Moving Day

No, not moving to Hungary (yet.)  I’ve moved my blog to its own URL, whereisnikki.org.

From now on, this address is defunct.  It will no longer be updated. So move your bookmarks and RSS feeds to http://whereisnikki.org/

I’ll see you at the new site.

Fabulous Friday Photos: Brugge/Bruges

But who cares how you spell it when you can buy chocolates like this?

Notice that not only can you buy a “mini-set” of three, you can also purchase an even smaller size, perfect for midafternoon nomming.

And does anyone else notice the slightly disgruntled cherub looking down on them?

Ahh, Brugge. European Disneyworld.  I watched the movie the other day, by the way.  The one that made Brugge famous, called In Brugge.  Don’t watch it. It’s crap and everyone dies for stupid reasons.

Passport

It’s time to renew my passport.

I’m not happy about this. Renewing my passport means I have to start all over with stamps.  And it’s going to be stiff and brand-new looking, with an RFID chip in it. My old passport doesn’t have the chip in it.  This occasionally causes problems with airport personnel trying to check me in, which is amusing.

Although on the bright side, I’ll get a new picture, maybe one that actually looks like me so security doesn’t do a double take every time they compare me with my passport photo.

I’ve heard the rumor that US passport fees are going to go up in the near future. It’s already $100 for an adult passport – so if you’re thinking about getting one or will need yours renewed soon, get on that and do it now.

If you don’t have a passport yet, go get one. Now. And then use it.  The United States has the smallest percentage of passport holders of any developed nation.  Everyone travels more than we do.  And with all of our nation’s wealth and affluence, that’s just sad.

So…how does one go about procuring a passport?  Very simple.

1. Go to the US Government passport page. Find and fill out the proper form. If you’re over sixteen, you’ll be getting an adult passport, and if you’re under sixteen you’ll be getting a child’s passport, which is only good for five years.  You can either fill out the forms on the computer, or print out blank ones to fill in by hand.
2. Get your passport photos taken.  It’s possible to do this yourself – look up how to do it if you’re really interested.  Or let a professional do it for you at a place like Walgreens, Ritz Photo, Meijer, etc.
3. You can go here to search for the nearest place to apply for a passport.  Most post offices and government buildings will do it.
4. Follow the directions on your form and on the website.  You’ll need to bring proper ID with you when you apply (and you must apply in person, unless you’re only renewing an adult passport.)  You must have either a previous passport or a certified birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or certificate of citizenship to prove that you’re a US citizen.
5. Submit a photocopy of your identification.
6. Give them money.  Rates are supposed to be going up, so get in there soon.
7. Give ‘em your two passport-sized photos that fit all the specs.  (See above.)
8. Sign on the line. Don’t sign the form until they tell you to.
9. Become a proud passport holder. –Once they send it you, ages later.

Win.  You’re now authorized to travel many places on the globe, with the exception of Cuba.  Border Patrol will be keepin’ a close eye on you if you travel to the Middle East for any reason, and Russia’s visa laws are silly.  Luckily, you can pay people to “sponsor’ you on a visitor visa so Russia really isn’t a problem, just more difficult. But you now have one of the best passports on earth–many countries don’t require visas for Americans to visit.  Do you feel lucky? Good.  Don’t take it for granted.  Try talking to someone from a third-world country and ask what countries welcome them in with open arms.

4 Travel Websites You Should Bookmark

Whether you’re in between trips, planning a trip, or just returned from one, here are four websites with quality travel advice to keep you inspired and help you plan your next trip.

1. Bootsnall.com As adventure travel sites go, Bootsnall is probably the best. Nothing against the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forums or anything, but…they’re not as good as Bootsnall.  The site can also help you plan your trip, from helping you purchase Eurail passes to RTW plane tickets.  There’s not a lot you won’t find here. They have free city travel guides, an active community, a plethora of resources to help you plan your trip, and best of all their website isn’t full of advertisements for their own products.  I’ve never bought plane tickets through them, though I’ve heard good things about it. They also have a fare search that covers all the major aggregate search engines like Vayama, Kayak, etc.
2. Oneworld or Star Alliance RTW fare calculators.  Hmm, maybe its’ just me, but I can waste good time making up theoretical round-the-world trips.  And if you’re actually trying to plan an RTW, these interactive maps are great for mapping out exactly what you want to do.  Depending on where you start your trip, the RTW fare might be higher or lower (the USA is a fairly expensive place to start, due to low demand and relative inaccessibility to the rest of the world, while the UK is the best deal I’ve found so far.)  Each program has different fare rules; Oneworld is based on continents visited and country of origin, while Star Alliance is based on miles traveled.  Check both with your planned itinerary to see which can give you a better deal.
3. Nomadic Matt: Nomadic Matt has travel advice, articles, and  a good travel blog.  He’s actually developed his site to the point where he makes money off it — no mean feat in the oversaturated world of travel-writing-on-the-internet.  Look him up on Twitter too; he always has interesting travel article links.
4. Vagabondish: “The travelzine for today’s vagabond.”  If it’s possible to make vagabonding posh, then this site has done it.  It’s a good way to stay inspired to travel and has some good travel advice.

Vegemite: WTF Mate?

But, I mean, what do you really expect from a country whose Prime Minister, Harold Holt, on December 18th, 1967 simply vanished while walking along a beach in Victoria.  I mean, really.  He’s walking along, and then he’s gone. No trace of him was ever found.

And not only does Australia have vanishing prime ministers and 10 out of the 10 most poisonous snakes on earth, they have that oozing dark fecal matter in a bottle that they endearingly call “vegemite.”

This is one unnatural food product that shockingly enough hasn’t caught on in the United States.  I’m sure it’s available somewhere, but most Americans have never even heard of it.  Fortunately.  The English have a similar product called Marmite.

So what exactly is Vegemite?

From the official website itself:

Vegemite dates back to 1922 when the Fred Walker Company, which became Kraft Walker Foods in 1926 and Kraft Foods Limited in 1950, hired a young chemist to develop a spread from one of the richest known natural sources of the vitamin B group – Brewers Yeast.

Following months of laboratory tests, Dr. Cyril P Callister, who became the nation’s leading food technologist of the 1920s and 30s developed a tasty spreadable paste. It came in a two ounce (57g) amber glass jar capped with a Phoenix seal with the label “Pure Vegetable Extract.

Tasty. Not only was it developed by a chemist (it has more in common with a Twinkie than you thought!) it had to be approved by the British Medical Association in 1939.

Australians rave over it.  I’ve tried it several times and have been unable to figure out what makes it good.  It tastes kind of like mold scrapings from an old barn added to a pound of salt, mixed with a dollop of horse dung, ground well, and spread on toast.  The subtler flavors are not within my meager powers of description.  You’ll just have to try it yourself.

The Vegemite website is worth a look – they have the entire history of the product and recipes (with “yummy” rather suspiciously bracketed in quotation marks, as though to say, “We’re simply implying that some people may find this product appetizing, but this is not the official opinion and merely represents a few crackpot loonies off somewhere in the bush.”  Isn’t that what putting single words in quotation marks usually means?)

You can send Vegemite e-cards, look at old advertising, see how their packaging has changed over the long and exciting years, see a timeline, read a poem about Vegemite, purchase Vegemite memorabilia – there’s even a link called the “Litte Aussie Vegemite Reader.” I’m afraid to look.

Now here is the clincher, here is the thing that prompted this rant:

Uber-delicious

Imagine the previously described taste mixed with processed cheese product – and you have Vegemite Cheesybite! Perfect, as the Vegemite homepage animation suggests, as a dip for crackers, celery, and carrots.

Someday, someday, if enough Australians force me to keep trying this appalling yeast by-product until my taste buds commit suicide, I might learn to like it. Until then, I stand firmly by the belief that this was never meant to be eaten by mortal human.

I am now off to go consume cheesy snacks.

Travel Disclaimer

From the excellent files of Bootsnall.com comes another sterling piece you might find interesting…

Travel Disclaimer

Fabulous Friday Photos: Prague

Fabulous Friday Photos is back…as long as the program continues to cooperate.

Prague. The problem with Prague is that it’s so touristy, and so gorgeous, and has too much history to possibly take in.

Mid-November Christmas market in the central square

I loved Prague. I’m not sure that I would want to live there; I showed up about ten, fifteen years too late for that. But to visit, it’s spectacular.  It really does live up to its reputation as the prettiest city in Europe. However, I thought it did lack some kind of personality — too many tourists, I suppose.  I wish I could have been here ten years ago.

This is a city I’ll be coming back to – often – when I live in Hungary. They’re not very far away, after all…

It all started with a llama…

So, I was having a bit of a think the other day. I know, that doesn’t happen often.

Somewhere in Lima. It's amazing how the mind lets one down after only a few years.

I was trying to figure out where this need to travel comes from and when I first realized how awesome it is. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I’m slightly obsessed with it.  But I haven’t always been like this.  Indeed, I was once a small child with an affinity for road trips and no inkling that a few short years later I would be addicted to something outside my power to control.

I think it must have been Peru. More specifically, it was when a llama decided to chase us on Machu Picchu. (Macchu Pichu? I can never remember.)

I know what you’re thinking. What did I do to that poor llama? Nothing. He came out of nowhere like an avenging angel with a spitting problem and lunged toward us with destruction written in his bugged-out eyes.  We had no choice but to run and hope we didn’t fall off the side of the mountain, a thing which is easier to do than you might imagine.

What was I doing in Peru? It was my very first trip out of the country as a wee tenth grader on a school trip.  There were tour buses, there was bottled water and jungle cabins and a scenic train and ruins and cathedrals. My god were there cathedrals.  Our tour guides just could not get enough of cathedrals.  It was a guided “educational” trip which meant they wouldn’t let us try the Inca beer, which looked slightly like a milkshake and probably like it could kill you. I believe it was made out of corn and Incan spit.

Now I don’t remember fact one about the cathedrals or most of the ruins. (Hint to tour guide operators: no one can enjoy that kind of thing for ten hours a day, every day.)

What I do remember is getting chased by a llama off the side of a mountain.  And bargaining with people in the markets for a llama-hair blanket and finger puppets of llamas.  You may notice a certain llama theme here. This is because we were in Peru, whose main exports are llamas and Inca-themed merchandise.

I think back now to the moment I stepped off the plane into the violently yellow Cusco airport.  First of all it was the longest plane ride I’d ever taken so that was exciting, because there was a full travel story in itself on how long and awful it was to be cooped up in a metal box for five hours. Yes, five whole hours.  You can see I had never considered going to Australia at that point in my life.

Forgive me this next part.  I was expecting something rather more third-worldly here.  Other than being intensely yellow, having a propensity for peeling plaster, and a noticeable lack of air-con, the airport was certainly an improvement over certain third-world airports, ones like Chicago O’Hare.

My timid classmates, our chaperone, and I were found by the tour guide and we were shuffled hastily on to a bus complete with curtains in the windows, air-con, and bottled water.  The height of luxury. You must understand that at this point I, coming from a small town in Northern Michigan, had never experienced anything like as advanced as public transportation, international airports, currency exchanges, or malaria pills.

When the hotel we were taken to had open windows on the seventh floor – one careless slip and you’re gone for good – I thought that was a pretty Notable Event.

Anyways I got over it.

But on that guided, air-conditioned, educational trip, I learned several important things.  First, that I never wanted to give my money to tour operators again.  Second, that the world wasn’t, in fact, a terrifyingly disease- and crime- infested place and was in fact Pretty Cool. And third, I learned holyshitIlovethisandthisandIwantogoeverywhererightnow.

So while I still cringe at the amount of money I had to pay for eight days being dragged around every historical site in Peru, that trip was the spark that fueled this traveling obsession and I wouldn’t change a thing.

It’s been over two months since I’ve been anywhere and I’m getting the withdrawal shakes: not being able to sleep at night, compulsively budgeting money I don’t even have yet, checking skyscanner on a daily basis, and finding myself on travel websites with no memory of how I got there.  This is going to be a long summer.

You know, I do wonder what I would be doing today if I hadn’t gone to Peru.  I almost cancelled for the stellar reasons that most of my friends weren’t going, it was expensive, and it was rather intimidating. Would I be sitting in a university somewhere wondering why I felt so dissatisfied with life? Or would something else have happened to help me realize how awesome getting in a flying tin can and hurtling to strange destinations full of malaria and yellow fever can be?

On a slightly related note, I’ve decided to learn French.  I made a good effort to learn Hungarian but without an actual speaker here to help me out I just can’t get the pronunciation.  It’s too difficult to try and learn from my limited resources.

But French, French is a piece of cake compared to Hungarian. It’s just like Spanish with a few extra sounds.  You say cafe au lait instead of cafe con leche.  Big deal.  In any case, I can get coffee almost anywhere.

6 Reasons to Travel When You’re Young

1. Graduate high school
2. Go to college
3. Start your career
4. Get married
5. Buy a house
6. Have children
7. Watch them grow up
8. Send them off to college, then to start their careers
9. Become a grandparent
10. Retire, travel, and enjoy life

First off, if that looks like your version of paradise, if that’s all you want out of life, then you probably won’t appreciate this article.

If you read that and you start to get a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, read on for six reasons you should travel while you’re young instead of putting it off until you’ve retired (as so many Americans do.)

Google Search for "reasons to travel." I couldn't have said it better myself.

1.  Australians, Kiwis, Europeans, Canadians, and Israelis: When I was in Europe, those were the majority of the nationalities I met.  I’ve heard, though don’t quote me on this, that up to a third of New Zealanders are abroad at any given length of time.  That’s like 100 million Americans taking off for parts unknown. Ha.

The truth is, it’s just not part of American culture to travel extensively while we’re young. We follow the ten-step plan above, and any deviation is considered abnormal.  When we retire, then we get to see the world.  When our knees have given out, we’re popping ten kinds of pills to keep our organs going, and a five-mile walk seems daunting.  Hmm. Great time to go exploring, eh?  Doesn’t it seem better to go when you’re young, and fit, and adventurous?  I’m not saying once you get old you shouldn’t travel anymore, just that you should start before you turn 65.

2.  Traveling helps define you as a person.  Waking up every morning in a strange country, learning how to deal with language barriers, strange food, customs, and currencies, and doing all this while arranging lodging and transportation for yourself — it kind of forces you to come out of your shell.  You learn more about yourself. Perhaps just as importantly, traveling when you’re young can help you figure out what you want to do in life.  You can go back and start a career with your new, improved self.  And your stationary life will be that much more satisfying.

3.  Regret. If you don’t go now, then when? When you’ve got 2.5 kids, a dog, and a mortgage the size of the Sahara? When you’re telling you’re grandkids about your life back in the day, are you going to think back on what could have been and feel that sharp pang of regret?

4.  The world keeps turning. The world is changing every day.  Globalisation continues to destroy cultural uniqueness.  Species go extinct. Rainforests are cut down.  See it now, while it’s there. Who knows what the world will look like in forty years?

5.  Your resume.  Mentioning that you spent a year traveling the world on your resume might just be that point of interest that will get the company’s attention.  It shows personal initiative.  Tell them how it changed you as a person. Far from being a harmful thing in this economy, you need every unique experience you can to attract the notice of somebody who wants to give you a paycheck.

6. Why not?  If you really want to go, go.  There is never going to be a perfect time if you don’t make one.  Procrastination is just fear and laziness.  It’s easier to go now, when you’re young, free, and adventurous, than it will be to go when you’re forty and deep into family and career life.  Just go.  You won’t regret it. But you will regret it if you don’t go.  The ten-step American dream is not the only way to live life, and if you’re not cut out for it, don’t force yourself into a mold you aren’t happy in.

Top Signs You’re Addicted to Travel

Did you catch the travel bug along with the stomach bug in Mexico?  If you’re addicted to travel, I’m sorry to say, there’s no cure. It’s like heroin. You’ll need more and more just to feel normal. That’s the good news. The bad news is that others around you might not be so enthusiastic about your obsession as you are.

Corfu

Signs you’re a travel addict:

• You read guidebooks for fun
• Your friends flee when they see you coming, because…
• …you begin every sentence with, “I remember one time in…”
• You become offended when someone thinks Aussies actually drink Fosters
• Your passport is with you at all times, just in case.
• You feel strange not wearing flip flops in the shower
• A room full of twenty drunk snoring people no longer fazes you
• After more than a month without traveling, you get the shakes
• While websurfing, you find yourself on a travel site 10 times out of ten, with no memory of how you got there
• The vast majority of your Facebook friends live across the world
• Your bookcase is half-filled with beat up travel guides. The other half has Bill Bryson.
• When entering public bathrooms, you automatically do a scan for the possible places a flusher could be hiding, and another scan for the person trying to charge you to use the toilet.
• There are at least twenty euros in your wallet at all times. Just in case. (See passport.)
• When people ask what your hobbies are, you can’t say a sentence not containing the word travel.
• You have detailed critiques of the world’s major airlines and judge them by the quality of their in-flight food.
• You wake up in the morning and you can’t remember where you are.
• You’re talking to somebody and you can’t remember what country you’re in or what the last country was
• Kebabs.
• A hostel shower big enough to turn around in is enough to make your entire day better
• And…
• You spend hours every day daydreaming about trips you’ll never take, trips you’ve taken, and people you’ve met on the road.  Doing almost any daily activity (laundry, driving, listening to music) can give you a flashback to a random moment on the road.