Where did we get bed bugs from?

Where did we get Bed Bugs?

This is a difficult question, simply because bed bug bites are similar, atleast in size, to mosquito bites. What distinguishes them is their frequency, as we learned today. It is 4:30 PM on my first lazy Saturday of November. I've passed my time boiling our clothes and freezing the rest of our meager belongings in the fridge. (How many of you have frozen a Quran before?)

Intermittently, I've been practicing my arabic verb combinations with Ahmed, the animated Sultan Hostal Manager. Ahmed is a skinny turkish man who spends most of the day reprimending me while teaching me arabic, how to cook, and how to be a "woman." He has many odd jobs from owning a band, being a party-planner, to being a screen writer/actor. He spent a good hour today spraying the room we lived in with turpentine-y solution out of a spray bottle. When going to my new bed-bug "free" room(A night or two should tell us if we really are rid of the beasts), it's hard not to peek into the room of the long term (8 years) guest next to us; sprawling electrical cords, underware, accompained by the Asian-I've-been-here-too-long smell greet us at the door. The hotel is remarkably priced, 3$/night, which encourages people to stay for many months, as a sort of gateway apartment to Cairo. It is filled with Koreans and Japanese, which makes me think Lonely Planet Asia Edition recommended the Sultan at some point 5 years ago, because all the reading material and signs in the bathroom around here is in Japanese.

The water I washed my clothes in came up an opague murky gray, indicating the 3 weeks I spent prior to this traveling around Masr (Egypt). Jess, Joe and I flew at an unsustainable pace... To be continued...

Kilometers to go.. before we sleep.

Bawk!

I just figured out after 20 minutes on this computer how to change the keyboard from Arabic to English…

If that is any indication, the fact of the matter is Joe and I are NOT in Greece. We are in Egypt and have sadly not been as vigilant in updating our blog. Logistics and adventure-seeking has taken over our life, leaving little time to write.

Last I left off with a jaunt through Greece with my parents. Soon after that, Joe and I flew into a rainy Barcelona where we realized our hard-earned money was going to burn quickly, in spite of the increasingly favorable euro to dollar exchange rate. Given this and a chance encounter with a man named Dost, or friend in Hindi, Joe and I set off on a less than whirlwind, but more than exciting trip around Spain.

Our first couple of nights in Barcelona, we spent time with Dost, a German man who was riding by bike from Turkey to Morocco. The trip sounded ridiculously masochistic, but the more time we spent with him, the more the trip sounded like medicine to our adventure-seeking souls. Especially given the fact I was hobbling around the cobbled streets of Barcelona due to some freak knee injury. (It doesn’t really make sense that riding a bike would fix your knees but it worked!) Within 24 hours of meeting dost, we found ourselves in the Decathalon sporting goods store purchasing 2 bikes, 2 sets of road tires, 2 helmets, 2 sleeping bags, 2 carryalls, and a glorified parasol, we called a “tent.” We left the famous Gaudi La Familia Sangrada cathedral un-seen in our dust as we began making our way down the coast of Spain towards Valencia.

Dost was in love with India. His hair dreaded, mystical tattoos, and a case of strict vegetarian-ism, might cause one to write him off quickly. After talking to him for more than 2 minutes, you’d find out that he didn’t give a shit if you didn’t like him. He was a clean “hippee:” he brushed his teeth for 5 minutes at a time, bought nice pieces of equipment, and kept them for a lifetime. He rode on “Ganesh”, an old but sturdy steel road bike with “Ohms” and feathers placed accordingly for good luck. He convinced us in his genevan german accent that, “You don’t need much,” an adage we repeat to each other as we look hungrily on a piece of kitschy merchandise we could buy. We spent one night on a cliff above the sea with him in our tent overlooking a harbor, while trains rumbled below us every 5 hours. We found a make-shift home in our state of homeless-ness.

We lost Dost after one day. In the hubris of our new metallic wings, we sprinted ahead on his command due to technical issues. Within 20 minutes we lost the way the three of us agreed to take, and found ourselves on an interstate. We were soon escorted off by the Spanish police. Losing Dost wasn’t a major disaster, because he truly had a purpose on the road, and Joe and I still had to find ours. Convoluting his trip with our n00b status wasn’t beneficial to anyone. We held the memory of Dost and his minimalist philosophy as we rode to the nearest gas station, purchased a map, and continued around Spain for the next two weeks. Whizzing by orange groves in Valencia, and sleeping in olive forests around Cordoba, we really SAW Spain. We know the name of ever little costal town from Barcelona to Valenica, and then Granada through Cordoba to Sevilla. The kilometers didn’t matter. Nor did the fact we subsisted on baguettes, chocolate, and GIANT BEANS, for two weeks. Meeting dost has cemented my belief in following the signs the universe sends you.

I loved the natural flow that riding my bike ( I named her “Lady”) had to offer. Reminiscent of yoga and meditation at 20 km/hr, biking healed my knee, and brought the semiblance of peace to my spirit as we rode for about 6-7 hours a day. Dodging camiones (semi trucks) on the narrow shoulders of the N-232 still left half my brain to ponder things outside of the 6 feet that set me apart from imminent death. One day we rode almost 130 km from Granada to Cordoba. It was a personal physical triumph! We saw everything from road side prostitutes giving us blank smiles, to orange farmers inviting us to his house for coffee. We weren’t responsible to anyone but ourselves. The only requirement we had was to find the perfect place to setup a tent by sundown. (After sleeping awkwardly on a hill, and then on a cold concrete slab, we are more than professionals at finding the perfect sleeping place).

As we encountered few people on the road as we rode, Joe and I further cemented our traveling relationship with each other. Our most common phrase to other people was, “Donde esta el supermercado?” The dynamic between two people riding together translates significantly off the bike. We emotionally and physically powered through injury, exhaustion, and hunger, leaving us with great moments under the stars, sweaty in our sleeping bags. Showers became the currency of happiness as we went many days without them on the road. The same goes for cooked and spiced (not spicy, just taste-ful) food.

The more we travel, even in the deserts of Africa, we meet other bikers doing their own trips around the world. I thoroughly recommend this mode of travel to anyone with a down payment of 200 euros and the time to travel by bike for a couple weeks. I am sure we will do this again. Especially when we run out of money, probably in India ;)

That’s all folks!
Namita

Greece

I am writing this post from the safety and comfort of Ryan Corces apartment in Madrid, Spain. It has been a harrowing and beautiful three weeks and I would like to take a minute to TRY to relate the craziness of our lives…

Greece:

From around the 12th of October to the 18th, Joe and I took a hiatus from our pastoral lives to visit my family in Greece. After a couple whirlwind nights in my truly favorite city so far on the trip, Naples, we made our way to Bari, Italy where we took a ferry to Corfu, Greece. Easy right? I said a well-earned goodbye to Italy from ontop of the dark deck of the ferry as we slid down the Eastern coast of Italy towards the bluer waters of the Ionian Sea. We awoke to garbled message over the intercom and a peach sunrise of Corfu. We saw trucks exiting the belly of the ferry and slowly began the process of collecting our meager belongings and getting off the ferry. I was particularly excited because I knew that there was a large chance, despite my inability to create a clear line of communication without a cell phone or internet, that my parents were waiting for me on the other side of this 9 hour ferry. I calmly asked one of the crew members if this was truly Corfu and if we could exit the ship…in response I received some hand-waving and the incomprehensible but clearly enunciated fact that we were on our way to Igonemitsu. Surely enough, looking out the window, we saw the same scene of Corfu town sliding by, in the other direction as we left the port, with us still on the ship!
My waterworks started and the officer even tried calling the engine room to see if it was possible to turn the ship around. Sadly no, and we were on our way to Igonemitsu. In my mind I thought this was another 9 hour ferry, and the comfort of my parents after a long month in Italy just at my fingertips made me very sad. However, it was really only a 1 hour ferry, and we would be back in Corfu just 4 hours later with the mountain of finding my parents on this GORGEOUS greek island left. Joe was a trooper and carried my bag half the time we meandered our way to Corfu town in search of an internet café. (My knee at this point in time of the trip was all messed up and hurt to walk). We eventually found them on the other side of Corfu at Glyfada beach. After some showering and feeding we were back to normal after the harrowing 24 hours. We even were given our OWN hotel room with our OWN bathroom. The next week we spent riding around Greece in a car, looking at seriously old structures and sites. Like 2000 years before Christ old.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Ferrenti Farm

"John! You go in...in there!¨ Massimo is pointing at his old lamborghini tractor trailer and I gladly hop in. The trailer is a large red metal box attached hydrolically to the back of the tractor. After I swing in, he lifts the box about 3 ft off the ground and begins to drive up the road to the chestnut grove about a kilometer away. We drive by where I talked to the old man with a magpie in a cage who was weaving leaves into a chianti bottle yesterday. All of Italy, it seems, is rediculous mountain vistas and vinyards. A spunky brown stray dog yips at the tractor and even chases it a ways as we pass by. After a while the stray slows to a trot and then gives up completly. About a hundred yards later an IDENTICLE stray dog does the same thing. I lean back and enjoy my ride. When Massimo stops, I think we have only pulled off the roat into a short deadend. ¨There are many herb" he says. Beneath several feet of brambles and vines and even small trees, there is a red fence just barely visible. We hack away with our slashers until the gate is clealy visible. It is on runners and using the slasher as a lever we are just able to open the gate about an inch. Using the gate as a batteringram we eventually manage to open it completly. This feels very much like a secret passage we are uncovering. I hop back in my box. Massimo lifts me up and with the tractor and we barrel over a whole road of the overgrowth it took us so long to cut through just a few feet of with the slashers. Massimo drops me off at the top of a hill where I meet up with Rosa (Massimos wife and the owner of the farm) and Jennifer (an older woofer from London.) I spend the rest of the day collecting chestnuts from the ground into a wicker basket. Jennifer points out that I can brag to my friends about my first ride in a Lamborghini.

joe

Random Walk Through Campania

Hey Family and Friends,

Its been awhile since I have written in this blog thing. Joe and I have safely and happily left the Abruzzo region of Italy and now are west of Naples in Avellino. We are staying with a wonderful family that run a farm here. They grow hazlenuts, walnuts, almonds, figs, saint fruit (my new favorite fruit), and WINE. They grow an old sweet grape called fjana, and its super old from like the 11th century. They make wine and everything else organically. Somehow they skip the femermeation process...still unsure how that works...
The daily chores range from cutting and burning wood, gathering walnuts and chestnuts, and cooking. Ieri (yesterday) we baked hazelnuts and made REAL LIFE nutella!! It was more poignant than the store bought kind, but Joe made it snazzy but adding Miele (honey). These days I think in Italian, especially by myself. I think my learning curve is pretty logarithmic at this point and I need to get out a dictionary and learn some new everyday words. This may not be that useful down here in Naples, because many people speak Napolitan, which is a whole new language mixing greek, spanish, latin, and italian. It reflects well the stormy past of the city. The weather is lovely down here! Today I spent the day in Northern Naples selling fruit and nuts at an organic farmers market. For those that know me well it isnt that far from my volunteer job at school, but selling to boisterous Napoliteans instead of the Princeton Upper crust is a little different...as you can imagine.
At Rosas farm, we eat really healthy food everyday, and my body is healing from the jabs that travelling can dole. Joe and I have a new record of 4 weeks of time spent together! Our previous record was three when we went to Peru. I think I will load pictures sometime soon or our trip so far. We have to capture one of these amazing sunsets over Mt. Vecuvius.


So the past week, we spent time in Rome with two lovely couchsurfer hosts, Stephanie and Annie. For those who have not surfed, you HAVE to. Its without a doubt the best way to see a city, and its free. We spent three days exploring Roman night life, museams, fontanas, and cathedrals. St. Peters Basillica was OUT OF THIS WORLD. It was one giant statement that hey, we may or may not be the foremost relgion in the world, and they guy leading us...may be the spokesperson of god. It was very cool. Religion here is sort of neat, its very reminiscent of a polytheistic religion. Catholicsm in my mind, mabye from history classes has always been a grim and unyielding set of rules...but here I realize more than ever it is super colorful, and truly had to be in such a colorful place! Saints here are very reminiscent of polytheism, and probably had to be from Italys Roman roots...okay i am done speculating...
The Sistine Chapel and the Popes Museam of Art was truly breathtaking. We almost didnt pay the moeny to go, because we are truly poor, but came out so much richer.

This evening Joe and I snuck into a soccer stadium and kicked the ball, (who we named Claire), around. These are the small highlights of these beautiful days. It might have been the chocolate covered fig I ate earlier...unsure.

For the adults that might be reading this, do not worry! Joe and I think of grad school almost everyday and get more and more excited to go. It is the glorious stable light at the end of this crazy tunnel.

Our future plans go so far: We leave Italy from Rome on October 18th for Barcelona. We plan to swing through Granade, Toledo, and finally end up in Madrid for Halloween to see Ryan Corces. Then on November 3rd we fly to Cairo to meet my love, Jess, who will hopefully guide us through Egypt and the holy land(s). Finally we will buy a ticket to South Africa at the end of the month from either Tel Aviv or Cairo. Need to do that soooner than later :)
If anyone reads this, can they send me an email telling me what in the world is going on over in the US right now? I really dont want to be stuck in Europe because the dollar doesnt mean anything anymore!! Just kidding thats probably not the case at all.

Alright Thats all Folks! Ciao Belli!
Namita

L'aperegina

Alright. So its dark outside...and raining...I think its about midnight. This farm is rediculous. Our LIVES have been rediculous so far. After being shown an amazing time in L'Aquila with David (he works in an underground mountain fortress...science doesn't get any cooler) we figured that our cushy vacation was about to toughen up. I just reread Nams post about "manual labor" HA.

So far my manual labor has consisted of painting a pot, picking blackberries and playing with a goat (more on Nina later). If we were on vacation before, now we are living in a resort. We actually kind of literally are living in a resort. L'aperegina is a small organic farm but primarily functions as a bed and breakfast. There are all sorts of nicely manicured and decorated rooms that the guests stay in. Me and Namitas job is to be something between a curiosity for the guests and a servant. At least thats what we would be if there were any guests here. We missed the high season though which means our chores are just to feed the ducks, donkey and goat. And to set and clear the table. Everynight there are about 2 or 4 friends of Marino and Eliday who come over and regale each other with what sound like fantastic stories but becuase they are in Italian I can only guess.

Actally, my Italian is comming along a bit. I would say I catch about every 5th word that is said, which is just enough to get the gist of what everyone is talking about. Mostly it seems to be about food.

(to be continued)

We are actually Abroad Finally.

It's kind of crazy to think that 6 days have past and we have literally countless more to go before our 9 months is up. We are in Abruzzo Italy with our friend David who works in the National Nuclear Physics lab in L'aquila, Italy. Our Italian is coming along nicely as we spent the weekend in Bologna at the beach with 12 guys and girls from David's basketball team while living in a camper.

We visited David's family to get the camper and was priveleged to taste grapes from his garden as well as FIGS, which besides the minor allergic reaction I had to them, are my new favorite fruit. The grades tasted like something between champagne grapes and basil; two of my favorite things.

Besides being able to do laundry last night, the highlight of the day was stopping at a rocky secluded beach and were able to see the sunset while swimming in a perfectly blue ocean.

We are getting into the groove of traveling and have found that if we want to make it work, we are going to have to spend less that 15 dollars a day for our entire trip in Europe. That sounds difficult but between getting free accomadation through WWOOF and couch surfing I really believe it is possible.

Our Italian is coming along quickly, and we are almost able to be conversational...but severely limited to the present tense.

We leave on Wednesday to go to our first WWOOF farm, L'aperegina. We will check in soon with how difficult manual labor REALLY is. The gist of our future plans are as follows:

Italy, Naples Oct 1-->15th
Spain Oct 15th-->Nov 1
Egypt (to see Jess) Nov 1-->Nov 15th
Botswana and South Africa Nov 16th-->January 1st...

Then who knows!

Well, ci vediamo presto, CIAO!
Namita

Italy HO!

Hello all,

So it's been awhile but we finally have a plan of action! In a more an intelligent decision, Joe and I decided that getting one of these round the world trip tickets for a longer trip like ours wasn't practical given that we could get sick or hurt and need to come back early... Instead we calculated how much our trip would cost if we just bought cheap one-way tickets, and found it to be surprisingly much more affordable. After dallying with the idea of going to Brazil, buying tickets and the WWOOF list, we decided it would be ironically more inexpensive to go straight to Italy (a ticket from Brazil to Europe ran about $800).

Joe found a great fare across the pond to England on SEPTEMBER 4th! Then we got a ridiculously cheap fare from RyanAir (10 bucks) to Italy. We are flying into Bologna, staying at the beach with our good friend David and then meeting up at our first WWOOF farmstay. The farm is called L'Ape Regina. www.laperegina.com. Read about their TREEHOUSE! Apparently it causes young couples to conceive....so if you are having problems....

Anyways, after a couple weeks here we are moving south to a lovely farm in Campania, 1 mile away from the beach and also in the middle-of-nowhere-gorgeous-Italy.

All this sounds wonderful, but I am beginning to realize that farm work is going to actually be really difficult.

I am also beginning to work on my Italian, so from here in Tennessee: Arrivederci Y'all.

Northface BackTrack 50 and Quickdry Towels

So our first major purchase is waiting for us back at the apartment...I can't wait to open it! After much debate about straps, zippers, compartments, daypacks, and volumetrics, me and nam found the perfect packs.
This one is not too big, not too small, not too heavy, not too flimsy, not too expensive etc etc.. it is perfect. This red one up top is mine and Nam got the same one in black


We also ordered two large "Quickdry" towels which are kinda foamy felty things which claim to circumvent the rotting mildew problem we ran into with the cotton towels we traveled with last adventure. Mine is an apricot/curry/orange, Namita's is blue. I kind of like this color coding of all our possessions...


In other trip related news, I went into McCosh today and made an appointment to see Helen the travel nurse. It was super fun to answer the receptionist's question, "And where are you planning to go?..." "Oh you know, Batswana, South Africa, Indonesia, Italy..." By the time I got to Brazil and Argentina she had stopped writing down what I was saying. Our first meeting will be a 45 minute syringe extravaganza. In about two weeks, I should have a brand new immune system. Stoked...

We have an itinerary!

So Carmella from STA travel totally came through. Here is a tentative itinerary that was given to us yesterday. She gave us a quote around $4800 for the entire trip, which does not seem bad at all!

In a nutshell:

30 days in Brazil (September)
1 week Argentina
1 week Spain
30 days Italy (October/November)
1 week Bulgaria
2 weeks Istanbul/Turkey
2 months South Africa/Botswana (January/February)
1 week Ethiopia
2 months India (Feb/March)
1 month Thailand/Indonesia
1 week Tokyo

FLY HOME!

It sounds awesome, but I think it may be a liiiiitle too much. I was hoping to not spend more than $4000. Also after talking to some friends of Forrest's up here in New Hampshire, I think a trip to China might be cool too. Joe and I are more beach/nature people so my first impression of China is that it may be more developed...

ANYWAYS. Happy fourth of July weekend. If anyone...actually...reads this...
Namita

Some Updates

Hey all!



So nothing spectacularly new going on in Princeton, NJ. Joe and I are working in our respective labs, playing a ton of incredible soccer, and getting really excited for leaving. Our projected date of departure is September 1st 2008! We have gotten in touch with "Carmela" from STA travel who has alleviated a lot of our initial questions and worries about using round the world trip tickets. Before when we were investigating Star Alliance and other places, we had to use this silly online application that made an itinerary that you could submit to the airline.

STA travel on the other hand, and Carmela specifically just wants us to give a prioritized list of the countries that we want to go to and they will find the cheapest way for us to go to hit them all. For example, we really want to go to Brazil, South Africa, and Italy. Given these destinations Carmela can find the right order to go in, and also whether some legs might be better cut out if they are too expensive. We estimate that the tickets will cost us ~3,000-4,000 dollars.

In other news, Joe, Forrest, and I have been listening to this Moth Story-telling radio broadcast. If you get a chance listen to it at: themoth.com. So good. That is all! (Picture is of Joe on the oceanside of Campeche, Mexico).

Our First Post: Namita and Joe's Ridiculous Adventure

Dear Readers, Family, and Friends,

This is the first of hopefully many posts that will hopefully help other graduates through their way around the world.  After successfully completing our senior years at Princeton University, Joe Rokicki and I, Namita Bisaria, plan to set off "adventuring" this next year around the world!  It all sounds very grand, but as we are in the planning period of our adventures we are running into a few ruts here in there in terms of logistics and money.  

To begin, it is important that we lay out the premise and history of our travel.  Joe and I met in our integrated science coursework together, he is an electrical engineer and I am a molecular biologist.  We are both going to graduate school following our "gap year" and he is studying synthetic biology and I am doing "systems" biology ( which I don't even know what exactly that entails).  We have been backpacking, naively so, to the Yucatan region of Mexico and the Southern part of Peru.  Both of these incredible trips showed us that we work well together as traveling companions and have a miraculous "magic" about our journeys such that everything always works out no matter what ridiculous thing we attempt.  It might be that we are incredibly optimistic such that the most dismal of situations can have a hidden upside that we find (like the freezing night I spent on a beach in a blanket but got to see the sunrise).  Who knows.  

It is important to note for various reasons that Joe and I are NOT romantically involved and will never be for the remainder of our traveling relationship.  This is an important factor to our dynamic and moreover for our family and significant others.  

Our motivation to travel is as most backpacker's motivation: to see the world and learn the local language, colors, customs, and cultures of the places we visit.  We want to travel light and live off of our ability to talk to people and make connections.  Rather than jump from hostel to hostel, we want to stay in a place and learn and contribute to the landscape there, whether it be working on an organic farm, joining an local arts, health, or education organization, or playing and organizing soccer.  There are a couple of organizations we have been in contact with or researched for our trip: World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farming (WWOOF), World of Good Fair Wage Fellowship, Grassroots Soccer in Africa, and Sarala micro-financing institution in West Bengal/Calcutta regions.  We are also going to visit some of our much cooler and more organized friends who have received fellowships to do humanitarian projects abroad, such as our friend Katy Digovich who won the Compton Fellowship to setup an AIDS adherence program through text-messaging in Botswana, and Emmie (I don't know her last name Joe), who received a Fulbright to teach English at a school in Indonesia.  If anyone who reads this has other organizations that need volunteers and moreover will GIVE MONEY for us to travel please post!  

Our current status is as follows:  We need funds to travel.  We estimate right now that it will take over 9,000 dollars to travel for a year comfortably.  Who wants to travel comfortably?  We will need ~ 4,000 dollars to pay for the RTW airfare alone (see Star Alliance RTW trip fares).  We have some idea of where we want to go but it isn't definite.  A potenial trajectory goes: US-->Brazil--> Argentina-->Italy?-->South Africa-->Botswana-->Mauritas-->India-->Signapore (with other parts of SE Asia)-->Indonesia-->Japan-->New Zealand-->US.  Those are at least the places that we have talked about going.  Who knows at this point, it really all depend on getting contacts and money.

Finally, we will be updating a traveling "Manifesto," contributed to by Joe and I, in order to keep our relationship and motivation during travels safe.   

Thank you for reading!

Namita Bisaria

Joe Rokicki