Namibia

Hi everyone,

Wish we could be more thorough, but internet access is limited. We rented a car in Cape Town (Stefan had to learn quickly how to drive on the wrong side of the road), and spent 3 nights driving to Tsumeb via Grunau and Windhoek, Namibia. We are spending the weekend with Stefan's relatives in Tsumeb, then 3 nights in Etosha national park, then several nights in the bush traveling through western Namibia back down to South Africa. We are having a great time, Namibia is a beautiful country.

South Africa

South Africa is great so far. We have been in Cape Town for 2 nights, and already we have seen ostriches (not sure if they are feral or wild), babboons, some sort of antelope like creature, penguins, whales, seals, lots of birds, and lots of rabbits.

On Sunday we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, which has the fuzzy geographic distinction of being the most southwesterly point of the African continent. We hiked around the stunning scenery and huge crashing waves for a couple of hours. There is a world atmospheric station of some sort there (one of the global network that measures carbon dioxide concentrations), and it was interesting to imagine that there was nothing but ocean in between us and Antarctica.
Tuesday we went to the newly reinvigorated Cape Town waterfront where we embarked on a ferry ride to and a tour of Robben Island (now a world heritage site), where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held for many, many years. Part of our tour was led by a man who was a prisoner on the island for seven years. His crime (for which there was no trial) was "terrorism", and apparently he was involved in some of the education riots which Stefan thinks he has read about or seen a movie about. It was a very interesting experience which included Nelson Mandela's jail cell on an island covered in introduced rabbits (tens of thousands?) and native penguins. The ferry ride included the largest ocean swells that Stefan or Bernie have ever experienced, estimated by us to be at least 20 feet (if there are any geographers reading this perhaps they could get ambitious and get a buoy report for Monday, September 10th around 13:00 UTC). We can understand how our friend Seth got into surfing in his formative years spent in Cape Town.

Tomorrow we leave Cape Town for the drive north to Namibia. We will take about 4 days to drive the 1900km to Tsumeb.

The pontiff is everywhere..

Coincidence would have it that we are currently in Regensburg, Germany which is where the current pope Benedict XVI is from. We are traveling by train later this morning to Vienna, where the pope is currently making a visit. Weird.

Royal Socks

Bye bye Troy, hello Wolfgang

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Troy in Vienna at 4AM. We then went back to bed and slept a little longer, then got on our train to Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart. Actually, we've been on a bit of a Mozart pilgrimage on our European odyssey. Mozart was very successful in Prague, where Don Giovanni debuted and the Marriage of Figaro was very successful. We all know about Mozart in Vienna (Troy and Stefan went to one of Mozart's apartments in Vienna while Bernie was birding), and Salzburg is all about Mozart. In Salzburg, we went to see the Magic Flute performed by marionettes and then to see Mozart piano concertos in the Mirabel palace the very next night! The Belorussian pianist performed both concertos from memory.

Oh, we forgot to mention that Troy and Stefan went to the catacombs under the Stephansdom in Vienna where they saw piles upon piles of black-death infested bones and the important organs of the Habsburgs

Salzburg was filled buckets of 45 degree (F) rain, and we haven't seen the sun since we left Vienna.

Never to fear, tomorrow evening we travel to Amsterdam where we will leave for sunny Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday morning. I don't think we have mentioned it yet, but one of the primary reasons we are flying to South Africa is so that we can drive to Namibia to visit Stefan's great aunt Dorle who lives in Tsumeb.

Martin No. 2

On Sunday, Bernie went off another Martin he had never met before--this one was a birdwatcher from the BirdingPal website. We spent the day in idyllic countryside near the border with Hungary and Slovakia (its capital city Bratislava is on a hill and was in sight for most of the day).
Martin says this is the westernmost part of the east--of the steppes of central asia--and we saw some great falcons and eagles. But the only bird I got a picture of was this pigeon near where we stopped to each a lunch of wild mushroom salad.

Martin No. 1

After days of castles and museums we decided it was finally time to meet a real Czech. Well, too late for that, since we were already in Austria! So, we settled for an Austrian--and asked Bernie's sister Anne to arrange a meeting with her friend Martin. Martin went to graduate school at Michigan State with Anne, Anne's husband Gustavo and lots of other people we know thru Anne and Gustavo.

Anyway, Martin is a great guy and got on his bike and rode downtown (Vienna) to show these three american strangers around. He thought we should go to a traditional place and eat some heavy food, so he took us to the 12 Apostelkeller which has these brick-arched basements that go down several levels below the sidewalks, and it makes you wonder why the city hasn't caved in yet!

I wonder if Martin is a vegetarian--he encouraged Troy to get Schnitzel and us to get the Houseplatter of porkbelly, bloodsausage, ham, liverwurst, meatdumpling, saukerkraut and a hotdog, but then Martin just got some light cheesenoodle for himself! Then he said we had to have the prunedumpling for dessert, and then he took us to an ice cream place, and he didn't have any of this himself!

Maybe it's just his sense of humor?

We have seen the rest of Europe since our last post!

Well not really, just more of Vienna and then Salzburg and then Regensburg, Germany. We can't possibly write about all of it at once, so here are some nice pictures for you to enjoy!