winding down

We're now on a train going from Berlin to Munich, so that means we only have a few days left in our trip. We've previously been to Western Europe several times before, so things are already feeling much more familiar. (In fact, I was even in Germany once, but it was nearly 15 years ago, and we only really did a Rhine cruise that time.)

I thought I would do another retrospective post now, covering our experiences in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The past five weeks have been more interesting, more tiring, less comfortable, and more exciting, in comparison to the Australia and Southeast Asia portion of our trip. We've spent less time outdoors, and much more time learning about history and international politics. Some highlights...

Best Airline
As with the hotels, the airlines declined in quality during the second half of our trip. Egypt Air was by far the worst; nearly every flight was over 30 minutes late (4 out of 5), service was poor, and the airplanes were old and shabby. Royal Jordanian, Turkish, LOT Polish Airlines, and Air Berlin were all okay, but Lufthansa edged them out, with slightly better service.

Best New Foods
During the second half of our trip, we had the opportunity to try a lot more "new" foods. Although we ate many tasty dishes in Australia and Asia, those foods were more in our comfort zone, as they were similar to things we had eaten before. Also, as prices were more expensive than in Asia, we ended up eating at more home-style places rather than at fancy restaurants. Anyway, it was fun to discover some new favorites...

Our top five (plus one that made D's list but not mine):
- Middle Eastern mezze: All over the Middle East, meals start with a selection of appetizers they call "mezze". They reminded me a bit of the side dishes that you get at Korean restaurants. D's favorite was the baba ghanoush, mine was the hommus, and we both enjoyed the parsley-based tabbouleh. Also common were tahini, fried meat dumplings, and some yogurt-based dips. And, the omnipresent pita breads were something else; light and airy and usually fresh out of the oven, they were delicious even by themselves.

- Russian blini: D had been skeptical about blini, because in the US it's always served with cream or cheese. In Russia, you can have blini with anything, and during our week there, we did. My favorite was of course the "salmon caviar" (ikura), and D liked the pork and horseradish combination best. Also good was a similar pancake dish in Poland, which came with spinach.

- Herring and beet casserole: One day in Moscow, we ate in a shopping mall food court. There was a dish that looked like it had beets in it, and lots of people were ordering it, so D did too. It turned out to be salty pickled herring on the bottom, with a kind of beet salad on top. I was horrified. D loved it. To each his own.

- Meat jelly: I don't know the real name of this dish, but it basically consists of small meat strips congealed into some kind of gelatin-based substance. That sounds kind of gross but it's actually kind of similar to an Asian dish, and the Russians do it very well.

- Polish stuffed duck: On our first day in Krakow, we saw "traditional stuffed duck" on a lunch menu. It didn't have any other description, but we're both suckers for duck and anything that says "traditional", so we ordered it. Yum! The braised duck came stuffed with meat (only thing better than meat is more meat!), was accompanied by roasted apples, and was topped with a current or cranberry sauce. Delicious.
- Smalec: In Poland, instead of getting butter with your bread, you get "smalec", which is a pork lard-based spread. It tastes like liquid bacon. (In case you can't tell, that's a good thing.) Plus, I often felt like I was eating more lard than bread, and we still never managed to finish more than half of what we were given. Mmm, lard.

D also discovered bircher muesli on this trip; it was in pretty much every hotel breakfast buffet, although it wasn't a traditional food in any of the countries that we visited. I guess vacationing Europeans are everywhere, and they have to have their breakfast foods, just like the Americans have to have their cereal.

Best Museum
We saw many, many museums during the last few weeks, to the point where often very good displays would fail to impress us.

However, three of the museums that we visited were simply outstanding:
- Egyptian Museum: The quality and quantity of the ancient Egyptian artifacts was stunning. I felt like the museum, huge as it was, was simply not large enough to properly display the entire collection. Later I read that there were multiple new museums under construction in Cairo, and that some of them would be housing some of the items currently located at the Egyptian Museum. We spent two hours inside and saw only the top highlights (granted, it was crowded and hard to move quickly). I imagine one could spend at least three or four days wandering around in there.
- Kremlin Armory and Diamond Fund: The Armory ticket cost twice as much as the Kremlin Museums ticket, which was the first sign that the Armory would be an memorable sight. We liked the horse carriages best, but there were cool things everywhere; the Faberge eggs, crazy elaborate jewelry with gigantic gemstones, different household items totally encrusted in gold (e.g. a gold-plated castle used to burn incense), and much much more. In addition, the Diamond Fund is inside the Armory; we had to buy an additional ticket, but then we got to see the 189-caret Orlov diamond, the 88-caret Shah diamond (inscribed in Arabic), a variety of other giant gemstones, Russian imperial crowns and regalia, giant gold and platinum nuggets, and more.
- The Hermitage: By the time we got to Saint Petersburg, we had seen a lot of excellent museums, but the Hermitage was unique. The paintings, sculptures, and other items on display were quite impressive (the European section especially), but we were most struck by the Winter Palace itself. Each room was lavishly and beautifully decorated in a different style, and the entire palace has obviously been painstakingly restored and is in great shape. We spent nearly three hours enjoying both the ambiance and the exhibits.

Honorable mention goes to the Warsaw Uprising Museum; the displays were extremely creative and well presented, although the artifacts were not as unique or historic. It's a great place for non-museum types, as it's very modern in style and generally seems to cater to the ADD segment. The Pergamon Museum in Berlin was also nice; it has several very large gates and altars, and we were particularly impressed by the Ishtar Gate.


Best View
We sometimes avoid tall buildings because D doesn't like heights, but I did manage to drag him up to a few places with good views:
- Burj Al Arab Skyview restaurant: This one was actually D's idea, because it was the only way we could get into the Burj Al Arab at all. We had a delicious afternoon tea there while looking out at the ocean and the man-made Palm Island nearby.

- Movenpick Aswan panorama bar/lounge: The lounge was only on the 13th floor, but it gave us a 360-degree view of Elephantine Island. We happened to be there at sunset, and it was lovely. The drinks weren't bad, either.

- Saint Issac's Cathedral: It was really cold up at the top, as it was early in the morning and the winds were pretty strong that day, but we managed to stay up there for a good 15-20 minutes anyway. Great views of Saint Petersburg, including the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, and much more.


Best Natural Scenery
In Dubai, we went on a "sand dune bashing" tour which gave us a glimpse of the gorgeous desert outside of the city. The untouched dunes went on forever, and of course the tour was timed to take place during sunset, so the lighting was perfect.


Honorable mention goes to the Dead Sea resort; we really enjoyed floating around while basking in the warm sunlight, and also to the felucca ride we did in Aswan, which I thought was much more fun than being on the sundeck of our cruise ship. I like small boats.

Best Man-Made Sights
I'd heard a lot about the "indoor ski resort" in Dubai, and although it was not as large as I'd expected, it was more striking because it was located inside the Mall of the Emirates, which I hadn't known. Since it wasn't a very difficult slope, we didn't bother to ski it, but it was cool that we literally were sitting in a second-floor restaurant looking out on the mountain.

We also quite enjoyed our visit to the Wieliczka Salt Mines outside of Krakow. When I'd heard "salt mines", I'd thought that we would be looking at big caves, but I didn't realize that the miners had carved statues, monuments, chapels, and even a cathedral into the rock salt.


Finally, we got to hear a lot about the Aswan Dam while we were in Egypt, and it has certainly made a huge difference to the lifestyle of the Egyptian people, but I must confess that the sight of the dam itself was less than totally amazing. I thought it deserved a mention, though.

Best Ruins
We saw so many ruins during the Middle East part of our trip that at one point D declared himself "ruin-ed out". Then we went to Petra, and it turned out that we were still fascinated, spending nearly two days exploring the "City of Rose".

My top five:
- Luxor and Karnak temples: After seeing Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple on our first day in Upper Egypt, we were wondering why we'd bothered to go to Cairo at well (right, those pesky pyramids). Even after seeing Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Philae over the next few days, my favorite was still Karnak; it seems the grandest and most imposing. Or, maybe I was more easily impressed back then.

- Valley of Kings: Despite being super crowded (and despite me hating people), we had a good time visiting the tombs in the Valley of Kings. We stayed so long in the tomb of Ramesses III that the security guards yelled at us to move along. Between the Valley, and the other West Bank sights (Colossi of Memnon, Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Rameseum, and...), it was a very memorable morning of sightseeing!
- Abu Simbel: The logistics of getting to and from Abu Simbel from Aswan (via Egypt Air, with both flights being delayed) caused us some amount of stress, but both D and I agreed that in the end it was the right decision to go. I also decided that if the headache and hassle had weeded out even half of the potential visitors, I was glad that it was a pain to get there. As for the temples, I think the photos speak for themselves.

- Petra: Jordan had been a late addition to our itinerary, mostly due to the logistical difficulties of getting to Amman (not available on our RTW ticket) and then from Amman to Petra. In the end, not only was Petra as amazing as expected, we also enjoyed Jerash (Roman-era ruins), Karak (Crusade-era ruins), the Dead Sea, and all the Jordanian hospitality. I highly recommend a visit to Jordan.

Surprisingly, the Great Pyramids did not make my list. I wonder if that's common for people visiting Egypt, or whether I'm just weird.

Best Temple/Church/Mosque
We continued to see many many temples, churches, and mosques during the second half of our trip. Many of them were very beautiful, but Saint Petersburg's Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood stands out in my mind. The Biblical mosaics all over the interior are just gorgeous; much more impressive than any of the mosaics we saw in Jordan or in the European museums. I'm not religious at all, but I can certainly appreciate great craftsmanship (craftspersonship?) and artistry. Amazing work.

Most Educational Experience
We very nearly didn't go to Auschwitz because we knew it would be so depressing. In the end, we decided that learning is an important aspect of travel, and we went. As expected, it was a gut-wrenching experience, but also very educational and worthwhile. I was a bit surprised but also heartened (after our many negative experiences with fellow tourists) that nearly everyone was respectful and orderly during the visit.