the left and the to the right from one of the nicer rooms:
and
Back to the first night. I sweated through the night while cars honked non-stop until 5 a.m. – one of our tour guides told us that Alexandria’s “busy time” each day lasted from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., thus ensuring that we woke up every hour or two to honking car horns or the train passing by (there were train tracks less than 500 feet from our room).
And there were shared bathrooms/showers, forcing everyone on the floor to fight over two bathrooms. It was a little weird to sit on the toilet and look straight at the shower, three feet in front of me. But whatever.
But that’s the only bad thing you’ll catch me saying about Alexandria.
Because honestly, the balcony outside my room allowed me to read and take in the sounds of Alexandria. And if I got bored with that, I could always stand up and take in a partially-obscured view of the Mediterranean Sea. So, all things considered, it could have been worse.
(That night, we ate at that seafood restaurant referenced in an earlier post. It was easily the best seafood I’ve had in my life. Good times.)
History
The next day, we took a tour around the city while our guide told us about its history. Basically, the city has been destroyed and built up again three times throughout its history. Ancient Alexandria lies buried under the modern city and in its harbor.
We took a tour of the Catacombs of Kom Al-Shuqafa and the Roman Amphitheater, which was discovered while breaking ground on a government building. It was cool to see these extremely old monuments amidst a much more modern city today.
(It’s especially insane to think about how old Alexandria is, considering that Vancouver just celebrated its 150th anniversary)
The Corniche
Then we took a drive along the Corniche – the road running parallel to the Mediterranean Sea. It was an especially lively section of town, with shops, public beaches and a nice barrier that people sat and relaxed on. After the sun went down, it was almost impossible to find somewhere to sit on this barrier. Whole families relaxed on the barrier together, having a good ol’ time. You definitely don’t see public gatherings like that in Vancouver.
If we had more time, I would have taken a walk along the Corniche; after all, it was easily the coolest area of Alexandria – both in terms of stuff to do and temperature. Along the Mediterranean Sea, a nice breeze keeps things relatively cool and pleasant. But once you’re a few blocks inward, the buildings stop a lot of the wind, and it gets extremely humid. We’re not used to the humidity in the Pacific Northwest, so it was a bit startling.
At the end of the Corniche is the one of the Egyptian Presidential Palaces. On this day, the Egyptian president was actually in Alexandria, so security was tight. We took a back route in, checked it out a bit and found a private beach for swimming (which I mentioned earlier).
Tangent
Here’s where I need to mention how friendly people were to us. After swimming, we went back to the hotel and split up into groups to find food. My group asked a local for a recommendation, and he actually walked us there. Turns out it was the place with good falafel from the day before, but we didn’t mind. But the walk was not just one or two blocks; it was a solid 5-10-minute walk. This wasn’t atypical at all, either. People did this kind of thing for us all the time.
Later that night, I waited for some friends outside the Internet cafe, and a man came up to me, offering all kinds of food recommendations – completely unsolicited. I think that’s awesome. Everywhere we went, I can think of a time when people went out of their way to help us find where we were going or help us with something.
/Tangent
That third day, we chilled a bit and hopped on the van around noon for the trip to Cairo. That night, we would board the overnight train to Aswan.
Looking Back: The Heat August 5, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, aswan, cairo, heat, luxor, post-trip
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(I really need to get to bed, but considering that the weather is going to hit the upper 90s this week, I felt like this was an especially timely post.)
(Also, sorry for the lack of photos. This post came about on a whim, and I didn’t really feel like sifting through 980 photos for … umm … photos of heat. Maybe I’ll upload some another day.)
I can’t wait for the 90+ degree temperatures that are set to hit us tomorrow and continue through most of the week. That way, I can totally play the “snobbish world traveler” card when people go to complain about the heat. I mean, if anyone has first-hand experience with excruciating temperatures this summer, it’s me, right?
I can see it now …
“Oh man, this weather is SO hot today!”
To which I will respond, “Yeah, it’s warm, I guess. But Egypt was way hotter.”
I mean, come on … how does that really add anything to any conversation? It doesn’t. No one really gives a shit if Egypt is hotter than Vancouver – that’s to be expected! But I don’t get many chances to casually drop Egypt into conversation. (“Oh no! The printer is out of paper ….. by the way, did you know the Egyptians used papyrus for paper? And the papyrus plant grew in the Nile River, where I spent two days on a boat?”) So – totally jokingly, mind you – I’m looking forward to milking this.
Truth is, when I got back from Egypt, temperatures were in the mid 70s back home, and I hated it. I went to work the day after coming back, and I nearly froze in my office. I would have brought a jacket if I’d remembered to. Even outside, the temperatures felt cool.
I don’t want to say I got used to the heat, but I learned to tolerate it. I learned to roll with it when, two minutes after heading outside, I started sweating. That made the cold showers back at the hotel that much better. And there aren’t many better feelings than standing under a running showerhead after spending most of the day outside, in 90 degree heat, and suffering the consequences accordingly.
Heat was a weird thing in Egypt, too. A few random observations.
1. I remember the flight into Cairo. There was a monitor attached to the seat in front of me, displaying our flight path, the outside temperature and other information. I remember thinking I was in for a surprise when the “outside temperature” reading didn’t drop below 78 degrees for the final five minutes of the flight. At 2 a.m.
Stepping off the plane and onto the ladder was intense – the heat and humidity just attacked me. It was tough to take a deep breath, and almost instantly, my skin felt clammy. My first reaction was, “Oh shit. No way I make it three weeks in this. Not going to happen. What have I done? How did Indiana Jones survive with his khakis and jacket? Can I go home? This is insane. Why did I agree to this?” (There were a few unprintable thoughts mixed in, but you get the gist.)
I mean, when it’s 80 degrees … at 2 a.m. … that’s hot. And you know it’s only going to get worse from there.
2. In Cairo, I finally understood “dry heat.” In the Pacific Northwest, when it gets hot, there’s always a touch of humidity. Not in Cairo. There’s more than a touch of smog that keeps the heat kind of trapped in the city … but there’s no humidity. Growing up, I never bought the idea of “dry heat” somehow being better or worse than … not-dry heat. I was like, “I don’t care if it’s dry heat or humid heat – 100 degrees is 100 f’n degrees!” Now I get it.
3. It was interesting to see how things changed as we moved around the country. In Alexandria, it was really humid, thanks to the Mediterranean Sea. And, since it was also warm, the combination made for a mildly miserable walking-around experience. But as soon as you got to the waterfront, a constant breeze cooled things off considerably.
Then you got to the southern end of the country, down in Aswan. There, it was hotter and dryer than Cairo. Makes sense, I guess. But without the smog trapping the heat, it felt a bit more tolerable than Cairo.
4. But the worst heat was in Luxor, which is in central Egypt. Luxor itself wasn’t bad, but the Valley of the Kings – a shadeless valley where something like five dozen pharaohs were buried – the thermometer hit 108 degrees by 10:30 a.m. I still can’t imagine that, and I lived it. I mean, there was no escaping the heat there. Gulping water didn’t do the trick. Nor did a wide-brimmed hat, white T-shirt, sun block and shorts. None of it mattered. The sun was relentless.
5. Air conditioning. It was in all of our hotels, and the only time it was turned off was when the maids turned it off. It was also in all of our buses. I developed a new appreciation for A/C. I just might get an air conditioner tattooed over my heart one of these days.
6. But the truth is, I would rather go to Egypt in July, instead of February or March, 100 times out of 100. Okay, so Egypt’s March temperatures are like Vancouver’s June temperatures (65-70 degrees or so). But you go to Egypt for the heat. That’s part of the experience. You’re in the desert, baking like a potato. That’s the Egyptian Experience right there. So that’s why I never complained about the heat while there. It was like … that was what I wanted to experience. And I did!
It’s like, if you want to get the Vancouver experience, you don’t come in July, when it’s 80-90 degrees. You come in March, when you have pretty even odds of sunny and warm weather, sunny and cold weather, overcast, rainy weather, showers and whatever else Mother Nature has in store. That unpredictable weather? That’s the Vancouver Experience. Part of it, anyway. But you get what I’m saying.
So bring on the 90 degree temperatures! I just hope my co-workers, family and friends don’t shove a sock in my mouth after I drop gems like, “Make sure you’re drinking enough water in that heat! We had to drink 3 liters of water each day in Egypt! Have I mentioned that it’s hot over there?”
Looking Back: Private Beach August 3, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, post-trip
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Two posts in one day! Can you tell I’m trying to put off cleaning?
(Also, this is one of those posts where the photography leaves much to be desired. As you can see in some of my previous posts, I take a bit of pride in taking pretty pictures. But, for some reason, all three photos I took at the beach just didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. My sincere apologies.)
I recently finished reading “Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever, Inc.: Covering the Fights for the Soul of the Oregon Coast” for the second time. It’s the kind of book that makes me never want to leave the Pacific Northwest. The book compiled several of Matt Love’s impassioned love letters to the Oregon Coast. The essays, loosely arranged in chronological order, look at how it came to be that Oregon’s coasts remain relatively undeveloped and free and open to everyone.
My family spent many spring and summer weekends at the Oregon Coast (and Long Beach, Washington, which is just a short drive from Oregon’s northernmost coastal community, Astoria). We rarely vacationed outside of the Pacific Northwest, so the idea that beaches should be free was just so … normal. Whether it was Seaside or Lincoln City, we’d never forked over a few dollars for the right to frolic in the coast. Doing so never crossed our minds. A private beach was so far out of our purview, we’d never considered it. And until I read “Grasping Wastrels” for the first time last year, the thought had never crossed my mind in my entire life.
Keeping all that in mind, imagine my surprise when our tour stopped at a private beach in Alexandria for a dip in the Mediterranean Sea. That day’s tour had wrapped up by about 1 p.m., so with some free time in the afternoon, our tour guide took us to a beach a few miles east of Alexandria’s busy downtown core. Turns out, the beach was actually nearly in the shadow of one of the country’s presidential palaces.
As we prepared to get off the van, our tour guide told us that beach access would cost 15 Egyptian Pounds (roughly $3 USD). I was mortified! How can you pay to use the beach? It was just so … wrong. The sand, the water … it’s all our God-given right to enjoy that! How is it any different from hiking through the Gorge, which is free? How is the beach experience any different than it would be at the Oregon Coast, give or take a few degrees? You can’t charge someone to use the beach! Now, if I was donating a few pounds to the beach for upkeep … THAT I could understand. But that was clearly not the case.
(How did we get there? Our tour guide told us there were free public beaches in Alexandria, but those were even MORE crowded and dirtier.)
My indignation wavered when our tour guide told us it was the beach or staying in the van, which would be off for the entirety of our stay (in other words: No air conditioning). So I paid the money but wasn’t happy about it.
Nor did things improve much once on the beach. Owing to self-esteem issues and a desire not to get into the water following my ill-fated boogie-boarding trip in Seaside last year, I chose to stay in the sand. I could take a plastic lawn chair for free, but an umbrella would cost 3 Egyptian Pounds to rent. The nerve of these people! First they charge for beach access, and now they want more money for an umbrella?
It didn’t end there. Vendors hawked sunglasses. Restaurants and vendors offered food, water, soda and ice cream no more than 200 feet from the water’s edge. There wasn’t room to throw a Frisbee around or stretch out for sun-tanning. The umbrella’s and lawn chairs were planted less than 10 feet from the water’s edge, and hundreds upon hundreds of families crammed into the narrow stretch of beach, which was no more than maybe 1/10th of a mile long.
And none of it felt right. Even if a section of coastline is packed in Oregon, a five-minute walk is all it takes to find some peace and quiet. And no one’s going to charge you to be there. Nor will anyone come by, selling knock-off sunglasses. And the only food available is the stuff you packed in your backpack.
That’s the thing about the Oregon Coast. You make your own experience. If you want the bustling beach, go to Seaside. If you want the city at your backs, go to Lincoln City. If you want peace and quiet, head for Tillamook County. If you want to walk along “The World’s Longest Beach,” head to Long Beach, just over the bridge in Washington.
And once you’re there, it’s all up to you. Last winter, sweaters and long pants ruled the day in Beverly Beach. Last summer, Dusty, Mikaela and I shared a beach blanket for a nap in the sun. Do you know how good it feels to put your head down on your backpack and sleep while soaking up the sun? Then, this past March, I took my shoes off, found a nice dune and read while the waves crept further and further toward my feet.
No, the water isn’t 70+ degrees, like it is in Egypt. But that’s the charm of the Oregon coast – if you’re going to wade out there a ways, skimboard or boogie board, you run as hard as you can into the water, let the ice cold waves wash over for you for 30 seconds, and after about the third chorus of “Jesus Christ, this is cold!” … you’re used to it. At least until you head back to your beach blanket, relax for awhile and decide to give it another shot.
But there was none of that in Alexandria. Sure, it’s nice to dip my feet in the warm water. But, like many things in Egypt, it felt alien, compared to anything back home. But, unlike most things in Egypt, it also felt wrong.
Looking Back: Photodump July 26, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, khan el-khalili, muhammad ali mosque, post-trip, pyramids of giza
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I don’t feel like writing that much tonight, but I wanted to update anyway. What better way to accomplish that than to upload some cool photos and provide an ounce of commentary?
I can’t tell you why, but I just love these photos. The first is pretty obvious, but the second is the top of the Muhammad Ali Mosque in Cairo.
Alexandria wasn’t as warm as Cairo, but what it lacked in heat, it made up for in humidity. Still, I wish we had more time in Alexandria. The Corniche (basically, the sidewalk that runs along the waterfront) seemed like it would have been a nice place to sit and read. Or go for a walk.
The Khan el-Khalili market is truly one of the most interesting places I’ve ever been. More on that in a future post, but for now, I thought I’d post a photo of one of the many alleyways in the market. The merchants are waiting outside for unsuspecting tourists to walk by. (A common refrain: “Spend money! Be happy!”)
Looking Back: The Food July 23, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, food, post-trip, tea, water
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(Seeing something so familiar yet so different provided me with several photo ops throughout the trip.)
I woke up at about 4:30 this morning with a bit of a stomach bug, which ended up following me home from Egypt. Unable to return to sleep, I figured I would write about what (I think) caused it: Food.
Our first tour guide (Sam) said that everyone gets sick while in Egypt. It’s unavoidable. And, as we traveled from one end of the country to the other (and back), most people proved him right. But not I. For the better part of three weeks, I was the living embodiment of perfect health. And much like a pitcher in baseball refusing to acknowledge a no-hitter as the game wears on, I became more and more reluctant to admit that I hadn’t gotten sick. Yes, I’m superstitious like that.
Then we got to our final full day in Egypt. My stomach began giving me fits, basically forcing me to leave the market early and head back to the hotel for a long afternoon of wondering what went wrong. Even two (three?) days later, my stomach is a bit topsy-turvey.
But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the other 19 days, when I ate all kinds of food I never imagined myself eating … and enjoying most all of it.
I would be remiss if I didn’t start by discussing bread. In Egypt, most meals are served with a side of bread, or the main course is bread. In Arabic, the word for “bread” — aish — is also the word for “life,” which should tell you a little something about how important bread is.
In fact, while taking the night train from Cairo to Aswan early in the trip, we were served five different pieces of bread for breakfast. And that’s it.
But by far the most popular form of bread in Egypt is pita bread, which is sometimes served with breakfast alongside cheese, cucumbers and tomatoes or peppers. It’s also an integral part of lunch and dinner. And it doesn’t much matter if you’re eating at a quick restaurant, a big seafood joint or somewhere in between. Most times, pita bread comes before the meal with a variety of sides to dip or stuff to make a sandwich.
One such dip is baba ghanough, which I always thought was just a nickname given to Vince Vaughn’s character in “Wedding Crashers.” You learn something new every day.
But one of my favorite things to stuff inside a pita pocket was falafel. For the uninitiated, falafel is a mixture of mashed beans and spices balled up and deep fried. It was particularly good at one restaurant in Alexandria. Our first tour guide, a native Cairo resident, admitted to making the three-hour drive north to Alexandria on occasion just for the falafel at this particular restaurant.
But it was another restaurant in Alexandria that provided me with my most memorable dining experience.
Alexandria is a pretty famous seaport, so of course, we had to eat seafood while we were there. Problem is, I’m not a very adventurous seafood-eater. Put a plate of fish and chips in front of me, and we’re good. Put a plate of anything with eyes in front of me, and my appetite disappears like Darius Miles. And, yes, the main dishes — fish and shrimp — prominently featured eyes staring back at me.
So I rationalized: If they’re serving it in a restaurant, it’s gotta be alright … right? And when else would I be in Egypt? Might as well try something new! So when the fish with the eye came to our table, I dug in. (Quite literally, actually. Our tour guide told us to reach into the fish, pull out whatever we wanted, sift out the bones on our plate and eat with our fingers.) And when the shrimp arrived, I devoured them like nobody’s business. And let me tell you: Our pseudo-shrimp Chinese food bullshit back home can’t hold a candle to that. I ate way too many and wasn’t hungry for a day or so, but it was worth it.
Bottled water was the beverage of choice with most meals. In Egypt, you don’t drink tap water. So bottled water is available at nearly every corner market, tourist trap and even on most of the tour buses we took around the country. Most of the bottles are sold out of coolers, which are deceptive: Most coolers don’t keep the water cool. So I grew to detest the taste of warm bottled water.
Still, it’s remarkably cheap: A 1.5-liter bottle of water (pictured above) can cost as little as two Egyptian pounds, which roughly translates into 37 cents in the United States. And I never paid more than $1 (US) for a bottle.
No tap water has another nasty side effect: No ice. No ice means no iced tea, which I’m pretty much a degenerate for. They serve plenty of tea in Egypt, but it’s all hot. I don’t see the sense in serving hot tea in a hot country, but whatever. I guess no one made the giant leap of logic that goes something like, “Maybe people would like cold drinks to cool off.” Such a reach, I know! So I would pour some hot tea and let it cool off as much as possible in the time allowed, but it just wasn’t the same.
Alright, WordPress is telling me that I’m approaching 900 words for this post, so I’ll stop here for now. I left out enough about food (and some especially good restaurants) to warrant another post in the near future.
But it’s breakfast time now. I’m hungry!
