1/7/05 - Key West, Florida

Its nice to be surprised once in a while. I find that golden rule of being surprised in a positive way is to lower my expectations. That I did.



Key West, otherwise known as Republic of Concha, is of course, the southern most piece of US land. Despite being pretty small the town has a distinct charm, atmosphere and character.



The main street of Key West is called Duval street. It starts in Malory Square and runs all the way through to the shore. The street is nothing but a strip of shops, cafe, restaurants and pretty houses.



One thing that we found rather strange is the things people do to their dogs in Key West, take a look:



and slightly more disturbing:



We went back to report dog abuse and on the way stopped for some lunch and later fudge tasting. It was so good that we totally forgot about dogs and went straight through to Malory Square. This is where we saw the sponge man, and decided that dogs are just fine in this town.



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1/5/05 Cozumel, Mexico

Cozumel is probably one of the most fun islands on the Caribbean. At least on the Western Caribbean. There is a lot going on and a lot of different activities - snorkeling, diving, jeeping, Maya pyramiding and of course shopping.



Since we have been to this island before and just visited boring pyramids in Guatemala, we decided in favor of caves and snorkeling. Unfortunately caves were too far, and we settled for Chanakaab National Park. Ahem, the name is rather overpromising. This turned out to be a snorkeling beach with small tropical garden, delphinarium and Maya ruins brought in from many different places and clumped together.



Well, maybe by Mexican standards this was a national park, I do not know. What I do know is that food, ice-cream and rainbows were pretty good there.



Despite the exciting atmosphere I managed to get philosophical and slightly depressed. This is when I took the picture below, entitled: 32 year old brain.



We had back into town for dinner. The part of Cozumel were people can actually hang out is tiny. Its unfortunate, since there is a lot to do on the island. Of course, if you are here just for 1 day, like most folks, its fine. There is a shopping street a central square and a restaurant street. And of course I did not bring my camera in the evening, so no pictures of downtown Cozumel this time :(

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1/4/05 St. Tomas, Guatemala

Guatemala seems to be rather sparsely populated. At least from our van window. The van took us to Maya ruins and to the local rain forest.

For over an hour we drove on the main road through palmed hills. Guatemala is beautiful, really green. This green is being continuously consumed by local cows, who seem to be the most lavish cows on this planet.

Unfortunately for us the ruins were not worth the ride. We did manage to take just a few pictures. This beautiful tree was standing in the middle of the ruin site.



From the ruins we drove for about 1/2 h to the Rio Dulce National Park. We paused on the bridge to take pictures of the Lake Izabal.



We then headed to Hacienda Tijax, a lodge by the lake with a restaurant and trails into the rain forrest. We walked the 1-mile long trail (some of us were not exactly happy) to the mountain top. I thought that trip was rather worth our while. Take a look:



One the way back we walked through 600 feet long hanging bridge. This bridge was hooked together by a few basic cables and wood. Without a doubt this walk added much needed thrill to the entire trip.

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1/3/05 Roatan, Honduras

We thought that the word Honduras was funny in English, and even funnier in Russian. We sort of abused this word after we had a few beers. This does not mean that we had anything against locals. Its just that it is a funny word.

Roatan (not a funny word) is a 30 mile long island off the coast of Honduras. The island is only 4 miles wide and is pierced through by a main road that runs along the coast. From the port we took a local tour that first went to the east area that is inhabited by locals. It was actually better than we expected in terms of general level of the population.



The bus tour ended in the West End, the most happening area of the island. This, rather overrated, area hosts a beach, snorkeling and a mile long strip of shops and restaurants.
Eventhogh the area looks busy there is not that much to do, since the shops all sell the same stuff.



We camped at Half Moon Bay beach hopeful to do snorkeling. It was fun, but there was no fish.



A 10-minute bus ride from West End is beautiful tropical garden. The garden consists of the small cultivated part that hosts lots of tropical plants and a a few trails that go up to the mountain. The mountain trails lead to the plateau with spectacular views of the harbor.



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1/1/05 Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

Speaking of trivia, apparently when Columbus discovered Cayman Islands he called them La Tortugas, because of the apparent abundance of turtles. Later, people took a re-count and renamed the islands into Cayman or Crocodile. Must be more Crocodiles on the island. Of course we have not seen any. We did see a few parrots, but our focus was the beach and the famous rum cakes.

We stopped at Grand Cayman - the largest of the Cayman islands, which is 22 miles long. The port is located in a busy touristy center of the city. This area, called Georgetown, is covered with restaurants, galleries, shops and duty free stores.

We took a cab to the 7-mile beach. Apparently the beach is less than 5 miles long, but locals call it 7-mile beach just for the heck of it. The way to the beach is via main road that runs through the island. The scenery made me think of the term: Vocation-spot wanna be. Things did not look too smooth. There were attempts to make an impression of civilized place, but really they were just attempts.

The actual 7-mile beach was clean and pretty. It was divided into areas, each of which was ripping off tourists with its own bar, restaurant and jets rentals.



Needless to say that such peaceful scenary evoked irrepressible urge to have local rum cakes and even the rum itself. We headed back to Georgetown and went to the duty free store. We took full advantage of the generous treat of free rum cakes and free rum shots. For about 1 hour after we boarded we did not even smell Zuiderdam. What else can one ask from a Tortuga rum cake?

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12/31/04 - Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Half Moon Cay is a small, 1/2 moon-shaped privately owned island on the Bahamas. There are no attractions except the sandy beach and clear waters.



The back of the island looked kind of abandoned, but also kind of cool.



Since there was not much to do, I found time to take a picture of our ship - Holland America's Zuiderdam.



This picture proves once again that things that are beautiful on the outside need not to be beautiful inside. This 2 year old ship smelled pretty bad and had the worst service that we have ever seen on 7 seas. The food was no good either, but hey, it is a Caribbean cruise and there were 11 of us. We had a ball.

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9/30 - 10/01 - Seattle

I booked a room in the Mediterranean Inn . Driving from the airport and having been to New York and Rome I thought I got a hotel in projects. I was wrong, there are no projects in Seattle. From my window I saw the Space Needle.

Seattle is fun, compact, cool, clean, even neat. By New York standards the streets are empty. Seriously there are very few people on the streets. I found that refreshing. The air was refreshing too.

I started my explorations with visit to the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project (EMP) created by Paul Allen. The view from Space Needle looks like this:



After enjoying the view, I did my duties in the gift shop. There I discovered that amazing master of the glass, Dale Chihuly, is from Washington. I bought a desk calendar with his works and learned that there is a gallery with his works on 5th Avenue.

Next stop was EMP live. I knew about this music museum because I used to work for Plumb Design, the company that created the web site and the software for the digital lab. The museum turned out to be cool, but pretty small. Of course the staff members never heard of Plumb Design and had no idea of what Thinkmap (software used for the navigation of the museum artifacts) was. Luckily I found it in the lab; 4 years later it is still awesome.



After that I drove downtown. I parked near the Art Museum and went to the Pike Street public market. The place was really cool. It was a labyrinth of shops, flower stands and food. The thing was that there are a lot of market places, but a few of them are cool. This one was cool, because people sold neat stuff not the crap that they did not need.



Near Pike street market is the first location of Starbucks. I obviously could not miss that. I confirm it does smell old. But the original sign is different! Take a look:



From the market I headed to old downtown via 2nd avenue. That's when I realized that Seattle is pretty small. In about 15 minutes I was in Pioneer Square. On the positive side, I took a lot of pretty pictures while I was walking.



From the Pioneer square I walked to the Elliot bay book store. One the way, I saw a lot of cool arts and crafts shops. (Again not crap, cool). This book store also turned out to be large. I was tired and needed coffee so I bought two books and head out. I found a perfect spot in Occidental square were I relax, had coffee read book by Linus Torvalds and checked out local folk.



My walk back to the car was via 4th and 5th ave. Since there were a lot of really beautiful buildings I could not resist taking pictures. Here is the picture of Seattle public library.



To sum up. Great town. At least great first impression. I think I could live there. Who knows maybe one day I will.

P.S. A worthy place to eat is sea food restaurant called Saltys.

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9/27 - Portland, Oregon

Portland is a fairly small, but very pleasant town. I strolled around its streets thinking how clean and peaceful it is. I also thought that it could probably get boring rather quickly. But maybe not.

Maybe the combination of surrounding nature with this piece of urbania could be the recipe for perfect life.



A few things. I saw the supposedly ugly Portland building. Well, its not really ugly. But the facade of Oregon Historic Society is definitely overhyped. And the Pioneer Square is worth while visiting.

Portland has the US largest physical book store, called Powell City of Books. There are both new and used books, which is a bit of a turn off for me. I browsed around for 1/2 h and book 2 books. One thing I really liked about this store is that it had separate section of books on Complexity science. I was pondering if I should by Norbert Weiner's Cybernetics books, but I did not. It was used and had formulas :)

P.S A good place to eat is Novo Peruvian cusine Andina.

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9/18 - Barcelona

We were lucky to finish our trip in beautiful Barcelona.

In the morning we visited Gaudi's Casa Battlo. This Gauidi's building is located close to the Casa Mila. Its imaginatively colored facade is decorated with wavy, curved balconies. We bought a 16 euro expensive to tour that included the voice tour. At least this tour beat Pompeii tour :) And of course, the building itself was pretty unusual. Girls really loved, while I was skeptical about the functional aspects of the house.

After the Case Battlo we headed to the Picasso museum. On the way, we passed by the Concert hall building, which was magnificent. We decided that we did not have time to go in for a tour. That turned out to be a mistake. The Picasso museum was a complete rip off. There was only one or two famous works, the rest were unknown and quite frankly uninteresting sketches, paintings and pottery.

Pretty disappointed we left to a different part of Barcelona called Montjuic. We took a cab to the Placa d'Espanya and enjoyed the views of the National Museum of Catalunya.



We headed up the hill to the place called Pueblo Espanyol. This mini town features over 100 houses in different architectural styles of Spain. The place turned out be pretty fun to walk around. We wish there was a voice guide for this one :)



Our travel guide proclaimed that Montjuic was a happening place, but we could not find much. Instead we gave up and took a cab to the Columbus monument at the beginning of La Rambla. The walk through this street proved to be unexciting. And so did the market that was suppose to be one of the Europe's best markets.

Yet, in the end of the walk we were rewarded. We found a great place to eat called Troubadour. The place was at 2 Ramla Catalunya, right off the Placa Catalunya. There we took time to enjoy house wine and real paella made with chicken, shrimp and local fish.

We spend the rest of the day walking around Rambla Catalunya. Around 9 we found a nice and tasty cafe called Iustinianus on Corsega 300, right off the Rambla Catalunya. We sipped wine, ate cheese and looked at night Barcelona. It was a perfect place to finish our vacation.


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9/16 - Naples / Pompeii

We took an 35 minutes / 80 euro cab from Naples to Pompeii. The cab driver agreed to wait for us there for 2 hours. Taking a cab would be good idea because riding to the train station and taking a train would cost us about the same, but would take much longer.

In Pompeii we got the voice guide and were determined to learn about the famous city. Unfortunately the guide was terrible. It was almost impossible to find the numbers on the ruins with the map that we were given. When we succeeded matching the guide was pretty boring.

Most of Pompeii looked, well, ruined. It seems that unless you are a serious archeologist the whole thing looked like bunch of stones. To be fair, a few place looked interesting. For example, the house of Faun.



The funniest thing about Pompeii was that all tours and people converged in one place. The ancient whore house. The walls there were featuring sexual adventures of Pompoiiean man and were causing a healthy amount of interest in modern tourists. Having gone though this house in 15 seconds we were ready to leave.

We came back to Naples the home of Pizza! Except we were impatient and had one in a touristy place. Needless to say it was below our expectations. Naples proved to be quite different in different place. In the beginning we were disappointed wondering around its less pleasant neighborhoods. But things picked up after we headed up via Toledo.

The central Naples is interesting with its narrow streets and open people. People are really open. A lot of doors are open too. Inside you see people eating, watching TV, talking. It must be a cultural thing to keep the doors and windows open when staying home.

We headed through the labyrinth of streets towards the local Duomo. On the way we hit lots of small streets crowded with all sorts of local pottery and souvenirs. We stopped by a few churches, had coffee break in one of the local cafes and finally reached the Duomo. Despite the rain and the long wait at the cafe we thought the trip was worth it. Especially because of the Duomo, which was pretty impressive.

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9/15 - Rome

The train to Rome took 1.5h. We got off at the central station and started on our Rome marathon. The plan was to cross through the city all the way to Vatican and to catch a few landmark.

First on our way was Trevi Fountain. It took us about 1/2 h to walk to the fountain from the train station. We did notice how incredibly dirty the city was. The sculptures and buildings were plain black. The streets were dusty and dirty. It was literally difficult to breathe.
Things got a bit better as our lungs adapted, but we were sneezing quite often.

The Trevi Fountain is one of the most magnificent fountains in the world. It is hard to do justice to it with words, so here is the picture.



And here is the detail which is particularly striking:



Near the fountain we found a stand with fresh produce and bought super tasty grapes. This boosted our spirits (and cleared lungs a bit). We headed straight towards the Pantheon. From the Pantheon we headed to Plaza Novona, where we admired the Bernini's rivers fountain and had a quick lunch.

Our last stop was Vatican. It took us 10 minutes to get to the bridge and to cross the Tevere river. From the bridge we took this picture of St. Peter's Cathedral.



We were planning to go inside the Cathedral, but when we reached to St. Peter Square it became clear that we are not going to get in because of the long line. We decided to try our luck and to get into the Vatican Museum to see Sistine Chapel. Miraculously it worked. We got in 15 minutes before last entry and spent 1/2 h admiring the famous Michelangelo ceiling.


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9/14 - Florence

The next port of call was Livorno, our first destination in Italy. We debated for a while what we should do and finally decided that we are better off taking a train to Florence instead of going to Pisa. And that was despite the fact that we all have been to Florence before.

The train was cheap, but took over an hour. We arrived on the train station and headed towards Duomo. The Duomo is unforgettable and breathtaking because of its details. When it emerges out of the busy Florence street one is simply stunned by its beauty. Last time we went upstairs to the roof, but this time the line was just too long, and we decided to pass.



After enjoying the Duomo we headed towards the Uffizi gallery. The streets where quite busy, there were a lot of tourists and local 'artists' trying to sell copies of various famous works, like Boticelli's 'Birth of Venus'. We did not go into Uffizi, again, because of the long line. Instead we turned right and headed towards Ponte Vecchio.




Ponte Vecchio is a small bridge covered with tourist-trap-quality jewlerly stores. Naturally, it did not take a long time for us to cross. Once on the other side, we felt hungry. I remembered that 5 years ago we uncovered a small restaurant with amazing food about 5 minutes from the bridge. We were lucky to find the place again.
The food was cheap and delicious. The waiter was friendly and from Albania. To our horror he cited some of his Soviet childhood heroes. But, the best was the house wine. We took 3 liters aboard. The place is called Tratoria 4 Leoni, it is located on Plazza della Passera - Via dei Vellutini.

How un-renaissance of us to say that the restaurant was the highlight of the visit. Well that and the Duomo. After the restaurant we did some more strolling and then headed back to the train station. We were unanimous that there is no need for the third visit.

Finally, this entry has to conclude with the note that you can never guess who can speak Russian around you. Really, you can't. We were in the train and oriental-looking woman was sitting next to us. For the duration of the trip she was pretty absent minded. She just stared at the window and did not even look at us. But when the conductor went through and said that we should have stamped our tickets at the station, she turned and without a trace of an accent explained in Russian where and what we should have done. When we got off the train and grabbed a taxi to the ship, the two women on the back seat who spoke perfect English suddenly switched to perfect Russian.

The moral is: You never know how many Russian speaking people are surrounding you at any given time.

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9/13/04 - French Rivera

The next was stop small pretty port town Villefranche-Sur-Mer on Cote de Azur. We have booked a car in Nice and took a 15 minutes ride along the coast. In Nice we loaded into almost new Peugeot and headed east toward Ez.



Ez is a small medieval village with breathtaking views of the coastline.After an uphill walk through the steep, narrow streets we reached the cactus garden on the top of the village. We spent 1/2 h admiring the views and taking pictures. Without a doubt, that cactus garden was one of the most memorable and beautiful places we have ever visited. After exiting the garden, we browsed around Ez and found a lavish hotel tucked in the remote part of the city. Prices on the restaurant menu were totally outrages, but the view from the restaurant made us envious.



We left Ez and headed further east. Our plan was to got to X, which was described as a neat town in our guide. We enjoyed the stunning views on the way. Unfortunately, we could not figure out where the entrance to X was. Instead we went through to Menton.



Menton is the last French town on the east end of the Rivera. We parked and found rather suspicious restaurant right on the boardwalk. There we were pleasantly surprised for two reasons: one is that food was not disgusting and and secondly, occasional women on the beach were topless.

After lunch we walked around Menton and found it to be much quieter and much less touristy than Nice or Canne. Streets and building were clean; Menton really looked like French French Rivera. We could not spend more time in Menton, because we had to return the car. We headed back to Nice captivated by the unforgettable views.

Rivera is definitely a place that we need to come back too!


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9/12/04 - Marseille / Le Baux

The first port of call was Marseille, France. We were anxious to get to the shore and check this port out. The bus ride from the port took about 15 minutes. We got off in the center of Marseille not far from the port.

Pretty soon it became clear that Marseille was one of the worst places we have ever seen. It was dirty, smelly and the same everywhere we looked. More disturbingly the locals were missing shampoo and teeth. We literally struggled to find anything appealing in that town and after two hours gave up and went back to the ship.

To be fair, actually, there were 2 things about our visit to Marseille that were soothing. First was a little fruit stand were we loaded on fruits and cheap French wine that we bought in the local supermarket for about 5 euros per bottle. We had a devious plan to sneak this alcohol on board and drink it during dinner, while encountering 12$ per bottle cork charge (sigh).

In the afternoon we took a tour through the French country side to the medieval town of Le Baux. The bus was 1h and 15 minutes one way, but the ride was worth it. We drove through a beautiful little town of Arles were Van Gogh painted his most famous paintings. Too bad we could not get off and walk around, because the town looked really interesting.

Le Baux is situated on a gorgeous rocky hills. During medieval times, this small town used be a home of powerful lords that rule the region. When the town later became the protestant stronghold Louis XIII send over troops and put an end to Le Baux's glory. Today this tiny town is covered with shops and restaurants where local craftsman and artists sell artifacts and paintings.



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9/11/04, Barcelona - RCC Splendor of the Seas

We woke up around 8 am and had a pretty good buffet breakfast in the hotel. After the breakfast we followed tips of our friends who've been to Barcelona bought tickets for the City tour Bus. Warning, this is a rip off! The bus is 16 euros per person per day. An average cab ride is 5 euros. If you have a two people you can have 6 cab rides for the price of the tour bus. We had 4 people :)

In any case, we took the Blue line back to La Pedrera via Plaza Catalonia. We bought a tour, which included the walk though one of the apartments and the access to the roof. To be fair, if you do buy the tour bus ticket, you get a booklet of discounts for all major venues, including La Pedrera. In any case, the tour inside magnificent La Pedrera starts with a decorated apartment from Gaudi's time. Personally, I found the architecture beautiful, but the space rather non functional. Gaudi's designed are aimed to astonish and impress, but they have not become widespread for a reason, they are neither economical nor ergonomic.

Probably the most worthy part of the tour is the visit to the roof. Strange sculptures of fantastic forms and shapes look particularly bizarre as a foreground of the city. The sculptures reminds visitors of endless interplay between order and chaos. All sculptures are symmetric and consist of repeating elements, yet on the whole each structure is unique.



After taking many pictures on the roof of La Pedrera, we caught the Red Line and headed to another Gaudi's creation, called Parc Guell. The Parc is situated on the steep hills above the Eixample district. Inside the Parc there is a mixture of different structures spread around a few acres of greens. In the center of the Parc there is a large elevated terrace that has spectacular views of the entrance to the Parc and city of Barcelona. The borders of this terrace are covered by broken colored stone - a technique used often by Gaudi. The main stairs to the terrace are adorned with a fountain with a statue of a frog, also decorated with the colored stones.



In the early afternoon we had back to the hotel to get our luggage and to get to the Royal Caribbean Splendor of the Seas. The taxi to the port was about 20 euros. The catch was that we ordered it via hotel clerk and had to pay for the trip that it made to the hotel. If we would have hailed one on the street we would pay 1/2 as much.

The boarding went rather quickly, we were even surprised with how casual security was. The stateroom turned out to be pretty spacious, much bigger than we had in our previous adventures on Princess Cruises. Except size, however, it was rather unexciting. It had this sort of worn look and feel.

After we unpacked we went for a tour of the ship. Like the stateroom it had a slightly warned look and feel. The lunch buffet was rather unimpressive, and even disappointing. In general the food on the cruise was one of the bigger disappointments. The buffet had the same limited tasteless selection every day and the dining room was trying to sell unsophisticated and sloppy food for a gourmet meal.

But who cares about the food when you have such great destinations?

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9/10/04, New York - Barcelona

We flew from JFK on Aer Lingus to Dublin and then to Barcelona. All I can say is that my butt is not a typical Irish butt, so I had problems fitting into the seat. And, yes, the food was bad too.

We did not have much time in Dublin, but everywhere we looked we saw Guinness. Apparently Irish are really proud of this one. Well, they should be, this one is a keeper.

We also learned that anti-smoking campaign in Europe has, literally, gone big. On all cigarette cartons we saw enormous slogans like: Smoking kills, or Smoking may cause impotence, etc. Since we were submerged in smoke and surrounded by people with buts, we figured the ads do not really work.

The seats on the flight to Barcelona were much wider, so we started to cheer up. Apparently too early, because Aer Lingus has another trick up its sleeve. We landed on terminal A, but our bags were taken to terminal B. So we spent good hour chasing them, running between the terminals and re-entering security and pissing people off by speaking English.

Finally, we were on our way. The taxi took about 20 minutes and cost 30 euros. It took us to the hotel H10 Montcada on via Laietana that we reserved for $170 a night. The room was small, but clean, but the bathroom was lavish. The hotel is centrally located in the Downtown of Barcelona near the Picasso museum, close to the waterfront and La Rambla.

We checked in and asked the hotel clerk for a good place to eat. Boy, did we make a mistake! She sent us on a 35 minute walk to a restaurant in Barcelonetta. The restaurant was one of those disgusting tourist places with 90-degree-uncomfortable chairs, sticky menus and terrible food. The only good thing about that dinner was a second bottle of wine that we ordered, a Spanish Rioja.



After dinner we were feeling a bit drunk, but manage to catch a cab to Casa Mila (La Pedrera). La Pedrera is one of the Art Novue masterpieces by Antoni Gauidi. This corner building in Quadrat d'Or consists of unusual, sea-like forms that are representative of unique Gaudi's style. Unfortunately, we arrived 5 minutes late to get in for a tour. Instead we strolled down Passage de Gracia and to see another amazing building designed by Gaudi called Casa Batllo.



The buildings around Quadrat d'Or, and in most of Barcelona that we saw, were simply beautiful. Each building was different, yet together the buildings created the sense of flow and harmony.



We wrapped around the corner and ended up on Rambla de Catalonia, a milder version of La Rambla. This street had expensive shops and street restaurant along its entire length. On Rambla de Catalonia paused for an essential Haagen Daz ice scream. The ice cream completely erased the final memories of the dinner mishap.

After the ice cream we felt pretty brave and took Carrer de Provenca to Sagrada Familia. This unfinished church was suppose to be Gaudi's most magnificent masterpiece. Unfortunately, the genius died before finishing it. Many architects have contributed to the church since then and so all sides of the church look different. All of the sides except the side designed by Gaudi, are rather dull and distasteful. The construction has not been finished due to the lack of funds, and the entire site looks messy and pitiful.



Jet leg has finally caught up with us and we had to cab back to the hotel.

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