Cem and Tam's Trip

Nevada

Las Vegas, Hoover Dam

7/29/02 - 7/30/02 (Cem) After a morning spent in scorching heat at Zion, we were both pretty excited to leave to go to Vegas. Again, this was a first time for me, so even though it was with my girlfriend and not with a bunch of good guy friends, I knew I was going to have a blast. As we approached Vegas (from the north), I noticed that there were huge electricity lines, the ones you generally see right outside a power plant, entering the city. I guess you need the extra juice for a city in the middle of the desert and that's lit up like a Christmas tree.

We drove down the strip, stopping at one of the hotels to find accommodations for the evening. We both thought that this would be easy on a Monday night for a city that seems to have an endless supply of hotel rooms. Luck has it, that we were wrong. There must have been a convention in town because we were unable to find a room anywhere on the strip. Good old Priceline came through for us though and we got a great room two blocks of the strip. At $70 it was a little above our travelling budget, but it would have to do. At that point, for a shower, I would have paid anything.

Tam and I have been reading a book throughout this trip: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. I won't get into the content of the book too much but to say we have both dramatically reduced our fast food habits after reading it. Anyway, the reason I mention it is that I thought a passage in it described Vegas best:

"While the rest of the world builds Wal-Marts, Arby's, Taco Bells, and other outposts of Americana, Las Vegas has spent the past decade recreating the rest of the world. The fast food joints along the Strip seem insignificant compared to the new monuments towering over them: recreations of the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the Sphinx, enormous buildings that evoke Venice, Paris, New York, Tuscany, medieval England, ancient Egypt and Rome, the Middle East, the South Seas. Las Vegas is now so contrived and artificial that it has become something authentic, a place unlike any other. The same forces that are homogenizing other cities have made Las Vegas even more unique."

And what a fun city it is nonetheless. A Disney World for adults. At 105+, the heat was pretty intense. We walked around the strip for a couple of hours. Had some drinks and a great dinner at Wolfgang Puck. Now it was time to gamble. I was hopping that we would be able to win back our dinner. After about two hours at the Blackjack table, I think we were just lucky that we walked away with all the money that we sat down with.

The next morning we got up a little late. Unfortunately we had to do some errands (food shopping, oil change etc.) in the morning which was painful. We also found out that we had a flat tire that had to be replaced. So after an unexpected $120 later, it was about 4pm by the time we left the city.

Hoover Dam was on the way. Not much to write about though since we were only there for about twenty minutes or so. At what seemed to be 110 degrees temperature, it felt like we were walking inside an oven. Inevitably, Tam and I had a big fight, so we left and got on the road to the Grand Canyon. We drove two miles outside the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and camped at a National Forest. The place seemed a little creepy when we got there, but we realized how beautiful it was in the morning.

Arizona

Grand Canyon (South Rim)

7/29/02 - 7/30/02 (Cem) Not much different to say about the South Rim over the North Rim. Infact, Tam and I both decided that it probably would have been ok, had we just seen the North Rim. The view really didn't seem that different, and it was a lot more crowded. Unfortunately, due to the forest fires in the area, visibility continued to be very poor. I did a 4 mile hike on the Rim trail which was very relaxing. Although at times, the trail definitely felt as if it got a little too close to the Rim! We are on to the Petrified Forest National Park and Canyon de Chelly after this.

Petrified Forest National Park, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d'shay)

7/30/02 - 8/2/02 (Cem) On our way to Canyon de Chelly, we stopped at Petrified Forest National Park. Neither one of us had heard about this park before we started planning for this trip. The park was interesting, with some of the largest and most unique petrified wood in the world. Petrified wood are basically trees fossilized with silicon (what glass is made out of and exists in sand) millions of years ago. The trees almost 100% maintain their shapes and become cystalized rocks. That being said, we only visited this park for about two hours and I question if National Park status was necessary to preserve this area.

Canyon de Chelly was recommended to us by the people we met in Libby, Montana through Larry James. It was well worth the stop. We liked it so much we decided to spend two nights there. Camping was free, which made this an easy decision as well. Canyon de Chelly is in the center of the Navajo Nation. The canyon itself had incredible views and reminded me of old western comic books or cowboy movies. Canyon de Chelly has been a sort of a spiritual center for the Navajo people. During the 1860's, in response to continued Navajo raids to white settlers, the U.S. government decided to move the 9,000 or so Navajo to a remote location in New Mexico. Since this was during the Civil War and supplies were low, they were forced to walk to their new territories. This walk, named the Long Walk by the Navajo, led to several thousand of them dying along the way. After four years, a treaty was signed and the U.S government allowed the Navajo to return to their homeland. I think this experience has made the Navajo even more attached to their land and their traditions.

The Navajo people still clearly attach strong emphasis on their traditions. A very large portion of the homes that we saw also had a Hogan (pronounced Hoghan) on their property. The Hogan is the traditional Navajo home. Although no one really seemed to live in one anymore, the traditional families continue to keep them for ceremonies and other family events.

A random interesting experiences Tam and I also had was doing laundry at the local laundromat. It's the first time I have ever been in the same room with about 20+ Native American's. I know that doesn't sound that interesting, but trust me, it was a weird feeling.

Side note: It was the Navajo that that helped that U.S. military during World War II as code talkers. The military communications used encrypted Navajo in some of their most sensitive communications. (I never saw the Nicholas Cage movie, but I always thought that that was an interesting little bit of histroy.)

Anyway, besides the Navajo people, Canyon de Chelly is also the location of some of oldest Native American ruins, in some cases built inside the cliffs. We did a hike down into the valley of the canyon to see one of them up and close.

New Mexico

The Four Corners, Chaco Canyon

8/2/02 - 8/3/02 (Cem) The Four Corners are where the states of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico intersect. Tam and I actually decided to leave this stop out when a natural forest fire closed the Mesa Verde National Park to us. But as faith would have it, the only way we could get to our next stop, Chaco Canyon, was to go through the Four Corners. A total tourist trap, we had to pay $6.00 to get in. But I guess there was something cheesy fun about it.

We arrived in Chaco Canyon in the afternoon. Again, another Libby recommendation. Unfortunately, its been raining since we left Canyon de Chelly. For a while, the rain got so depressing that we thought we would just drive on and go spend the night around Albuquerque. I am glad we decided to stick it out. Chaco Canyon, like Canyon de Chelly, is home to some of the oldest Native American ruins in the country (from around 800 - 1200 A.D.) Before our stops at Canyon de Chelly and Chaco Canyon, I had not known that early Native American's had built complex stone structures (multiple stories, 100+ rooms). In the morning, we did an 8 mile back country hike which took us through some more ruins and gave us a flavor for hiking in the desert. Apparently Chaco Canyon, out in the middle of the desert and 70 miles away from the closest population center, is also one of the best places for star gazing. Unfortunately, the rain clouds blocked any chance of that.

Oh one other thing: we have not been able to take a shower anywhere since Vegas. That's going on four days! That is probably the longest stretch of my life.

White Sands National Monument

8/3/02 - 8/4/02 (Cem) Finally, the shower we had both been dying for. We reached the White Sands National Monument areas around 9pm and checked into a Motel 6. White Sands is an area in the New Mexico desert consisting of gypsum sand, a white, very fine sand. White Sands is surrounded by mostly the U.S. military for hundreds of miles, consisting of a vast stretch of a missile testing area, an air force base and a NASA space shuttle launch and observatory facility.

In the morning, we went to the Space Museum (a waste of time since it mostly consisted of informative panels) and than to the White Sands dunes. The park was fun. A lot of locals seemed to go there with their kids and sled down the dunes. We mostly just walked deep into the park to hang out in the more untouched parts of the dunes. The sand is so white it almost looks like powdered snow.

Another interesting thing that happened was that twice (well within U.S. borders) we hit an INS roadblock asking us if we were U.S. citizens. I had forgotten just how close we were to the Mexican border. The first time they asked me, I was so got off guard that I actually said "Yes, we are both citizens." Although I realized later that this was probably the best answer just to get through as quickly as possible and said the same the next time around.

We had our first negative Priceline experience at White Sands. It took us about four hours to get a hotel room for New Orleans. But we lucked out and got a room in the Hyatt Regency in the end. We left around 1pm to begin our two-day journey east to New Orleans.

Louisiana

New Orleans

8/5/02 - 8/8/02 (Cem) The drive to New Orleans from White Sands was a total of about 18 hours or so. The longest stretch between two destinations so far in our trip. We broke up the trip by stopping at about midnight in San Antonio and finishing the rest of the trip the next day around 4 pm. The drive through Texas was intensely long, but at times also very interesting. The geography of the west of the state is very similar to New Mexico in that it is dominated by large stretches of desert. The population centers were small and on average about 100 miles apart. Starting from about San Antonio, the start of the American South as I knew began. The landscape slowly transformed into a luscious green which brought with it larger and more frequent population centers. When we entered Louisiana, the green turned even more intense. This was also the beginning of swamp land, which we were also to encounter in Florida.

We checked into our Priceline purchased four-star Hyatt Regency hotel and began making plans to go to the French Quarter for the night. Neither of us had been to Mardi Gras, so we were both pretty excited about New Orleans. The French Quarter, even during a random week in August is a pretty crazy place. It's a combination of Jazz bars, little mini bars that sell beer for a $1, and large college style bars that maintain a spring break type setting all year long. The place was swarming with tourists of all ages. We felt a little too old for many of the bars and focused most of our attention on the Jazz bars. New Orleans definitely offers Live Jazz at its best. Than again, what do I know, I can barely remember the last time I went to a Jazz Bar. There is one thing I did not feel when I walked around the French Quarter and that is unsafe. There were more groups of cops walking around than any other place I've been to.

New Orleans was also the first time I ever saw anyone drink a beer, in fact a Heineken, with a straw. I was in shock. When I asked our bartender if that was relatively common in New Orleans, he answered he saw it all the time. Than came closer to me and whispered "Its mostly a black thing."

While we were in New Orleans, we made several attempts to find other interesting parts of the city outside of the French Quarter. But I will be honest, while it seemed like a nice historic city, there really didn't seemed like there was much more of interest to us outside of the French Quarter. Maybe that was just us, so I will understand if anyone from New Orleans disagrees with me.

We left New Orleans on Thursday afternoon to drive as far as we could that day in order to be able to make it to Miami by Friday evening to hang out with Erdal.

Florida

Miami

8/9/02 - 8/12/02 (Cem) We got into South Beach, Miami around 6pm. South Beach was truly a unique experience. It is the Latin Beverly Hills. The number of conversations I heard walking on the streets in Spanish by far outweighed English. I have also not seen such a high concentration of attractive woman. Although many of them were clearly surgically enchanced. Its not difficult to understand why Erdal chose to live in the heart of South Beach and commute about 45 minutes to work in Fort Lauderdale. Latin fever!

South Beach is also party central. We ate dinner at Lincoln road, a long stretch of a street with expensive boutique stores and restaurants that is closed to traffic. The rest of the night is somewhat of a haze to me. We went out to about three bars and at some point went to a nightclub, although I don't even remember dancing. Than at some point, we finally left to eat some pizza before we went back to Erdal's place. As we left, I noticed that the streets of South Beach were just as crowded as it was about four hours before. While I didn't know this at the time, apparently it was past 4am. This place really knows how to party.

The next day was we experienced a Florida summer storm, which kept us in doors for most of the time. This was fine by me, I was still pretty drained of energy from the night before. We spent much of the day discussing Turkish politics and whether his Dad would be able to save the country or not. Let's hope so.

Its easy to see why Erdal has lived in this city for the past three years. This is definitely easy living down here. But from his own words, this is also a place you can't live to long. Not being of Latin descent makes you feel somewhat of an outsider to the city. Also, even by our second day, the superficiality of the whole scene seemed hard to bear. As Erdal put it "In this city, looks matter."

The one major change in Erdal since I last saw him was his strict adherence to a healthy lifestyle. He quit smoking, clearly watched his dietary intake very carefully and has lost a lot of weight. Infact, I think this may be the best I have ever seen him.

Disney World

8/12/02 - 8/13/02 (Cem) We went to Disney World at my insistence. Although I was probably a little to old to go there for the first time, the experience was still worth it. Well, maybe at $50 a person, I should show a little bit more reservation about that comment. But than again, there is no age for the Disney magic. Not even the intense evening showers, or our visit to the First Aid office for about an hours (Don't worry Mom, it was for Tam) decreased my enthusiasm.

One of the things that my visit to Disney World made clear to me is that I am not a roller coaster man. Tam insisted that we go for a ride on Space Mountain, an indoor roller coaster that is mostly in the dark. I resisted at first, but than saw how many 6 year olds there were in line and thought to myself "how bad could it be with so many kids?" Well, I spent most of the ride waiting for it to end and watching Tam scream infront of me with joy, as if she were at the World Cup or something. The only thing that put a smile on my face was hearing the young girl in the front of the car, who couldn't have been older than 7, screaming "Faster, faster! More, More!"

We leaving the next day to go to Charlotte and visit Derin, another friend from UVA.

North Carolina

Charlotte

8/13/02 - 8/14/02 (Cem) The visit to Charlotte was brief. We came into the city around 7pm or so and met up with Derin at his luxury apartment. And I am not using the word luxury lightly. His apartment building/complex has two gyms, a multi-screen movie theather, a nice reception with doormen, and many other amenities. The life of a financial services professional in Charlotte is not too bad. In almost his fifth year now, Derin seems to have the city of Charlotte under his thumb. We went out to eat and have drinks at one of the hip places in town. As soon as we sat down, the various beautiful southern bell waitresses came by one by one to say hi to Derin and literally give him back rubs while he sat down. The treatment at the bar was very similar.

And yet, Derin felt extremely nostalgic about Turkey. As I've been hearing from Basak and Erdal as well, Derin's desire to return to Turkey soon is strong. I can see why Derin feels its time for him to leave this city. But at the same time, I was left wondering if I could make it in a small, but convenient city for a couple of years. You have a high standard of living, yet you would be able to save some money. Something to consider, I guess.

After lunch with Derin the next day, we left Charlotte in the afternoon.

Virginia

Richmond - Basak

8/14/02 - 8/16/02 (Cem) We had been planning much of the past several weeks of our trip to be able to make it to Richmond by the 15th. This was the date of Basak's "White Coat Ceremony." Basak, one of my closest and dearest friends from Charlottesville, had spent the last three years of her life working to realize her dream of becoming a doctor. She worked full time at a UVA research lab and volunteered for 12-24 hour sifts a week for the Charlottesville Rescue Squad as an EMT, while she was taking classes at UVA and studying for her MCAT. She had set a goal and was out to realize it no matter how much work it took her. And now Basak is going to become a doctor.

We came into Richmond around 7pm or so. Basak had found a spacious apartment in a very nice residential neighbourhood. In whichever city it is, Charlottesville or Richmond, I always love visiting Basak's apartments. Not only because of the homey and peaceful atmosphere she creates, but because when I had left Charlottesville, Basak had taken much of my furniture. Being in her apartment is a constant reminder of the good times in Charlottesville. The only problem with her new place was that the temperature remained between 95 - 100 degrees in the apartment day and night. I spent much of the next 24 hours trying to convince her to buy a window unit AC. But I think it was her Dad staying there the night after we left that finally closed the sale.

I think her Dad, Tam and I were almost more excited about the White Coat Ceremony than Basak was. But than again, it was hard not to be excited for, proud of and envious of Basak. She was starting a new chapter in her life. It was a new city to discover, new friends/colleagues to meet, new apartment, the beginning of a new profession? All the years of hard work had come to fruition. During the ceremony, the school administration bestowed to their new students white coats, which the students would wear for the next four years. The ceremony was completed when the Dean led the students in reciting the Hippocratic Oath. And there it began, Basak was becoming a doctor.

Richmond - Neal and Heather

Visiting Neal and Heather in their new home made me reminisce intensely about the old Woodsdale days. I remembered how much time I used to spend with the two of them, at and outside of work. Although Neal and I in many ways seemed different, we continue to share a great number of interests. Neal and Heather have both come a long way in their lives in the past three years since I last saw them in Virginia. They now live in a newly built, tastefully decorated house in a nice suburb of Richmond. They served us some of the best food we had eaten in a while and we chatted about some of the turning points in Woodsdale's history.

I will be honest, previous to this stop, I had never thought much of Richmond. But seeing both Basak's new life and Neal and Heather's more settled existence in this city really made both of us reconsider living in a smaller less expensive city than San Francisco.

Maryland

St. Mary's College

8/16/02 (Cem) On our way to DC from Ricmond, we made a short detour and went to southern Maryland to visit St. Mary's College. Although I had attended St. Mary's for two years ('92 - '94), I had not gone back to visit since I had left. I guess my years there had been somewhat bittersweet. It was a tiny school, out in the middle of nowhere. There was so little to do on the weekends that most people left to go home. Unfortunately, that option was not available to international students from Turkey. As we drove up to the school, I started feeling excited about being back. I felt nostalgic when we walked around the campus. I remembered the buildings, benches, and pathways. But surprisingly, I also felt somewhat disappointed. While the College had clearly grown, the campus seemed almost smaller to me. The school was still beautifully placed on one side of St. Mary's River, but even that seemed a little lackluster for me. I realized that transferring from St. Mary's was one of the best decisions I had made.

Washington DC

8/16/02 - 8/20/02 (Cem) DC was a good break from what seemed to be a lot of "drive-by" stops in cities since Miami. I got the chance to catch up with some old friends. Tam had the opportunity to explore the capital of this wonderful country. Thanks to my friend Hester we were able to do the forementioned in great comfort and at minimum expense. Hester had arranged for us to be able to stay at her parent's house in the city. Unfortunately, the weather was painfully hot and humid. So to keep with tradition, Tam and I got into a heated argument as well. (Tam: Cem doesn't believe that people suffer from heat exhaustion even when the heat index is at 106 degrees.) The trip wouldn't be interesting without those.

In DC, I was able to meet up with Felipe (and finally meet his girlfriend Ginnie), Murat and Janica, and Stuart. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet up with the Goldman's and Filiz. One of the main things I looked forward to on this trip was to catch up with old friends I should have kept in much better touch with while I was in San Francisco. I realize now that I was a little naïve to think that there would be enough time to really catch up on three years. Then again, my friend's lives have moved on, and maybe they felt that they had seen as much of me as they needed to! Highlights from meeting up with my friends: too many margaritas, Turkish barbecue till you explode (and can't sleep at night because you overate) and kung fu stories.

Next stop, Toronta, Canada. The plan is to visit our friends Adam and Ally, our friends from San Francisco that recently moved back to their homeland.

Canada

Toronto

8/20/02 - 8/23/02 (Tam) We visited Adam, a friend of Cem's from Salomon Smith Barney, and his wife, Ally in Toronto. Adam and Ally had recently relocated back to Toronto. Since Adam and Ally had grown up in the Toronto area, they were happy to be back home. They took us out every night, even though we were there during the middle of the week. They seem to have a very active social life. In fact, 2 of the 3 nights, we met up with their various friends and social circles. We both had a wonderful time. Cem seems to have an affinity for Canadian cities; I think he could see himself potentially living in Canada one day.

Toronto is a clean, large, sprawling city with a downtown about twice the size of San Francisco. However, it still retained the feel of a "small city" rather than that of the NY metropolis. Toronto has a truly unique, massive Underground network that consists of all kinds of shops, drugstores, and food courts and connects to subway and train stations. In the winter, Adam claims that he only needs to brave the harsh cold for the three minutes that it takes to walk a block and a half to the subway station. Guess it makes sense considering how severe Toronto's winters are to have an extensive Underground. Ally told us that the harshness of winter makes them (and all Canadians) greatly appreciate the "patio season".

Unfortunately we were extremely unlucky. Bad weather has followed us since Arizona. On our second day in Toronto, we woke up to dismally grey skies and rain. So instead of following through with our sightseeing plans, we decided until the weather cleared up to do some housekeeping, i.e. book our flight tickets. In the end, we decided to use our frequent flier miles since flight tickets would have cost us approx. $3500 each. However, since this was our first time trying to coordinate a round-the-world trip, we spent 14 stressful hours planning and made several costly mistakes, such as buying tickets for a certain leg before making reservations for all legs. All in all, we are still hoping we haven't spent our time in vain. If we just save half of what we would have spent, the stress and aggravation (and the opportunity cost of seeing Toronto for another day) would have been worth it.

Niagara Falls

8/23/02 (Cem)

On our way out from Canada, we stopped at Niagara Falls which we had skipped over before in order to meet up with Adam and Ally on time. I knew the whole Niagara Falls area was going to be pretty touristy and full of resorts, but I had no idea to what level. There were thousands of people (mostly families) walking next to the river and the falls. The main road parallel to the river was littered with a Sheratons, Hiltons, Four Seasons, etc. As soon as we got there, it became clear that we were not going to want to spend the night there.

Even though we had to share it with about a hundred thousand other people, the two waterfalls themselves were magnificent. In Yellowstone and other parks, we had come across other waterfalls which were in fact taller. The greatness of Niagra comes from its force and breadth and from the amount of water that goes through it. We took a boat that takes you pretty close to the base of the waterfalls. Great photo opps although you also get extremely wet from the spraying from the falls.

We were still pretty annoyed by the crowds in Niagara (Tam: apparently not annoyed enough not to line up for and go on the boat ride with the crowds of tourists) and left in the evening to begin our trip to Vermont. After about three hours of driving, we finally found a roadside motel for about $55. A ripoff for what we got, but I guess it was clean. It's ironic to think that thanks to Priceline, we would have paid less in major cities and stayed in luxury hotels.