What can I say? The spontaneity that began this trip certainly continued with our adventures in Turkey. After blowing it out during our first night in Istanbul, we decided to head South and check out the scenic coastline that so many people have recommended. Fortunately, flights in Turkey are dirt cheap, so we were able to book roundtrip flights for something like $75/person. Unfortunately, we still had to get from the W to the airport…and getting anywhere in Istanbul, at least during normal hours, is an absolute nightmare.

How this city functions with the volume of traffic is beyond me. If you know Rome, multiply it by 20 and you’ll get an idea of how congested the streets are in Istanbul. Going a couple of miles can take a half hour and getting from point A to point B is like going on a bumper car ride at the state fair with no speed limit and no room to move. Our taxi ride to the airport was one of the more interesting taxi rides I’ve ever taken. It goes something like this: We get in a taxi and tell the driver to take us to the airport. After spending 15 minutes trying to confirm our destination, we finally realize we’re going in the wrong direction. Once we’re able to convince the driver that he needs to actually take us to the airport, he then performs a series of U-turns and one-way reverses and ends up at a gas station…where he proceeds to fill up the car. At this point, we’re convinced that we’re not making our flight. He then gets back in the car, takes us to another ‘barrio’ looking

The Blue Mosque at Night

part of the city, stops the car in the middle of the street, takes the keys and then runs into some random building with a bunch of dudes standing outside. Now we’re convinced we’re hosed and begin to nervously
think about the global kidnapping headlines that are bound to run the next morning. A few minutes later, a different guy approaches the taxi, gets in and starts the car and proceeds to drive like a bat out of hell. He gets us to the airport on time and we can only laugh a taxi ride that includes pit stops and driver transfers.

The trip South was fairly uneventful. The seafood on the coast was absolutely amazing and was highlighted by an amazing meal where we got to choose the actual fish that we wanted grilled. For the most part, the entire area is dead this time of year so we headed a bit North and visited some of the more historic sites. Ephesus, the Temple of Artemis and the House of the Virgin Mary were all incredibly cool, not only for their historic and biblical value (where Paul addressed the Ephesians), but also because this stuff is so damn old. It’s hard to believe that people were living in relatively the same manner 2500 years ago and trying to understand how they built these cities is mind-boggling. If you do make it to Turkey, definitely take some time to go check out Ephesus….awesome place.

We came back to Istanbul on Friday afternoon after spending Thursday night in an all-inclusive beach resort with a bunch of older German tourists who were on a bus tour through the region. We randomly stopped at this hotel and negotiated a sick deal with the hotel manager. For about $60/each we got one room with 3 beds, all you can drink alcohol and the opportunity to eat buffet style dinner and breakfast with 300 Germans in a cafeteria style auditorium. We even had Spring Break style wrist-bands to prove our worth and to ensure that nobody kicked us out of the resort. It was humorous, especially given that the vast majority of the tourists had an average of 30 years on all of us.

Istanbul was capped off with more partying, including celebrating my buddy Arol Jahn’s 40th birthday at a swank restaurant/bar near Taksim Square and meeting numerous friends that we all knew from our different travels. In addition to checking out all of the different landmarks (Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Archaeology Museum, Grand Bazaar), we felt that our

Prepping the Hookah

trip wouldn’t be complete without a trip to a traditional Turkish Bath House. There’s no way I can accurately describe the scene, but try to picture this: Three 6 foot plus Americans walk into a 600 year old bath house with absolutely no clue how the process works. They walk into the ‘steam room’ and are immediately surrounded by 20-30 half-naked Turks wearing small towels around their waist and writhing in pain. After several minutes of complete and utter confusion, they’re each grabbed by a personal ‘bather’ (who doesn’t speak English) and taken to a marble slab in the middle of the room…where they are scrubbed clean and pummeled on for approximately 15 minutes. After 5 minutes of relatively tame hair washing, face cleansing and foot scrubbing, they’re led outside and asked to stand in line with a bunch of other dudes who are recovering from their recent body-beating. 30 minutes later, they’re each led into a community massage room where, for another half hour, they’re pummeled again…surrounded by other bath goers who are screaming, moaning and grunting in pain. And as they leave the massage room to go shower, get dressed and recover from their afternoon of ‘luxury’, they’re reminded to tip those who have just tortured the hell out of them. One of the most ridiculous, interesting and humorous situations I’ve ever experienced.

All in all, an awesome time in Istanbul. The city has everything to offer, is absolutely beautiful and has an energy to it that I wasn’t expecting.

Questions, comments, concerns?  Feel free to post below. And don’t forget to check out our pictures of Turkey.

John

OUCH! I don’t want to call it a complete waste, but most of our day was spent recovering from an all night bender last night. Our first 18 hours in Istanbul could have occurred in London, New York or Las Vegas for that matter. Our plane landed from Sarajevo at 7pm, we checked into the W at 9pm and we didn’t leave the hotel until this afternoon. You can’t really blame us. When we asked the concierge where we should go for the evening, he said that the W goes off on Wednesday nights and is ‘the’ place to be in Istanbul. so we stayed. Basically, the W bar turned into a club with killer DJ’s mixing alongside live musicians, performers dancing on the actual bar, and the obligatory $20-$25/drink that we were required to spend. Pretty amazing crowd and not a bad way for us to break into the Istanbul scene…although we certainly paid the price this morning. Needless to say, our travel budget took a hit last night.

And speaking of Sarajevo, what a fascinating city! To summarize, the only reason we even went to Sarajevo was because it provided the easiest and most cost-efficient way of getting to Istanbul. And rather than endure an 8 hour bus ride through the mountains, we chose to hire a recent college graduate to take us from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo. In reality, we went to the taxi line, picked out the nicest car (4 door Mercedes) and convinced the driver to spend their entire next day shuttling us 250Km to our next city. Just so happens that it was this 22

Russ and Jason freezing in front of our hotel

I’m enthralled with Sarajevo and would love to go back sometime…maybe for a ski vacation. I won’t bring up the war anymore other than to mention that Sarajevo was at the heart of the whole thing, so like most other places in the region, war has had a profound impact on the city. We didn’t really know what to expect and when we first arrived, it was 35 degrees, super-gray and raining. Driving into the city reminded me a ton of Moscow…old communist style buildings that haven’t been maintained, and a ‘dark’ feeling to the whole place. But once we checked into our hotel and started exploring the older section of town, we really began to feel the energy of the city. Randomly, we ran across the kick-off concert of the Sarajevo International Jazz Fest, and in true serendipitous form, purchased tickets. Got to see an American jazz band amongst a bunch of dressed up Sarajevoeans(sp?) in a super-cool music hall. Kind of surreal for us. Afterwards, we asked some folks for suggestions on
dinner and ended up at this traditional Bosnian place in the heart of the old town. Bosnian food rocks by the way. Seriously. It’s awesome.

We didn’t have much time in Sarajevo (only 24 hours), so I’ll briefly summarize what we did beyond the eating

The Latin Bridge

• Took pictures of the Latin Bridge where Franz Ferdinand was shot. For those who don’t recall, Ferdinand was the Archduke of Austria at the time and his assassination marked the beginning of World War I.

• Took a tour of the city. What is very cool about Sarajevo is that it’s a mixture of a bunch of different religions. Walking down a street you might run across a mosque, a basilica, a church and a synagogue all within a few blocks of one another.   The people we met were very proud of their heritage and liked to emphasize how everybody just gets along.

• Took a tour of ‘the Tunnel’. Most of you have no idea what the ‘tunnel’ is, but for the people of Sarajevo, it was a lifeline during the War. It was an 800M tunnel built underneath Serbian troops and used to bring all sorts of things (mainly food, weapons, and ammunition) to the people in Sarajevo.  Kind of reminded me of the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam, except much smaller.

• Enjoyed our first snow of the season. We went from 80 degree temps in Rome to snow in Sarajevo. Nice.

Really wish we could have spent more time in Sarajevo, but for this trip, it was merely a stopover point on our way
to Istanbul. If you do get the chance to visit the city though, definitely take it…well worth the effort.

Questions, comments, concerns? Feel free to post below.

John

PS All of the photos that I’m posting were taken with my iPhone. If you want to see some outstanding shots,
just check out Jason’s pics. He’s taking some amazing photographs.

Our time in Croatia is easily separated into two distinct trips: partying and introspection. We ended up spending 3 nights in Split mainly because we befriended some locals who turned out to be absolutely fantastic hosts. In addition to taking time to show us their city, they integrated us into the local Split nightlife. Both Friday and Saturday nights were spent hopping from bar to club, meeting new people and dancing/singing to Croatian folks songs. Thankfully, it didn’t matter if we knew words to the songs or not…just as long as we were singing, dancing and laughing. Good times for sure. (btw, the Croatian people are incredibly friendly and easy-going….fun people!)

With the help of Ivana (one of our Croatian hosts), we rented a car and drove down to Dubrovnik. If you ever take this drive, make sure you make the same mistake we did and take the route that follows the coastline. We didn’t realize we missed the highway exit until 2 hours into the drive but that didn’t matter. Such a beautiful drive and reminds me a ton of the PCH in Cali. About a 4 hour drive that put us into Dubrovnik around 6pm. Once again, we failed to secure accommodations prior to leaving Split. Not too sure what what we were thinking but the ‘not planning’ route had been working, so why change now? We found a cafe, found the free wi-fi and started the Google search. 45 minutes later, our new host Martko was introducing us to our new 1 room, 3 bed studio apartment. We didn’t have the time or energy so search for anything bigger or nicer, so decided to suck it up and deal. After dinner that evening, we retired to the apartment (absolutely nothing going on in Dubrovnik on a Sunday night),

Dubrovnik Wall

Dubrovnik is a pretty cool city. It’s crazy old, with an interesting history, and completely walled all the way around. Totally reminds you of being in the middle ages and the setting is amazing, especially with the Croatian coast in the background. What I found most fascinating, however, was the fact that 70% of the city’s buildings were bombed/attacked/destroyed during the Bosnia-Crotian-Serbian war that lasted from 1991-1995. You can walk anywhere in the city and see where shrapnel lodged itself into a building or where parts of a structure have been reconstructed. It’s kind of wild thinking what it would be like to live in Dubrovnik and be under siege for 9 months straight with no running water, electricity or easy access to food. I really began to admire the courage, resolve and tenacity of the

About to walk the Wall

We didn’t bring the war up a ton during our visit to Croatia, but you can’t just ignore that it has certainly had a profound impact on the people…naturally. When you think about it, any guy b/w 25-30 has either been shot at or shot at somebody at some point in time in their life. And our tour guide Darko (we hired him to take us around the city yesterda) was even injured by shrapnel while
running to his family’s shelter in Mostar. It’s just crazy to think about what everybody in this region went through just 13 years ago. Being in an area that is still recovering from civil war really brings a sense of reality to military conflict…no way in hell I can even possibly imagine going through what all of our new friends in Croatia (and the surrounding regions) went through. Especially given that I was trolling the Deep Ellum, Lower Greenville and McKinney Avenue bar scene in Dallas during that timeframe.

After two nights in Dubrovnik, we felt the need to move on. We arranged for a taxi to drive us to Sarajevo this morning and arrived a few hours ago. The drive was beautiful, but again, you can’t ignore the recent war. Every single town that we drove through was completely ransacked…some restored and many just deserted. More on Sarajevo and Bosnia in the next post.

Questions, Comments, Concerns? Feel free to post below.

John

We’ve tried pretty hard to keep a pretty open schedule, and mind, during this trip.  The only ‘planning’ we did was to make sure we had a place to stay in Rome, an assigned seat on a flight from Rome to Split, Croatia and a ticket from Istanbul back to Seattle.  Everything else has been fly-by-night, so to speak. So when we realized that we forgot to book a hotel in Split on our way to the airport, we knew that the next few days might be a bit more spontaneous.

Great call!  I can’t do the story justice, but will do my best to summarize.  Somehow, with the help of his daughter, Russ was able to find a hotel for the night in Split (he somehow pulled this off mid-flight).  Our plan was to grab dinner around 10pm in Split and figure out what our Croatia trip was going to look like.  How long do we stay in Split?  Do we rent a car?  How far to Dubrovnik?  Is it worthwhile to travel to the island to Hvar given the off-season? Lots of questions in which we had no answers and that we needed to answer relatively quickly.  So we got some recos from the hotel staff dude and he sent us to the ‘happening’

Split, Croatia (Old Town)

He was right.  We wandered aimlessly for half an hour trying to find a place with not only food, but also a few people as well. Our only option was some Italian joint on the water near a discotheque type of place playing really old glam rock (right up my alley, btw).  Fortunately, there was a table of women at the restaurant, so we figured that we might be able to get some info from them with regards to our time in Croatia. we couldn’t ask for anything better and would save our going out strength for Friday night.  We enjoyed a great Italian meal, drank some decent local wine and tried to figure out what we were going to do the next day.

Then things changed…for the better.  We ask one of the girls sitting at the table next to us, if she spoke English and she said ‘of course’. We ask her what to do in Split and that leads to numerous conversations with the other women. Turns out that they’re all in the tourism industry in Croatia and had plenty of insights and advice.  We end up hanging out with these women for a couple of hours and the restaurant owner begins shutting the place down. (He turned off every light except the one above our table…I’m convinced the only reason he didn’t ask us to leave was b/c we kept ordering wine).  After another hour, one of the women mentions that she has a couple of apartments that she rents out in old town Split (where you want to stay if you ever visit) and suggests that we stay in her rentals.  We graciously accept and she offers to pick us up at our hotel the next morning to show us not only the apartments, but also Split.

We really didn’t think that she would show up the next morning, but sure enough, Ivana pulled up right at 10am.  She spent her entire day playing tour guide and then took us to our new temporary homes.  Not only are these places in the

Our Host Ivana

Here’s to serendipity…

Questions, Comments, Concerns?  Feel free to comment below. And check out all the pics.

John

PS If you ever plan to travel to Split, let me know and I’ll connect your with Ivana. Her rental apartments are AWESOME and you absolutely cannot beat the location.

We landed in Croatia last night and there’s no way I can summarize our entire Rome trip in one post. So in the spirit of brevity I’ll try to touch on the highlights…of where there are certainly a few:

Highlight #1: Scooter drag racing. Ok, we didn’t really drag-race, but given that we couldn’t sleep due to jetlag, Jason’s an amateur photographer and I was in dire need of scooter practice, we went on a 3-hour cruise of Rome from 1-4 in the morning. What an absolutely amazing experience. First, there’s literally nobody on the street. You can seriously haul (about as fast as 125cc’s can take you)
through the streets and not worry about getting jacked by a crazy Smart car driver. Second, you can cruise around to all of the big-time tourists attractions and visit when absolutely nobody is there. Seriously! We hit the Vatican at 2am,

Russ at the Vatican (2am)

the Spanish steps at 1:30am, the Trevi Fountain at 3am, and the Coliseum at 4am. And not a soul was there but us. If you’ve been to any of these places you know that standing room only crowds are the norm, all the time. Other than a couple of polizei guarding the areas it was just the three of us. Jason brought his tripod so we’ve got very cool shots of these places….with no people. And last, there’s something cool about cruising around Rome, on a bike/scooter, when nobody else is on the streets. An awesome feeling of freedom and excitement, especially when you’re cruising amongst some way old stuff. I highly recommend trying to pull it off if you ever get a chance to visit the city. (You have to check out Jason’s picture of Rome at night!)

Highlight #2: A guided tour of the city. As an ex-Expedia exec, my friend Russ knows how to travel right. He’s been to a ton of places and when it came to Rome, he was absolutely insistent that we rent scooters. He was also insistent that we hire a guide to take us around on the scooters during one of our days here. Great call. Maria, our cute Italian guide, took us to a number of different places and gave an insiders perspective of the different historical places. We found ourselves back at the the Vatican and the Coliseum, but this time, we were able to add some historical perspective. We were also following her on the scooters, were able to truly experience what it’s like to weave in an out of traffic, go the wrong way on one way streets, turn left from the right lane and pretty much do everything like the Roman Scooter riders do. I am proud to say that I’m no longer a scooter novice.

Highlight #3: An Italian Serie A match. There’s no hiding the fact that I’m a huge soccer fan (futbol). Our stay in Rome was primarily based around going to either a Lazio or AS Roma match during our visit. Not only did we have an opportunity to go to a Lazio game (and btw, most Romans either love AS Roma or they love Lazio…and there is no love lost between the two sets of fans), but our friend

Crazy Lazio Fans

Roberto set us up with corporate seats from his company. I’m pretty sure he made this happen for our own safety, as we entered through some VIP entrance and then took ourselves to a hospitality suite of sorts where we were fed and given unlimited alcohol. And thankfully, our seat section were protected by plexiglass and guards on both sides, so no fear on our part. The actual match wasn’t particularly impressive, but the crowd was incredible. Lazio lost the match to Cagliari
and their fans boo’d, hissed and whistled the entire game…I actually thought the fans might attack their own players at one point. Have to give the Italians kudos for their passion…it truly is unique.

I could have used another week in Rome. We did as much as we possibly could over a 3 day period, but there’s still so much to do and see. Took the flight to Croatia last night and the last 18 hours have already provided enough fodder for the next post!

Questions, Comments, Concerns. Feel free to comment below.

John

22 days ago I left my job. Today, I just about killed myself weaving in and of rush hour traffic on a scooter…in Rome! My, how quickly environments can change.

Here’s the situation. I’m bound and determined to make the most of the next 2-3 months. I have a mini-bucket list of sorts, and a some of that list involves travel.

John, Jason and Russ

14 days ago I was cycling with my friend Russ and we decided that doing an Italy, Croatia, Turkey adventure would be a great way to spend a few weeks. Told my

friend Jason about it that following evening and he’d never been to Croatia or Turkey before, so why not?. 14 days ago we purchased tickets to Rome and are now holed up in an near the Vatican that we found through some dude on ‘A Small World‘ (yet another social networking site).

If actually booking the trip and making it happen within 14 days wasn’t spontaneous enough, Russ convinced Jason and me to rent scooters during our time here. Says it’s the best way to see the city and not deal with all of the traffic issues. I have to say he’s right….but damn, driving in this stuff is ridiculous. It

Parking in Rome

seems like most of the ‘rules’ are merely suggestions and that the more aggressive you drive, the easier it is to actually survive. Our dinner hosts last night, Roberto and Paula, just about freaked when we told them of our intention to rent scooters. (note: Roberto is an Italian friend of Jason’s whom he went to school with at U. of Washington). After spending a day on those things, I think we are absolutely nuts for making the call…but they’re fun and it makes us look somewhat local.

We’ll see if we survive the day tomorrow. In addition to renting the scooters, we’re trying to score tickets to a Lazio game. Again, Roberto and Paula think we’re freackin’ crazy for going to a soccer game in which the fans are known for beating each other up when their team isn’t doing so well. Lazio is currently one of the worst teams in the Itialian Serie A.
Hang on….

Coments, questions, concerns? Feel free to comment below.

John

I don’t have a ton of regrets.  I might stress myself out analyzing the hell out of my decisions, but once I’ve made a decision, I typically don’t look back.  Why should I? What’s done is done and you need to feel like you’re moving towards something. Now, all that being said, I do think it’s important to assess your choices and determine if you’d make the same decision knowing what you know now.  A close friend of mine recently reminded me that the definition of insanity is doing something differently but always getting the same outcome.  Not too sure if I got it right, but it sounded cool at the time and if I’ve butchered the ‘saying’ I apologize.

Three weeks ago, I chose to become unemployed for the first time in my career.  I know, I know, you hear that and you’re like ‘what the hell are you thinking?’.  I can assure that my thought processes are sane and that my decision was rational…should any of you think I’m a complete nutjob.  So what am I doing?  I’m going to take some time off and do some of the things I’ve always wanted to do, take a few risks I’ve always wanted to take and see if I can actually go to bed without setting an alarm.  I’ve had opportunities like this before, and I’ve blown them both. The first time was after business school when I could have spent 3 months traveling through Africa and Asia (I chose to start a company selling computer mice out
of my apartment in San Francisco instead).  The second time was after selling the aforementioned company when I felt I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to help build a new group at Microsoft…and chose that option rather than taking some time to decompress.

So, for the third time in my life, I have the opportunity to simply live. History tends to repeat itself, and while I might be going about it differently, there is a good chance than I’m not able to relax and will feel the need to jump back into the fray immediately.  And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.  But I don’t want the same outcome this time around.  And what is that outcome?  That a couple of  months from now (or any period of time), when I’m busting my ass trying to grow a company, lead a team, drive a busness, etc, I’m looking back a tthis brillian period in my life and wondering why I didn’t take some time for myself.

Life is too short.  And while taking this time off might be hard for me to pull off, I can assure you I’ll do my best to make the most of it.

Questions, Comments, Concerns?  Feel free to comment below.

John