trip planning

Day 268: Plans are a changin’

Today turned into one of those days we tried to decide where we are going to be in Europe, and when. It wasn’t easy. I spent a couple hours educating myself on the Balkan countries. Andrew spent a couple of hours looking up flights to South America. We debated. We argued. We attempted to compromise. I edited down. Andrew looked at flights from Prague to Barcleona. From Prague to Paris. From London to Barcelona. From Germany to Cuba. The possibilities are endless. Somewhat.

It’s exciting, but sometimes a little bit daunting. We’re still not sure what exactly we’re going to do with our time in Europe, nor what we’ll be able to do with the last few months of our trip in South/Central America. Hopefully it will be just as much of an adventure as the past nine have already proven to be.

In desperate need of food and fresh air, we finally put the computers, calendars, and notes away. We made it out of our hotel late in the afternoon for a walk around a really quiet town. It was as if everything was shut down permanently, or closed for the evening by four o’clock. Also: everything, and I mean EVERYTHING continued to be covered in graffiti. Except most of the historical sites- which obviously provided a stark contrast to the modern apartment buildings surrounding something so ancient. So these additional pictures, and the second video of graffiti around the town is just to emphasize simply how abundant it is. Also, with everything being closed down- it seemed a more interesting subject matter compared to the closed- and sometimes chained shut doors.

Day 128: Jafra Cafe

We had planned to go to Jerash, an ancient Roman city full of columns, arches, and temples. Jerash is a little more than 40 kilometers north of Amman. We found out that snow and ice had shut the roads down, so we decided to stay in Amman. We needed to catch up on work, and because of how unprepared we realized we are for colder weather in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe in the winter… we started thinking about changing up our entire route of the trip. I know, we’re crazy. But honestly, being able to change it up and adjust infuses a whole lot of excitement into an already amazing adventure. While we spread out our calendars and notes, the Egyptian and Jordanian waitstaff taught us how to make Turkish coffee at the very atmospheric Jafra Cafe.