Thursday, December 28, 2006

Still waiting for the Green Flash....
We have an evening ritual in St. Croix and that is to watch the sunset at a beachbar. This is the wrong time of year to see it, but supposedly if the sun falls into the ocean and there is no clouds, the sky flashes green. I am still waiting to see it and they tell me it IS real. So until then, I'll just drink my coconut rum and pineapple juice and wait.

We watched 'tramp' the other night. A police car followed by a big generator run truck with a 12 person band on the back slowly made its way down the main street of Fredricksted. It was not the old style scratchy band, but a new bass induced electronic version of it. On both sides, it is reviving an old tradition and making it popular with the kids. There were hundreds of people following the truck and dancing all the way to 'the village.' The village is the carnival attractions, food booths and a stage for entertainment. We had some great roast pork with Sazon rice and sweet potato and a side of conch in butter sauce. The ginger beer was also quite tasty, but too sweet. Next time, it gets a shot of rum! So thats life so far during Carnivale in St Croix. I will bring my camera next time so I can leave you all with some pictures, although I don't know if I can post until I get back to Florida.

Cheers and Happy Holidays!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

St Croix, Virgin Islands.

Ah, we are settled for a bit in St Croix and staying with Ethans mom. The weather is hot, sunny, and we are enjoying our rum and cokes! The internet connection is slow, so I have no time to post pictures....but wanted to let everyone know that we are safe and sound and happy. The next phase of life is quickly approaching and its a bit scary, bnut for now we are going to enjoy the current situation and take it one day at a time.

Cheers and Happy Holidays from St Croix...
Sara and Ethan

Friday, December 08, 2006

The Good Ole US of A

We cant believe we made it. Seriously. After 14 countries and multiple border check...nothing compares with trying to come back into the US. Wow. What a ordeal.

So, we got to Frankfurt Airport with plenty of time. We left to go to our gate so we could buy some dutyfree (the Cuban Bacardi and Jagermeister) but all US flights have to go to the C terminal to go through a special customs section, where we are then put into a room with nothing until a bus shows up and takes us to the B terminal at our gates and far away from any of the duty free shops. Noone tells you this, so we are just being put into line after line and getting further from duty free as we go. I did go back out to the B terminal (the beginning part) and was able to purchase the rum but was told the Jager is different and not allowed into the US. The sealed back was to stay sealed on the flight and everything would be peachy.

The flight was late so we arrived in Philadelphia starving, tired, and with less than an hour to go through customs, immigration, and get to our connecting flight. We were doubtful. In immigration, the slip asked what countries we went on during this trip and we couldnt fit all the countries on the slip. At the desk, the man made me list all (not just SE Asia, but where) and then asked how I could afford to volunteer in Peace Corps with no money. When Ethan went through after me, the same nice immigration officer gave him a scratch piece of paper with the way to apply for a job with border and customs control. He was pleasant althoguh militant. Our luggage was the last to come up onto the belt and of course with a list of countries on our immigration tag, we were sure to get searched in agriculture. The man was a jerk. He asked what every thing in our bag was, where it came from and what we were going to do with it. He re-emptied our bag and xrayed it. He also leafed through our Lonely Planet Thailand and asked us if we were in a rush. We told him we boarded our connecting flight in 20 minutes. This suitcase was packed so neat and nice and FULL and we threw everything back in when he was done. We had to check our duty free because US flights would not allow a sealed bag and I took random things into the plastic bag as carryon so we could close the suitcase. As we waited for our bags, only my backpack came up. We knew this was an issue right off, since our backpacks usually come together. Both of us had envisioned the suitcase exploding (popping open, not actually exploding) and were yet to talk about it in fear of actual catastrophe. But as the belt stopped and all the others left, we realized that our suitcase and Ethans pack were not coming. That suitcase contains all of our souvenirs from around the world. Ethan bag contains his only clothes. It would have been much easier for my bag to not show up, since I have stuff at moms. We went home, had a snack and some champagne and then slept. Although the sun rose and we were up regardless of the amount of sleep. My grandparents and my uncle and Rachel came over and we had lots of coffee and talked and then Ethan and I drove to the store for new shoes. Very exciting I know. We all met for dinner at the Club for lobster. It was wonderful and great to spend one day with my grandparents before they left for Hawaii.

I think we are adjusting. Florida is ok to visit although we dont want to live here. It is really nice to have each other to lean on for our adjustment back to US life. I think everything is going to turn out ok. Well, we do have to find out where we are moving to next.

We ran to the next step which was to check the baggage. The man said it would make it. We then ran to our gate, which was boarding and we got on. The flight was uneventful and seeing my mom on the other side was awesome. She was waiting at the closest to the gate she could get which was so fun and the smile and hugs we got were worth the disaster of Philly.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Dresden, Germany and The AUTOBAHN!!!

After much work on trying to find our way to Berlin and then down to Frankfurt for a reasonable amount of money, we decided to hire a car. If we got over the border to Dresden, the fare was about $200US and we could keep it for a week and drop it in Frankfurt. Deal. We left Cesky Kruml0v excited about driving. Ethan loves to drive and I love navigating and being passenger. We were both excited to be able to just stop the car wherever necesary or not neccesary and have that freedom. Why didn't we do this anywhere else on our trip?

When we left for Cesky Krumlov, we had planned to go back to Prague for a few more days, but honestly we just weren't into Prague or the vibe there. The hostel makes it and we had picked a ok one. I am sure had we given it more time, we could have enjoyed ourselves, but it just seemed like a big modern city. Instead we were going to go straight through. We took a bus from Cesky Krumlov to Prague and had only 20 minutes to get from the bus station to the other side of the city to the train station for a train to Dresden. We had 5 minutes until our train left, when the ticket police checked our tickets and informed us we had bought the wrong ones. We honestly did not know that we bought the wrong tickets and for a lousy 4 more Krones we would have done so. Instead, we were hit with a 500 Krone fee and missed the train. Argh. Now we were really hating Prague and ready to hit the road. They specifically hit tourists with backpacks and after meeting many people in many cities who never buy tickets and hope for the best, we have alwys bought our tickets. Of course we are the ones to get the fine too. We caught the next train to Dresden (2 hours later and 1/2 hour late on top of that) and arrived in a new city blind. We found a cool but somewhat expensive hostel and treated ourselves to a dinner of wings and nachos at a Mexican restaurant. The next morning we picked up our little yellow VW Fox and made our way to Berlin.

THE AUTOBAHN.
So, we get onto the highway alright, but Ethan checks to see if the left lane is clear and to pass a vehicle and jumps over only to have a car come up on him at 200kph and get very angry. From then on, he realizes its not about if the lane is clear but if he can see far enough back where the cars are coming from. We were traveling between 130 and 150 kph and cars were passing us like we were little old ladies putting along on a back road. Each car that passed us seem to make a whooshing noise and sometimes we could barely see them coming. On the way into Berlin, I wanted to stop at an Ikea (because we could) and we got to check out what all this Ikea buzz is about. Ethan didnt like that you were trapped on a path and couldnt vear off, but it was fun to see the styles and think about a home in our near future. We got icecream at the end and back on the highway to find our way into Berlin.

BERLIN.
The city of owls and nightfolk. We should make a point to say that dark happens about 4PM in Germany at this time of year and it is usually overcast during the day, so life seems dark anyway. Why not just party at night and sleep during the day? We went on a pub crawl the first night and were extremely disappointed. But by 2AM, I had to go to sleep. The second night, we headed out with some friends we met at the hostel and stayed at a bar called the WHITE TRASH FAST FOOD Bar and Restaurant. The band was hard rock and the DJ upstairs was pretty cool. It was a mix of Irish, American, and Aussie friends and the first bar we stopped at seemed to be a gay one but after we were turned away at the wine bar (more for the size of our 9 person group), the other American asked if they served our kind in this place and the bartender was very hospitable. Slowly we realized we were the only girls in the place but the great thing about Berlin is that it doesnt matter! Everyone is cool and noone gets upset for you to break the mould. Berliners were awesome everywhere. If we pulled out a map, someone always tried to help us. If someone didnt speak English, they got their friend. We met people everywhere.

We also visited the Jewish Memorial, which was extremely moving, beautiful, touching and offered free admission. Germans seem to have realized the atrocity of the holocaust and are trying hard to remember but move forward. On the same note, we also visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum, where we learned a ton about the wall and separated Berlin. This is history of our childhood and now we can be more connected to it. From Berlin, we decided to go to Munich because, well we can. It was a long drive and we arrived in Munich blind again. We realized that we knew where to go IF we came into the train station but driving was another story. We stopped for directions and made it to Wombats but were a bit disappointed by this highly regarded a somewhat pricey hostel. There is NO kitchen and no credit cards. And we had some very inconsiderate roommates. Today, we are headed to a traditional beer hall for BEER and food. This is the home of beer and the original Oktoberfest. Tomorrow we will find out more about the history and maybe catch a museum or two. We hope to go see the Disney castle (or the castle that Disney used to design theirs) two hous drive from here.

We head home shortly and are anticipating the move to the US. I will load pictures when I get the chance. We love getting comments, so if you are reading this, please let us know so. Cheers!