Now is all

 Hey Y'all. IDK if you know about this, but THE WORLD CUP IS HAPPENING IN THE CITY WHERE I LIVE.

We've been watching the infrastructure construction happen since we got here three years ago. This summer, all of the branded advertisement started going up. The sports center near our school, which is a training area for some of the teams, started installing security gates. The school day was shortened in November to keep the streets clear as they tested the new bus system. Empty lots filled with RV trailers overnight, and cruise ships pulled into harbor to house fans. 

My parents visited in early November. Even though there were no matches happening at that time, they needed tickets to get a visa! We had fun seeing sights in Education City, downtown at the Souk, and the national museum. Rani and Dad baked me a cake for my 44th birthday, which we spent with some friends on the compound

Some neighborhood eccentrics built some metal sculptures with soccer balls on them. 

And then it was time.

In many places around the world, you might go to the neighborhood bar to view the first game of the World Cup. We have a neighborhood luxury resort, so that's where we went.

On the way home we caught the first of the nightly fireworks-and-drones shows. Nice accompaniment to the skyline.

The city, along with various hotels, set up fan zones as places to gather and watch games. Various activities, varieties of food and drink, and fans from all over the place. Fun to see this kind of thing going on in Doha.

We ended up attending three games: Wales/Iran, Tunisia/Australia, and Belgium/Croatia. Pretty exciting to see the fans and the new stadia.  

We did virtual school for two and a half weeks while the tournament was going on. It was exhausting, but it's over and we headed out to Thailand earlier this week for our extended December break. Games in this time zone are very late at night, so we haven't been keeping up; hope everyone is enjoying the Cup!

Peace,

Jon

Slow-VIENNA!

 [I got really excited about how that title worked out :)] 

Here's the last leg of the trip:

Nice view!

We drove from Bled to Maribor, and had a lot of extra time, so we decided to take what I thought was a short side trip to see this statue of a miner. You can see our feelings on our faces, as this turned out to take about twice as long to drive as we thought. Thanks, beautiful mountain roads!

Much of the countryside we drove through was hop fields, which look really cool.

Beer fountain! This is a public park in a small village where you buy a mug with a chip in it that lets you sample 6 different beers from the region that use local hops. Genius!

These were the options. All pretty good.

When you drink the green one, a rainbow appears!

Our last destination in Slovenia was Maribor. Again, we didn't really have a good reason for being there (there was something about a puppet festival, but we weren't in the mood). We did find an interesting wine tour, which started at the oldest wine-producing vine in the world (like 400 years old), proceeded to a small family winery where we had a nice lunch with an intense young wine producer, and ended at a new, modern winery with a great view over the surrounding vineyards. We both feel confident at least looking like we know what we're doing when tasting wine now. It was also a real treat to speak with an independent producer, who is something of a local prodigy and very open about the process and the scene.

The rest of Maribor was pretty chill: there was a nice square near our hotel with a fountain that was a sort of stand in for a local swimming hole during the day (think lots of naked kids running through it) and at night was lit up with pretty colors. Restaurants and walks for the most part.

Last stop: Vienna. Beautiful city: we had a great view of Stadtpark from out hotel balcony, good ol' Sigmund greeting us by our hotel door, pickle statue near the Naschmarkt, site-seeing walks, and an awesome food/music-film festival in Rathauspark.

We are back home in Doha, bags are unpacked, laundry is (mostly) done, and we are slowly but surely reminding ourselves of our real life routines. This summer was quite and adventure, and we got to see a whole bunch of new places, and that's what it's all about. I hope all is well out there; have a wonderful last few weeks of summer everyone!

Wait! Can't forget the bees: this li'l bugger wanted in on my last meal (ribs, of course). 

Slow-Venia 2

 While in Ljubljana and considering our next stop, we began to wonder why we had chosen to spend the next 9 days (!) in Bled, a small village around a pretty lake. 

We started off with lunch at a nice lakeside hotel, and our food was delivered by Rok the robot server. Weird introduction...

And yes, we remembered, we DID have a reason for coming here on the weekend and staying for awhile. Bled days festival meant live music on weekend nights. This stage was basically right outside of our door.

We made the trek uphill to Castle Bled. They had a Lord and Lady just sitting there drinking wine and taking pics with tourists all day. I passed the Lord of the castle going to the bathroom, then peed on top of his pee, so I'm basically the lord of Bled castle now.

View of the lake from the castle.

A few days in, we rented a car and started exploring the surroundings. This is Pericnik Waterfall. Waterfall in Slovenian is Slap, so we had lots of fun reading road signs. We also took an unnecessarily difficult hike to an ugly little lake on our way back.

A little hike on the Mostnica River.

When you come across grazing animals, don't be a dumbass.

Baby goat in a box.

Lake Bohinj, biggest lake in Slovenia, viewed from the top of the Vogel cable car.

Slap Savica!

Lake Bled was just beautiful, like a postcard everywhere you looked. there's a castle on the cliff overlooking the lake, and a little church on an island in the middle. Ridiculous.

Rani, being who she is, challenged me to a photo contest, so here it goes (let me know your votes, and I'll only tell her about it if you vote for me):

Rani

Jon

We spent plenty of time chillin in our apartment as well, sort of taking a break from the vacation of it all. Did a little cooking. Overall, probably a few too many days to spend here, but we made good use of it. 

On our way out, we stopped for a quick breakfast, and guess who showed up: Renata the robot server! Creepy, but also cool.

Bee update: if you want to keep them away from your beer, order an iced tea.

Slow-venia 1

 We chose to visit, and spend so much time in, Slovenia because we didn't know much about the place and it looked beautiful with a wide variety of activities and locations in a small area. It's described as a "hidden gem" by a lot of travel websites, but I don't think there are really any of those left, especially by the time someone calls them a hidden gem online. There are tons of tourists here, but it is indeed a gem.

Our first stop was Piran, a lovely little seaside village on the tip of Slovenia that touches the Gulf of Trieste, where we marveled at the views of Croatia and Italy from our various cafe tables. We had a cute little apartment with a view onto a cute little square, ate at a cute little fish restaurant among other places, and tried some deep dark chocolate gelato. We spent most of our days here at the "beach", which is what they call a concrete slab where you can set up some chairs and an umbrella. The water was COLD and full of jellyfish, but I had daily morning swims and it's HOT, so we enjoyed it!

Next, we took a small bus/train/taxi journey to Lasko, a small village out in the middle of nowhere that happens to be the center of beer production in this country. We made this journey to witness Pivo in Cvetje (Beer and Flowers) festival. There were lots of beautiful flowers around, but let's be honest, this was mostly about the beer. For two nights, around 6 or 7 pm, marching bands would start roaming the streets setting up for bigger concerts on multiple stages throughout the town. It was cool to see live music again, and be around large groups of people. It was also nice that our hotel was a 20 minute walk away (past the campground full of revelers) so we could get away from the madness.

On to Ljubljana (pronounced loob-lee-ah-nah), the well-manicured little capitol city of Slovenia. Lots of hot city walks visiting the castle on the hill and a variety of cafes and other sites. The statue bottom left is Ivan Hribar, a famous mayor of the city who, near this site, wrapped himself in the Yugoslavian flag and jumped to his death in the Ljubljanica River to protest the fascist Italian annexation of Ljubljana. His suicide note included this quote from a Slovene poet:

Less fearful the long night of life’s denial
Than living ‘neath the sun in subjugation!

Pretty metal, Ivan!

We also visited the House of Illusions.

And the Union brewery.

A note on bees.

I think I've figured out the bee shortage. They're all here, and they like booze.

They prefer white wine.

And they love beer. I poured a delicious beer from a bottle into my glass, and these TWO bees came out! They needed about 10 minutes to sober up and dry off before flying away.

This lightweight bee was SO cliche!

We are now in Bled drinking in some of the most ridiculously beautiful views around. More to come soon!

Rome-Antics

 After a night flight out of The Gambia, and a day at a Paris airport hotel recuperating, we headed out to Rome, where Rani had a teaching conference (she is now a graduate of the Teacher Leaders Institute! Go Rani!).

Roma and I have a troubled past. When I went during my college years, I had a less-than stellar visit involving having my pocket picked, and just wasn't very impressed with the city overall. On this visit, I had some more time on my own as Rani was in her sessions to get out and explore, and the hotel was bullshit: they were in the middle of a heat wave, and Rome has instituted laws limiting the use of air-conditioning, so the room was hot, and I wasn't going to hang around there. Rome rearing it's ugly head again? Let's see if we can come to a better place in our relationship.

The thought of visiting "the sights" really didn't appeal to me, so I started browsing with searches like "off the beaten path in Rome" and "weird things to do in Rome", and came across a few articles about street art in Rome. Eventually, I found a Google map with many of the murals marked, and decided to make a sort of a scavenger hunt of it.

Our bullshit hotel was in the southern outskirts of Rome, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that a nearby housing complex, Tor Marancia, had been turned into an open-air museum!

What a great thing to do with a bunch of ugly apartment buildings! There are a few in here from the surrounding area as well, but this whole complex had entire buildings painted every corner you turned. 

I spent the entire next day on a mad dash down the south-west bank of the Tiber, then out into the suburbs.

This crazy mural struck my fancy. Right after this was a scary bridge that smelled like pee, so I didn't spend too much time here.

 

These were from the area around Ponte dell'Industria o di Ferro, a weird industrial area around this big iron bridge.

Some hidden gems in Garbatella.

CSOA La Strada is a market turned squatter haven/community center, and it is covered in political art.

This was all around a spooky neighborhood in a bend of the Tiber, near an old greyhound racetrack and a university.

I was really hot and tired by this point, but I decided to make one last stop in the Trullo neighborhood, and I'm glad I did.

This was one of the more interesting installations, taking up two buildings (look at the birds!).

Day 3 was a bit of a dud, as I tried the Trastavere neighborhood, where it's more about posters, and they get ripped down pretty quickly. Found a few interesting pieces. 

This was a really fun way to spend my time here, and get to see the city in a different way. Rani and I also did an awesome food tour (highlight was the porcetta), a nice night out with some of the other teachers at her conference (a couple of whom work with Julie and Ross), and a tour of the Vatican museum.

All in all, Rome and I are on the mend. I'll leave you with one of my favorite finds:

Senegal- Ease?

We arrived in Senegal at night and after a long, hot taxi ride with lungs full of exhaust, we were both feeling bit overwhelmed, and drawing uncomfortable parallels with previous difficult places we’ve been. On our first morning, Rani helped me get my legs under me and go talk to people in my broken French, and arrange some transportation. Just about everywhere we went was a mistake of miscommunication, but we did end up seeing some of the sights.

Day 1: we did a self-made tour to the Village Des Artes, which is sort of a commune of working artists. We walked around awkwardly with our taxi driver making some introductions, then settled in and got to see some artists at work. We saw how a wax sculpture is turned into a bronze one, some batik making, and a number of painters. Lunch on the beach, then resting at the hotel. We were lucky to overlap a bit with cousins Julie and Ross, along with kids Libby and Nate, who are turning out to be really interesting people. A nice visit to their school, and dinner at their nicely appointed apartment were an important step in making us feel more comfortable. It was great to see some familiar faces!

 Day 2: We did an organized tour of the sights, including the giant African Renaissance Monument (and it's interesting origin and many questionable interpretations), and Goree Island with it's dark history of the slave trade.

Day 3: David and Kendra and the kids arrived  and we all spent a day lounging around the hotel restaurant and swimming pool, along with Julie and Ross and kids, and then it was off to their place in Thies the following day.

Day 4: A brief visit to the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar for a some very interesting art viewing, then out to Thies in taxis, with a dinner at a favorite local spot of DK, where I confirmed that Monkfish (lotte in French) is pretty damn good.

Day 5: Hanging out playing card games with the Kids in Thies, with a pretty great meal of rice and fish served on a big platter on the floor.

Days 6-11: On to Saly, a vacation spot on the coast, where we luxuriated in our private pool, and the compound public pool, and the ocean. Card games, cooking fish, dance parties, and even some synchronized swimming from the Yoder-Linds. 

Days 12-14: Into the Saloum Delta and the village of Toubakouta, where we stayed at a nice lodge and did a couple of bird watching trips. We journeyed to ile des oiseaux, where we saw clouds of terns, cormorants, and gulls in their breeding grounds. David, Rani, and I also took an evening excursion, where we stopped for awhile and watched flocks of egrets and a variety of other birds coming in to roost on a small, isolated bunch of mangroves.

Day 15 was a long, hot day of frustrating travel to The Gambia, with some trouble (solved by money) at both borders, an exhausting ferry ride, and a pizza extravaganza when we finally arrived at our guest house. Gambia turned out to be a bit of a dud, and we probably should have just stayed in Senegal. We played in the pool, had a lovely co-anniversary dinner with Dave and Kendra sans kids, and went out the last night with everyone. Rani and I had an extra day to spend in the pool and relax before the next leg of our trip, as we sent the Yoder-Linds back to Thies to continue with site visits for their students. 

I had sort of forgotten how frustrating and taxing travel in Africa could be, and this leg really wore us out. For me, the beat-down brokenness of everything, along with the dust and the heat, along with just not knowing how things work brought a lot of anxiety and stress. I am impressed by people who chose to live and work in places like this, and I will try to remain hopeful for those who don't have a choice.

On a brighter note, it was an absolute pleasure to spend so much time with my brother and sister in law and their three soon-to-be-teen children. I can't wait until the next time we can travel together.