New country unlocked!

 Coyle and I made it to country number 2 today after a long day of travel.  Guessing is officially closed for country #1 and we had at least one winner!   I won't share who the winner is until we get home but we have very exciting prizes for them!  Between social media, the blog comments and texts to me there were 42 guesses of various regions, countries and cities. (See below for a cheat sheet of the guesses!)  Lots of fun geographic knowledge out there!  

Today was a long travel day where we crossed a land border to enter country number 2.  This country has limited land borders and it's a somewhat rigorous crossing requiring us to exit one country on foot and carry all of our belongs across a 1/4 mile "no man's land" before entering the other country.  Then it was a long drive to the capital where we will spend the next few day.   The views on the drive were amazing - it's a beautiful country dotted with lots of small villages.  The funniest part of our trip today was that we got trapped in a road shut down in a small refugee village. Apparently there was an accident and construction which had completely closed the roads as the police tried to get the traffic moving.  At the same time there was a wedding procession trying to get through.  With the traffic stopped all the men were out of the cars smoking and trying to figure out what to do.  The police agreed to stop all the traffic to let the wedding procession through and one of the men pulled our driver into the procession so we beat the traffic by pretending to be part of the wedding.  I feel like we should send a gift!  

Clue for the day:   Coyle is very excited that tomorrow he is going to be learning about one of the required school subjects in this country! 

1. Arab country
2. South Africa 
3. Middle East 
4. Liberia (2)
5. Denmark
6. Luxembourg 
7. Scandinavia 
8. Greece 
9. Japan
10. Tbilisi Georgia 
11. Tibet
12. Gori (Stalin museum)
13. Singapore (2) 
14. Croatia 
15. Nigeria
16. Uzbekistan 
17. Iraq (2)
18. Pakistan
19. India 
20. Turkey
21. Afghanistan 
22. Egypt (2)
23. Istanbul (2)
24. Cambodia
25. Berlin
26. Monrovia 
27. Russia
28. Abu Dhabi 
29. Dubai  
30. Kosovo (2)
31. Morocco
32. Armenia 
33. Kenya
34. Southern Balkans
35. Transylvania
36. China 

Another day on the road.

 Today was another busy day on the road as Coyle and I spent more time exploring country number 1.  No correct guesses yet although a couple of people are getting closer.  This morning we headed to another museum and also got to see a famous train.  While I didn't get to add to my collection of dead dictators whose preserved bodies I have seen, we did get to see the death mask of one. Coyle also did a little time in the clink.  

Then we spent some time learning about mining in a mining community.  It sure didn't look like it does in Minecraft!  

We ended the day in a very old city and had some time to walk around and explore the town. We checked out a local park and fountain and had a nice evening people watching.  

My very worldly and cosmopolitan son wrapped up a day of global travel the way only he can - with dinner at Wendy's and some YouTube!  

Here's a clue for today:   Jason may have had some trouble in this city but we're enjoying it!  

Our first full day!

 Lots of good guesses so far on the blog but no right answers yet!  It was a busy day today exploring our first city.  Coyle and I took a walking tour around to some of the most famous places including a lot of religious spaces from throughout the history of the country (we blurred the background so we don't give away the whole picture!)  

One of the things that Coyle and I are both interested in is "dark history", or the history of oppression, genocide, despotism, colonization and other dark parts of history.  We are not interested in the dark horrible stories but rather in the resilience of the people who pushed back against this dark history and how nations rebuild afterwards.  Much of our trip is based on this interest and today was no exception.  We visited several museums and we also saw some old printing presses. Coyle enjoyed reliving his "Newsies" days checking them out! We also visited a mother that I wouldn't want to cross  

The most interesting part of one museum was that we were given a tour by an older man who didn't speak English.  Our English speaking guide joined us and translated everything he said.  She had never been there before because this place is not usually on the tours but we wanted to see it.    The English guide was getting annoyed with the guide and partway through the tour she started telling us that she wasn't translating everything he said because she didn't agree with what he was saying because he was downplaying the violence this country faced.  It was a really interesting interaction that illustrated the generational differences in beliefs about history.  

We finished up our day with a sunset dinner at a rooftop restaurant.  Coyle said the ice cream was the best part! 

Here's a clue for today: we learned about boiled birds today which made me think twice about my chicken soup for dinner.  

We made it!

After almost 24 hours of travel from my parent's house on Long Island to our city, we made it to the hotel just in time to sample some of the local cuisine before bedtime!

Coyle was a pro all day but I have definitely learned that when it comes to long flights, a frantic run across the airport to catch a flight, needing to run up an escalator that stopped running 3/4 of the way up and slowly started moving backwards and navigating some difficult immigration rules - 50 is not the new 30!  I'm exhausted over here!  

Tomorrow we really start exploring the city but for now we wanted to share how we picked this trip.  When Coyle was 2 I took him to Ireland to see where his name came from.  When he was 3 I took him to China because he wanted to see pandas.  When he was 4 I took him to Kenya because he wanted to see zebras.  Then came Covid and a long hiatus to our travels.  Two years ago we went to Gander to see our favorite musical and the travel bug came back again for both of us.  The trip we're on today isn't the first, or even the second, iteration of our itinerary.  Our first two plans were changed due to the current state of the world - twice we were ready to book a trip and twice we had to pivot due to the air space dangers in the connecting airports.  So here we are.  Rather than a deep dive into one country like we did in the past, this trip is more of a survey.  We're diving into small parts of multiple countries over the next two weeks - who knows, we may fall in love with a place and spend more time here in the future.

Here's a clue for today:  on the way to the hotel we passed a street named after a US president in order to honor him for the special connection he made with this country  

 

The magical mystery tour begins!

Coyle and I are finally off on another adventure.  Years ago, when I traveled to Iran and Iraq, I didn't tell anyone where I was going (for obvious reasons!) and gave clues throughout my trip for people to guess where I was.  I told Coyle and this and he wanted to do that again so here we are.  We are off on a two week trip to some mystery destinations and will be giving clues throughout the journey so feel free to play along!   We'll try to bring back some prizes for the winners.  We're currently in Kennedy airport waiting for our first flight to board.  We have a long travel night ahead of us!  

Here's some early clues - we are visiting four countries(or maybe 5) depends on who you ask.  It's not a new continent for either of us.  Which one(s) are we repeating?   Well...it depends on who you ask! 

Follow along and join Coyle, Panda and I on our next adventure!  

The end of a moment at the end of the world!

 We're back home from Newfoundland but wanted to share our last amazing day. We started the day checking out a couple of parks - Cobb's Pond park and Heritage memorial park which was a memorial to the Newfoundlanders who died in war, a memorial to plane crashes in Gander and also a memorial to a Newfoundland dog named Gander. Gander the dog served with a unit in World War II and died saving his wounded men by carrying away a live grenade that had landed near them. 

The rest of the day was Come From Away themed as we got a chance to be "Screeched in" at the legion just like they did in the show. In a true example of Newfoundland kindness they did a special screech in for us because kids are technically not allowed in the legion but they wanted to make sure that Coyle got a chance to do it. Being screeched in is a ceremony to become an honorary Newfoundlander that involves learning how to speak like a Newfie, trying Newfoundland food, drinking Screech (rum) or in Coyle's case Pepsi! And for the final test kissing the fish - a giant Cod named Todd!  We were honored to be Screeched in by the real Oz and Beulah in "Hannah's Corner" - where the real Hannah from the musical stayed as she waited for word from her son, an NYC firefighter.

The town of Gander was originally built right next to the airport but after World War II the town leader were concerned that the town being that close to the airport was dangerous so they moved the town further away. The roads are still there and we were able to walk through the remains of the town. 

We finished our day, and our trip, with the best part - going to see the show Come From Away. The show was the same script but the staging was reimagined. It was amazing to see it performed right where it happened!  The most exciting part was that when I bought the tickets I posted on the fan page that I was bringing my 9 year old son who was a big fan and asking what to do in Gander. Well to my surprise the producer of the show reached out to me wanting to make it special for Coyle. He offered us a backstage tour and a chance for Coyle to meet some of the actors which was absolutely amazing. The fact that all of these people were just as kind and generous in real life was just amazing and they gave Coyle some memories that he will never forget. If you get a chance to see Come

From Away take it - you won't be disappointed

Stop the world, take a picture

Today we experienced some crazy Newfoundland weather but we still got a chance to go exploring. 

A rainy morning meant that we went to check out the North Atlantic Aviation Museum. 

Because of its aviation history, Gander is often called "the crossroads of the world" because so many planes stopped here. We even saw a picture of Fidel Castro sledding in the museum!  The museum walks through the history of Gander aviation from the building of the airport till today. Coyle's favorite part was the flight simulators. He had a blast but I'm sticking with Air Canada for the flight home!  

Aside from the flight simulators, Coyle's favorite parts of the museum were learning Morse code and coming face to face with the Gander town mascot "Commander Gander!"  

A break in the weather this afternoon meant we could head out of town to another place we really wanted to see, the Dover Fault. This scenic overlook plays an important role in the musical because it's where 2 people fall in love.  A 45 minute drive out of town, past lots of trees and moose crossings (and not much else!) brought us to Dover-"The town with a fault". While the musical says "there's about a million stairs" Coyle tells me there were only 88!  At the lookout you can see the fault left behind when North America and Europe collided and then separated millions of years ago. It was a beautiful view and we were thrilled the rain held off so we could see it. 

Coyle thinks we need a vlog not a blog so he wanted to make a video to add!

Unfortunately the rain didn't hold out the whole day as a massive thunderstorm came through during the late afternoon. We hunkered down inside for awhile before heading out for Coyle to indulge in his newfound love for barbecued ribs!  We are looking forward to one more day in Gander and are very excited to see the show tomorrow before heading home on Friday.