Category: Personal

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Cycling to Laguna Cejar

I hear that our first full in San Pedro is going to be a rest day, and although I’m fully on board with the idea, I feel that if I go on a nice morning bicycle ride, I will feel great about resting afterwards.  The owner of our lodge tells me of a ride to Laguna Cejar, a nearby salt lake that is both beautiful and swimmable, and sketches me a hand-drawn, not-to-scale map detailing the 17km route.

I’m excited by the ride, by the destination, and by the challenge of not getting lost.  I get an early start, have a quick breakfast at the lodge again seated next to the Irish honeymooners, and then I continue on my journey to the Laguna.  Arriving without issue and feeling particularly good because the weather is overcast and cool, I find a little oasis in the middle of the desert.  I don’t end up jumping in the water because the weather isn’t exactly swimming worthy, but I still get my fair share of pictures before returning to the lodge.

As it turns out, we end up experiencing a rare summer rain in the afternoon and are happily located within a café in the middle of town playing cards.

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Onwards to Zim

What are the chances that I run into my old roommate Punit at Gate A23 in Jo-burg Airport, South Africa?  Relatively high considering we planned to do so.  His flight from JFK is a bit delayed making the meet-up slightly more stressful as he appears just ten minutes before the gate closes.

The next couple days I will stay with Punit and his family in Harare, Zimbabwe (“Zim” for short).  As soon as we land in Harare, it is obvious that we are no longer in South Africa.  The runways are shorter, the planes fewer, and the tourists not as plentiful.  We purchase visas, run into a little excitement with our bags, and are greeted by Punit’s family.

After a drive through Harare’s potholed and people-filled streets, we arrive home, an area of quiet and comfort.  Punit’s grandparents greet me, and then soon after putting our bags down, we are offered food.  Food becomes a theme to my stay in Zimbabwe as it is abundant, different from what I’m used to, and delicious.

Within the first hour of landing in Zimbabwe, I am confident that my short stay in this land-locked country will be unforgettable.

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Flying into Cape Town

Paragliding over Cape Town

Stefan says to me, “On the count of three, we will start running.  And don’t forget to not sit down.”

“Right,” I reply. “I guess I’m ready.” I ineffectively try to wipe the sweat from my face on this scorcher of day.

I think of all the not-so-reassuring words that fellow flyer and classmate Matt has given me throughout the last couple days in preparation for this moment.  “Even in the worst case scenario, at least there will be little pain.”

I’m waiting for Stefan’s count of three to begin any moment and it feels like I’m waiting forever.  I find myself holding my breath in anticipation until I cannot hold my breath any longer because of my quicker heart rate.  I tell myself that I get more than my money’s worth for these types of adventures assuming that the best measure to use is heart rate per dollar.  My fear of heights causes my heart rate to scale quickly at such moments.

Paragliding Over Cape Town from Andrew Stein on Vimeo.

“One.  Two.  Three.”  We start running and of course I begin to try to sit in my harness well before it is time.  I receive a quick scolding and immediately stand up and resume running.

Before I know what has happened, we are seemingly weightless, Lion’s Head Peak is to our back and Cape Town’s coastline is ahead of us.  We hit a small thermal updraft and climb a little higher before beginning our descent.  Once I feel supported by the parachute above me, I begin to relax and couldn’t be happier that I was convinced to fly via paraglide over this great city.

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Destination: Cape Town

Being back in school has its many perks, one of which is the return of winter break.  Not only does winter break mean that I can escape Boston for most of December and January to go enjoy much more reasonable climates, it also means that I can spend time with family, see old friends, and find a little time to travel.  Break is filled with a quick post-exams trip to Vegas, followed by some Latka making and Chanukkah celebrating with the family, topped off with a trip over to Phoenix to cheer on Cardinal Football, and finally some time in the Bay Area to begin thinking about summer job prospects.  Through school, I am then “required” to travel to Cape Town, South Africa.  In teams of six, the whole first year business school class is sent to developing countries around the world to work with companies on weeklong consulting projects.

Because class does not start until the end of the month, I feeel that staying in South Africa for an extra two weeks beyond the program is more than logical.  The choice is between below freezing Boston or hot, sunny South Africa.  In Cape Town, on the scale of warm to very hot, the nights are occasionally cool, but nothing that a shirt and shorts can’t handle.

Table Mountain, Cape Town

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Red, White, Blue, and Double-Yellow Lines

The road from Rome to Deer Valley is short in time, but not in distance–especially when covering most of California in the process.  My yet to be named Prius is waiting at home in La Canada, CA nine-ten-eleven, and although it has been driven in my absence, the odometer reads only a couple hundred miles more than it did 5 months ago.  Little does the unsuspecting Prius realize that it will gain almost 5,000 miles in the next couple weeks.

After unpacking, packing, online tutorials for school, a fabulous family reunion in Santa Barbara, and two days of friends in the Bay Area, I pick up Gabe in Redwood City, and we set Park City, Utah into the GPS.  In the ten days that I was “home” in California before setting off across the country, I had no time to experience jet lag, culture shock, or sleeping in.

Deer Valley, UT

That said, before I know it, Gabe and I are enjoying our last In-n-Out Burger for a while when we pass through Reno, and it is more accurate if I pluralize “burgers.”  For lunch, we share a regular fries and animals-style fries, which I devour along with a cheeseburger, an animal-style double-double, and a Coke.  In between long stretches of open road filled with good tunes including a tractor playlist, “This American Life”, and in depth discussions about the wikipedia article on Mormonism, we make a couple more bio-breaks to refill the Prius and empty our bladders before eventually arriving in Park City.  Staying with a friend from university, we wake up the next morning to a beautiful day.  Our friend has to go to work in the morning, but her two roommates are gearing up for a hike and we invite ourselves to tag along.  We quickly realize that we should have waited for them to fully gear up so that the spandex, hardcore shoes, and camelbaks could have provided us a hint of what we were about to do.  Hiking up and around Deer Valley to about 10,000 feet, we learn a lesson about lung capacity while we enjoy the stunning views that surround us.

After a full recovery day in Park City of hiking, eating, cooking, and exploring Main Street, we leave for the very reasonable drive to Grand Junction, Colorado.  I am not sure if the hardest activity of the day in Park City was the hike or kneading the homemade pasta dough, but whichever the case, we had a fun-filled stay in Utah.

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Ratings by the Scoop

The rankings are in.  Gelato around Rome and around Italy have been tasted, felt, experienced, and seen, and here’s the results of all those sweet, refreshing efforts.  Each gelato was ranked on five categories weighted in the following manner: Taste (40%), Texture (25%), Color (15%), Ambiance (15%), and Price (5%)

gelato rankings 3

Gelato rankings 1

Gelato rankings 2

First Gelato

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Airport Security Stories

Traveling for a while has given me the opportunity to accumulate a couple entertaining stories about my encounters with airport security when fumbling my way through the metal detector exercise.

1.  Pre-Trip Happy Umbrella Turned Sad

This first story takes place a couple years back.  I am at the Boston airport and the security line is empty.  At least it is empty of other passengers, and that brings the guard to passenger ratio up very high when I step up.  I’ve never seen a group of guards look so excited about an airline passenger.  I start the whole routine of taking off my shoes, taking out the liquids, removing my computer from its bag, emptying my pockets, and so on.  I walk through the metal detector with no problem as is to be expected considering my pants are falling down from no belt and all of my other possessions are currently being passed through the separate scanner.  My shoes come through first and a guard approaches them and asks to take a particle sample off the top.  My tennis shoes may have seemed more threatening than I had realized.  Then, my bag appears out of the scanner and it just sits there waiting for me as I am tying my shoe laces.  However, before I can finish with my shoes, someone asks if they can do a “random” check on my bag.  I say sure, and while going through the bag, he finds my bright yellow umbrella.  There are few things like a bright yellow umbrella with a handle that has a suspended smiley face to improve a rainy day.  He finds this innocuous yellow ball with a painted smile and two dots for eyes floating in the handle of my umbrella and he explains that I am not allowed to take this with me.  I am quick to respond that it is less than 3 oz, so there shouldn’t be a problem.  He then goes on to explain that this situation falls under the Snow Globe Category and because I am unable to access the inner space of the handle, it must be confiscated.  Frustrated that security is taking longer than if there had been a descent line of passengers, I show him that he can remove the handle without taking the entire umbrella.  He returns the umbrella, and I ask him if he finds it strange that he has just returned the more dangerous part of my umbrella.  There is a solid awkward silence before he apologizes for taking my handle, does not return it regardless, and we part ways.

2.  18ml too much of Sunscreen

During one of my many stops in the Bangkok International Airport, which looks more like a luxury shopping mall than an airport in some sections, I forget to put my 118ml tube of sunscreen in my check baggage.  It is good sunscreen and I try to reason with the guard that I probably cannot even remove 100ml of sunscreen out of this tube if I wanted to.  (100ml is the liquid limit for the rest of the world who deals in metric.)  I then convince her to let me run around the airport and try to find a container small enough so that I can transfer the sunscreen and carry it on.  After much debate, I am given 13 minutes to see what I can find.  I run around the airport and I return to the security checkpoint with my 100ml tube and ask to see my sunscreen.  I start the transfer and I quickly realize that the sunscreen gets caught in the neck of my new bottle and I have to frequently pound the bottle on the table to force the sunscreen to settle to the bottom.  The security guard is watching me closely and thinks that the bottleneck (pun intended) is that the sunscreen does not want to come out fast enough.  She asks if she can do the transfer, and I don’t feel like I have many options so I let her try.  She forces the sunscreen to the open end of the tube, she places this end of the tube inside the bottle and starts squeezing with significant force.  I take a step back.  Soon after, sunscreen literally explodes all over the bottle, the table, and her hands.  I gasp.  I figure if they are going to give me a hard time for 18 extra milliliters, I am allowed the “involuntary” reaction of gasping.  The gasp causes those nearby to look, which of course is the point, and the security guard starts to hand the sunscreen and the bottle back to me.  I look at the mess and sensibly ask if she has any napkins or paper towels.  Eventually, I do end up filling my 100ml bottle up at least three-quarters, and I am on my merry way.

3.  Scissors

To set the scene, we are leaving Paris, I have a red beret on, and as has become the rule for my passage through airport security, something gets a double check.  In this case, my backpack needs to be examined.  I put my beret back on now that they trust there is no metal in my felt red hat, and the security guard starts to dig in my bag.  Again, he finds sunscreen, which I say he can take.  However, he also finds scissors in a first aid kit I have been carrying around.  I explain that I am impressed with this find and that I have passed these scissors undetected through many an airport security.  He removes the scissors from the kit, does something with his key chain, and then returns the scissors back to their original pouch.  Amazed, I need to stop him and ask why I get to keep them.  He is confused as to why I am asking, and he initially pretends not to notice.  I ask again, and he explains that scissors are allowed to be of a certain length (I believe 6cm) on an airplane.  He then goes to throw away the sunscreen, and I again stop him and say that it’s pretty good sunscreen, and if he can, he should take it home.  He laughs, throws away the sunscreen, and we split never to see each other again.

4.  “You need to drink that or throw it away”

A plastic disposable water bottle is by definition disposable if one forgets to drink its contents before venturing through security.  However, a metal, green, sustainable, refillable water bottle is not as trash-ready.  I am in the Frankfurt Airport, and I get stopped after going through the metal detector because there is water in my bottle.  Germany, a country that strongly believes in rules, is not the place to mess with security.  That said, in a very friendly way, I take a solid couple gulps of water and then pause for a break.  I probably ask the guard a filler question at this point since he is watching me drink my water and it seems a bit awkward.  I repeat the gulp, pause, question routine about 3 or 4 times, after which the guard says that it’s fine and I can continue.  This is particularly good news because I will be sitting in a window seat on the next flight making the bathroom much farther away.

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Traveling with Parents

There were a couple changes, in no particular order, that I experienced when traveling with my parents:

  • Bedtime moves to 10:30pm
  • Nicer meals
  • More map folding
  • Automatic shifting rental car
  • More talk about grandchildren
  • Nicer accommodations
  • Greater patience needed
  • Increased planning
  • Good meal conversation
  • Never missing breakfast
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Pace del Mela

We leave Sciacca, but before heading to northeastern Sicily, we drive through the Valley of the Temples near Agrigento. Gabe and I really appreciate having Becky here because as she explains what we are seeing, we better understand the importance of the seven monumental Greek temples all constructed in the Doric style during the 6th and 5th centuries. These temples are considered the best preserved ancient Greek buildings outside of Greece.

Valley of the Temples

Our second two nights in Sicily are spent in Pace del Mela (Peace of the Apple), and although that city’s name would be p’unny when translated into English, there is unfortunately no pun present in Italian. Calling Pace del Mela a small town is an understatement. With its population of slightly more than 5,000 and its one central piazza, this town felt like home. Gabe’s father grew up here until the age of twenty-two when he left for Venezuela, and Gabe has lots of aunts, uncles and cousins still here. From his annual summer visits while growing up, everyone in town still seems to recognize him. Their reactions as they greet Gabe and tell us of times past is what small town Sicily is all about. Although there are not many people of our age, there were still lots of kids full of energy, always ready for a delicious meal, and never refusing to go the beach. After meeting Gabe’s aunt and settling in with a large full smile-shaped slice of watermelon, we venture to the town piazza for some gelato. Unique to Sicily, we enjoy our gelati in a brioche. The brioche absorbed the cream and the sugar and was a perfect end to the snack. In talking with Gabe’s family, ordering the gelati, and just generally getting by, English is not a very popular language in Pace, so Becky and I are forced to use and improve our Italian.

Gelati in Pace del Mela

We eat a both very delicious and very filling dinner at Gabe’s aunt house. His aunt does not believe when we say that we are full, so by the time we stand from the table, we are probably full two times over. After dinner, I spend some time with Gabe’s aunt’s 3-yr old granddaughter, Katerina. We both sit on the couch, and Becky and I do a dramatic reading of Cappuccetto Rosso (Little Red Riding Hood) while she listens. Conveniently, when I say a word or phrase that I don’t understand, I get Katerina to point to the referring image or object on the page and learn a little Italian. After dinner, we venture to the slightly larger nearby town, taste a little more gelato, and walk along the coast before retiring for the night knowing that the next day would be busy.

Granita

We start the next day in the same bar that we had purchased our gelato the day before in the main piazza (there aren’t too many choices of restaurants). There’s a dish that gives kids an excuse to have gelato for breakfast, so I decide that I can use the same excuse. For breakfast, the three of us enjoy granita, ice cream, and brioche. While we are still on our sugar high, we continue on to Taormina. Other than having an in-use Greek theater overlooking Mount Etna and much of Sicily, Taormina is a charming town with a couple too many steps. It would be a surreal experience to watch a live performance in this Greek theater with its well-designed acoustics and fabulous vista. I realize that if my Sicily visit ends here, I would be more than satisfied, but there is still a packed 24 hours to go.

Greek theater in Taormina

We drive back to Pace del Mela for lunch with the cousins. Again, I play around with my Italian replacing the words I don’t know with their Italian-ized Spanish equivalent, which means making sure to end works in vowels and pronouncing certain letters slightly differently. While waiting for the finishing touches of lunch, Gabe gives me a tour of his cousin’s house, which is the same house that his father grew up in. He also tells me a story of when his grandfather was sent out to purchase some cement for house work but ends up returning with a brand new television, the first television in the town. As it was a rough time for the whole town, his grandfather set up the television outside of the house, which is located near the central piazza, and at least 100 people would come to watch together. In my short time in Pace, I already started feeling the history and the community among all its residents.

Lunch in Mela del Pace

After spending the hottest part of this 40 degree Celsius day at the beach, we return to Gabe’s aunt’s for dinner, and later join the entire town in front of the church for some sort of celebration. There is music, food, a little karaoke, and a lot of dancing. The diversity of ages all congregated on the dance floor can only happen in a small town like this one. As expected, everyone knows each other and we all have a great time.

Gabe and Katerina

Our last morning comes much too quickly as I feel so welcome and am not ready to leave all of Gabe’s cousins and family. They all wake up early to say goodbye and we enjoy a last granita and brioche together at the central piazza bar.

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A Miscalculation

A perfect storm of small miscalculations leads to a wonderful twenty-four hours in Geneva. Our layover, if you can call it that, is just long enough to be awkward, the weather is to include thunderstorms and heavy rain, and Geneva may be one of the most expensive cities in all of Europe. However, having said all that, luck is on our side. A friend of Gabe’s friend lives in Geneva and is willing to host us for the evening. She and her family live in a beautifully refurbished farm house just outside the city center. As Gabe and I are nearing the house, we are not clear as to where we are heading and especially when we leave what looks like the main residential areas of Geneva, but eventually we get to the driveway of a farm and just hope that we are in the right place. The exterior of the house, although clearly well kept still resembles the humble farm house from times past, but the interior of the house is fabulously modern, thoughtfully decorated, and very comfortable.

Near the farm house in Geneva

Immediately after arriving, we enjoy a nice dinner outside in the backyard. (Maybe the heavy rain forecast was incorrect.) We get to know the family better, taste some delicious swiss chocolate, and eventually hear what seems like a very powerful storm from the comforts of our beds. The next morning, we wake up to clear skies, an espresso, orange juice, and cereal. Gabe and I make sure to wake early in order to say goodbye and thank you one more time before our host leaves for work. After breakfast, we spend the rest of the morning walking around the farm and the nearby area. We find sports fields to complement the wheat fields, and fancy cars to complement the sheep. Thanks to Fiona, our wonderful host, our stay in Geneva will now be another highlight of our adventure around Europe.

Chess in the park

We leave the house a little before noon and walk into Geneva’s old town. Upon strolling through a park on the south side of the old town, we find almost life size chess boards and distract ourselves playing games for several hours. As it is Friday afternoon, we find many others, including business men in suits and mothers and fathers with their children enjoying an afternoon playing chess in the park. We eventually continue on through the old town and find Geneva’s symbolic and beautiful lake. Because we are not yet interested in purchasing a swiss watch or opening a new bank account, after finding the lake, we make our way back to the train station and then to the airport. Although short, Geneva is very memorable.

Geneva Lake