First Impressions -- Hong Kong

Someone accused me (I think it was either my mom, Laura Casey, or Lauren Sadlon) of claiming to really like every place I go. And that is entirely false, because I hate Venice, Italy. What a tourist trap overpriced apathetic riding on its laurels dump, and I pray to God that I am never made to go back.

But actually my mom/Laura/Lauren do have a point, because I tend to find something magical about most places, whether it be the people or the food or the scenery. So let me share some first Hong Kong impressions after 24 hours here.

This city is absolutely brilliant. We rocked into town about 11pm last night, and I was hungry (not new). The front desk recommended the McDonalds down the road. But we pushed on for one more block, and I found a noodle joint. Menu outside was only in Chinese but there were pictures, so we took a gamble and came away with some incredible shrimp dumplings with yellow noodles and broth. Today, we walked to Central Hong Kong Island (maybe 1.5 miles), passing shops selling shark fins, herbal remedies involving dried geckos, live fish in the wet markets waiting to meet their maker, random meats hanging on hooks, roasted ducks dripping fat in the windows, and loads more. We had dim sum for lunch at Luk Yu, an institution in the city – and the food was just amazing, basket after basket of lovely dumplings. We followed it up with a herbal remedy tea at the local pharmacy – not sure exactly what we each drank, but I'm praying mine expands my stomach ten-fold so I can keep eating.

And your Yankee dollar goes on forever here. Noodle shop last night ran me $4 for 2 orders, dim sum for 2 at a legendary place was $35, the local tram is 25 cents no matter how far you go, and the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor (one of the best ferry rides in the world) is 22 cents in economy (downstairs), 28 cents in first class (upstairs). We decided to spring for the upgrade.

We have 5 more days in Hong Kong – but as you could have predicted, Mom/Laura/Lauren – I do love it here.

(Middle) East Meets West

We left Dubai just about 3 hours ago, taking a flight route out over the Persian Gulf, skirting along the Iranian coast, over tribal Pakistan just south of Afghanistan, and as I type we are cruising through northern India with Mount Everest in the distance. I love these flights that take me over places I'm not likely to visit anytime soon. Most impressive in recent days was the Nile River in Egypt, on the flight from France to Dubai. We crossed in darkness, and there is nothing – it is literally black – in the surrounding area, but along the river itself there are lights, towns, villages, life. You can follow the bends and curves in the Nile for tens of miles out the window because the lights of the riverside villages along it guide the way. Quite a spectacle and I wish a photo would do it justice – but it didn't – a good reminder of why we travel.

On to Dubai. It is no doubt a polarising place, much like London or New York or Las Vegas – but multiply that by 10 in the Middle East. You love it or hate it, and we fell more on the side of the former. We stayed in Bur Dubai (literally Old Dubai), which sits along Dubai Creek. This part of town has its own dress code – around the rest of Dubai, westerners can dress more or less as they do at home, but here we needed to wear pants (even with the mercury at 90 degrees), and the call to prayer bellows from the mosques 5 times a day. The people here are mainly from the Gulf region (mostly Iran, Syria, Lebanon), India, Pakistan, Phillipines, and of course the Emiratis themselves. The food is just amazing -- lamb kebabs marinated overnight in yogurt, fresh ground hommus, and the best lime and mint fruit juice you have ever had. Just across the creek sits the Gold Souk (biggest gold market in the Middle East), the Spice Souk, and the perfume markets. The vendors are friendly and always ask where you come from (the middle eastern way of establishing status we were told). A reply of America brought a response of either "Obama!" or "My shop is an Obama shop!" or something to that effect. America is suddenly cool again amongst the Dubai shopkeepers. We did spend a day out in Jumeirah beach, home to the western resorts, party atmosphere, big beaches, and big prices – but definitely preferred the authenticity of Bur Dubai.

Dubai's population is 85% expat, but the term means something different than we are accustomed to. In London, the average expat tends to be a Westerner making a hefty salary (present company excluded). Here in Dubai, an expat tends to be a construction worker from Sri Lanka or a taxi driver from Pakistan. It goes back to one of my earlier posts on Hadrian's Wall in England – it is amazing what one can do with an endless supply of cheap labor (average worker wages in Dubai are about $300 USD a month) -- and that is exactly what is happening here.

But you have to respect what Dubai is trying to do. This emirate is a sea of (relative) calm in a powder keg region. They know the oil is going to run out one day (indeed, Dubai doesn't have much oil to begin with) and they are trying to build both a financial centre and a desert oasis, kind of like Las Vegas but without the booze, strippers, and gambling. This is officially the fastest growing city in the world (population just 50 years ago was 55,000, just bigger than Harrisonburg, VA) and their boldness is visible everywhere – we could see the tallest building on Earth from our hotel window, two days ago they hosted the biggest purse horse race in history ($10M USD), and they are building residences along every foot of waterfront and on manmade reefs that are visible from space. Will it all work? Is it all just a desert mirage here in the Middle East? I can't wait to watch in the coming years and find out.


PS – As some of you may know, Andrea and I were in a car accident in a taxi two nights ago in Dubai. We are thankfully okay, just some sore ribs and aching backs. A reminder that moving around this globe is occasionally hazardous, but we are doing fine and the police and paramedics in Dubai were professional and made sure we were okay. The paramedic also sternly informed me that in his country (Syria), a one year age difference between husband and wife is definitely not enough – a bit of levity to calm some shocked nerves. We loved Dubai but won't miss the manic Middle East driving, and are pretty excited to be on foot and public transport in Asia for the next few weeks.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

It was really, really hard for us to leave Europe. And I mean that in a physical sense. Apparently the French went cheapo on their navigation system at Nice Airport, and some low clouds (yes, run of the mill clouds) caused our inbound Emirates flight to divert to Milan. Then our first officer became ill before the flight, and another had to be flown in from Munich. We should have arrived in Dubai late last night, but instead I watched the sun rise out the window over Saudi Arabia this morning.

Mentally it was much easier to leave Europe than I thought. I was expecting to be sad and wistful after 3 years of life on the continent. Perhaps I was exhausted from the delays, but mostly I felt glad to be on my way to Dubai. Europe was comfortable, relaxed, and pretty easy to live in and travel through. But as we started to roll down the runway, I was pretty excited (and Andrea was too) to be heading somewhere...well...foreign. This evening we took a stroll along Dubai Creek and through the outdoor souks. We heard the call to prayer erupting from the mosques at sunset, there wasn't a bottle of wine in sight on restaurant tables, and the smells of sheesha (flavored tobacco waterpipes) and kebabs filled the air along the waterfront. I think it's going to be a good few days here.

Toscana

We've spent 4 days in Tuscany now, with 4 more to go. I really do love it here. There are tiny hilltop villages as far as the eye can see, and each is charming and worthy of a postcard. The sun has been shining every day, the food is brilliant (think beautifully aged cheeses, piles of truffle, cloudy olive oil, and cannelloni beans that have never tasted so good), the local wines cost less than water and they are excellent. But more than that, I am really enjoying the style to life here. Firstly, these people make the French appear to be hardworking and industrious. The shops open at 9:30am (no need to get up early) and then close at 12:30 for lunch. Lunch lasts until 4pm (yep, 3.5 hours). It is not lost on me that you would actually have time to go home, drink a bottle of wine, take a nap, sober up, and get back to work on time. Then they reopen at 4pm and close again at 7pm. Start to finish, we are talking a 6 hour workday. Of course these are the long and tedious hours of private enterprise. Most public services, including the post office and library, only open from 9:30 to 12:30 four days a week, and never re-open in the afternoon. This has forced more planning on our part (after all, the butchers and grocery shops close for lunch like everyone else), but we are in the habit of buying meats, cheeses, and bread early in the morning and taking it with us until we find a good spot for lunch.

I'm also really enjoying the interactions with the locals here. We've ordered our evening meals in Italian since we got here – I'm sure many of the staff actually do speak some English, but they are very happy to let you give it a go and work with you. We've been to one trattoria in Pienza twice now, and they brought us extra dessert, a trio of local pecorino cheeses (fresh, aged in olive leaves, and aged in olive oil), and crepes on the house with a wink and a “think nothing of it” smile. We visited a local artist's shop today and bought some handmade pottery -- she spoke only broken English that often slipped into Italian, but could not have been happier to spend 20 minutes showing us pictures of her work, the 2 feet of snow that fell in Tuscany recently (biggest snow since 1956, sound familiar Washingtonians?), and chat about life in general. Most conversations end with about 50 grazies and ciaos and lots of smiles. Italy is magnificent, but small town Italy is even more so.

At Home In Italy

France was the first major European economy to come out of recession last year, and last week I figured out why. The toll to use the Mont Blanc Tunnel, a mere 11 kilometers long, is 35.10 euros. It would have been marginally cheaper to abandon the car and hire a sherpa to cross the Alps.

But boy, what a difference 11 kilometers can make. We came blazing out of the tunnel into Italy, and all of the sudden the sun was shining, it was 20 degrees warmer, and everyone was wearing cool sunglasses. I might be exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.

Our first stop was the Cinque Terre. We pulled into Manarola a bit after dark, and I stayed with our illegally parked car on the edge of the village (vehicles aren't allowed in any of the Cinque Terre villages, which is completely charming and also massively inconvenient) while Andrea went in search of our B&B. As she is walking along in the dark, looking for a place that has no address, a grandmotherly woman starts screaming out the window, “Aria de Mare! Aria de Mare!”, which is the name of our B&B. By dinnertime we are in the family's restaurant, enjoying fresh anchovies in lemon and olive oil, and drinking good cheap Italian table wine.

We spent the next 3 days wandering between the five villages. It is just a stunning part of the world. All of the hills around the towns are big terraced affairs with grapes and herbs growing everywhere. The towns themselves are ancient, with fishing boats pulled up onto the streets along the water, and the lack of cars makes the place magic. We had a big balcony off our room that overlooked the sea, and I think we both could have sat there for weeks. What I love the most is that you often find the locals in Italy enjoying the view too, a sure sign they know they have it good.

On the last morning, we had a nice chat with the grandmother. She literally didn't know a word of English, but we cobbled together a few words in Italian, and did some miming too. She told us about the speed camera in the first tunnel out of town, but that after that we could drive as fast as we like. She wanted to know how old my parents were, and where in Italy the LoBalbos had come from. She put her hand on Andrea when they were talking, and Andrea (who does not ever like contact with strangers) put her hand on the grandmother. And finally, she gave us a carbon copy receipt for our stay, which was for the cost of 1 night instead of the 3 we stayed. When Andrea gave her a puzzled look, the grandmother said “dei carabineiri” -- or for the tax man.

It's tough to think of too many other countries where an interaction like this happens. We've both said to each other how comfortable Italy can make you feel. Plus they all know how to pronouce LoBalbo. I might just stay.

Oh yes, Beaune

Over breakfast at our Normandy B&B, the owner asked where we were off to next in France. I replied "Beaune", pronounced "Bone" according to my Lonely Planet book. The owner gave me a blank look. I said it again -- Beaune. Nothing. Finally, he thought for a minute and said, "oh yes, you mean Beaune". Which, as far as I could tell, is exactly what I said. This is not a new experience -- it has happened to us over the years in at least 4 or 5 European languages. Now, if a foreigner said to me they were headed to Wushington or New Yark or Les Vegas, I think I would probably get the drift. Not so in Europe. But I digress.

Beaune is in Burgundy, the primo wine region of France. No blends allowed here -- the reds are only pinot noir, the whites are only chardonnay, and there is a grading system that is roughly comparable in complexity to the IRS tax code. We went to a bistro the first night where you pick your own bottle of wine from their cellar -- we went cheap (in Burgundy terms - 26 euros) and ended up with an absolutely stunning 2005 old vine Burgundy pinot noir. It was clear these folks were not messing about. Our good friend Josh came down from Paris and spent the 3 days with us -- we ate, we drank, we learned a grand cru from a premier cru from a village appelation (Andrea could teach a sommelier course at this point, while Josh and I focused more on the the ingesting of alcohol aspect). But most glamorously, we did laundry at a laundromat for the first time. Andrea and I are carrying 12 days worth of stuff with us -- we did our first laundry in Scotland at our friend Lisa's house, but this was the first run in public. Thank god Josh was there, and not just because he speaks/reads fluent French. Neither Andrea nor I have ever done laundry at a laundromat (I can hear our big city friends groan) and so the concept of how to buy soap from the machine, where you pour it, how you buy dryer time, and general laundromat etiquette (can I head out for a baguette or do I have to stay here and stare at my sole belongings spin round and round?) were all lost on us. I'm happy to report we left Beaune with happy taste buds, whites still white, and brights still bright.

A surrender at Normandy

On our previously mentioned 45 minute flight from England to France, Andrea carried a giant, 600 page paperback book onboard. Our British seatmate took one look at it and said to Andrea, "you must be expecting a very long flight". The British are full of one-liners and their quick sense of humor is one of my favorite things about them. My other loves include their hand pumped ale and the proverbial British stiff upper lip. We are talking about a country that stayed on a rationing system after WWII for 11 years -- and as far as I can tell no one seemed to mind. They even have a phrase for it -- Keep Calm and Carry On. I admire the attitude and had assumed that at least some of it would have rubbed off on me in the past 3 years. But it took less than 48 hours in France to realize this wasn't so. It was cold in France -- just about freezing to be precise, with a steady 20 mph wind. A strong breeze is fine in Aruba or Hawaii, but less so in northern Europe during March -- and I was not happy about it. I've read that the Nazis took France in 4 weeks -- if the invasion took place during a cold winter, it becomes easier to see why (sacre bleu, we surrender!)

But we bundled up -- and the plain truth is that Normandy is one of the most awe inspiring places I have ever been. You can walk, as we did, into the bomb craters at Pointe du Hoc, or climb inside the giant German gun emplacements at Longues sur Mer. But most impressive is Omaha. The beach is massive -- maybe 2 miles long -- remarkably flat with low cliffs just ashore. You can picture the German guns creating absolute hell from above. Ten kilometers to the west, we lost just 12 soldiers during the initial storming at Utah -- but here at Omaha over 1,000 American lives were lost on the beach during the morning of 6 June 1944. The American cemetery above Omaha is staggering. Perhaps "Saving Private Ryan" creates a glimpse -- but walking amongst the gravestones is unforgettable. Some lost their lives on 6 June, some in the weeks and months after. The names from New York are often Italian, the names from Texas and Georgia are often southern. And most of them were predictably young -- 18, 19, 20 years old. Scattered amongst them are the unknowns, their graves marked simply as "Here rests in honored glory, a comrade in arms known but to God". Most impressive to me is how perfectly the whole thing is constructed. Stand anywhere amongst the graves and slowly rotate -- from every possible angle, the tombstones are perfectly aligned. The uniformity of the place is amazing, the upkeep is magnificent -- it makes you very proud to be American. There will shortly be pictures on our Picasa website -- but do yourself a favor and go see it for yourself.

45 Minutes

Our time in England ended much as it began – at our friend Kate’s house, sitting by the fire, drinking wine and chatting. Kate and I started at Capital One Europe the same week, so we had our welcoming party together and quickly became friends. She had Andrea and me over for a BBQ almost as soon as we arrived, and her friendliness and warm welcome went further than she will ever know in helping us make Nottingham our home. Thank you again Kate, we will no doubt see you again soon.

Two final orders of business in Nottingham before we left – a pint at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (oldest pub in England, opened in 1091), and lunch at Brown Bettys. It’s a small family operation – Mom, Dad, and 2 sons. I haven’t been in 6 months, Andrea hasn’t been in 14 months, but incredibly they remembered my “usual” sandwich order. It was a fantastic farewell to Nottingham.

We flew to France in the evening, 45 minutes in the air from Nottingham to Dinard. It really is incredible how compact Europe is. From London, 45 minutes in the air will get you to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Cologne, or Dublin. A 90 minute flight gets you to the fjords of Norway, the French Riviera, or the Swiss Alps. But these short hops lull you in to a false sense of security. Two weeks of driving in the UK undid every bit of my 15 years of American driving, and all of the sudden what should be the familiar side of the road felt anything but. In the morning we went to the grocery store – we couldn’t find bottled water, we couldn’t find plastic utensils or napkins (for car snacks), and the bananas we tried to purchase had to be weighed in the fruit section rather than at the checkout. So we left them behind, and ended up with a single small bag of hot and spicy tortilla chips. I’m in France, gastronomic capital of the Earth, and I’m eating tortilla chips for breakfast. Welcome to the joie de vivre.

King Of My Castle

We are spending tonight in a castle in north England. I surprised Andrea with a stay here -- we've never stayed in a castle and given that tomorrow night is our last in England, time is on the short side. It's called Lumley Castle, just outside of Newcastle (drinking the namesake beer as I type this by the big fire), and it is a lovely spot. The floors creak, the ceiling in our room is 20 feet high, and my car is parked in the old horse paddock for the night. Very charming and in some ways it encapsulates this country for me....old, crumbling, drafty....and magnificent. Earlier today we went out to Hadrian's Wall -- built around AD 100 by the Romans, it cuts across northern England from sea to sea. The purpose is up for debate, it was either to mark the end of the Roman empire, or (more likely) it was an effort to keep the Celts out (or some other tribe, my history is rubbish). Even after 3 years of living here, I still look wide-eyed at all the castle ruins, ancient walls, lopsided pubs, and other signs of times very long ago. It's always a wonderful reminder of what one can do with an endless supply of very cheap labor.
We've driven about 1,700 miles now -- all on the wrong side of the road -- and I'm really glad we took this final jaunt around the Kingdom. If you haven't spent much time over here you really should, it's a brilliant country. Tomorrow it's off to Nottingham for a final night out with friends there. In 48 hours, I will be in my beret and eating a croissants on the other side of the Channel.