Dubai during Ramadan...oh what a feeling!

Journal Entry - Oct 14, 2005.

Woke up this morning to a bright, sunny and beautiful day. We are in Dubai UAE and after our 14 hour flight from NYC; we slept like babies last night. Darrell is just waking up and apparently his back hurts. OK - a few minutes later, Darrell can barely walk, his back is out due to our 14 hour flight which was a bit uncomfortable as the seats were clearly made for anorexic midgets....which is kind of ironic as, Darrell comes closer to fitting that bill than I do yet my back feels great?! Darrell is in such pain we head over to the Dubai hospital. Flight to UAE $1,200; fancy hotel in Downtown Dubai $400 a night, spending the first morning of your vacation in a gender segregated hospital....PRICELESS! Yes, I said gender segregated. The women have to stay within the "women's area" and the men can, of course, roam free....naked if they like because they are men.
So I wait in the "Women's only" area and am stared at by everyone who walks past. They give Darrell some kind of shot which does nothing but make him more annoying....which frankly, I didn't think was possible. Then they dope him up on pain pills which also does nothing. Anyway, Darrell is in pain but we are in Dubai and he swears he is going to be a trooper so off we go. Its mid-October but it’s hotter than hell here. It’s about 98 degrees with 95% humidity...oh did I mention that it’s Ramadan? Yah, Darrell is the genius who planned our trip to Dubai during Ramadan. Half of the bars and nightclubs are closed and we can’t eat or drink anything in public (not even water) between sun up and sun down. Did I mention it was 98 degrees?? Also, because it’s Ramadan, I can’t wear shorts and instead don a long cotton skirt and a tank top (read: HOT), technically the tank top is a no-no but at this point I don't really give a shit!! So we finally leave the hospital and head into town. The first thing we do is board a dowd (boat) for a quick tour of Dubai Creek, the breeze is nice but the men glaring at me... not so nice. So we finish our boat ride and decide to hit the souks to do some shopping. The Souks are amazing!! We start at the textile souk and I purchase a lovely, small, weightless pashmina while Darrell purchases a giant, 500 lb. king size comforter (Yes, I am dead serious). I am now, unfortunately, both human crutch and bag carrying bitch. The next thing Darrell decides he cant live without is a Hooka pipe which is HUGE! Its made of metal and glass and comes in a hard shell carrying case like a mid size suitcase....beast of burden anyone? Did I mention my skirt goes to my ankles and it’s HOT here?? To simply say that its hot does not convey the sheer agony and tortuously unbearable heat, its fucking HOT is more like it! Darrell continues to buy large, unnecessary items and is getting upset that I am increasingly unable to fit everything into MY backpack. My hands are also full while he is comfortably empty handed…wouldn’t want to hurt his back anymore would we…grrrrrrrr. I'm really starting to get bitchy and Darrell, for the life of him, can’t understand why in the world I would be irritable. At about 2pm I mention that I am hungry and Darrell looks at me with absolute disgust. How dare I be hungry after lugging his shit all over Dubai for 4 hours in the heat! See, Darrell is one of those people who isn’t fat but thinks he's fat and therefore starves himself all day and only eats dinner. Me on the other hand ...I like to eat especially if I miss breakfast and have been doing cardio for 4 hours straight. Sadly, Darrell wins this fight because it’s Ramadan and the only way we could possibly eat would be to go all the way back to our hotel where we would have to order room service. This is sounding pretty good to me...drop off the 700 lbs. of crap I'm carrying AND have some lunch and a gallon of water...yes!!! YES!! YES!! But really…..No. Darrell will have none of it, I will have to wait until dinner.
I hate Darrell.
Finally around 5pm we head back to the hotel and now MY back hurts, luckily only its not too bad. I'm tired, hungry, thirsty and BITTER!!! I feel a thousand times better after my cool shower. Now its time to have dinner and drinks!! Of course I am sunburned and when I put my sassy black strapless dress on, I have what looks like a skin colored tank top on with pink arms...lovely! We head to Vu Bar at the top of a giant skyscraper in downtown Dubai. The view is amazing and the drinks are $19 each ...good thing I made Darrell pay (he owes me dammit!) Then we head to another rooftop bar but this one is open air with big cushy couches and lots of soft pillows everywhere, very Kasbah. It also has a beehive fireplaces, yummy drinks and acid jazz.....I am in heaven which is certainly better than the hell I was in all day! While lounging on a couch drinking my Grey Goose Martini (extra dirty please) a giant, prehistoric sized bug whizzes by me mid-sip and in my attempt to scream I shoot olive martini out of my nose. Darrell (who obviously didn’t see the bug) is now looking at me like me like I just bludgeoned and devoured a litter of puppies. He is clearly horrified and so he asks the obvious, "why did you do that?" I’m like....."Well, you know the moon is waning and Venus is rising and Dianna the Huntress claims that during this time, you must spew olive martini out your nose lest you face the hounds of hell” Now he just looks confused but I am laughing hysterically and frankly, if I had any more martini in my now empty glass, I would have gladly shot it out my nose again!

Vomit, Shit and fetid meat in Uganda

(This was an actual email sent home from Uganda)
Phew, today has been one hell of a day.....this will be a long one but worth the read...I promise!! So my day starts at 5:30am and by 6:15 I have eaten breakfast and am waiting in the lobby for my driver to arrive. I am heading to Entebbe which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. From there I will be taking a boat to Ngamba Island where I will visit a chimp orphanage started by Jane Goodall. Darrell & I had "Chinese food" last night at what was supposed to be one of the top 2 restaurants in all of Uganda....I’m convinced the "chicken" dish we semi-enjoyed was not at all chicken as it was oily, fatty and not very good. So my driver picks me up this morning and of course, he is driving like a maniac (this is par for the course in Kampala) I immediately felt that fetid meat gurgling in my tummy. After 45 minutes we arrived in Entebbe. I wasn’t feeling well so I headed to the restrooms, when I got there I found (brace yourselves) 3 toilets completely overflowing with shit....this was my breaking point, last night’s mystery meat took over and I promptly puked all over the floor then filled up the sink with puke too. Phew....finally free from the fetid meat and feeling a bit better, I boarded my boat for Ngamba Island. Being the classic dip-shit that I am, I didn’t think to put on sunscreen and didn’t remember to put any in my bag either.....yah, I'm 150 miles from the friggen equator.... on a boat..... Without sunscreen ...real smart! Needless to say, I am very sunburned! When I finally get back to the hotel around 2pm Darrell (who stayed behind due to not feeling well) is awake, feeling better and rearing to go to Jinja. I on the other hand am tired, hot and sunburned but Darrell doesn’t care about me so we get a taxi and start our 1+ hour journey to Jinja. Not surprisingly, our taxi driver is...you guessed it, a maniac and in this case, the term "maniac" may be giving him a bit too much credit. In Kampala, there are only 2 lanes for traffic; however, there are never less than 4 cars in these 2 lanes all of which are going in every direction. There are also huge potholes, various types of livestock and families of 5 riding on a single moped, limbs hanging out in every direction just asking to be ripped off by a passing taxi...like ours. Did I mention that our taxi's breaks don’t work very well? So when the need to brake arises, our driver simply improvises by swerving into the other lane of oncoming traffic. Miraculously, we make it to Jinja although I am ready to scream! I am relieved to be out of the death car and on my own feet wandering around Jinja. Jinja is quaint, only a few small shops line the streets as its main attraction is being the source of the great Nile River. When our tour is completed, I decide to slip our driver $20 on the down low (I have to do this on the “down low” because Darrell is to damn cheap to tip). Despite Darrell’s frugality, I give my secret tip to the driver and I tell him he had better slow down on the way back or else!! He pretends to agree to my terms and off we go. Once on the road, Darrell is insisting the driver turn the AC on. See Darrell is in the front seat which is actually cooled by the AC; I on the other hand, am in the back seat sweating profusely. The only thing the AC does is blow body odor at me ….full force. I keep asking D to open the windows but he is oblivious to my pain…what else is new!! Suddenly we are diverted from the main road because of an accident. We are sent down a side road with about a million other cars, motorbikes, buses etc. The road is dirt and badly rutted, however this doesn’t seem to faze our driver and he continues at his 90 mph. pace despite the road conditions. Finally he decides he’s had enough of this detour and quickly decides to cut across a soccer field filled with kids. Before we can speed across the child filled field, we have to make it through a ditch which we promptly get stuck in. We have to get out and push…did I mention it was over 100 degrees out?? Moving along, once we are freed from the ditch, our driver steps on it and races across the soccer field honking at the kids who are playing soccer. The kids take off in every direction in an attempt to get away from our speeding taxi. I am in the back seat hiding; I’m trying to hold back my overwhelming desire to SCREAM! Somehow I manage to keep my screams to myself and thankfully, despite the drivers best efforts we leave no carnage in our wake…..yet.
Somehow, we end up back on the street and to another impasse, this time the driver decides to pass on the left (they drive on the left here) and low and behold out of nowhere comes a man walking his bike.....I see it coming, I cover my eyes and then I hear it …. CRASH…. we completely wipe out this guys bike and knock him to the ground in the process. Almost immediately an angry, machete wielding mob assails our taxi. While machetes are a common site in Uganda it was frightening none the less. I try to get out of the taxi with Darrell and our driver and am immediately told to STAY IN THE CAR! The machete people are yelling and waiving their chosen weapons in the air. I’m thinking...Holy shit, this will be a good story for the family…if I live to tell it! Finally, Darrell and the driver strike a deal with the injured man and send him to the hospital (his only injury was a cut knee where a screw from his bike tire "bit" him) the angry mob disperses...phew, that was close! (This is all true; I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried). An hour later, we arrive safe and sound at our hotel in Kampala. Tomorrow we have an 11 hour drive to The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for 3 days of gorilla trekking which I am looking forward too. I have to mention that there is actually more to this day....seriously, think angry Europeans whining about not being able to cuddle & kiss the chimps on Ngamba Island, Darrell trying to buy $80 worth of stuff for $5 and guards armed with machine guns yelling at our driver for who the hell knows what, in a language we don’t understand....again, I couldn’t make this up ....this was my day today...I hope your day was a little better
.

Super Masseuse & The Clutzy Gyrl

We were picked up at 5:45am by Chewy our floating market tour guide. He speaks excellent English and is totally gay…..Angie & I are long time faghag’s so we are thrilled at the prospect of spending our day with Chewy. (he may still be in the closet, however this wasn't immediately determined by the sharp albeit outdated Chrissy & Angie gaydar) We arrive by 7am and it’s nearly a ghost town...perfect! We eat rice balls filled with corn and green onion, deep fried apple bananas and sticky rice with mango. We walk along the canal chowing down on our goodies. By 8am the place is getting packed. Lots of locals enjoying breakfast from one of the many food packed boats. Gay boy takes us to a fruit stand, we sample, dragon fruit, mangosteen, mango, star fruit, jack fruit, longan and tamarind. Mangosteen makes me want to scream happy obscenities...it’s so fucking good (think of it as Mangosteen turrets.)! We continue walking along the canal and suddenly I trip on who the hell knows what… I go flying and my flailing arms swat a large unopened beer bottle into the crowd and onto the wooden floor ...SMASH! Beer and glass shards explode into the crowd. I leave as quickly as I can but within minutes am chased down by the beer stand owner (I'm sure she used my trail of blood to find me) and am asked to pay for the beer…WTF? My clumsiness costs me 80 baht! Chewy informs us that it’s time to take the boat portion of our floating market tour. Along the way, we grab some Thai noodle soup …..because we haven't met our one ton food quota for the day. The soup is great with the exception of the nasty piece of liver I don’t notice and eat first. Suddenly, I am torn from my bowl of soup because I hear a loud splash…..Angie's noodle soup has now contaminated with disgusting klong water! (the Thai waterways are called "Klongs" and they are about as clean as an average Thai toilet)Sadly, Angie is forced to toss the entire bowl of soup and our day is forever split into "pre-contamination" and post-contamination" This concludes the pre-contamination portion of our day.
Post-Contamination …..Unfortunately, the dumping of Angie’s soup has caused us to fall behind in our one ton food goal...we will make up for this loss later in the day. So we continue our boat tour which is pretty interesting; we move uncomfortably close to other boats in the market, it’s a klong traffic jam. We tour the "back side" of the market which is like a mini Venice (minus the lovely buildings and handsome gondoliers). We see people doing their laundry, cleaning their houses etc. It’s very interesting and I am grateful that the butt pirate took us to this rarely seen part of the market. Once our boat tour has ended we return to the docks where we are promptly assaulted by vendors selling Plates (of all things) with our photo on it (unbeknownst to us, they took our photos while we were climbing into the boat...because awkwardly climbing into boats always affords great photo opportunities right)?? Angie's plate is noteworthy as she looks totally FREAKED OUT...you would think she just saw a ping pong show…..oh wait, she did see that…nevermind. We finish our floating market tour and proceed to Samut Songkram Maeklong Station to watch a train run over random produce; rotten fish items and nearly kill hundreds of people. I might be exaggerating a little...but not really. We walk along the railroad tracks, the vendors are set up on both sides almost completely covering the tracks. They are selling everything “edible” and I use this term very loosely as I am referring to “food” items like snake, frog, eel and fish jerky. The vendors low awnings coupled with the railroad tracks make this trek a bit scary for me. Situations like this lend themselves to my penchant for tripping and wiping out on even the smallest portion of uneven ground. Normally I end up on the group or even better, knocking the shit outta someone or someone’s "stuff". While waiting for the train we drink Thai iced tea and eat fried rice. Finally the train arrives about 20 minutes late. It’s truly amazing how fast awnings, people and hideous food items move to barely allow the trains passage. Angie and I now munch on sesame honey candy, and sticky rice cooked in a bamboo shoot (we are quickly approaching our one ton goal). On the way back to Bangkok, man lovin’ Chewy tells us about a place with a $25 2 hour massage! We have him make us an appointment for later that day. We arrive at the massage parlor and its beautiful (no happy endings here). It looks like a NY city spa and we are excited (or at least I am in the beginning...I lost a Little excitement when I had to wear men's shoes b/c they had no women's shoes in my HUGE and UNHEARD of size 9). The mens shoes are too big and in order to keep them on I must hang my toes over the end of the shoe ...seriously, one of my all time worst pet peeves…toes hanging over the edge of shoes…..arghhhh!!!! Ang and I decide to have a "couples" style massage, so we can be right next to eachother. Our massage is broken down into 1 hour sessions. The first is traditional Thai massage and the second is an aromatherapy Swedish massage. Between the two massages, we are left alone and asked to strip down and put on some spa supplied mesh undies ….yes, I said “mesh” underwear. Apparently while I was busy trying to squeeze my ass into these one size fits all (all Asian women maybe) mesh undies Angie was summoned by the "Super Gods" her mission was clear and she was ready to roll .....Super Masseuse had arrived. The mesh undies on her head, cleverly using the leg holes as eye holes, she jumps up so the world can see Super Masseuse for the first time! Seriously, we couldn't stop laughing and I think we pissed off the massage ladies a bit but we didn't give a shit, we loved it! When the massage was over, I felt like someone had kicked my ass and my bad ankle was now the size of a soccer ball!! All was forgotten and life was beautiful again once we had our cup of stinky foot tea (don’t ask…). Ahhhhh, the joys of travel!

Elephants, Manhoots and Rafts...Oh My!

Where do I start….sigh? We are in Chiang Mai, Thailand and today was one of the days I was most looking forward too. According to our (private) tour itinerary today we would take a group elephant ride through the jungle followed by an elephant show. From there, we would visit 5 of Chiang Mai’s Hill Tribes (mostly boat people from Burma who fled across the border to Thailand seeking refuge). The Hill Tribes are known for their silver work and their textiles. And at the end of the day we would take a “bamboo raft tour” of the Ping River….. This is how our day was “supposed” to go but here is how it actually went….We were picked up by Tom around 8am and we head out for the “Elephant Centre”. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Elephant Centre had been removed from our itinerary because of an email I had sent prior to our arrival in Thailand. See…I had heard that some of the elephant camps use hook training to control their elephants; the Manhoot (elephant jockey) will hit the elephant with a hook, breaking its skin and causing it pain as a way of managing the elephant’s behavior. Upon learning this I immediately sent an email to our tour company requesting that we NOT have a hook trained elephant but rather a voice trained elephant. (If you know me at all…then you know I am a true animal lover and could never knowingly participate in animal cruelty which is what I consider hook training to be). OK…moving right along, the tour company assured me that this particular elephant camp didn’t use hook training so we kept our reservation. So we arrive at the “elephant camp” which is really just a house in the middle of the jungle with one elephant….just one. I decide I should use the facilities before we embark on our journey. Of course the toilet (and I use this term loosely) is typical for this part of the world, a hole in the ground with treads on either side so you don’t slip. Let me start by saying “treads” made of porcelain really don’t provide much holding power…..you know where I'm going with this right… So mid-pee, I slip on the “treads” and proceed to pee all over my left shoe and my undergarments…I call out for Angie and despite her hysterical laughter, she provides me with some wet naps… I realize my panties simply must go…so off they come and into the jungle they are thrown as there is no trash can and I'm not really comfortable handing my wet underwear to the Thai guy who is impatiently waiting for me to get my ass on his elephant. I cant help but wonder what this guys wife said when she found my undies lying in thier yard...
Going commando is not normally my thing but what choice do I have?? So I make my way over to the elephant platform which is at least 250 years old. The wood is so rotten its see through! I ask our tour guide what happened to the elephant “camp” and he says; “you wanted a voice trained elephant, this is the only one we have”. So no elephant show, no camp, just a work elephant owned by a single guy. Our Manhoot is literally 12 years old and he has obviously just woken up as his bed head is in full effect, oh, and he speaks absolutely NO English. So it’s going to be Angie, me and this kid on a voice trained elephant. (read: not a very obedient elephant) But first, I have to climb the 250 year old rotted wood platform to board our jimmy rigged elephant. The platform is barely hanging on and speaking of barely hanging on our elephant “seat” is held on to the elephant by a single piece of rope. Needless to say, I am scared shitless…and pantyless. So we begin our trek & within the first 5 minutes I drop my water bottle on the ground ….because that’s how I roll. The infant Manhoot jumps off the elephant to fetch my water and the elephant starts to take off ….with me and Angie still on the barley hanging on seat. I scream and the Manhoot realizes what’s happened and yells, the elephant stops thank God because I was this close to shitting my underwearless pants! So we continue our ride, the whole while I am convinced the jimmy rigged seat is going to slide off the elephants back landing us in one of the many dump truck size shits he has taken along the way…somehow, we safely arrive at the first Hill Tribe Village. Of course I am now faced with another see thru 250 year old platform and once again see my life flashing before my eyes…somehow I manage not to hurt myself getting off the elephant and we press on. The first 4 Hill Tribe visits were great. We brought candy for the kids so we are like Santa Clause handing out goodies as we go from village to village. Finally we reach the fifth village and it is clear they do not appreciate tourists in their village. The previous 4 had items to sell (textiles etc.) but this last one did not. They were rude, and were too busy beating a dog to pay us any attention...which of course made me want to beat them like they were beating the poor doggy. I cant help but wonder why the hell a tour company would send us to a village where they clearly don’t want any visitors?? So we left and headed to our bamboo raft tour. Once again, our “tour” is anything but… we board a flimsy bamboo raft with a 15 year old “captain” who again, speaks not a word of English. Our tour guide doesn’t join us because he’s a lazy bastard and wants to sleep in the van (which he had done most of the day) So we board our “boat” (see photo) and our teenage guide starts pushing us down the Ping River. After about 5 minutes we hear rushing water…Angie and I look at each other…what the hell is that?? Of course we can’t ask our tour guide because she speaks no English and the only Thai words Angie and I know are “thank you” and “not too spicy” …we try both of those but get nothing. The rushing water sound is getting louder and louder and we are starting to wonder, is this a white water bamboo raft trip….what about the fact that we both have our feet in several inches of water because the raft is a hundred years old (like everything else here) and not put together very well. Then we see what looks like white water up ahead…if I hadn’t already tossed my underwear …well, never mind….The white water is small and we survive it but overall the tour sucks ass!! It’s frustrating because we can’t ask questions about the things we are seeing; like the graffiti on the side of the river or the kid herding his water buffalos across the river while screaming and beating them with a stick or the piles of trash lined alongside the river…we have so many questions but no answers…..we give our two key phrases another try ….”thank you”??? “Not too spicy” ??? Nothing….. the raft pulls up to the shore and we board our van for the long trek back to Chiang Mai and of course, our wonderful tour guide Tom sleeps the entire time…

The Crazies Visit Europe

My husband Lee and I visited Europe in the summer of 2006, I should preface this by telling you that the emails are complete and total fabrications (well….they were actual emails that I sent to my work colleagues but there is not an ounce of truth to them). My poor hubby became the primary focus of my fabrication which he has been a good sport about. In reality he is kind, loving and a bit on the quiet side which made my fictional emails even more hilarious…..enjoy

Email (1) from Paris – our first stop

Bonjour!

Lee and I are having a great time in gay Paris. Lee (trying to get into the French spirit) purchased a raspberry beret; you know the kind you find in a second hand store...a raspberry beret!! Unfortunately, when it’s warm he doesn't wear much more........ and it’s very, very warm. Moving right along, Lee and I (a barley dressed beret wearing Lee) headed out for dinner yesterday and Lee (being drunk as a skunk) slipped on a piece of brie and broke his foot. Now he's in a wheel chair....just him and his raspberry beret. So I've reluctantly become his pack mule and am forced to cart his ass around Paris...hmmmm, why does this sound familiar? Anyway, Lee (in his bitterness) has now taken to yelling obscenities at random people and has decided that French cigarettes are more his style (you know, the long skinny ones with the plastic tip). We are supposed to head to Venice tonight however, I can’t seem to coerce Lee out of the damn whore house so I may just leave his naked, raspberry beret wearing ass in gay Paris and head to Venice alone.....hmmmm, a tall Italian man is sounding pretty good right now, maybe Lee's tragic fall from grace is my saving grace?? Anyway, I will keep you posted but right now I have to gag Lee (he's yelling obscenities at the officer who dragged him out of the whore house) and get him dressed and sobered up....sigh.

I miss u all and may or may not return......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Email (2) from Venice – our second stop

Hola!
Lee and I just barely made it to Venice; I made his bail just in time for us to catch our train.
Unfortunately, he stopped bathing before we left France and I can barely stand to be in the same room with him. He’s also taken up public urination and actually prefers to pee on the public not just in public. He’s found a new "sport" he lovingly calls, "fucking with those freaky people" which he prefers to play when he is smashed and includes harassing elderly, disabled and just plain ugly people. Luckily most of them don't understand English and assume he is a mentally retarded American simply saying hello to them. Sadly, I have also developed some problems while visiting Europe. It seems that I have contracted a Polio type disease which leaves me unable to walk (especially on stairs) which Venice happens to be full of. Lee takes much delight in my new found disability and often includes me in his drunken cruelness. Also, my incessant gorging on croissants, cheese, wine and chocolate has added a bit of weight to my normally “slender” body...not much though, if I had to guess I would say around 80lbs. The only reason I even noticed was because my clothes dont fit me anymore. Lee feeling bad that I had nothing to wear, stole some sheets off a Venetian clothes line. Now I have "dresses" in many colors and designs. He is soooo good to me!!
Well, I have to run now; Lee is being chased by some American with a disabled daughter. I assume Lee yelled something cruel about her disability and unfortunately, because they are American they understood him. I need to go save him....again.

Love you

PS Lee's leg has miraculously healed....I think he may have been faking it....hmmmm, why does this feel like a déjà vu??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Email (3) from Florence - our 3rd Stop


Ciao (is that hello or goodbye)??

We are in Florence now and it is lovely. Lee is still carrying on with his turrets and drinking binges but I am coping. We went to see “David” today and I guess I spanked his marble bottom one too many times because my hand is bruised and unusable now. Sadly it is my right hand so I am forced to eat (and do everything else) with my left hand which I am not used to doing. I tried eating some Gelato today but ended up dropping it all over the front of me. I now have chocolate stains all over me. Then some random Italian guy just walked up to me and gave me 2 Euro’s……I wonder what that was about? Anyway, we are off to the Uffizi Museum and some sort of bath house. They didn’t give any details on the bath house portion of our day which I thought was strange but since we booked through “Rainbow Tours” I'm sure it will be just fine. For some reason, they kept referring to Lee as my “partner” in all of the information packets they sent and even stranger, they told us to bring “protection”?? I guess it’s not safe to visit a bath house without proper protection so I made sure Lee took his cattle prod. Anyway, our pink bus is here so we have to run!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Email (4) from London – our last stop

Hello!

Sorry we haven't been in touch for almost a week; we haven't had access to the internet until today. While in southern Italy visiting Cosimo & his family there were no computers available to us nor were there any internet cafes......did I mention it was a ''small'' town''?? Small yes but also AMAZING, what an experience we had there! Truly a once in a (lucky) lifetime deal, I can’t wait to share it with you when we get home.

We are in London now, getting ready to hit the town. We have had a fabulous, amazing and wonderful trip however; we are both pretty tired and looking forward to returning home (even if only for one night....sigh.) We are flying out of Heathrow tomorrow, Saturday afternoon (around 2pm London time) and should be back in AZ on Saturday at around 6pm or so. Unfortunately, I have to do laundry and pack so I can be ready for my NJ flight which leaves on Sunday morning at 8am and will most likely not be able to catch up with most of you (mom is the exception here) until Monday or so. Please don't take it personally if you don't hear from me until Monday or Tuesday. I just can’t begin to tell you how tired I am right now. I turned into”slap happy Chrissy" a few days ago and have been laughing almost non-stop ever since. I seriously don't think I have ever laughed this much in my entire life!! I am convinced we walked no less than 400 miles on this trip (much of which was UP HILL). My legs and feet are staging a coup as we speak and I am laughing out loud in the internet cafe now......again.

Love you,
"Slap happy Chrissy" and "Damn tired of slap happy Chrissy Lee"

Alaskan Cruise Hell

Aug/Sept 2004 – Alaskan Cruise

My (late) husband Andy and I took an Alaskan cruise with his sister (Christylee) and her husband Steve in late August of 2004. While perusing the shore excursion guide we came across a tour for the port of Skagway that caught our eye. The tour started with a “smooth and comfy” boat ride through Glacier Bay to Willoughby Island where we would board a canoe and take a “leisurely” tour of the glacial lake surrounding Davidson Glacier. It sounded perfect and we immediately booked it! Fast forward 4 months. We are enjoying our Alaskan Cruise immensely, its late August and the weather has been just perfect....until…….we arrive in Skagway on a cold, dreary and rainy day but our tour is still on so we board the ultra fast, double hulled ferry to the island. We are dressed in layers for warmth, it’s about 40 Degrees in Skagway and we are told the island will be even colder. When we arrive on the island the weather has taken a turn for the worst and its pouring rain. We board an old school bus and listen to our 20 something tour guide talk about how he hasn’t had a shower in weeks….thanks for sharing dude! The bus drops us off at a tiny cabin in the middle of the woods and we are told to wait in line for our jackets. I'm thinking….jackets? I already have 4 layers on…a long john shirt, a turtle neck, a sweater and a fleece jacket. Once in line, we realize now that on top of our already layered clothes they are going to add a winter jacket, rain pants (the farmer jean kind that go up over your shoulders) a rain coat AND a life jacket! Once they are done piling me in layers, I can barely move….seriously, think Michelin Tire man….yah, that’s me.

So once we are piled 8 high in layers (yet somehow still freezing our asses off and wet from the rain), our smelly tour guide briefs us about the days festivities. He tells us we have a half mile walk thru the woods to reach the canoes and casually mentions that if we see a bear, we “shouldn’t run”. “Not Run”?? Is he fucking kidding me? I can barely walk with 90lbs of extra clothing strapped to my ass running is not even close to being an option at this point!

So we begin our short hike or in my case, short hobble to the canoes. I am so bulky, I can barely see my own feet which worries me...in case you hadnt already figured it out, I'm a bit of a clutz! Sure enough, I hit an exposed root and go flying into my husband Andy. Luckily, he is 6’4” and not a small man....I bounce right off him and somehow find my balance again. As I continue waddling my way to the beach, I am thinking about the “don’t run if you see a bear” comment and I'm not sure if I should be laughing or crying. We finally arrive at our canoes sans bear attack and the rain is now in full force, pelting my face and practically blinding me. We board the canoe, and head out into the glacial lake surrounding Davidson Glacier. The wind is whipping us all over; the rain on my face feels more like hail …..Oh wait, it is hail! Yeah, more fun!! Thus begins our canoe ride from hell. I am nearly blind as my eyes feel like they have been poked out by the hail and I’m so damn cold that my entire body is shivering uncontrollably. Our guide tells us that if the glacier we are viewing calves, the wake will flip us and we would die of hypothermia within minutes. At this point I could give a shit...I welcome death! Im so damn miserable that I just want to get back to the bear infested woods where I am at least partially protected from the screaming hail that is pelting my face! The tour guide is speaking but the howling wind is drowning him out and while I can see his mouth moving all I can hear is the songs they are going to be playing at my funeral! Somehow, by an act of God, we make it out of there alive. We are beaten down by the cold and rain and practically crawl back to the cabin where we shed 3 of our 7 layers in the mud and rain….great.

While we were leisurely canoeing in the placid glacial lake, the storms fury had turned itself on the sea. It was so rough that our boat captain told us that he wouldn’t normally run at all in these conditions but that the cruise ship demanded he get the passengers back so they could depart Skagway. Somehow, I miss the “Don’t use the bathroom” announcement and decide I should visit the lavatory before we depart the island. Mid-bathroom break the boat takes off. Did I mention that this is one of those super fast, jet engine boats that skirts just above the waves? Well, I guess it skirts above waves that are less than 5 feet but since this storm had kicked up 12ft. seas, the boat was doing anything but “skirting”. So we hit the first (of many) huge waves, the boat becomes airborne and then crashes down …BANG!!! You do remember, I am on the toilet during all this right?? I am now wet with toilet water and have a bruise the size of Paris on my right arm from hitting the toilet paper dispenser on my way down from the ceiling. I'm pretty sure I screamed at some point but it’s all a blur to me now. I finally escape the deadly restroom and when I reach my seat I am greeted with hysterical laughter and gasps. We spend the rest of the trip moving between flying through the air and crashing back down to the water. I'm happy to report, we made it back to our ship and after spending a solid 45 minutes in the hot tub I had forgotten about the day’s horrors…well, almost.