Wicked Smart

Well, ladies and germs, we have made it to Asia. Woo hoo!  I bet you thought this day would never happen! After crossing the Dardanelles we were in the Asian side of Turkey.  After an evening at the shittiest "5-star" resort I've ever spent the night in (Can we say "centipedes in the bed, crooked artwork and a 1980's Nintendo tv"?), we headed out to Troy. I was super excited for Troy, simply because of the amazing amount of history surrounding it.  Sadly, I am old and the only information that I can remember is that 1. The story of the wooden horse is 100% fiction.  They were actually able to infiltrate the city walls through a crack in the back wall, left by a significant earthquake.  2. No matter where in the world you are from, all people will laugh when the tour guide repeatedly says "They came in the back door." 3. Troy kept having to be rebuilt due to fires and earthquakes.  They would rebuild the new town on top of the existing ruins. ...

Breaking news! Cupcake has been kidnapped! Duh-duh-duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh! The mystery for Cupcake intensified at lunch when a follow up note was delivered to Squirrel McStressalot's desk. Squirrel was very concerned about the welfare of her missing compadre so enlisted some help (aka me) to throw an impromptu bake sale to help raise the cash for the ransom. I present to you: Cupcakes for Cupcake. The cupcakes were actually quite delicious, if not a little too sweet, and the bake sale helped raise the funds necessary for her dog's safe return thanks to everyone's printers and knowledge of how to Google images of money. Someone even donated legal tender! That's support, right there. Unfortunately, another note was waiting for Squirrel at 4pm.... this time with a menacing ball of fluff! (Although I voted that it looked more like a bunny tail than doggy innards.) Finally, 5 o'clock arrived.  Time to make the exchange.  Squirrel hea...

I feel I need to start this post with an apology to all my fellow Contiki Bootytangers.  I wasn't a very good tourmate.  I avoided hanging out with them and was way more quiet than I am in my normal life.  This had absolutely nothing to do with being shy (shy doesn't register in my personality).  It all had to do with being stuck on tour with one of the most vile human beings I've ever met.  I won't go into all the details but will give two examples. 1. She referred to our tour guide, Ahmet, as Mohammad the entire time (disrespectful and racist, all in one fell swoop!) 2. The day after an altercation she passed the time by putting stickers in my hair and throwing things at me, like a mother effin' child. I did meet some great people on tour and had fun with them, and actually once we boarded the cruise ship headed towards Greece I was SO much happier, simply because I wasn't stuck on a bus anymore with someone I spent the entire trip wishing would fa...

I have suffered from a severe case of wanderlust my entire life.  Even before I knew what it was, I knew I wanted to travel the world and see everything, meet everyone and experience everything. The world was much too big to get boxed into my small hometown. After getting home from visiting my friend Carolin in Germany a couple of years ago I realized that although I had traveled quite a bit, I had limited myself to countries that were not so different from the US.  I knew right then and there that I needed to plan a trip to an area of the world completely variant to the rainy streets of Seattle.  I chose Turkey because Istanbul was a place I had always wanted to visit.  I love history and the Animaniacs' version of "Istanbul (not Constantinople)" has always been one of my favorite animated skits. I found a great tour of Turkey and the Greek Islands and immediately booked it. My awesome calendar. I spent several days in Istanbul before meeting...