State Pharaoh

Many of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs ruled over a united Egypt (both upper and lower), controlling a vast area along the Nile. We could understand the huge distance covered because we had taken an hour-long flight from Cairo to Luxor, traveled farther south along the Nile by ship to Aswan, and then flown on another […]

Upper Egypt

Somewhat confusingly, upper Egypt is farther south than lower Egypt, but that’s just because of our concept of north and south. Upper Egypt is higher up altitude-wise, and logically the Nile flows from upper elevations to lower ones all the way to the delta in northern Egypt out to the Mediterranean. After Luxor and Kom […]

In a State of DeNile

First, allow me to express my deep gratitude for having such a wonderful and unforgettable travel opportunity with my father! I don’t take it for granted. He’s an excellent travel partner, up for nearly anything, and having amazing travel stamina, almost always getting up in the morning before I do, ready for exploration and new […]

Cruising the Nile

On our final morning in Cairo before the cruise, we received a wakeup call at 3:49am. It’s difficult to recover from jet lag with that type of schedule! We flew to Luxor to begin the cruise on the ship River Tosca, with its capacity of 82 guests. We first visited the Karnak Temple, a vast […]

Cairo, Part One 🇪🇬

After an almost eight-hour wait in the Munich airport, during which we took long power naps in the quiet terminal, we finally arrived in Cairo, exhausted but excited. We had flown EgyptAir from Munich on a modern plane with a feature-rich seatback entertainment system which offered a travel prayer from the Quran prior to takeoff. […]

Age of Discovery

Portugal’s exploration of the world is quite astounding, as is its eventual control and influence over such a high percentage of the planet, especially for such a small place. Its slavery history is repugnant, and coincidentally while in Porto I watched the movie Woman King, where much of the film revolves around the Portuguese slavers […]

Lisboa

Lisbon is not my favorite Portuguese city. Certainly there are some cool attractions and interesting history and beautiful viewpoints. But I much preferred Porto and Sintra, and now that I’ve been in Portugal for over 1.5 weeks, I’m mostly seeing the same Portuguese things again like azulejos, pastel de nata, cod, canned fish, port wines, […]

Vamos à Praia

On a beautiful sunny Saturday with mid-60s (F) temps, I took a cheap Uber ride out to the ocean, where I visited Praia Grande (big beach) and then walked up and over to Praia das Maçãs, another nice beach. Both were strangely empty on such a nice Saturday afternoon. I guess the Portuguese are like […]

That Sounds Fishy

Seafood is very popular in Portugal, unsurprisingly given its long coastline. For historical reasons from 500 years ago and a connection to Newfoundland in Canada, the Portuguese love cod, which they have to import. Grocery stores sell huge salted and dried codfish fillets called Bacalhau, which are rehydrated before preparation for eating. Apparently these could […]

Koreans Love Zagreb

When visiting Zagreb in the past year, Colleen and I saw very few Asian tourists, but on this trip there are clearly many more. Our tour guide says that they are mostly Koreans! The reason is that there have been very popular Korean TV shows filmed in Zagreb, and as such there is a direct […]