The World of Coffee

It's been pretty interesting (and, at times, frustrating) to see how different coffee is the world over. American-style filtered coffee is much less prevalent than we would have expected. In some places it’s hard to get a good cup-a-joe, while in others it’s bizarrely expensive; but then there are the gems where, one way or another, the coffee is excellent. Here’s a quick run-down on how what we’ve experienced:



Costa Rica: Good filter coffee, grown locally. It’s actually illegal to grow non-Arabica coffee because they don’t want to sully their reputation.


Australia/New Zealand: A dizzying array of espresso-based coffees: short black, long black, flat white, cappuccino, doppio, macchiato, latte, mocha, and on and on. You can’t get filtered coffee. Your only options are one of these crazy espresso drinks (which, by the way, even the people who make them only marginally know the difference between…we asked multiple baristas, and everyone had different definitions) or instant coffee. A flat white is the closest to American coffee, but it’ll cost you at least $3.50 Australian. On the other hand, the quality is consistently excellent and you get fun foam milk designs.


Japan: You can get coffee (hot or cold) in a vending machine! They come in little tiny cans, and are much tastier than you’d expect. Tommy Lee Jones and Hideki Matsui are the faces of the two most popular brands. 7-11 also has good pre-packaged coffee in plastic cups (that look like real take away cups).


Thailand: The most delicious iced coffee in the world. Decently strong, with fresh milk and topped with condensed milk, which gives it an amazing sweetness and milkiness.


Laos/Cambodia: Like Thailand, but less tasty.


Vietnam: They like their coffee strong and sweet. They even have their own special cup-top filter that they use throughout the country. They use condensed milk for all of the sweetening, in both iced and regular coffee, which gets to be a bit much at times. Also, the coffee always arrives brewing in their funny little filters, so if you get an iced coffee it’s really just hot with a layer of melted ice (read: water) on the top. Yum.


Israel: Want an iced coffee? Better ask for “cold coffee,” otherwise you get the slushy stuff. I actually thought the slushy stuff was pretty good, though…and it’s definitely the most ubiquitous coffee option. Most of the places we stayed had electronic coffee machines for hot coffee, of varying quality.


Turkey: Everyone knows about Turkish coffee, which is delicious. Turns out nobody drinks it in Turkey, though. Sure, they have it on the menu, but tea is the drink of choice. Turkish coffee is also unreasonably expensive at most places.


Greece: Greek coffee is like Turkish coffee but weaker. Also, the iced options are lame: a frappe is ice blended with Nescafe, while a freddo is a shot of espresso poured over a few ice cubes. Booorrring. The one cappuccino I had here was gross.


So while we haven’t tasted anything that came close to the deliciousness of Kona coffee, I’d give top awards to Costa Rica and Thailand. But all in all, we’re really looking forward to making coffee in our own coffee maker back home. One of many things to look forward to as we start to wind down our journey!

Opa! (by which I mean, pictures of Greece)

Budapest sunset, not a bad layover

our first gyros

aforementioned elaborate toe touching ritual

Birfday sunset

actual birfday sunset

checkin my birthday emails, thanks guys!

Batsi, Andros at twilight

cute island church in Chora, Andros

Mykonos windmills

Mykonos cuteness, and some nice buildings ;)

Mykonos tasty goodness at the Opa taverna

Grecian Good Times

In planning for Greece, we decided in order to appreciate Athens we wanted to do most of it at the end, after a good couple of weeks of island hopping/hanging out. Oh! I almost forgot our silly evening in Budapest! Because of a funny around the world ticket routing, we ended up with a 20 hour layover in Budapest. I know, how is Budapest the stop over between Turkey and Greece? It is if the One World partner there is Malev (Hungarian airlines). Anywho, we ended up going in to town, where we got an adorable hotel by the river, took a nice evening walk, watched the sunset and listened to a good Jazz/swing band (with people dancing) while we ate dinner. Not bad for a layover really  And now we know, someday we should actually go there, seems like fun.


Anyway, back to Athens. We decided to do like a day and a half there before heading to the islands. We got a marginal hostel, but in an awesome spot in the middle of Plaka, a super cute historic neighborhood near everything. Our first afternoon, we mostly wandered and hung out, got a nice meal, some beer and watched people (as Mike noted on Facebook, loads of Americans in Athens, apparently they’ve been hiding here). We decided to save the major stuff for our next round for a number of reasons, so instead we headed to the new Acropolis Museum. Super cool, also really makes you hate the British Museum. Such a shame that they have such a gorgeous, high tech space right next to the Acropolis and half the stuff they should be showing was looted and taken to the UK. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering, shopping (bought a new t-shirt at H&M, I’m sure y’all will notice it in pictures) and… Watching the Changing of the Guard!

They do the ceremony in front of the parliament building at the tomb of the unknown soldier. They always have two dudes there that you can take pictures of and once an hour they change. But oh goodness, it’s the funniest thing I’ve maybe ever seen. A) they are wearing traditional Greek outfits with pleated skirts, giant puffballs on their shoes and fezzes with enormous tassels. B) the way they are required to walk involves a huge leg-lift, shuffle step motion (it looks kinda like a children’s jazz dance lesson). 3) THERE IS AN ELABORATE TOE TOUCHING PART where the two guys march till they meet in the middle, then touch toes and raise them into the air. I almost died laughing.

We thought we’d be leaving early-ish the next day so we hadn’t planned anything, but apparently the only ferries to Andros were at 8 am (nooope) or 5 pm. So with our time, we checked out the Jewish Museum! It was a lovely little museum, in fact similar to the Sydney one, except the lack of adorable holocaust survivor to give us a tour & make us cry. However, it was a really interesting little spot, being that we knew very little about the Greek Jews or the fact that about 65,000 of them were killed in the Holocaust. These days there are between 5-10,000 mostly in Athens, some in Rhodes.

It was then that we began the epic journey. We had to get a bus to the alternate ferry port (as we chose a somewhat obscure island for our first stop). To get there we tried to take the metro, only to get half way and learn that the second line was closed. Boo. So we tried to get a taxi, but Greek taxi drivers are kinda douche-y and it took 3 to get one to agree to drive us that last km to the bus. Then we got a bus (about an hour). Then we got to the port and got a snack because we were about an hour early (better safe than sorry right?). THEN OUR FERRY (1 hr. 15 min) GOT DELAYED 4 HOURS. So instead of getting in at 6:30pm we got to our hotel at 11 pm. Good times.

Fortunately Andros was adorable. We had a cute little hotel with an attached café that overlooked the ocean for breakfast (and as it turns out sunset every day). We ate tasty food, Andros specialties include a fava bean paste (like hummus with red onion and lemon), the Andros omlette with crazy delish Andros spicy sausage and some adorable tiny almond pastry which a really cute woman in the bakery gave us for free so we could taste it. I like to describe it as like a cigar shaped cookie the consistency of a Mexican wedding cookie (without nuts) but with an almond paste in the middle that is everything I want marzipan to be, but delicious instead of gross. We drank beer (I don’t know how I will get used to beer being anything less than half a liter at home…). We beached. We walked. We read a lot. I read “The Help” and “ People of the Book” both A-mazing. I birthday-ed. It was lovely. Oh also, we ate lunch once at a place run by a guy named Louis and when he found out we were American he told us he lived there in the 70’s and proceeded to say, God Bless, every time he got near our table. The food was delicious, but we couldn’t go back after being blessed like 80 times. Also, there was an accordian man. When did we meet him? When our taxi picked him up at 11 pm on our way through town. And the next day at lunch, and all three nights at dinner, and we saw him pick up his accordian in the bakery while the nice lady gave us treats.

Our last day we ‘took a tour of Andros’. It was hilarious. A) The lady told us she does the tour as a favor to the woman who runs it. She is lovely, but not a tour guide. B) It was like a commerce tour we heard a lot about lush vegetation, pure spring water and Andros products. C) She kept telling us about lovely places…. That we drove straight past, but then stopped places like a clump of trees where she told us to ‘take pictures of the lush vegetation’. We went to two monasteries, one that was cool, and one that was weird, a ‘centuries old drinking water area’ and then we stopped at Chora, the largest city, for 4 hours… random! Chora was cute though. We got some lunch, walked to the end (the town goes all the way down a peninsula), saw a cute church on an island and got some ice cream. Altogether, Andros was a fun and laid back way to start our time in the islands.

Oh also, the accordian man showed up at the dock to tell us we were standing in the wrong place for the Mykonos ferry. I'm just waiting for him to pop out of my luggage tonight.

Turkish Delight! I mean... photos!

enormous/scary sculpture: Ephesus

Us with Jenny & Christopher on the Galata Bridge

Mike in the water in Cirali

Ruins at Olympos

Fire, that is fire, shooting out o' the ground.

Me, rocking Ephesus, in my amazing hat

Beach at Cirali

what, do you not have a picture of Obama in baklava?

Baklava amazingness

Blue Mosque!!

More Turkey please! But no dark meat, I mean heat waves...

Turkey is sooo much more than Istanbul! We were not sure where to head at first but we came up with a pretty good plan and let me tell you it has worked out!  We decided we would fly down to the south coast and work our way back up. It went like diiiis:

First, we flew to Antalya as a starting point. We had heard that the old town (Celeci) is the place to stay, but you have to walk there (LIE). So we took the bus from the airport and got out to walk what we thought was about 300 meters. With getting lost, crazy directions, tiny streets, it took about an hour, I think we walked over a km with our giant ass backpacks, and what is in front of our hotel at the far end of old town? A CAR RENTAL AGENCY. Ahem. Anywho, minus that (and through this post you should know that Turkey has had what can only be called a 'Crazy Ass Heatwave' that is a scientific term, and until today (Ephesus) it has been between 113-115 degrees and HUMID.  Don't worry, at night it drops to like 90 and humid...) So needless to say, we stopped for a little airconditioning break before heading out. What did we head out for? Hawaiian shave ice obviously, isn't that what you go to a historic Turkish town for? 

The next day, we slept in a bit (earned it!) and headed over to check out a traditional Turkish bath. This involves: sweating on a marble slab, being scrubbed, getting a soap massage (fun!), hanging out in funny giant sized dish towels, and an oil massage. It was hilarious. Particularly because we ended up being together because there was just one old guy working, so he would swtich back and forth and in between each thing he would wash you, by which i mean throw bowls full of water at you from across the room. Hilarious.

After that we spent the afternoon exploring old town (adorable), shopping (I bought a cuuute hat), eating (Mike's new fave- haydari-a better version of tzatziki, who knew?!). A lovely town.

The next day we TOOK A TAXI (duh) to the bus station and grabbed a bus (actually a dolmus, a little shared van) to Cirali (the best part is that sometimes they drive with the door open and honk at people they pass to troll for passengers). Then they drop you off on the side of the road. Then a van shows up (read: ghetto dolmus) and piles everyone in and drives you down. Ours had about 14 people in like a 10 person van. Woot.


In any event we made it. The beach there is gorgeous, huge hills/mountains in the background, you can see the ruins of Olympos right off the beach, blue water. Lovely. Most of Turkey has rock not sand beaches, which I kind of liked, you can even lie down on the rocks without a towel (it’s like a hot stone massage, particularly when it’s like 113 degrees!) Our second day we explored the Olympos ruins. They are cute, and fun because it’s kind of abandoned looking and super quiet. There is a tomb there for someone named Marcus Aurelious but we couldn’t decide if it was the real one, if so, kind of lame tomb for an important guy… Fun though over all, and when we were sure we were about to spontaneously combust from the heat, we went for a swim. Yay!

That night we went to the Chimera. Wondering what it is? So are scientists, ba dum bum! No seriously, it’s a place where flames come out of the ground, steady, continuously for ehhh, a few thousand years. It looks like a bunch of campfires on a mountain, except there is no fuel, and they stay constant. It was so random, and awesome, oh and the hottest Mike has ever been in his life (I still say Masada), but this time it was 9 pm, pitch black and absurdly hot. We got back to the hotel and our hotel guy was like ‘how are you?’ and I was like, “hot, this heat is killing me” and he goes “it’s not the heat, it’s the humid” and I was like, “I’m not in the mood for semantics, I’ve sweat through my clothes” (well, I didn’t say that outloud, I just went upstairs and got naked in the air conditioning, but I was thinking it really hard)

Our last morning, I got up to try to see sea turtles nesting (tis the season there) but alas it was not a turtle day, in exchange I was treated with a gorgeous sunrise, so I guess it all worked out.

From there it was on to Kas (sounds like Kaj or cash with a long a). When we got to the hotel, a girl was working the counter (not the owner), so the second time we came in, he said hi as we walked by, we are halfway up the stairs and he comes after us and yells, “welcome to Kas”, but I hear, “you pay cash?” (which we hear more often), and I go, “no we’ll pay by credit”. Damn I am soooo (unintentionally) funny.

Kas was a very cute town, our hotel had an awesome roof deck (good for watching the golden hour) you could see the town, the ocean the surrounding hills, lovely. We got some good swimming in during our full day (there is no beach there, just little concrete decks built in to the rocks with beach chairs & umbrellas where you can jump into the water, clever really). We ate some great food there, soaked in the sights, swam, shopped (who knew we needed Turkish towels… we did, they are sooo cute) and generally caught up on life.

From there we took an epic bus ride (6 hours to a 1 hour connection, bleh) although our first bus was fancy shmancy and had individual tvs with cable (and no English except a creepy movie with sawyer from lost and half of ratatouille which inexplicably turned off in the middle, Mike will never know how they resovle that little rat chef!) to end up in Selcuk (said like Sell Chuck, ha.) where we went to go see Ephesus.

Ephesus is an ancient city, rebuilt a million times by a crap ton of different people (again, scientific term, I learn them from my sister, she's got a PhD) but the city you go to (the only excavated stuff) is Greek with Roman fancy updates. It is super fun, and we chanced it by signing up for a tour and got a really great tour guide on a little bus with good air con and 5 other nice people. We also got to stop at the Temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world) which actually only has one remaining pillar (out of 127) and go up to a pilgrimage site where the virgin mary supposedly lived (and perhaps died). Both cool and interesting and we got to go because of the nice tour. Yay! In any event, Ephesus is a pretty cool place to spend a morning, minus the fact that the site was totally raided by British and Austrian archeologists and now most of the friezes and statues are in museums in Vienna....

Our last Turkish day we went to Izmir, which as it turns out wasn't as necessary as we thought (the airport is halfway between Izmir and Selcuk). But regardless, it was cute, there was a fun bazaar, some final baklava and Mike got to see SALT!  I'm finishing this post up from Budapest (we're here on a 20 hour layover, I know, there is no reason to be here between Istanbul and Athens, but when you're on a free round the world ticket, you take the connections you get...) and our very short interlude here was lovely.  A walk at sunset, dinner and beer by the river, a swing band. Life ain't bad.

Bonus pic: For my papa

Yep Daddy, there were 2000 camels!

If you have a date in Constantinople, she’ll be waiting in Istanbul

After a number of people telling us how great Istanbul was we planned to make it a multi day affair. We arrived in the late afternoon after an epic journey (you don’t even want to know but it took 21 hours, I know it’s only a 2 hour flight.), grabbed a quick dinner and turned in. The next morning we went out to explore, so much of the historic culture of the city is in such a small area!


First we hit the Basilica Cistern, a lovely underground cistern with beautifully carved pillars (including one carved with evil eye things all over it and two with amazing giant Medusa heads). Then we grabbed lunch (our first kebab) before heading to the Blue Mosque. Which is quite lovely, the building is gorgeous and the inner tile is quite nice. After we wandered to the Grand Bazaar, which was not as scary as everyone made it out to be. On our way home we wandered past a movie theater, Mike really wanted to see Salt, but it wasn’t out yet, so we saw Inception, ironically, when we left they were putting up the poster for Salt, which started the next day…

Day 2 we hit up Aya Sophia, spectacular. Most interesting because it is unbelievably old (500 and something AD), the architecture is incredible (the dome appears to float), and it was both a church and a mosque for quite a long time. Because of this the restoration is haphazard, all of the gilding and mosaics are covered by Muslim paintings, so where the paint is chipping or gone the restore the mosaics, it’s kinda half-sies.

After that we went to the Spice Bazaar. Well first we went to the place that invented Turkish Delight (and it is better there). Then we went to the bazaar, where we saw the mayor of Istanbul! Then Mike got a fish sandwich from these boats that hang out by the docks making them. Then (I know, big day) we crossed the Galata Bridge, walked around, climbed the Galata Tower (beautiful view), walked back down to have the best Baklava ever (seriously, also they made a portrait of Obama in baklava), Mike’s fave-chocolate, mine- this amazing pistachio one with rolled layers. Then, we took the tram back up (big hill, full tummies), walked the whole big walking street to a big square, had dinner and went home. Phew!

Next day, Topkapi Palace. I’ll say, it’s very pretty, but crowded and EXPENSIVE! We spent like a million dollars there. Funniest part? The relic room. They have some relics of Mohammed (beard hairs, sword, toothbrush), I’ll believe it, that wasn’t that long ago… but they also have ‘Moses’ Staff’, and stuff from David, Joseph and all other sorts of dudes. Moses’ staff really hit my funny bone though. It was cute.

We’d had some crazy days, so we spent the rest of that day smoking hookah and playing cards (well I was crushing Mike to be honest.) Then we got dinner at Hamdi (best food ever). Our last day in Istanbul….. was Jenny & Christopher day! It was the most exciting ever! We took a ferry up the Bosphorus all the way to the Black sea pretty much. Got off and had a beer in Asia, then headed back. We then took them to the awesome baklava, had a hookah afternoon and a big dinner with lots of Reki (Turkish uzo like drink). Most fun ever.

Ohh, also, I bought amazing Turkish evil eye warding off earrings, I think they also ward off carpet salesmen.

Giving Back

As many of you know, a few years ago Debbie and I helped launch a foundation with a number of friends. At the time, it was a way for some of us who wanted to give back to do so in a more strategic, coordinated, and generous manner.

Three years later, the One Percent Foundation has a larger aspiration: to be a catalyst and vehicle for everyone (young adults in particular) to participate in philanthropy in a meaningful way.

In the wake of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's announcement that they are recruiting billionaires to commit the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes, the One Percent Foundation has launched a complementary effort, the 1% Giving Pledge. This pledge is a way for those of us with much more modest means who want to give back to do so by signing an online pledge to commit at least one percent of our annual income to philanthropy.

Take the 1% Giving Pledge!

You can read an article about this effort at the Huffington Post. I hope you'll think about how much you give back and whether this pledge makes sense for you. I believe that for most of us, one percent of our income is both an aspirational amount to give away but also a realistic one. Of course, there are non-monetary ways to help our communities as well, which we strongly encourage. But we also recognize the importance of financial resources in the effort to make our world a better place.

I should also note that this pledge, and the One Percent Foundation's broader efforts, are not simply about "charity" as it is traditionally defined. This is about directing resources to those organizations and efforts that work to change the world in ways we find personally meaningful. I see it as an investment in the future of our planet and our society.

So, if you've given it some thought and would like to take the 1% Giving Pledge, please do. And if you're in your 20s and 30s and would like to join with other young adults to magnify the impact of your giving, consider joining the One Percent Giving Circle.

You can also make a donation towards the One Percent Foundation's operations here.

This is my passion and my cause, so I hope you'll think about it! I also would LOVE to hear other people's thoughts, so comment away! Thank you.

All the other Israel bits, plus Jordan!

After a lovely couple of days in J-lem as described by Mike, we headed to Tel Aviv to meet up with my parents (yay!). We checked in, asked for a lunch recommendation which we could not find, then got lunch over by the fun artist market. We got back to the hotel to find that my parents were just by looking for us and were apparently at the place we neglected to find (which by the way was apparently delicious). Long story short, WE FOUND THEM! YAY! They invited us to come to their closing dinner with their group so we could meet all their new friends. Dinner was tres chic and it was great to meet all their peeps and get lots of feedback on their general adorability (sometimes you think it’s like babies, you always think your parents are the cutest, but now we know, they are objectively cute ;) After an evening of sitting on our beds catching up and showing off each of the treasures that we had picked up, we got ready for TUTTLE ADVENTURE 2010!


In the morning we got our rental car (my dad and I were the drivers, good times!) and headed south. We grabbed lunch in Be’er Sheva and introduced my parents to the joys of Yotvata chocolate milk (for the uninitiated it is the best chocolate milk in the world made by a kibbutz in the south). We stopped for a quick glance at the Maktesh Ramon (giant crater-y thing), gorgeous, then we drove through it (long, but pretty). Eventually making it to Eilat. Our first night we stayed at the Eilat YHA which as it turns out is gorgeous and cheap. We tossed down our stuff and went for a dip in the Red Sea (you know us, we try out as many bodies of water as possible). Although the water was a little trashy (booo) it was refreshing. The next morning we were picked up early for our trip to Jordan! None of us knew what to expect, but we hoped for the best… The border crossing took a while, but that was to be expected (while we waited my father bought a kefiyah  he looked so legit). Then we hopped on a bus where we heard about Petra & Jordan as we drove. The majority of the group was on the one day tour (in my opinion hardly worth it… so much travel for so little time at Petra). It was then that our NEW camera decided it didn’t want to be used anymore and developed a ‘sensor’ issue. All of a sudden there was a dark smudge over a piece of our lens…. Which apparently happens really rarely with point and shoots (we are just soooo lucky) it’s covered by the warranty, but not until we get home to mail it in… so my generous mother lent us her camera for the remainder. Anywho, on to Petra!

Petra is gorgeous. It is an amazing combination because the natural setting is pretty phenomenal, the stone is a million colors and textures. Then, the Nabbateans carved these incredible tombs into them, blending human creation with incredible natural beauty. In other words, it rocked. You enter through this 1.2 km canyon break (let me tell you, really the only bad thing, you descend almost 2 km into Petra, which means when you are done it’s 2 km UP to get out. Mean Nabbateans.) When you get to the end of the Siq all of a sudden you turn a corner and there it is…. The Treasury. Otherwise known as the cool-ass place at the beginning of the last Indiana Jones movie… It Is spectacular. The funniest part? These enormous and gorgeous carvings… have nothing inside. They are tombs, so like the Treasury is 3 or 4 stories tall, they excavated more than 250 tons of rock to carve it, and there is like a little room with 7 graves inside. It was all about the façade. We hiked around with our crazy-ass guide for a couple of hours (who never could give us a good explanation of when lunch was…) He eventually left us at lunch, and took the rest of the group back to drive back to Israel. We hiked on (well, my parents hung out, Mike and I hiked) another 800 stairs (poor call us) up to the Monastery. It is the largest building in Petra, and it was magnificent, but phew. Quite a hike. We were dog tired by the time we left, but determined to come back for Petra by Night. We had an amazing driver (Yusef) who told us funny stories (what’s the best kind of car… a DONKEY, fuel is cheap and it can go anywhere) dropped us off at our Bedouin tent and picked us up later for PbyN. The Bedouin tent was awesome, more like a Bedouin hotel (my dad couldn’t stop talking it up) and it had the best bathroom I’ve seen in Jordan. It was lovely and peaceful and the guys who run it were very nice. My dad got a great kefiah tying lesson from one of the old guys the next day.

We did Petra by Night, which was cool. It would have been cooler with about 400 less people, and a number fewer idiots. It’s a candle-light walk down the Siq ending with tea and Bedouin music by the treasury. They ask people to walk without flashlights and without taking photos so people can walk in peace by night vision, which is lovely (granted, it could use a little more light, but Jordan is just working out their tourist industry) but dumbasses couldn’t stop taking pictures, even when people were performing. I yelled at one guy, who’s wife explained that they weren’t coming during the day (terrible call, you really can’t see it at night). And I think my dad was close to bludgeoning a few people. But it was pretty and peaceful all the same.

The following morning I realized I had the craziest blisters ever (to be fair, we probably walked about 7 miles in crazy heat) including one I called the alien because it was about the size of the toe it was on… Anywho, it was a low walking day for me. We took a Jeep tour (really the back of a truck) through Wadi Rum, which is gorgeous. We had an amazing driver named Mohammed (who’s dad is mostly retired but has a bunch of camels that roam free in Wadi Rum, apparently he is quite the camel tracker) and it was a super fun day. We ended back in Eilat at the pool.

The next morning we drove up to the dead sea where everyone got to float (even my mom who says she sinks in the ocean). After picture taking it was up to the mud pools! We covered ourselves head to toe (I’m not going to lie, I put some in my hair because they said it was good, and not only were there rocks in my hair for days, it was like straw!), took more pictures, then headed to our Masada HI Hostel. Note to anyone heading that way, that hostel is gorgeous, and the pool is lovely!

That morning, Masada for sunrise. My feet had healed enough, but boy were we unprepared for the heat! It was probably 90 degrees at 4:30 when we started, and no breeze. At one point we almost lost my mom (I think she was just way overheated, and she’s in the best shape of any of us), but after some first aid from my dad in the form of a wet handkerchief and my explanation that on the Amazing Race Family Edition no one finishes unless everyone crosses the finish line, we all made it to the top with about 5 minutes to spare! It was a spectacular sunrise, and my mom and I had a fun time taking the cable car down :)

You’ve already heard our Jerusalem adventures, and that was the end of our time in Israel and with my parents. Thanks guys for the super funnest week ever. (Yup mommy, that grammar is for you!)

Israel/Jordan Picture Bonanza!

Men's side of the wall

Us rockin' J-lem

Me in the shuk

3 Tuttles in Eilat

Mike & my dad classing up the Jordanian border

The Treasury at Petra

me, my mom and a cool looking dude, I don't know if he worked there or just lurked

If you look carefully you can see the Monastery in our sunglasses

Or you could just look at this picture

Us with our Bedouin Tent Friends

Our 'jeep' (truckbed) tour of Wadi Rum w/ two Canadians

Mohammed's dad's camels. Wadi Rum.

Bedouin Mid-afternoon tea  break!

Masada at Sunrise

Jerusalem of Gold

The last time I was in Jerusalem was on my Birthright trip in 1999-2000. Given the political realities back then and the fact that we were on an organized tour, our movement around the city was a bit proscribed. No Arab Quarter in the Old City, no East Jerusalem, no Temple Mount.

Considering that before Debbie and I even made it to our hostel this time, we'd already passed through Jordan, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, I could just tell that this trip would be a bit different!

Seriously though, I've gotta say...being able to just hang out in and wander through Jerusalem was amazing. We spent our first few days getting lost in the Old City, passing through the Christian, Armenian, Arab, and Jewish quarters (and visiting the Western Wall each time!).

We went into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which neither of us had ever been to...and which it turns out is kind of important in Christinaity, as it is considered by many to be the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected. How often do you get to wander into a place like that?!



We did a "shopping tour" of all the places where Debbie bought things when she was in Israel in 2006 (and even bought more stuff from some of those places). We ate the most delicious rugelach in the world at Marzipan bakery in the Mahane Yehudah market. We had hummus and falafel and pizza and bagels...and we learned that Israeli breakfasts are more than enough for two people to share and come with a delicious cheese that I'm obsessed with but don't know the name of. We also learned that Israeli iced coffee is like a slushee, and if you want iced coffee American style, you need to ask for "cold coffee" (I stuck with the slushee stuff!).

Most importantly (and fun!), we got to see some old friends, including my friend Rina Cohen and her family, who kindly hosted us for an amazing Shabbat meal; Debbie's classmate from graduate school Shoshana and her fiance Asaf, who cooked us a delicious dinner at their apartment and with whom we discussed Middle East politics while smoking a hookah (flavored tabacco in a water pipe) on their terrace overlooking the hills of Jerusalem; and my friend Gabe, one of my closest friends growing up, and his beautiful family, with whom we had a picnic in the rose garden near the Knesset...the first time I'd seen Gabe since he moved to Israel about 10 years ago!



We returned to Jerusalem for two nights with Debbie's parents at the end of our Israel jaunt, where we continued to shop and explore new aspects of the city, including the Temple Mount and the tunnels along the Western Wall.

Let me tell you: this was fascinating! I'm still blown away by what we saw and learned, particularly on the tunnel tour, so I feel a need to share. If you're not interested in a little history/religion/mythology, feel free to stop reading. Otherwise, fasten your seat belt...

So, I've always known that when Jews outside of Israel pray, we're supposed to face Jerusalem. And it makes sense to me that within Jerusalem, Jews pray facing the Western Wall. But the question was posed to us on this tour: where are you supposed to face when you're at the wall? Related to this, why do Jews pray to the Western Wall at all? I always assumed that it's because it's the only part of the Second Temple (destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD) remaining. This, it turns out, is incorrect. In actuality, all four walls still exist! And what we see of the Western Wall today is only the exposed part of the wall...on the tunnel tour you walk the entire length of the wall, and see parts of it that are in even better condition than what is outside.

So it turns out that back when the First Temple stood on the mount, there was inner sanctuary that held the Ark of the Covenant (of Raiders of the Lost Ark fame), which housed the ten commandments tablets given to Moses and was also said to be G-d's dwelling place. This room, referred to as the Holy of Holies, could only be entered by the high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Incidentally, the Ark was removed from the sanctuary around the destruction of the First Temple, and no one's quite sure what happened to it.

But the Holy of Holies continued to sit atop a special place: the peak of Mount Moriah, over which the Temple Mount was built. This spot apparently plays a special role in the Old Testament as the place where Abraham binds Isaac to sacrifice him to G-d and where Jacob dreams of angels going up and down a ladder to heaven, among other famous stories. It is also said to be the point where G-d started the creation of the universe. The peak is referred to as the Foundation Stone, and unbeknownst to me, it is basically considered the holiest place in Judaism. It is also considered by Muslims to be the point from which Mohammed ascended to heaven.

So the reason Jews pray to the Western Wall is actually that of the four walls of the temple, it's the closest one to the location of the Foundation Stone! And many Jews praying at the wall will actually angle themselves to the left so that they're facing the Foundation Stone. You can actually reach a point that is directly opposite it on the tunnel tour...this is considered the closest point to the Foundation Stone, the nearest one can get to the holiest of places.

What's equally interesting is that the Foundation Stone still exists and can be reached by some today! Where is it, you might ask? Ever seen that big shiny dome in the middle of Jerusalem, right above the Western Wall? That's called the Dome of the Rock, and it's actually a shrine (not a mosque) to the Foundation Stone, built right atop it and with the peak of Mount Moriah poking through the floor in the center of the building! Not that we got to see that...the Dome of the Rock (now you know what the Rock is, by the way) is off-limits to non-Muslims except on special occassions. Besides, in Jewish tradition we're apparently not considered pure enough to be in such a holy place. The chief rabbi of Israel even warns Jews that we're not pure enough to be on the Temple Mount at all, but oh well...

Anyway, the Foundation Stone, which I had never heard of before, turns out to be the holiest place in the Jewish religion. Is that some Indiana Jones, Da Vinci code kind of stuff, or what?!

Oh, you wanted to see Bali?

Kecak Dudes, doing their crazy Kecak thing

Offerings...they're everywhere!

Mike at a Balinese Temple

Rice paddy terraces

Mike with Cremation Ceremony in the background

Cremating, in full effect

Monkeys in the Monkey Forest!

Girls practicing the Legong Dance

Debbie in Balinese 'beach casual' in our room at the Bali Hyatt

Debbie on the grounds of the Bali Hyatt

The view from the Hyatt's Regency Club, including Gamelan players