extremes (updated)

 

Looking back on our trip from Hong Kong, these are some of the things that stand out.  Updates to the post extremes, from November, are in blue.

The Good

• best live music – choir in Hallgrimskirkja (church) in Reykjavik, Iceland
  

• best dance music – in Istanbul (small sample size, N=1)
  
• place we’re most eager to return to – Istanbul
  
• nicest train – (C) Vienna to Budapest (J) Singapore MRT, due to the lack of doors between each train car.  Whoah!  Everything is bendy!
  
• best wwoof farm – the olive-picking farm in Umbria, Italy  Sorry, Italy: we have to go with the lemon/avocado Moroccan farm.  Read about it in the posts wonderful wwoofing in morocco and  wwoof write-up.
  
• best skyline – (J) Istanbul Hong Kong (C) Florence
  
• prettiest church – Saint Chappelle in Paris with the large stained glass windows in the small church

• most impressive Roman building/ruin – (C) the Pantheon in Rome (J) the baths of Caracalla in Rome  Dougga in Tunesia, even if a lot of it was rebuilt. 
  
• best treasure collection – the Hapsburg’s collection in Vienna (much better than the Medici collection in Florence)
  
• best drink – 75 cent 35 cent fresh squeezed orange juice in Istanbul Marrakesh…. or maybe the $9 dollar Leffe Browns in Jerusalem after three weeks in Morocco.
  
• best new drink – Floc de Gasgogne in Normandy
  
• best dessert – (C) chocolate dipped candied lemon rind in Perugia homemade fresh lemon tart at the Moroccan wwoof farm (J) lemon gelato in Florence
  
• nicest strangers – (C) people in Normandy who picked us up while hitchhiking (J) man who gave us books on Hinduism when we wandered into a temple (in Singapore’s little India) to watch singing and dancing.  He didn’t really speak English, but he wanted us to have those books!
  
• best dining experience – the Weinbau (wine bar) Stadlmann in Vienna where a glass of (recent house) wine costs 1,3 €, the food is delicious, cheap and cafeteria style, the atmosphere is cozy and it is completely fine to play a board game while eating and drinking.  (J) Singapore hawker centers!
  
• best park – Versailles or le Jardin de Luxembourg in France (C) Park overrun by cats near the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (J) Singapore botanic(al) gardens.
  
• best meal – handmade gnocchi with organic white truffle sauce in Umbria, Italy (J) Chicken tagine, Moroccan salad, fresh fruit and ‘Berber whiskey’ at the Sahara dunes.  (C) Each successive meal at the Moroccan wwoof farm, including eggplant/tomato bruschetta, tomato/avocado/onion/lemon salad, lamb, stews and lots of ginger, lemon, and garlic.
  
• best swim –  (C) the Blue Lagoon in Iceland Dead Sea in Israel (J) Szechenyi Bath in Budapest with its ‘angry’ river.
  
  
• best art museum – (J) Uffizi in Florence, (C) the Borghese gallery due to the masterful sculptures by Bernini, or the Kunsthistoriches in Vienna, with its thematic exhibit, good bathrooms, and frequent benches.

Apollo and Daphne (1625) and The Rape of Proserpina (1622) by Bernini at the Borghese Gallery in Rome.  My favorite was is on the left and Jack’s is on the right.  Either way, these are by far the best sculptures we’ve seen.

• most fortunate travel coincidence – visiting the Duomo in Siena during the 6 weeks a year where the amazing floors are on display

• best call to prayer – When we were in Jerusalem, we thought it was home to the best muezzins (maybe to compete with the church bells), but that was before we heard the beautiful call to prayer in Amman.  The topography helped, bouncing the sound back and forth between the hills and making Amman the clear winner
  
• Best tourist information – Iceland, though getting around Singapore is so easy one doesn’t even have any questions to ask.
  
• Most entertaining animal behavior – (C) ferocious three-way goose fight at the Malaysian wwoof farm and (J) two horses and a dog chasing each other around the field in Normandy.

• Best hike – Umm al Biyara in Petra, Jordan. 
  
• Best (mostly) walled city: (C) Rome, (J) Jerusalem
  
• Most “lunar” experience – a toss-up between the Sahara and Iceland.
  

• Best travel innovation (by us) – (C) putting her hours of eyebrow tweezing to good use to extract a fish bone from Jack’s throat. (J) taking advantage of the water heater in our damp, cold Jerusalem room to make our water bottles into HOT water bottles.  It was a Christmas miracle!

The Less Than Good

• most power lines dangling over and on the sidewalks – Bucharest
  
• most footsore moment – in Glaises (Faverges) after hiking twice as long as planned with all of our stuff (J) I was pretty footsore in Petra, on the third day of hiking, after climbing up the Umm al Biyara… but it was a good sore.  My MOST footsore moment, however, came after a day of emulating the locals and walking around Singapore in flip-flops
  
• biggest letdown by google maps – the Gîte de l’École de Glaises which was about 3 miles up a mountain from where the maps said it was (see the most footsore moment, above)  Amman, Jordan - not only was google maps missing most of the streets, but searching was completely useless. 
  
• biggest rip off – 8€ Leffe beers in Paris.  This was our own fault. 
  
• most expensive feeling city – (C) Florence (J) Jerusalem in the moment I realized the exchange rate was 3.8 shekels per dollar, not 7.6…  oops.
  
• most smoky city place– Florence our windowless hotel room in Hong Kong, unfortunately
  
• most aggressive sales people – the rose pushers by the Spanish steps in Rome Ha ha ha ha, we were so young and innocent back then.
  
• worst planning error – not noting which side of the Danube our train arrived on in Budapest and therefore walking the exact wrong way (in the dark without a map)
  
• longest line – for the Bayeux tapestry in France where tour groups got to cut the line and the French people around us flew into a rage  (J) The line to get into St. Peters in Rome was way longer, but more expected.
  
• hardest place to communicate – Bucharest The Egged bus company information counter in Jerusalem… and not because they didn’t speak English. 
  
• what we miss the most – (C) Emo the cat, my clothes, and having an income (J) not living out of a small bag
  
• worst swim – in Corsica with the jellyfish (J) trying to paddle our windsurfing boards back in with no wind, against the current, in Singapore.
  
  
• most disappointing Lonely Planet pick – the Pirana Club in Bucharest, which was supposed to be in a happening student area and turned out to be in a cluster of two restaurants in the middle of nowhere
  
• worst museum – the ones in Mont Saint Michel, outside of the abbey itself
  
• worst credit card readers – all automatic ticket machines in France, Italy and Austria and the whole country of Romania
  
• most disappointing travel coincidence – the unexpected and unexplained closure of the Coliseum, the Forum and Palatine Hill
  
• worst sidewalks – (J) Istanbul with the downward staircases carved out (think Aggrocrag) (C) Bucharest with the construction,dogs, dog poop and wires  We have a new winner:  The Amman sidewalk with a sheer drop of about 30 ft to one side:
  
  
• worst candy – Iceland with the salty licorice or maybe the surprisingly bad Tunisian chocolate
  
• worst couch surfing experience – in Rekjavik with Sabrina (who lied or at least strongly mislead us)
  
  
• worst payphones – Romania where the phones appear to have enough memory for only 10-12 digits, meaning it is not possible to enter a calling card pin (J) Hong Kong, where our calling card is supposed to work, but where in reality the pay phones will not call any number (even toll-free) without putting change in
  
• worst bathrooms – France with the unexpectedly constant smell of pee, even when things look clean
  
• hottest day – picking tomatoes and peppers in Piedmont, Italy  Walking the approximately 1.5 miles from KL Sentral to our hostel in KL, wearing jeans, warm socks and our backpacks.  Welcome to Southeast Asia, Cari!
  
• coldest evening/night/morning – in Umbria with no heat but the fireplace
  
• worst sprint with our packs on – to the ferry in Nice (45 minutes of speed walking followed by about 20 minutes of running)
  

Obviously good wins out.  Definitely