Days 61-??: Thailand

we've totally lost track of the days, but we've got about two weeks remaning on this adventure!

Thailand is the greatest. we highly recommend visiting here.

when we arrived in Bangkok, the Johnson family (who hosted Jared's brother Matt, and friends, earlier) welcomed us with warm southern hospitality. their house was a wonderful refuge, as we slept the strangest hours and watched a lot of Glee as we recovered from some jet lag. we did manage to make it out one afternoon for a visit to the Jim Thompson house, a traditional Thai architecture place made by a guy who got super rich on Thai silk and then disappeared.

because Southern Thailand was suffering from floods, we headed North first, hoping the rains would subside. after a long busride with Thai karaoke videos blasting through the night, we made it to Thailand's "second city" Chiang Mai. we dove into Thai culture...thai food, thai massages, thai animals, thai markets. true to our nature, we went to food first and took a full day Thai cooking class, learning to make 7 dishes each. they all tasted amazing! (although we had a lot of help with the preparation). still, we were very proud of our own pad thai, spring rolls, coconut milk soup, and lots of other delicious food.  we have the cookbook, and hope to recreate some dishes when we get home. (hey family, we want a wok for Christmas! thanks!)

since Chiang Mai is famous for its night bazaar, we wandered street after street of vendors. we got hassled for a lot of knock off goods, tank tops, silk pillowcases, grilled street food, jewelry, and the croaking wooden frogs. by the end of the week we had gotten really good at bargaining, and stuffed our bags with some Christmas presents : ) (don't expect much, our bags are small!)

we also got the chance to ride, feed, and bathe elephants! this was a true highlight. because the tour was full, we basically got a private tour with the owner and his favorite elephant. he really cared about his animals, and it was fantastic to be with them up close. he also took a TON of photos of us, so we were happy. our elephant was super sweet, and pregnant too!

as recommended by the Johnson family, we took traditional Thai portraits. it's pretty much the Thai version of Glamour Shots. they dress you up and airbrush, airbrush, airbrush. Sophie has fake hair and Jared has no freckles. they are hilarious.

we decided to trust a travel agent, despite the gloomy online forecast, and head to the South. we are SO glad we did. the South was absolutely beautiful. it's full of the white sand and blue water you imagine. we stayed on the island of Koh Lanta, relaxing, which we really needed. we rode a scooter around the island for a day and visited the different beaches. unfortunately, the next day Jared came down with dengue fever...a nasty bug transmitted by mosquitos :( we watched a lot of music videos, European soccer, and any English movie we could find on TV. luckily this happened at the one point in the trip where we had planned to stay in the same place for a while, doing nothing. so we still enjoyed the beach, massages, and smoothies offered all around us. we celebrated Loy Kathrong, one of their major festivals. after a few days we moved to Ko Phi Phi Don, another island in the area. we only got one day there but it was beautiful. pretty much our entire time in Thailand we've been plotting ways to come back. we could island hop for weeks here! anyone want to join?

we came back for one day to Bangkok to repack and see Harry Potter 7. It's technically Thanksgiving here, but it's hard to tell. we hope everyone stateside is having a wonderful holiday. we're grateful for this trip!

we're headed to Sydney, Australia tonight. we hope to post at least one more time before we get back to San Diego.

Happy Thanksgiving!

the callahans.

day 60: update from Thailand

THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!
that's pretty much the most important thing we could share with you. we (and by we I mean Jared, except for the last inning, which really was we) watched the final game from a hotel in Vienna. we cheered excitedly and quietly, as it was 4 am. this was one time we really wish we could have been back home to celebrate. fingers crossed it will happen again some day?

anyway...we're out of Europe and into a totally different world. leaving Europe by going East, and then showing up in a hot humid Asian city really made this feel like an around the world trip.

we spent the last week in Europe going through Vienna and Hallstatt in Austria, followed by a few days in Prague. here's a tiny recap:
Vienna surprised us in the best of ways. we walked up from the metro expecting a quiet street and found ourselves in what felt like New York City. the city was full of life and culture. we dove into some history by visiting palaces and museums of the Hapsburgs. who knew Austria had so much power? Who knew Austrian royalty had so much china and silverware? we sipped hot chocolate in cafes and wandered the streets. for a night adventure we went to the opera! neither of us are opera people exactly, but this was the best place to see it. the performers and musicians were clearly incredibly talented, even when we couldn't follow what was happening.
Hallstatt is a tiny town on a lake. google it...it is beautiful. Jared had been here 7 years ago, and was determined to return. it was definitely worth a return trip, and I think we'd both return again if given the chance. pretty much the entire town was shut down for winter, so we ate at one of the two open restaurants. the next morning we hiked to a waterfall, ate some amazing pastries, and jumped on the train to Prague.
Prague...our travel there consisted of 7 tranfers, including a boat and a bus amid the trains. we stayed with a great newly married couple we met through CouchSurfing. they hosted us in their new apartment and helped us navigate the city. Prague was fantastic, the weather was terrible. it started raining during our walking tour and didn't stop for the rest of the day. nonetheless, we loved it. most cities have an "old town" part full of old architecture and cobbled streets, while the rest of the city feels totally standard. but in Prague the entire place felt like an old town. we visited the palace, walked the Charles Bridge, and ate multiple times in the market in the Old Town Square. the chicken shish kebab was one of the best things we've eaten on this trip, which is a big compliment considering we eat more than anything other activity.

unfortunately, on our way out of Europe a visa issue prevented us from going to India. our "no fixed plans" quote really came into being, as we couldn't arrive where we intended. we spent a lot of time trying to fix and rearrange things, and now we here are in Thailand. we really hope we get the opportunity to go to India. for now, we're excited to be here, as everyone has responded so positively when we say we're going to Thailand. we're off to Chiang Mai in the northern part, before (hopefully, based on how the floods clear up!) heading south.

thanks to all of you who are following our adventures. it's so fun to hear from some of you that you're enjoying our blog. we truly are having an amazing time.

with love and pad thai,
sophie & jared

Days 43 - 50: Croatia

Shifting our very tentative to begin with schedule around, we decided to go to Croatia and come back to Austria and Czech Republic. so we hopped on a flight down to Dubrovnik. we're including a map, since most people (ourselves included) aren't too familiar with Croatia and the surrounding area.

The area has an interesting history of wars and ethnic differences. The countries in this area have changed rulers and names frequently and recently. We only tapped the surface of the history while we were here.

So we started in Dubrovnik, wayyyyy down at the bottom. see it? trains don't even run here! the city is famous for its Old Town, a beautiful area surrounded by the historic city walls. We rented a room from a super cute lady named Magdalena. She lived right in the center of Old Town, and insisted that we sit down right away to cheers with her homemade juice when she realized it was our honeymoon. Telling her it was our honeymoon was a fantastic decision, as she seemed even more eager to host us. She showed us her favorite restaurant, and insisted we get the fish. Neither of us are particularly big fish eaters, but we went for it! Luckily it was delicious. We also had access to free internet at her house, and borrowed her laptop in the middle of the night to catch some of the Giants games and to watch Harry Potter 6 (in prep for the seventh movie!!)!

We wandered the city and walked the walls, overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The next day it was sunnier, and we took a boat ride to 3 islands. The Dalmatian coast is dotted with islands all over the place. It's a really popular summer destination, but we were catching it in autumn. The boat captains really liked us and pulled Jared over to steer the boat for the first leg. We made it safely. The lunch served was fish again, and again it was pretty delicious. (and we could throw the extras to the seagulls following us).

Thanks to a friend's connection, we met up with a group of girls who are traveling Europe. They had been in Dubrovnik for almost 2 weeks. We met them for some tasty pizza and had a fabulous time. It turns out that a few of them were heading our same direction up the coast. So the next morning we met up with Katie and Mindy to ride to Split. And the adventure began!

Their other friends Kelsey and Tayla met us later in the afternoon. Split was a coastal town centered in Diocletians Palace. The Roman Emperor built a palace and now it houses a ton of apartments, shops, and restaurants. We wandered the town and daydreamed about which sailboats and yachts we wanted to ride on. On the afternoon of the next day we stumbled into a large group of people in a plaza. We noticed many of them had scarves for a football team, and discovered that the local Split team was playing that night. So we followed the crowd and ended up at the stadium! We bought tickets and went in to watch the game. It was absolutely nuts. The section next to us started cheering (as in choreographed chants) 15 minutes before kickoff and didn't stop for the entire game. It turns out it was the 60th anniversary of the team, so in the 60th minute they went nuts. Things were exploding, people were chanting SO loud, and they all threw paper onto the field. The smoke from the flares was so bad they stopped the game! If we hadn't been in the stadium we would have thought bombs were going off nearby. These fans are dedicated.

We left the girls (miss you! come to San Diego!) and went further north to the capital of Zagreb. (we celebrated Halloween with some candy by ourselves. it's not a big holiday here we discovered.) we're heading to Vienna today and have one week left in Europe.

ciao!
Sophie and Jared