Paris Countdown

Today is another blustery and cold day in London, so I'm spending it meeting up with an old friend inside a warm coffee shop. Tonight we're planning on visiting Gordon's Wine Bar and checkin out a local Thai gem, Rosas (rec courtesy of the wonderful Alyna).

Only 3 days til Paris. Any recommendations? Place to stay is all sorted out, and it is lovely. Croissants and fresh orange juice delivered to our door every morning? Why yes, that sounds perfect. Can't wait!

Sleeping in a Cave in Cappadocia

Alex's (and my) favorite place we've stayed so far.  Best night's sleep of my life.  Seriously.  Can't wait to get back!

The Divan Cave House

“You go to dinner, and then you come back here.  I will cook potatoes in the fire, and we sit and have wine.  Together.”  Meet Ali, the face of the Divan Cave House in Goreme, Turkey, and probably the most hospitable hotel proprietor I have ever met.  That night, after Casey and I spent a long day exploring the cave city on ATVs, we did just that.  

We pushed the small wooden tables together, and the hotel guests, Casey and I along with four guys from New York, sat together with Ali and shared a few bottles of red and white Cappadocian wines along with salted baked potatoes, fresh out of the wood-burning stove that keeps the kitchen warm and cozy even when snow is falling outside, which it did that night.

 The town of Goreme in the Cappadocia region is filled to the rafters with cave hotels at various price points and degrees of luxury.  Booking online from thousands of miles away, Divan seemed like the best combination of price, novelty, and cushiness, and I think we hit it just about right.  The front of the hotel is light colored sandstone that matches the landscape, and each of the individual suites is carved back into the rock, just as the people carved their homes into the huge protruding rocks over a thousand years ago.  

These are modern rooms built into the rock.  The suite’s living room is simple but perfect for what it is – oriental rug, fridge, TV (useless if you don’t speak Turkish) and bench seating around the walls.  

More importantly once you get past the fact that even the caves with radiators installed are cold in the winter, you will never sleep better than you do in a cave room.  The bedroom is silent and dark, and if you are jet lagged…. See you in 12 hours.  

 On top of all that, Divan is in a perfect location, perched near the top of a side-hill and overlooks the village.  The view from above of the still sleeping town at 5:30 am is one of those things that just make you thankful for where you are.  The whole point of visiting Cappadocia is the crazy landscape, so obviously you want to make sure you have a good view.

 I can’t tell you how Divan stacks up to other hotels in the area, having only visited one.  I do know this though, I have stayed in plenty of more expensive and corporate hotels, and I think I prefer this.  Note to Hilton – warm up the potatoes!

My Favorite Travel Websites

ACCOMMODATION

·      Booking.com - I’ve used dozens of hotel websites.  They all allow you to compare based on price, location, stars, etc.  What they don’t do is allow you to find properties that are as inexpensive as you might need – with most only allowing you to scroll down to about $100 a night.  For long-term travel, that price doesn’t even begin to cut it… 

Booking.com has been part of my everyday since arriving in Britain.  We’ve been booking rooms same day and have so far paid no more than 36 pounds per night.  We’ve booked a Ramada at 23 pounds, a number of hostels at 25, a pretty swank hotel for 29 (although a rather fat guy passed out drunk right in front of our door at midnight and drunk snored like a banshee until we called the front desk to remove him), and a B&B for 30.  This site includes hostels as well, in case you’re into that (make sure to click the private room square – turns out sharing a 12 bunk room is a complete and total nightmare – no matter how cheap it is).

·      Wimdu, AirBNB, Roomorama – These are all self-listing sites for accommodation in cities worldwide.  I’ve used AirBNB and Wimdu and had positive experiences with both.  These companies allow the average Joe to list a private room, shared room, or an entire house on this site with pictures, a description, and an availability calendar.  The good houses seem to get booked up early, but you can always find something on one of these sites if you’d rather get away from the big chain hotels (and their ridiculous prices).

·         Workaway.info.com - Workaway is a website in which to get lost. It’s very basic in its design, and I’d never heard about it until I followed a few links into the black hole of Pinterest.  Suddenly, I’ve got the option to choose my continent, country, and desired work in exchange for accommodation and food.  Work 5 hours a day, 5 days per week and you get a place to stay and your basic food covered.  You create a user profile and then email the hosts to start a conversation about a timeline/help they may need/if you two would mutually benefit from a workaway exchange.  I got a little too excited about this website and spent a solid week emailing 35 hosts about possibly working for them.  I checked my email about every hour in anticipation of receiving responses, and started every day with a sprint towards my computer.  In the end, I received about 10 replies to my 35 emails, over half of which were no thank you due to already having folks scheduled.  The few that were interested in bringing us on had their owns ways of interviewing us – a skype interview, a lengthy questionnaire, or extended email correspondence to try to get to know us.  I realize this sounds like a fair bit of effort, but trust me, if you find the right listings/hosts/places, this can cut your costs DRAMATICALLY and I hope enhance your experience by a mile.  A few folks I’ve shown this to have told me that it’s the same thing as WWOOFING.  I would argue that it’s quite different, as it’s not open to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants to jet up into your part of the world.  The applicants are screened carefully, and it’s almost like an actual job interview.

Full disclosure: Our first workaway experience did not quite go as planned (see Jordan), but I’m going to chalk this up as being an outlier event.  The next ones we have scheduled (workaway for April #1, workaway #2, May) appear to be absolute winners.

TRAVEL GUIDES

·      Rough Guides - I want to be a good trip planner.  I always come in with the best intentions, but so often I get stuck on where to stay or where to eat.  I often forget about the reason I’m going to a new spot in the first place so I get there and panic because I want to find the best of everything but have no idea where to start.  In comes my white knight website, Rough Guides.  When you get to the website, you can filter based on country and scroll through the titles until you see something that interests you.  Whether it’s “Absolute Best Walks in Britain” or “The Hidden Gems in a World of UK Castle’s”, you’ll find something that sparks your imagination. 

FLIGHTS

·      Skyscanner/Fly (great fare calendar)/ Hipmunk/Kayak

USER REVIEWS

·      TripAdvisor – Trip Advisor is pretty self-explanatory.  It is the largest database of user reviews for food, hotels, car rentals, and experiences – just about anything you can think of related to travel.  Usually, the reviews are pretty spot on, but you have to be careful here because people tend to review only when they REALLY love a place – or REALLY hate it…

USEFUL TRAVEL BLOGS

·      Travelettes – This is a fun group of lady travel bloggers who have gotten together to create this site (any other southern ladies round here want to create a site like this with me?!).  It’s got some great articles on hidden gems (something I’m always looking for) as well as interesting perspectives on places you might have already been but not really gotten to know. 

·      Beers and Beans – Great travel blog with reviews of specific rooms the bloggers have stayed in with Roomorama.  Sometimes it’s nice to be able to read room reviews like the ones here, so that you don’t have to worry about a place you’ve rented being in a really dodgy neighborhood.  This blogged helped me quite a bit in navigating the labyrinth of lodging choices in Istanbul. 

·      Legal Nomads – I love this site for information and inspiration pre-departure.  It’s a good place to compile your packing, vaccination, and visa information before you head out on a big trip, and the beautiful pictures just make you want to explore.

FOOD

·      Anthony Bourdain – You can probably tell that food is usually the most important part of travel for me.  Often when I arrive in a place, I’m too tired to sift through the online message boards in search of the best places to eat in my area.  In these cases, I simply google Anthony Bourdain + city I’m in – and bam – a link to a show where he explored the city and his recommendations/reviews of specific places he was taken for meals.  The great thing about Bourdain is that he is very honest in his review of food.  Also, he tends to go to local favorites as opposed to overly expensive tourist traps.  In Istanbul, we watched his show before going out for dinner one night and found one of the best (and cheapest things) we had the entire time we were there.

Foodspotting – This website is Pinterest for Food (by location).  Let’s just say you’re going to visit an entirely new city and you want to know where to grab some good meals.  You sort by $,$$,$$$/neighborhood/type of food and are then greeted by perfectly square and colorful pictures of specific dishes in your area as well as user reviews of each dish.  There’s nothing worse than being in a new place and wanting to eat something good…and then feeling disappointed after you’ve wrongly chosen a place to eat that looked promising.  Foodspotting helps me to avoid this situation.   The Foodspotting “Guides” function is also great for inspiration, particularly in major cities.

·      Chowhound – This site is basically a message board for foodies.  Type in the name of a city and then scan through hundreds of user posts about great spots in any neighborhood you look up.  It hasn’t led me astray yet!

POSTCARDS

·      Touchnote – APP – Touchnote is a relatively new app that allows you to upload your iphone pictures and turn them into postcards.  You can type the text onto the back of the card and have it sent (just import the addresses you want to use) to friends and family.  The only drawback – no stamps from foreign places, but not having to figure out how the heck to buy stamps or find a post office seems to be a big payoff in my book.  I haven’t actually used this one yet, but I plan to while on the road.  Who doesn’t love a little snail mail??

Ghost Tour of York - Not As Corny As It Sounds...

Intensive research by the Ghost Research Foundation International (GRFI) concluded ten years ago that York is the most haunted city in the world.  Currently, it has 504 recorded hauntings – and counting. 

As you might expect, there are a handful of groups who have capitalized on this title and have started ghost tours.  We chose to go on a tour that started at 8 pm, as I assumed there’d be fewer children on said tour (heartless…I know – whatever).  Turns out I was right on the children (none showed up) but wrong on the weather – it was pouring and we had no raincoats.  Determined not to be sissies about this, we joined Lee as he began to tell his stories.  Lee is probably just in his sixties with white hair and pure talent for storytelling.  He has the kind of look that says he could be your grandfather so you have a sort of automatic trust that he’ll take care of you.  I went with that feeling as he began to tell stories of York, just how old it is, how many folks have held it, and stories of it’s checkered past.  He has lived in York all of his life and these stories are stories of his family members – stories they have experienced first hand in some way or stories of the history of York.  History, ghosts – I’m in.

 Told in front of a dimly lit and stately home, one of the most compelling tales is that of Harry Martindale, who in 1953 was an apprentice plumber installing a new central heating system of the Treasurer’s House beside the Minster.  As the story goes, Harry had to lay down his tools and stand to one side while a column of Roman soldiers marched through.  He gathered his tools after they had passed, climbed out of the basement, and chose never to return to the site - or the profession.  Martindale, still alive and a resident of York today, reported that the men wore green tunics and carried round shields – but at the time, that didn’t match what historians knew.  He told only close friends and family and asked them to keep his story quiet, which they did.  A few years after his encounter, a site nearby was unearthed, and the discovery was made that the Romans who lived there used round shields – and wore green tunics.  It was only in recent years that Martindale shared his story with the city of York, a story that has allowed York to stake claim to the “Ghosts of the Greatest Longevity” title given by the GRFI.

 Of the dozen stories told, one has stayed with me over the last week since our visit to York.  While walking through the Minster with her father and a Priest who was guiding the two around for a look, a young lady strayed from her father and walked towards the altar of the Minster with her guide.   At the altar stood a handsome young man dressed in the uniform of a naval officer.  His face and hair were wet, and he was obviously quite upset.  He walked directly up to the girl and whispered one sentence into her ear. “There is a next state.”  He then walked away from the pair and was not seen again.  A few minutes later, the girl’s father found her and scolded her for getting separated from him – something she had been instructed not to do (the Minster is HUGE, I can see his point).  He asked where the two had wandered off to and she replied with a casual – “I felt a bit sick so I had a walk around.”  Satisfied, her father walked away.  Because the girl still appeared quite upset, the Priest asked her why she didn’t tell her father of the man in the navy uniform.  He was also burning with curiosity over what the navy officer had whispered into her ear.  “The reason I did not tell my father about the man was because I did not want to upset him.  That navy officer was my brother, who has been away at war for months.  He and I used to have lengthy discussions and debates about religion and the afterlife, conversations that we could never find agreement on.  We made a vow that when one of us dies, we would come and let the other know the answer.  “There is an after” are the words he spoke to me a few moments ago.”  The Priest, quite shaken at this, stared at her in disbelief as she rejoined her father and continued to walk around the Minster at his side.  A few days later, the girl’s family received a telegram from The Office of the Navy with the news that he had been lost at sea a few days prior.

 Then of course, there is the story of Guy Fawkes.  I’m embarrassed to say that I did not know much about him until a year ago when I watched the fireworks over Oriental Bay in Wellington on Guy Fawkes Day.  Guy Fawkes was born and educated in York, in the house behind where we stood. Throughout his education, Guy was fascinated and disgusted with the mistreatment of Catholics throughout history, and aimed to someday displace the Protestant rule that was so oppressive to members of his faith.  A founding member of a group now referred to by historians as “the restorationists” Guy created the Gunpowder Plot.  He and a small group of men began collecting gunpowder in small amounts and storing it in the basements of the House of Parliament.  Their aim was to blow up the entire place while King James I (and the entire Protestant aristocracy and nobility) was inside during an upcoming event. 

It sounds like Fawkes might have succeeded had one of his co-conspirators not found out that his brother in law would be attending said event.  He alerted his brother in law (in secret) that he should not, under any circumstances, be near the king or House of Parliament on this particular day.  Suspicious, the brother in law alerted police and eventually Fawkes (and the gunpowder) was discovered and taken into custody.  As you might suspect, King James I did not take this lightly.  Guy Fawkes was tried in London where he was charged with treason and sentenced to a gruesome death.  We’ve all heard the term “drawn and quartered” – but in Guy Fawkes’s case – it was particularly brutal.  (Faint of heart, you should probably stop reading here).  Fawkes’s arms and legs were tied to four posts then tied to two horses going in opposite directions.  This began the stretching process where his bones were broken slowly and brutally as he was literally stretched and disjointed.  Next came the disembowled section of the torture.  His stomach was dislodged with a small hook on the end of a long wooden stick – a stick that then fished around in his insides and dislodged large sections of his small intestines.  The executioner made sure to do this in a way that would keep Fawkes alive throughout the entire process.  This of course went on for quite some time.  Eventually, Fawkes’ fingers, toes, and even his penis and testicles were chopped off in front of his eyes and thrown into the woods beside him.  Finally, he was literally cut into four pieces and then beheaded.  His head was put on a post on traitor’s wall as a symbol from the king – basically, don’t mess with me or you’re next (video games are starting to look less and less violent…). 

Along with these stories were your typical stories of haunting – The Golden Fleece B&B (you can book a room there for 90 pounds a night if you’re brave) where, among many other ghosts, there’s a second world war airman who wakes guests by touching them with an icy hand.  Or the Dean Court opposite the Minster where reports of guests being woken up with the odd sensation that someone has been trying to drag them from their bed…Imagine two hours of these stories in a wet, cold, and particularly dark night on the streets of York.  And then imagine a walk/run back to the car and a foot on the gas pedal out of town.  No, I wasn’t scared at all…

The Farm Shop

It seems to be a well-known fact that the English cannot cook.  They can pie it, potato it, or gravy it, but it’s been said that the best thing the English can do is stay out of the kitchen and just head to the pub where they do what they do best: put down the pints. I’m very happy to report that this is actually an old wives tale.  Not only can the English cook but a large majority cook with gorgeous, fresh, seasonal, and wonderfully pure ingredients.  Enter the farm store. 

 Once you exit the big bustling metropolis of London, you enter into the green and rolling hills this part of the world is so famous for.  There are cows, sheep, and fields a plenty, and occasionally, a farm store!  A farm store is exactly what it sounds like – a store that sells the products it makes or harvests right there, on site.  Be it fresh cream, milk, ice cream!, eggs, produce, cheese, meats, or even fresh baked breads and cakes, every single thing you might need for a solid day’s meals are there glistening and fresh. 

Not sure if I agree with that...but I get what they're sayin...note - this section is next to the cakes (we bought a few...)

 One particular farm store, Kitridding Farm Shop in Cumbria really had me at hello.  When you walk into the front entrance, you look directly into a stall full of milk cows.  They stare out at you as you walk into their store and send out a few casual “moos” into the atmosphere.  Chicken houses are in the backyard set among the rolling green hills of the countryside.  Yes, it may seem a bit staged (the whole thing brought Cracker Barrel to mind), but I really loved shopping there.  Every single thing we bought was delicious, and has resulted in the complete abandonment of restaurants and cafes in exchange for making our own meals with farm store finds.

Another fantastic shop we’ve come across - Chatsworth Farm Shop, made just about the best pie I’ve ever had.  (I’ve had maybe 3 in my life so…I’m not exactly sure how amazing it was)…but that’s neither here nor there. 

Next time you come to the UK, make sure to check out these gems – they’re the best!

Look out!  Rotary's in the house.  Love this wishing well!

No More Excuses

I can't even tell you how many times I've gotten emails, Facebook messages, or phone calls from friends asking the same questions.  "How can you afford to travel like this?"  "Aren't you worried that you are losing your career prospects by being away so often?"  "Aren't you scared?" "So many bad things could happen out there."  "Wait, don't you have a boyfriend?  Won't he break up with you?"  And so on...

Before I started this blog, I knew that I wanted to address these questions, as well as a number of others I've been asked.  I wanted to quell the fears of friends and family as well as convince others that they can do the exact same thing I'm doing.  It's not hard, it's not always scary, and no...it's not that expensive if you do it right.

The other day, I came across a fantastic post from Liz of Young Adventuress and just about whooped with joy.  I felt like I was reading my own words (crudeness and all)...all of the things I've been wanting to say to others for the last few years.

So today, I wanted to share Liz's thoughts with you in hopes that someone out there might feel that twinge of inspiration to shuck the fear of just going for it.  Throw the excuses away friends, because life is so much richer once you do.

Without further ado...the best post I've read on the subject in a long time.

No More Excuses! Go Abroad Now!

London in Pictures

Day 1 - Alyna (aka our savior) has taken us in last minute.  She’s got a gorgeous apartment in central London and it is a perfect place to take in the city by foot or tube (uh, The Tube is AMAZING).  So we’ve been walking.  To and from, here and there, everywhere.  It’s been sunny, rainy, snowy – all in the course of a day.  As far as sights go, I’ve been in St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Aside from that, it’s just been a self guided walking tour.  Covent Garden, Oxford Circus, City of London, all around.  The obligatory red phone booth photos have happened, but not many other shots just yet.  We stopped off for some pie and mash (delicious, but why aren’t the Brits so much fatter?!) and have a show booked.  Wicked, finally!!  Today, the sun is shining (for now) and Borough Market is the afternoon’s playground.  

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Update: We've been in London for three days, and we've hit it hard.  Because I've never been, the tourist sites were at the top of the list.  Borough Market also made the top of the list which is why about half of the photos I took in London are of food (not that that's unusual...)

I'm gonna miss London for the next few weeks, but we'll be back on March 29th and 30th to drop off our rental car.  Any suggestions for the days we're back?  

Here's about 60 pictures from the last few days.  Enjoy!!  (But don't look at them if you're hungry....)