We’ve managed to meet up with lots of different people on our trip, but so far none of them have been people we’ve known from our lives BTJ (before the journey). Finally, nearly six months in, that has changed. Josh is a friend of mine from my days back at Jack Nadel, and his girlfriend Sarah is shooting a documentary here in Cape Town. Josh and Sarah like to eat and drink, and therefore are close friends that we were very excited to see. Our first dinner was at The Vault, a restaurant in the basement vault of an old bank. It started out innocently enough with a five course tasting menu and wine pairing. The trouble started when the “wine pairing” turned out not to be a sip from the bottle, but the entire bottle. Thus five bottles of wine and several very elaborate shots (see video) later we were pretty toasty. But, as usual, things didn’t end there. We made buddies with the overly verbose chef/owner who then introduced us to a very strange man at the next table over who apparently owned a local winery. Conversation led to more drinks, which led to a round of Cuban cigars upstairs in the smoking lounge, which led to an Apartheid pow wow that ended at 3am.

Luckily for us we had nothing to do the next day. Unluckily for Josh & Sarah they had an entire day of shooting planned starting with a 9am boat trip on very rough seas out to Robben Island. Sucks for them. Last night we went to Moyo, a rather touristy “authentic African” restaurant in Spier winery that boasts local dance and music. Mostly I felt like I was on a cheap Caribbean cruise, complete with buffet and face painting, but it was fun enough.

For all of you who think that travelling around the world for a year is fun every single day, well, it is. But some days are a hell of a lot less fun than others. Take “today” for example. We decided last minute to cut our time in South Africa short by a week (lots of reasons, mostly it’s dangerously unsafe) and start the European leg of our journey. At 7pm we began making the arrangements, which as you’re about to see were quite complex. At 7:15pm Josh & Sarah showed up (unexpectedly, that’s why we love them) for dinner. By 8pm all plans were made and we were on our way to Five Flies.

At 7am the next morning we left for the Cape Town airport for a two hour flight to Johannesburg. We had barely a two hour layover to claim our bags, go through emigration (“im” is coming into a country, “em” is going out, which really confuses me sometimes), and catch the 4 hour flight to Mauritius. From there we had another two hour layover to use the one computer with an internet connection (circa 1987) in the entire airport to make our hotel arrangements for Paris. We clicked submit on the credit card just as the final boarding call was made. We then had a 9 hour flight to Dubai. In Dubai we had a two hour layover to confirm our seats (which sounds easier than it was) on the final leg of the journey for the 8 hour flight to Paris.

And so, 36 hours later, here we are. Of course the shuttle from the airport dropped us off at what we thought was right next to our hotel. But it wasn’t. After all that we ended up walking nearly 2 miles with all of our bags. In the rain.  If you're keeping track of our miles travelled section, we covered nearly 10,000 today.

OK, I’ll admit it. I had some preconceived stereotypical notions of Paris and what it would be like. But I’ll also be the first to admit that I was wrong. For the most part – some people really haven’t discovered that miracle of science we call deodorant, making metro trips a mixed bag of poorly ventilated nasal sensations. That aside, I can’t believe how friendly everybody has been. Granted we’ve been trying to make a (poor) attempt at speaking French – something we’ve barely done this entire trip. In fact in most places we didn’t even bother to learn the name of the local currency, referring to it only as “thingies” or “funny money”.

We’ve done a ton of stuff here. Dinners with family, dinners with friends, walking around aimlessly, shopping, eating. So much eating. They really do know how to do food here, especially cheese and pastry. And my second favorite food in the entire world (burritos are my favorite) – French onion soup. I’ve had probably a dozen different samplings (and by sampling I mean enormous bowl) now, and I feel like I’m just getting the lay of the French onion land. I’d like to do a year long French onion sabbatical one day, and try each and every one. Perhaps I could write a book about it. Oh and we’ve gone to museums.

A lot of museums. I hate museums. Unless they’re about food or video games or television, and unfortunately I haven’t come across very many of those. I just don’t understand art. To me either a picture looks like what it’s supposed to look like, or it’s not art. These random crayon scribblings of what are supposed to be boobies just don’t do it for me. I honestly couldn’t tell you if I were in the Louvre or a Holiday Inn art sale. Except that in the Louvre people stand around and use big words to describe what they’re looking at and have very serious expressions on their faces so it must be good.

It’s also been nice to be somewhere for more than just a few days. We’re six months into this thing now, and this is the longest we’ve stayed in the same city. It will be a total of ten days, and I think it really helped recharge our batteries a bit. The constant blur of planes, trains and automobiles catches up with you in weird ways, and a lot of times you don’t even realize just how tired you are until you take a moment to sit down and breathe. We’re also really looking forward to a summer filled with meeting up with friends and family. That way we don’t have to talk to each other as much.

Some stereotypes are true, some aren’t. The Irish like to drink: True. What were sidewalk café’s three to a corner in Paris are now pubs three to a corner in Dublin. This was driven home even further during our tour of the Guinness factory. Ten years ago when I was in Dublin I stayed at the Guinness Brewery hostel and took the tour, so I wasn’t expecting too much to have changed. Wrong. The entire thing has been completely redone and is now a 7 story monument to the rich creamy stout goodness. Complete with bar on top.

But our real Guinness tour started the night before. Our long time readers will remember Eddie and Bern from our trek through the Daintree Rain Forest in Austraila. We hit it off back then famously and ended up drinking ourselves into a coma in Port Douglas. We decided to take another crack at it here in their home town of Dublin. We met at Venu to start the festivities, which is a very hipster restaurant located a few floors underground in an old building off Grafton street. The food was quite good, and so was the wine.

The real treat, however, was after dinner when we were promised the “best pint of Guinness in Ireland”. Apparently Guinness themselves actually service all of the Guinness taps in Dublin, with the exception of the one located at John Kehoe which is meticulously cleaned by hand and the bartenders trained to pour a perfect head. It truly was “brilliant”. We ended up hanging out back at their very cool place until the late/early hours of the morning. As often is the case, we finished off by asking the cab driver to take us to the best Kebab place he knew of. And he did. And it was good.

OK, I’m sure there must be some music reviewer somewhere that’s already used that title, but I’m feeling lazy. As many of you know I have a soft spot in my heart for all things British, particularly when it comes to music. Richard Ashcroft, Radiohead, Placebo, Travis, Starsailor, The Cure, New Order and of course Depeche Mode. So when I saw that Keane was coming to Dublin the same time we were going to be there it was a no brainer. Well, not quite when we were going to be there. We had to extend our stay by a night. But totally worth it!  And if the greatness of the show is related to the physical size of the ticket, this was destined to be a great show.

We knew the night was off to a great start when walking to the venue we watched two people pass out drunk. Separate incidents. Go Irish. The Point was a pretty cool place to see a show. Larger than anywhere we have in San Francisco (a capacity of 8500) but still a somewhat intimate feeling similar to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. While Keane is on the …poppier… side of music I tend to be into, it makes for a very fun show as the audience can sing along to pretty much every song. At least audiences in the UK. Last time I saw Keane in the states was in front of a crowd of about 300 most of whom looked like they were there because there wasn’t much else to do that night.

There. I just straight out said it. No sugar coating or reading between the lines. Hopefully the Scottish Republican Army doesn’t blow up my car or something. But the fact is we had probably the most underwhelming three days of the trip. There’s basically nothing to do in Glasgow. And this was proven when, for lack of anything better to do, I decided to go see a movie and every one of the 8 options and all of their showings were sold out for the entire day.

What the real mystery is, though, is how two cities so close together could be so different. Less than 45 minutes by either train or car separates Edinburgh from Glasgow. We spent 3 days in Edinburgh and really felt like we were leaving too soon with barely the surface scratched. We spent 3 days in Glasgow and by the end of the first wanted to poke our eyeballs out with the same forks we used to eat our haggis. And we did eat haggis – a surprisingly tasty mincing of sheep heart/liver/lungs with oatmeal, onions, and spices all boiled together in the sheep’s stomach for approximately one hour.

It also didn’t help that the internet connection at the place where we were staying stopped working after the first day. That is a guaranteed recipe to put us in seriously bad moods. We ended up spending most of the next day wandering the city looking for WiFi spots, of which there were woefully few. We ended up spending a few hours in a public library, somewhere I haven’t been since I was twelve years old and devouring Star Trek books. (The Next Generation of course, not the original).

So why does Glasgow suck so much? Mainly because it’s young and rowdy. Not the good kind of rowdy, but the trashy kind of rowdy. Lots of groups of kids and pregnant teens wandering the streets shouting and drinking and going from bar to bar. I’ve never seen more pink Hummer limos in one place. It seemed like every other bar was hosting a bachelorette party, and the bars in between those were hosting baby showers. And nobody was over 20. We were even lucky enough to see a guy get mugged from our window, which was supposedly a “nice” part of town.

I think a lot of people who have never been to Amsterdam before wonder what it’s really like. An adult playground like Vegas? A seedy back alley ghetto? The truth is that it’s like no other place on earth. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is one of the, if not the, most unique cities we’ve been to on this trip. And we’ve been to like millions now.

First, let’s address the common questions:

Is marijuana really legal? No, it is not. The official policy, similar to San Francisco but applied far more liberally, is one of "tolerance".  You can go into any number of the hundreds of very differently themed coffee shops and purchase marijuana or hashish over the counter. Many different varieties, in many different formats. Pre-rolled joints, brownies, by the gram, with a pipe, whatever.

Are other drugs legal? Yes. Mushrooms are grown and sold legally, and even come complete with a four point rating system on how they’ll mess you up. There are also various “party pills” which do various different things. Hard drugs (cocaine, heroin, etc) are NOT legal. They are sold through “Charlie Boys” which are Africans that wander around the red light district asking if you want “Charlie”. But they’re very low key about it and don’t really cause you to be uncomfortable.

Is prostitution legal? Yes. It too is as simple as picking what you want from behind a counter. Only in this case you pick from behind a window. You can walk down dozens of streets and alleys lining the red light district and choose from the available wares that are quite literally standing in a glass door with a bed waiting behind them. There is no bargaining of any kind – it’s a flat 50 Euros for whatever it is you want. Unlike the common conventions, pretty girls here do not get more money than …less pretty… ones. Although I’m sure they’re busier. And like a good Vegas casino, the entire place is designed so you can’t find your way out.

So here’s the weird part. The entire system works. The streets are safe and clean, culture and museums abound, there’s great restaurants and trendy clothing boutiques. The city is as picturesque as Venice with all of its canals, and as beautiful as Paris with its history and architecture. Some things, like The Heineken Experience are clearly designed for stoned backpackers, but I’d say 90% of the city is otherwise completely normal. Yeah there’s a few more stoned backpackers than other cities, but a stoned backpacker is a lot more tolerable than a drunk backpacker. Other than cutting in line at the waffle stands they’re completely harmless.

Much to Joy’s dismay, babies have pretty much always terrified me. They’re so delicate and I’m so clumsy. “He was dropped as a baby” seemed a very real possibility when I was entrusted with the precious cargo that is Liam Saxon. Plus they poop A LOT. What comes out seems to be disproportionate to what goes in. You’ll see what I mean in the video. Anyways, imagine my surprise at actually having a wonderful five days with a five month old baby. The little trooper didn’t seem to slow his mom and dad down one bit. I even got to use my “What You Talkin’ About Willis” line that I learned from hanging out with my two year old niece in Ireland. And it was a huge hit, a guaranteed giggle every time. Maybe I’m cut out for this baby thing after all!

If you’re going to schlep all the way out to Interlaken, Switzerland, you’re pretty much obliged to take the lengthy and pricey journey up to the Top of Europe. Jungfrau - the highest point accessible by train in all of Europe and standing just shy of 12,000 feet. All you need is a few hundred dollars, six separate trains, the better part of an entire day, and some warm clothes. That clearly did not deter the masses, however, as we were far from the only ones to make the trek. But what a stunningly beautiful and amazing trek it was – perhaps even voted by The Wandering Walkers as the most amazing scenery of the entire trip. Thus far anyway – I guess we still have like 5 months to go or whatever.

The day began by taking the first of the trains from Interlaken to Kleine Scheidegg, which acts as a stopping point for the train switch to get to Eigergletscher. Here we went for a quick hike up into the hills where Joy impressively popped-a-squat (seriously – click on that link) with some of the local cows. Giddy with nature, we ran back down the hill and threw down a quick Braut and side of potatoes. The Swiss, by the way, are not known for embracing the whole healthy cuisine movement. I have never seen a more fat and cholesterol laden food culture, yet somehow they manage to not drop dead in their teens like one would think.

Finally, the train that takes you all the way to the top. There’s a couple stops along the way at viewing platforms, but the real party starts when you pull into the Jungfraujoch. The first thing that makes an impact on you after stepping off isn’t so much the view as the fact that one of the options for getting some food is an all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant called Bollywood. For real. I couldn’t make that up if I tried. We somehow managed to elude its temptations (hey, Indian food is good whether you’re at sea level or on top of one of the highest peaks in the world), and made our way through the ice caves and onto the observation platforms, and then onto the glacier itself.

It’s really hard to describe what a view from that high is like. It’s not like being in a plane at all, especially since the top of a mountain isn’t pressurized. It was another one of those sad times of being so out of breath (in this case because the air is so thin) that you’re dizzy and about to pass out. And then getting pushed out of the way by some 80 year old lady who’s trying to get around you. The most striking thing is just how bright the sun’s reflection on the snow is. For the most part you’re actually above the clouds, so there’s nothing stopping the glare. It’s tons of fun to slip and slide around on the ice – which was a little different than when we did this in New Zealand since here we were just in regular shoes. Am I a bad husband for secretly wanting Joy to take a little tumble while she was showing off? Guess that’s not a secret anymore…

Sadly, there was no magical way to get down from the top. A helicopter would have been handy, but instead it was three more trains and about three hours to the bottom. As luck would have it – and it always does – we managed to get sandwiched in between an Italian family with an impossible amount of children. No problem since we had our headphones, but it got a little awkward trying to look out the windows since it appeared like we were staring at their children. When we did finally make it down we had a nice ten minute break before dinner with Debs, Ethan and Liam. Just another day in the life of a Wandering Walker! How much longer did I say we have again..?

There are some things that I have few issues with. Here are the main ones:

The Work Ethic – Or should I say lack of. Here’s what I’m going to say about The Siesta: If it was a good idea, every country would do it. Sure, we would all like to take a big ‘ol nap in the middle of the afternoon from 2 to 5. But it’s just not conducive to business. Which is, I’m sure, a large reason why Spain is falling so far behind the rest of the European Union. What you end up with are retail stores and businesses that are only open for about 25 – 30 hours a week. They stroll in at 10, take off from 2 – 5ish, and then come back and work for a few more hours. IF they work on Saturday it's from 10 – 2.  The whole country shuts down on Sunday. And they take off the entire month of August.

Bread – It ain’t free. And nobody tells you that until it’s too late. We sat down at a place in Toledo, ordered, and the waiter promptly brought out a basket of bread. Naturally we assumed that since we had just ordered enough food to feed half of the impoverished nations we’ve now been to that it was included. It wasn’t. Each piece we ate out of the basket we were charged a euro for. Uncharacteristically, I actually challenged the waiter and said I wasn’t paying. I got the typical “stupid American” comment or whatever and we went on our way. Turns out that really IS how it’s done here at a lot of places. But not all. So you never know just how much bread to fill up on…

View Tax – We decided to hit up a pretty touristy place in the main square of the cathedral in Sevilla for a nice dinner. It was horribly over priced, but it had such a nice view that we figured what the heck. We had our subpar meal and asked for ‘el cheque por favor”. When it came, everything was 30% more than it was supposed to be, which was already a lot. Turns out that if you sit outside you get charged the extra toll for the privilege of gazing out upon the square. While the entire menu was in English, that little tidbit was buried at the bottom of the back page in Spanish.

Narrow Streets – Charming, yes , but only when they are not actually open to traffic. The streets here are so narrow that cars parked along them have to collapse their side mirrors so they don’t get sheared off. I’m a lot wider than a side mirror. (this is where my brother is inserting the fat joke of his choice I’m sure). So every time a car comes barreling down the street – and they don’t slow down just because it’s narrow and filled with pedestrians – there’s always the chance of losing an arm. I’ve been dying to take my contacts out and give my eyes a rest, but no way I can walk around here blind.

I don’t always mean to be the negative one. This really is a great country, and a lot of fun to relax in. As long as you’re not planning to get any work done it’s the place to be.

A lot of times we ask ourselves if we’re more into a place than we might otherwise have been because the place we were before didn’t impress us. For example, we were really underwhelmed by Spain in many many ways. Now here we are in Dubrovnik, Croatia and thinking this is one of the nicest places we’ve been the entire trip. It’s been three days now and we’re still just as amazed as the first moment we laid eyes upon it, so I think it really is a truly incredible place.

Plus, Joy’s family has flown out to meet us here! Judy & Steve (the parents) and Jake & Aimee (the brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law). The only person missing is Josh, whose new high pressure career in the snack cracker industry has prevented him from joining us. It’s a true family affair, with Jake & Aimee sharing a beautiful 3 bedroom place with us right in the heart of the old town. Founded in the 7^th century, the old town is completely walled off from motor vehicles and is one of the most striking and unique cities we’ve seen thus far. Words can’t do it justice, and neither really can pictures. A little touristy for sure, especially when the cruise ships roll in, but not overcrowded or mobbed like so many of the places in Spain.

As far as the food goes, seafood is king here. Being on an isthmus jutting into the Adriatic Sea there’s an abundance of fresh fish. Something we’ve been sorely missing. We’ve already had some fantastic meals, including a great family dinner last night. Speaking of family events, we took a day trip to some of the surrounding Elaphite islands today that was nothing short of spectacular. Some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable and a delicious lunch of grilled whole fish that was so good I had to go back for a second. Oh and a few hours on a beach that was half regular and half nudist, with no effective separation between the two.

Here’s the thing about nudists – they’re never good looking. It’s never a group of hot college girls frolicking around and playfully splashing each other with water. It’s always old men and women – often difficult to tell apart since each have equal sized breasts and no visible penis. There seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of flab and extra skin a person has and their desire to be naked. It was pretty funny to see Steve take the opportunity to “swim laps” and head off in that direction though…

One of the things we always ask ourselves when we get to a city is, “Could we live here?” The answer is almost always no. In fact we can probably count on one hand of a Chinese machine shop worker the cities that could support our fragile ecosystem (Hong Kong and Sydney are about the only two that come to mind). But now we have a third to add to the list, as Vienna has all the life sustaining properties we require. Tremendous food, great shopping, youthful exuberance (but not too youthful, since now that I’m 30 youngsters annoy me), and amazing public transport. Not only do they have a clean and efficient metro system, but also trams that go everywhere. Plus most roads have a separate, wide bike lane. Not that I would ride a bike. But it’s nice to know it’s an option. Plus just about everybody speaks English.

Unfortunately, we had to leave our first hotel. It was beautiful and comfortable and everything we love in a place, but since it had just opened that week the internet connection still wasn’t working. And the fastest way to put a Wandering Walker in a mad mood is to mess with his internet connection. So we packed up after the first night and schlepped over to Flemings, a strange restaurant/hotel combo chain. The room was nice enough, but for some reason they thought it might be classy to stick an all-glass shower in the dead center of the room. And not frosted glass – just plain old regular see through glass. I don’t know about you, but for me shower time is private time and being on display like that is sort of unnerving. Plus I couldn’t shake the idea of putting a few strippers in there and letting nature take its course.

I can’t say that we were at our most adventurous while in Vienna. Frankly, we were feeling pretty tired and worn down. We mostly wandered around home base and saw the basic sites and hung around the room watching BBC. We watch a lot of BBC as the vast majority of countries have BBC as the only English channel option. The thing about BBC is that they repeat themselves. A lot. It’s sort of like watching Headline News on an endless loop for hours on end. While I do feel very up-to-date on world events, and could probably deliver a newscast to you word for word about what’s going on in Iraq, I am looking forward to returning home to my million channel plethora of choice. I will never complain about “what the hell are all these channels up in the 600’s and who the hell needs all those” again.

It was eight years ago today that I met Joy. I was at the birthday party of a mutual friend, Paul Katz, and it was late into the evening. She sat down on the couch and started to give me a hard time about something or other. She can do that better than anyone I know. We talked for a bit, even took a walk around the block, and then we went our separate ways. Not, however, before I wrote her number down on the back of one of my business cards. I still have that card. Like a desperate man who didn’t know the rules of the game, I actually called her the next day. And now here we are, eight years later, in the ninth month of a trip around the world together.

It’s funny how chance it can all be. Had I left just a minute earlier – as my friends Dave & Kate whom I was there with wanted to – we probably never would have met. I would never have known what true love was. What it was like to have a partner in every sense of the word. To be welcomed into a new family, to see how wonderful life can be, and to be shown how to be a better person. I guess it would have just been Wandering Walker instead of Wandering Walkers.

A typical day in the life of a Wandering Walker. We woke up in Eilat, Israel, a resort town on the very southern tip of the country. We took a cab to the Jordanian border, leaving our car at the hotel so we could cross over on foot. Driving in Jordan = bad idea. It took several border agents and stampings, and a full page out of our already overcrowded passport, but we managed to make it across. Once on the other side it was the usual game of haggling for a driver. Problem is, there’s only one guy who controls all the cars, and miles and miles of desert. So after making a big show of refusing to pay what he was asking and then taking a 5 minute stroll around the desert to look for “other options”, we returned with our tails between our legs.

The car we got into was wonderful. Nice driver who spoke English, air conditioning, the whole nine yards by Jordanian standards. For about 5 minutes anyways. Soon we were pulled over to the side of the road and told to get out. Figuring the odds had finally caught up with us and we were going to be kidnapped and ransomed we got out and switched into his “brothers” car. Not quite as nice, being held together by what looked like a few pieces of string and a prayer to Allah. And clearly his brother was on some sort of suicide mission, trying to scare us by taking his hands off of the wheel and swerving off the road to gauge our reaction.

But hey, we’re used to this, no big deal. Until we pulled off the road an hour and a half and greeted by a machine gun toting guard. Our driver got into some sort of shouting match, then got out of his car and hugged the guard. Then we were told to get out and come with the guard. We followed him to a gate and were asked if we “would like to see the King’s palace”. Not seeing a plethora of options we said sure. So we were motioned into the gate, made to sit on a couch where I almost knocked another machine gun over with my bag, and all stared at each other. This lasted for about half an hour until we were told to get up, that we would not be seeing the inside of the palace, and were then sent on our way. We later found out that this whole little scene was quite extraordinary as the land we were on was strictly forbidden and that the guard would lose his land, his wife, and all of his possessions if anyone found out he let us through that gate.

Thirty more uneventful minutes and we arrived at our hotel in Petra, which is situated right at the entrance. And so we ventured in. This is one of those times where there’s no way to describe what something is like. Petra is probably the most beautiful place we’ve seen the entire trip. I will say that I was not aware that the Petra experience involved the level of audience participation that it did. I thought you just go in and look around at all the ruins. Turns out it’s a 4 – 5 hour hike through the desert. But what an amazing hike it was. The colors in the rock, the carvings, the natural scenery, the camels, the Bedouins, all of it was simply awe inspiring.

We managed to hike all the way through to the very end. It was pretty late in the day at this point and there were almost no other people around, especially up that far. We decided to follow the “sign” to see the view atop the large boulder. When we got to the top we met a very cool guy about our age who apparently lives on that exact spot in a tent where he sells a few trinkets out of. His family has been there for generations. While not living in his tent he pretty much operates as a Syrian gigolo. He wanted us to watch the sunset and stay for the night up there, but we decided we should get on our way before it was pitch dark. It’s a pretty treacherous and rocky path back down and the light of the moon probably wouldn’t have done the trick.

About halfway back we decided to swallow our pride and take a camel back. We negotiated a price with a thirteen year old Bedouin boy to borrow his camel and both hopped aboard for the final couple miles back. Needless to say by the time we got back we were exhausted. We went out for a Jordanian Mezze Platter in “The Cave” for a late dinner, which we were told would be enough for one but turned out to require three waiters to bring it all over. We ate until bursting and headed back to the hotel to crawl into bed and die. But unfortunately my night was not over as a small work crisis kept me up until almost 2am. Making for a long strange day…

Click here to see all the pictures form Petra

There are two things that have surprised me more than anything else about Israel. First, the overwhelming Per Croc-ita rate that this country has. At least 1 in 3 people wear them here. I hate Crocs. No I’ve never actually tried on a pair, and no I’m never going to. I don’t care how comfortable they are, I refuse to walk around in these ridiculous contraptions. We’ve seen a LOT of people wearing Crocs on this trip, to the point I’ve had fantasies about what it would have been like to be in on the ground floor of that company, but never have I seen the sheer numbers of them like I do here.

Entire families are decked out in them. Apparently the fact that you’re all wearing the exact same pair of shoes is offset by the individuality of each being in whatever color floats your boat. I’m curious if one person in the family got a pair and was like, “Wow, these are really great. You should try a pair sis” and it slowly spread through the rest of the relatives. Or if they all went out together (not during Shabbat of course) and picked them out and bought them. Perhaps receiving a family discount, which would be substantial here since it’s not uncommon to have 9 children by the time you’re 30. I guess the family that wears Crocs together stays together. There’s nothing funnier than seeing a black-hatted black-coated Orthodox Jew sporting a bright orange pair.

The second thing that came as a complete surprise was how absolutely amazing the food here is. Of 30 countries now, there isn’t even a close second. Everything is so fresh, usually arriving that day from the local Kibbutz on which it was grown. No respectable restaurant would serve bread they didn’t bake themselves, almost always coming warm straight out of the oven. And the portions here would put even The Cheesecake Factory to shame. There have been many times when we have ordered and split a single salad, only to have the waitress come out assuming something was wrong because it looked like we barely touched it.

Overall my experience so far in Israel – and somehow we’ve been here over 3 weeks already – has been really amazing. It’s a spectacularly beautiful country which runs the entire gamut of landscapes, from ocean to desert to forest and everything in between. It’s been wonderful seeing all of the faces and places that Joy got to know so well while spending her years here, including a great lunch yesterday with Adi and her new fiancé (as of 2 days ago) Assaf. We still have a week to go, including our stint in Jerusalem which I’m looking very forward to. We have something very interesting planned for Monday which I’ll write more about later.