Superlatives

An attempt at highlighting the highs and lows of the past year's journey....

Favorite Place: Lots of people asked us this question once we got back and there really isn't one answer. We would say the places we enjoyed the most in no particular order:

Bergen, Norway

Berlin, Germany

Slovenia

Thailand

Australia

Biggest Surprise: Thailand drives on the other side of the road. When you haven't slept for over 48 hours, this will catch you off guard.

Biggest Disappointment: More like places that  were over-hyped: Budapest and Vietnam. We heard so many amazing things about these places before we left, that it was hard for the real thing to meet the build up.

Lodging:
Hostel: Tropic Days in Cairns, Australia.  This place had it all.  Nice rooms with towels included for both your room and trips out to the Lagoon and the Great Barrier Reef.  Awesome common space and kitchen. Fun BBQ with kangaroo, crocodile, and emu.  Helpful staff that helped us outline a plan for our time in the country.  And of course the pool to hang out in because it was wicked hot the whole time.

 
Other: Our apartment in Dubrovnik was great.  It had a nice full kitchen, a host that gave us some amazing juice and one of the most phenomenal views we saw anywhere over the old walled city.  Of course we would be remiss not to mention the hospitality from our friends and family we stayed with along the way.

Food:

Street Food: Street markets and stands in Thailand have amazing inexpensive food.  We had so much good Thai food for so little money.

Doner and currywurst in Berlin deserve honorable mention.  Frites and mayonnaise (seriously mayonnaise in Europe is so much better) in Belgium are the real deal.

   

Restaurant: We didn't eat at too many fancy or expensive restaurants because of budget concerns but two of the best were Mundoaka in Zagreb, Croatia and the Meatball and Wine Bar in Melbourne, Australia. Mundoaka had nice twists on American and international classics.  The Meatball and Wine Bar is exactly what it sounds like, but the meatballs were some of the best we've ever had.

 Food Experience: The cooking classes we took in Thailand, Vietnam, and Santa Fe were all great.

Strangest: We had some sort of gelatinous meat something in a curry in Thailand.  The curry was delicious, whatever was in it was just weird.

Biggest Disappointment:  Waffles in Belgium and Pho in Vietnam.  Waffles were fine, but Waffle Cabin waffles at the ski resorts in New England are just as good.  We had some really good Pho in Saigon, but didn't think it was necessarily better than what you can get in Chinatown in Boston.

Beer:
International:  You basically can't go wrong with anything in Belgium or Germany to the point where it's hard to recommend a specific beer.  It's all delicious wherever you are.  Chang in Thailand however was a nice surprise.  A lager that goes well with spicy Thai food and it was only roughly a dollar for a 630 ml bottle even in restaurants.

Domestic: The best beer by far from our road trip was in the mountain time zone and we went to a lot of breweries and brew pubs.  Here were the best:
Dirty Hippie - Palisade Brewing Co. - Palisade, Colorado - Dark Wheat Ale
Village Nut Brown Ale - Oak Creek Brewery - Sedona, Arizona - Brown Ale
Discombobulator - Snake River Brewing - Jackson, Wyoming - German Maibock

Hike: The Fjell Hytten hike we took in Bergen Norway and the Grinnell Glacier Trail in Glacier National Park in Montana.

Beach:  Byron Bay, Australia is number one in terms of sand and surf.
Klong Prao Beach in Thailand gets honorable mention for having everything from loungers to food to drink to massages right on the beach.  One day we got there at 10 AM and didn't leave until 8 PM.

Parks:
International: Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia
US National Park: Glacier National Park in Montana
US National Monument: Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah

Mode of Transport: The boat through the fjords in Norway to Flam.  The Student Agency bus from Dresden to Prague which had better entertainment than any domestic flight in the US.  The Greyhound Australia setup where you could buy a ticket and travel at will down the entire east coast of Australia on really nice buses.

Place to Revisit:  See any of our favorite places, but it would be especially nice to go to Slovenia in the summer instead of November when it was pretty rainy.  Also, I would like to spend a bit more time in Belgium since we were only there for a few days.

Place We Don't Need to Go Back to: Vietnam.  We had fun there, but would go back to just about anywhere else we went first.

Worst Fight: Brisbane.  Pouring rain and Christiana yelled an expletive and threw my umbrella across the sidewalk.

Worst Drivers: Michigan.  We were only in Michigan for a couple of days and we were cut off more times in that span than the rest of the trip combined, I think.

Language: Best Foreign Word: Hodinky which means watch in Czech.  I don't know why but that's one I remember.

Currency: Every country's currency is cooler looking than the US, but the Vietnamese Dong creates the most joke opportunities.

Hardest Place to Be: Mostar, Bosnia. It was  old, and wet  and is still recovering from a war in the 90's.  The people are brave and conversant on their experience, but talking about a brutal war nearly every day is a hard feat to swallow.