Employment in Kenya

Source: Kachwanya.com

Something I just want to note somewhere is my pile of thoughts about employment and capacity in Kenya.

I've been really impressed - and delighted - by the high capacity (or ability to improve capacity) in Kenya. My teammates are brilliant, the ability to innovate is strong, and people's ingenuity is remarkable. And my experiences with other professionals have been probably better than what I have had in many US towns (and even in NYC).

What breaks my heart is the gap for some to get jobs worth their abilities. Many different people have explained to me that lots of Kenyans take years (YEARS!) to get jobs after graduation from university because the job market is inadequate. I've met colleagues who were once between jobs and had to look for a long period of time to find their next gig. This is particularly true for the youth; while a third of the working population is youth, youth also make up over two-thirds of the unemployment market.

What's more - sometimes the jobs they can get in their trained professions don't pay enough to make it worthwhile to choose over jobs that don't require their skills. A lot of people take jobs with drive shares like Uber or SafeBoda because the gig economy is real and many find it to be better money than more stable office jobs.

Take my driver, C. He drives a couple of us every day to and from our homes and the office. He's a really sweet guy, and sharp. I just found out he's a trained lab tech - a job I think is too complicated and skilled for me to get my head wrapped around ever.

And yet, he chooses to be an Uber driver over a lab tech. Because there aren't jobs that he could easily commute to from where his family is. Because it doesn't pay well. Because the perks just aren't there to make it worth his life's commitment. So C is now my driver and talks to me on our car rides about fecal sludge management, the chemistry of alcohol, and the science of health products and everything. We pay him $15 daily to drive us in a 2-hour commute through Nairobi.

I remarked this to some of my work colleagues here and they were sympathetic. They told me that if they got paid a bit less or had a car, they'd make the same choice.

This means that there are a lot of Uber drivers available for my tedious trips across the city. And a lot of them have shared interesting conversations with me about sanitation and the economy.

I know there are similar issues in places around the US, but I was surprised in such a booming economy with so much growth and potential to suffer from these issues. It seems that part of the issue is that the population rate has been outgrowing the economic growth rate, and some businesses are trying to get leaner and take on AI that can make some people redundant - and that could spell more unemployment problems in the near future in the country, or more brain drain.

Hello from Kenya

A public toilet in CBD

Hello from Nairobi! I landed here two weeks ago and will be here working on a project for the next six months.

I haven't written much about my visit yet because, well, I've been pretty busy. I work all day on my local consulting gig and then moonlight on a separate consulting project that I'm finishing up remotely. Much of my first two weeks have been going back and forth from the office working to my house working more (hopefully without annoying my two roommates) and then sleeping. All in all, my current consulting lifestyle is pretty dull.

But I feel like I should try to put together something about my initial time here so far. Whatever I put together today will have to be small, but it will be something. I'll put it in a list so I can do it quickly and get back to my projects. More in December, I guess?

• Leapfrog Modernity: I visited Nairobi for 20 years maybe 7-8 years ago. It's definitely changed a lot since the last visit. I landed into a much more modern airport; the one I had visited previously was one story and oddly riddled with potholes on the pedestrian walkways between gates, but the new airport looks like anything you'd see in Europe or the US. But there are other things that show how Nairobi (and other bigger African cities) are leapfrogging decades ahead from where they were a few years ago, thanks to the internet.
  My main form of transportation is Uber cars, which is cheap and fast...but Uber here also provides services for motorcycle rides (aka boda bodas), which is a staple form of transportation in any developing country I've been to. Boda bodas are cheaper and faster than cars (because of the traffic) but are a bit more dangerous (because of anything related to motorcycles), and they're now really easy to book without having to argue about prices (something I have hated to do).
  Not only do they have Uber, but they also have Uber Eats! I haven't used it yet, but my housemates use Uber Eats pretty regularly. It looks like most restaurants are offering Uber Eats in my area, which is convenient. I probably won't be ordering from KFC or Dominoes, but getting Ethiopian delivered sounds like a great future plan.
  Part of the modern leapfrogging also means that there are cashless places here that I've already stumbled into. Granted, mobile money has been a thing in Kenya long before we started hearing the word Venmo in the US, and many people here who aren't banked even get paid by their jobs via mobile money for their purchases and bill payments.
  And Nairobi is developing everywhere. I see highrises getting built all over the place (though some think that many of the empty construction sites are fronts for Chinese money laundering or something), and most of the buildings I go to that have restaurants I want to visit are still pulling the plastic wrap off of their windows, they're so new.
  And the roads are getting built better. The dusty roads are getting paved and there are even new overpassing highways across town. The rides are smoother than in other places, for sure.
  It's really amazing to see how quickly cities are growing outside of the Western world.
• Clean: I've been pleasantly surprised with how overall clean Nairobi is. I've been to other cities in other developing countries and have felt overwhelmed by the dusty streets completely drowning in trash. While there is some dust and some trash in Nairobi, and most of where I've been traveling around has been largely wealthy areas for ex-pats wealthy (probably mostly white) immigrants or the wealthy local population, I'm very happy to see that it's not so bad and some areas even have legitimate sidewalks (like my street). It smells better than NYC, too, which is a good thing.
• Good Events and Pretty Food: While I haven't been getting out much and have been subsisting mainly on eggs and the beans/rice lunches provided at work, I have gone out a few times. Every restaurant I've been to here so far has been really pretty and has tasty food. Last weekend I went to a new restaurant that has vegan/gluten-free/raw/veggie/dairy-free options (most likely they're catering to the massive ex-pat wealthy immigrant crowd), and it was as tasty as any health-focused restaurant I've been to in NYC. Right now (as I type) I'm in a popular Eritrean cafe and am eating a delightfully tasty veggie platter for $10. And the list of other places I've been told to eat at while I am here continues to grow the more days I'm here. Nairobi is booming with food.
  And I'm excited to get myself further immersed into the booming arts and theater culture here once I'm one contract down come December.
• Suburban Division: Nairobi reminds me of Brisbane, Australia in one particular way - it's divided up into separate suburbs that somehow loosely orbit around the Central Business District (CBD). CBD is where the government buildings are and I've seen a few public toilets (like in the picture) patiently offering busy bureaucrats easy on-the-go relief (though they don't have that many, they have probably more than NYC). I live in a mostly wealthy local and immigrant area called Kilimani, surrounded by other slightly different wealthy local and immigrant areas. We have sidewalks, sushi joints, and shopping malls. The only thing about the setup of the city is that it's not entirely walkable, so Uber is my best friend as I travel around the town. Otherwise, it's pretty easy.
• Traffic: It's bad. No matter what. There are cars for days, here. While there are public bus services and matatus that get you to different places while crammed into the vehicle with a lot of other people, a lot of people use the bodas and Ubers to get them around if they don't have a car themselves. This means there are a lot of cars everywhere, even/especially on new highways. Commutes to and from work take much longer than they should - my commute probably at least doubles most days to get to the office because of the traffic. Sometimes, just to keep moving, my work's carpool drives through the famous and massive  Kibera slum, which is harrowing on a different level because of its narrow roads and life spilling across them everywhere. I'm now learning to appreciate Audible so I can listen to books while I patiently sit in my commute's carpool for hours a day.
• Stable Weather: While the East Coast and Midwest start getting clobbered by snow and unpredictable daily temperatures, the weather here hovers between 60 and 80 every day, which is pretty pleasant. I wear a sweater in the morning to work, and on the way home I've got my hair up and am sticking to just a tee-shirt. I've stopped looking at the weather forecasts - the only thing I have to watch out for is rain, so I carry an umbrella all of the time. Otherwise, I'm pleasantly outside when I can. I do miss the pumpkin season, but it sounds like that season was shortlived at home anyway.

What am I doing in Nairobi? I'm working on an urban sanitation project. The organization I'm working with gets people living in informal settlements (aka slums) access to reliable and safe toilets that are regularly emptied and its fecal waste is safely treated to make fertilizer and animal feed. It's pretty damn cool, and I'm here helping them get better clarity about their data, measurements, and methodologies for assessing their performance and impact.

A Holiday in Jordan

Quintessential Jordan picture:
Petra's Treasury

I just got back from a wonderful 8-day trip through Jordan. I had originally just planned on going for a 3-day conference about water management, but I decided to road trip across my first Arab (and Middle Eastern) country. I ended up having a really interesting and peaceful week.

I didn't see all of the popular spots in Jordan, like Aqaba or the Baptism site, and I didn't walk through Jaresh (I drove by it), but I do feel like my trip was perfect for me.

I hired a Jordanian company called Dry Ver Jo to drive me around the country while I was there. It was one of the best decisions I made because I never worried about how I was getting anywhere, and my driver(s) showed me around the country's back roads and took care of me when I got my typical trip's food poisoning. My main driver was Abdullah; he was fantastic and made me feel like I had a best friend in Jordan driving me around and even brought me out for dinner on my last night.

Days 1-2: Dead Sea
I started my trip near the Dead Sea, for the conference. It's a hot and humid place, which isn't surprising as it's one of the lowest points on Earth you can visit without getting into the ocean AND has heaps of salt on the surface of both soil and water.

The first thing I did after arriving was to make my way to the Dead Sea, a 7-minute walk from the hotel I was staying. I could see clearly the lake's recession as the hotel's path to the water was riddled with derelict beach areas when the water was once much closer to the building; I found this very sad. The sea is receding about a meter annually because its tributary (the Jordan River) has been diverted too much by countries further upstream (which has also led to a lot of sinkholes in the dregs of the dying sea).

The sea is definitely saline, and when I finally made it to the waters, I floated like a rubber ducky and made the mistake of putting some of the water far too close to my lips (it tasted like nasty salt).

For the rest of my stay in the area, I was mostly in a conference room listening to academics talk about the history of water reuse. It was a fine conference, albeit small and a bit "aged". I was very jetlagged during the conference, but I forged through it and met some interesting water historians.

Days 3-4: Wadi Mujib & Petra
Part of the conference included a day trip to Petra to look at ancient water systems. We piled into a tour bus and drove three hours south to visit the famous site.

I have to explain something: I have never liked being part of tour groups. I find them too restrictive when exploring. This day trip reminded me how much I don't enjoy being part of groups - much of the conference attendees were slow to move and were interested in capturing pictures while a guide patiently tried to usher us from the Petra Museum (with a lovely exhibit describing the culture of the people who built Petra - the Nabateans) and through the Siq. About two hours into the tour, I grew impatient and asked to break away at a faster speed so I wouldn't miss out on seeing the rest of the site (at their speed, we'd only get to the Treasury and would have no time to see the rest of the place).

Petra is beautiful and fascinating; there's a reason why people flock to see this archeological location. The buildings were expertly carved out of the canyon's soft sandstone for different purposes - an amphitheater, tombs, monasteries, homes, etc. It was hot when we were visiting and Petra doesn't have a lot of shade, but I pushed forward and was awed when I got to the Treasury. It's the most famous (and photogenic) aspect of Petra, and with good reason; the carvings are still very much defined, and it's a brilliant view when you reach it from the Siq.

I also walked down the main thoroughfare and saw the panoramic sights of the city of Petra, with the smaller carved-out houses in the rock (and donkeys inside to seek shade), the tombs and church further up flights of precarious steps, and through the sandy old road. I was due to meet the tour group shortly after I broke away, so I didn't have time to climb up to see some of the tombs or monastery up close, but I didn't mind (I liked looking from afar just as much).

One of the incredible things about Petra and the Nabateans is their sophisticated water management systems from such an early time. Jordan has always had water quantity challenges, but they had perfect water piping systems and cisterns that stored and reused water within their habitats. Some of those systems could probably be adopted in parts of the world still. So neat!

A bummer of Petra (for me) was seeing the sad animals being overworked. The donkeys drag carriages up and down the rocky hills of the Siq. These donkeys are prodded to go fast and trip across cobblestones until they are heaving and clearly distressed. It was really sad to see them zoom back and forth in the site and even sadder how many people were willing to pay for their use. A suggestion: don't use the donkeys in Petra.

The tour group drove back to the Dead Sea for the night. The next day I made my way back.

Along the way, we stopped at Wadi Mujib. Before I showed up, I didn't know much about Wadi Mujib other than it was supposed to be a beautiful place in a canyon and a fun side adventure while in Jordan...so I got there and asked the admission's fee. The entrance guy looked at me in my linen pants and politely asked me if I was ready to swim, climb, and crawl through the canyon. Clearly not sure what I was getting myself into, I changed into some more "athletic" gear and headed into the canyon with a tour guide.

Wadi Mujib's adventure is a great and safe experience, but it's also hard. I found myself in a canyon with a stream-cum-rapid that I was wading through to get to the big waterfall at the end of the 2-hour hike. The further along you are, the deeper and faster the water gets. My guide made the trecking a lot easier; we'd watch people in front of us struggle and he'd respond by showing me a much simpler method to get past a rapid that saved me time and energy (thank god I paid extra to have him join me!). It was still a tough course to get through, though, and there were moments where I slammed into rocks or had to drag myself up a pile of rocks with a rope and felt myself pull one of many muscles along the way. I also accidentally got a lot of water in my nose and mouth at different parts of the journey, which I suspect gave me the sickness I had a day later. Sadly, my fear of heights kicked in strongly about 2/3 into the trek, and I made my guide turn around after forcefully shouting at him "NO!" in Arabic (rather, "La!" / "!لا").

I'm glad I did it, but I felt the pain from that adventure for a few days after.

En route to my next stop, Abdullah brought me to a tea shop on a cliff in the mountains near the Dead Sea. I got some sugary tea and enjoyed a gorgeous backdrop of rolling hills and distant views of Palestine. An old man was sitting at the tea spot and started talking to my driver about me. The old man informed us that he was a fan of Trump (much to my dismay and Abdullah's confusion) and was a proud veteran of the Jordanian Army. He pulled out of his wallet a medallion from his service and asked me to wear it for one of my pictures. I was touched and honored that he shared such an important thing with me for a few minutes.

After that adventure, we drove on to Wadi Musa, where I had arranged to stay at a Bedouin camp for a few nights. The camp I stayed at was in the middle of an empty desert area near Little Petra, so it was beautifully quiet. At night, they lit a campfire to warm up tea and one of the nearby rock formations lit up with twinkling bags of light they had placed in its crags.

Day 5: Little Petra
The next day I woke up feeling like I was in an otherworldly place - the camp felt like it was some outpost on the moon!

I had decided to spend most of the day reading quietly and relaxing - it was my vacation, after all. Before sundown, though, I wanted to walk 30 minutes over to Little Petra for a while. Way back in the day, Little Petra was likely the suburb of the popular Petra, and important people I think would "park" their camels and caravans at this place.

Honestly, I liked Little Petra a little bit more than the other one. It was quieter (most tourists don't bother visiting), it was shaded, it had some preserved ceiling art, and I could more realistically envision people coming into this area and living there.

One of my favorite parts of visiting ancient sites is visualizing people back in the day living there normally - it makes the place feel more real to me.

A younger shopowner at Little Petra showed me around the area, and I happily followed him knowing I'd pay him afterward. With my Wadi Mujib injuries, he helped me safely climb up and down steps in the area and showed me places I wouldn't have bothered looking into if he weren't with me. He was concerned about my limp and showed me a local tree that apparently people use to help soothe muscles. He then invited me to apply it on my leg in his cave a few minutes' away.

For the record, this man lived in a cave. The cave had carved out pillars and was clearly old (with some new carpets and mattresses lining the floor). Essentially, he appeared to live in a Nabatean-built cave and modernized the place a little bit. I was floored! Apparently, much of the Nabatean caves that were part of the Petra civilization are not completely what the tourists see, and some people are still using these caves to live (and others probably have still yet to be fully discovered).

I put on my homemade ointment (that may have helped a little bit) and hobbled my way back to my camp for the night.

Day 6: Wadi Rum

Early the next day I got picked up to drive even further south to the UNESCO-protected desert in Jordan - Wadi Rum. This was the place they filmed The Martian and Lawrence of Arabia. I got to the desert village a little after midday and my bedouin camp in the desert picked me up for my five-hour Jeep tour through the protected area.

The Jeep tour was incredible - it was as if we were driving through Mars for much of the trip. The Bedouin man who was driving me around showed me some breathtaking sights and took me all over. We started in an area that had prehistoric petroglyphs carved into the stone walls, climbed a number of red rock formations so I could hover over a natural arch, then he drove me far away from any other living beings, in absolute silence and desolation. He showed me how the desert has two regions: red and white. The red region is where the camps are and is better traveled by tourists; the white region is furthest from any road and is not allowed to have any camps built in it. There were camels hanging out all across the desert; some had tourists on their back, some were just hanging out as if life was mellow and they were just along for the ride. My guide drove around the desert as if there were well-marked streets through the barrenness of the desert that I just couldn't see for some reason. I'm still baffled.

The camp where I was staying for the night was the last camp in the desert and the closest to the white desert and without any internet or connectivity. I also happened to be the only person there for the night. They asked me if I wanted to change my camp to be with other people, but I was excited about having a very quiet and alone evening in the middle of nowhere. I had the whole night to myself (and three guys running the camp) with the dunes and starlit sky. One of the camp staff brought out an oud and played some traditional music just for me. We sat and talked quietly over a small campfire, and I watched shooting stars.

I was very much alone in a lot of ways that night, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed being the only person using the bathrooms and the silence echoing in the stillness of the desert. What I did not enjoy was a night in and out of the bathroom with some medium-level food poisoning (most useful in Arabic during my stay - "Ana murad"/"انا مريض"/"I'm sick"). The camp staff guys were concerned about me and, with limited ability to speak with each other, helped me decide that the next day I'd go see a doctor in Amman while I started taking some Cipro I had carried with me "just in case".

Day 7 - 8: Amman (and North)

The next day my driver friend picked me up early at a nearby tourist rest stop and drove me (slowly, at my request) from Wadi Rum to Amman. One of the local women at the conference had helped me find a GI doctor and I had booked an appointment for early in the afternoon to make sure I hadn't picked up those irritating parasites (that I'm prone to getting while overseas).

The GI doctor was very helpful and well-informed. He checked out my gut, got me to leave behind a sample for testing, and instructed me to get a second opinion about some of the treatments I am taking for other more chronic GI issues. With his visit and the lab tests he ran, the tab ended up being $100...without any insurance. In the US, that bill would have been the same WITH insurance. And the healthcare in Jordan felt more personal and less like a factory. If you ever get sick in Jordan, rest assure there is really great, affordable care out there.

My hotel in Amman was fine. The hotel manager had very limited English but tried to talk to me anyway about things that strangers shouldn't ask guests in their hotel. I kept to myself and avoided him as much as I could.

The next day I went for a tourist jaunt across the city. It was a jarring experience - not just because I had just spent the last 3 or 4 days in very quiet, secluded areas of the country and I was accosted by the noises of urbanity suddenly, but also because the people I encountered were less kind and less helpful. It was a helpful reminder that people in cities are not good reflections of the rest of the country I'm in. I mean, I knew this already - I'm a New Yorker, after all.

I started the day at the Amman Citadel. It resembles a Roman ruin but dates back much further than that. I slowly walked around the fort and admired some of the ancient water storage sites they had built so long ago.

After I was finished, I made a mistake. I agreed to let the first taxi driver I met to drive me around the city for two hours. The guy was a creep and talked to me all about his taste in women and asking me all about my weight management (ugh). He ended up stealing about $20 from me on top of what I had originally agreed to pay him, and he pissed me off a lot. It was my fault, I know, but it was another reminder that city people are not always the best people in the world. That's what I'll say about him.

I visited the Amphitheater and its two museum exhibits about traditional cultures in Jordan. They were interesting to see and I do recommend people to visit at least for a little bit.  The remains are quite well preserved and are neat to walk through, as well.

The creep taxi man also made me go to the King Abdullah Mosque in the city. It's not a particularly old mosque - it's not quite 40 years old yet, and I was honestly unimpressed by it. Don't get me wrong, it was nice; it was just like going to any other modern building in use with stained glass windows, which I was not interested in. There was also a tourist shop under the mosque that I was pushed to visit and I decided to at least make the stop useful to finish up my Xmas shopping, so I spent too much on some nice souvenirs. Much of it was soap (spoiler alert?).

I also went downtown to buy 1.5 kilos of spices (za'atar and sumac) and ditched the creepy cabbie to get some lunch. I stopped at the famous Al Quds for lunch and ordered some delicious mansaf, which is a rice dish with a tangy yogurt sauce, nuts, and chicken. I also sacrificed my glutenfree health to give knafeh a try (a popular local dessert with unsalted cheese and a honeyed pastry top)...and it was very much delicious and probably worth the pain I will deal with for the next few weeks.

By this time it was sunny and 95F/35C out, but I wasn't ready to quit my tourism quite yet. I walked uphill for about an hour to see Rainbow Street, which is apparently a popular and swanky tourist spot. Much of the uphill walk was a multi-story staircase that felt like it was going up forever; I trudged my way up and took my sweet time, panting and sweating bullets. By the time I got to Rainbow Street, I was far too hot to enjoy it and opted to double fist iced sodas for a few hours at a local shop before I made my way to my evening dinner.

I had booked my dinner plans as a cooking class at Beit Sitti (Grandmother's Kitchen). The place is a great cause - they hire older women who are refugees from local countries to teach tourists common Arabic dishes for a few hours. The class was lovely and in a small house with a beautiful balcony for us to enjoy our class's output. We cooked a one-pot rice dish called maglubah and some eggplant dish like baba ghanoush. 

The next day was a searing 100F/38C, so I decided to change my trip plans with Abdullah. We were scheduled to visit Jerash (a well-preserved Roman city) in the north for the day; instead, we agreed to drive around it a few times in the airconditioned car and eat more knafeh at the gorgeous Ajloun Nature Reserve. I gazed down over a balcony at the reserve center at a sea of oak trees before we hopped back in the car and got dinner in Amman.

For my final dinner in the country, Abdullah brought me out to a local restaurant that specialized in more generally "Gulf country" food. I got fish, rice, and a bowl of delicious lentil soup that I plan on trying to cook for myself sometime. It was a wonderful send-off from a friend before I passed out in my airport hotel for an early morning flight back to NYC.

Last Thoughts
My trip was rejuvenating and fascinating. As usual, here are some overarching things I wanted to mention about the trip.

• Deserts are Surreal: Drying through the country meant mostly being in a desert. I found it unreal driving through it because the color palette of the region was monochromatic and meant that everywhere I went was very hot and super dry. This isn't particularly poignant, but it was a new experience for me and I felt it very differently compared to most other experiences I've had. I'm not sure if I liked it or not.
• Jordanian Hospitality is Awesome: Barring a few unpleasant encounters in Amman, everyone I met in Jordan was extremely nice and hospitable. People were eager to help me get oriented, travel, eat good food, and feel better after my bout of diarrhea. Sometimes I was shocked at how people didn't often seem interested in taking money for helping me, which made me feel even more awe for their compassion and kindness to a stranger. It humbled me.
• Solo Traveling is Safe: Most people I met (especially other tourists) were particularly concerned about me being alone and going through Jordan mostly solo. People kept asking me if I was safe or if it was "wise" to go to XYZ area alone...but I found being alone was a super way to really experience the area without having to manage others and their expectations in my travels. The one day I toured with others reminded me how my pace is so different from others, and Jordan people's kindness and interest in my well-being made it okay for me to be alone. Even being completely at the mercy of the camp staff in the desert with no communication with the outside world felt completely normal and secure. I don't feel this way at home, usually.
• Arabs Have Opinions about Arabs: Jordanians have a lot of opinions about other Arabs, which surprised me especially given their hospitality and generosity. Some Jordanians I met warned me about Syrians, others felt very poorly towards Saudis, and some went on about the corruption of all Egyptians. And so on. I was slightly sad to hear that Arabs apparently fiercely judge against each other, especially while the rest of the world judges them at least as harshly.

A Ghanaian Funeral

I didn't go to this funeral.

I was just in Ghana for a few weeks working in the field on a project. During my stay, I was asked to join my team to attend a funeral for one of our colleagues who had passed away, over the weekend. Of course, I agreed to join....but it was clear during the experience that I was wildly unprepared and still prone to culture shock.

According to my Ghanaian colleagues, weekends are for funerals. You attend lots of funerals, here - for people you know or people you knew of from others - so that eventually you'll have a sizable gathering for your own funeral. Because in Ghana, funerals are big deals - much bigger than weddings.  I mean, they're big enough to the point that some think they can be a bit excessive.

Perhaps you've seen on social media one or two videos from a Ghanaian funeral? You know, one of the pallbearers dancing with a coffin bouncing on their shoulders?

I find it almost impossible to explain the Ghanaian funeral I attended by comparing it to anything we have in the US...but I found myself comparing it a bit to Indian weddings. It had a lot of pomps and circumstances (like an Indian wedding) and it was long. And apparently, by Ghanaian scale, this funeral was a very small one.

But I'm ahead of myself.

The funeral was in the Central Region - about a five-/six-hour drive from Accra. My 60 Ghanaian colleagues and I sleepily piled into a VIP bus at 2am (!) on Saturday and started our journey. If you've ever driven down Ghanaian roads, you may recall that speeds are managed via ample speed bumps and potholes (every mile or so?). Sleeping on the bus was difficult.

A few towns before we reached the funeral, we stopped at a guesthouse to dress for the service. Ghanaian funerals are formal events - no jeans or sneakers! The standard colors are black and red (with a few exceptions for those in church groups with costumes - yes, costumes - and etc.). Women wear tailored outfits with a flared blouse paired with a mermaid skirt, while men wear smart kente shirts or elaborate "togas". Apparently, in the Ashanti region, funeral attire is so strict that one can be refused entrance if the outfit isn't up to code. Luckily for me, we weren't in Ashanti and I was allowed to wear simple black pants and a modest shirt.

When we arrived, we had to line up and start a procession to the funeral (women in the back, of course) and around the corpse of our late colleague before sitting down.

Okay, so this is when the culture shock for me started during the funeral. There much to unpack in my culture shock, so I will explain the uniqueness in my favorite format - a list:

• The (dressed) corpse was laid out in full view on a table in a clear tent. I was not expecting the body to be on display as fully as it was. In Western funerals, *if* the body is on display, it's only from the torso up. This body, however, was not covered at all - I saw the rigid legs leading to the stiff upper body of someone who has been moved into position after Rigor mortis set in. There was no way to deny death at this funeral, for his body was so clearly visible to all who attended at all vantage points.
  
• The corpse was a month old. In a country that is hot and so very near the equator, I was baffled to see the body in such a well-preserved state...and that they had taken so long to bury the body. My colleagues explained to me that burial customs in Ghana sometimes prohibit bodies from being buried for quite a long time, which means families and morgues will do what they can keep bodies on ice if there are delays.
  Why would there be delays? One example I heard was that if a local royal died before your loved one, you can't bury them until the royal is. And, since funerals are such big deals in Ghana, funerary ceremonies for royals can last weeks/months/years! Which means you just have to wait to mourn your loss until the royals are buried. I'm not entirely sure why this funeral was a month late, but it was - and that was not abnormal to anyone but me.
• There were hundreds of people at this "small funeral". In the West, a large funeral may have 100 people or so; in Ghana, large funerals have more like a few thousand. I was in awe that so many people turned up at the funeral, but was even more surprised when I was told that it was a tiny funeral. The reason why thousands of people didn't show up was that my colleague died rather young and before his parents - in Ghana, burying a child requires a smaller, not-very-spectacular funeral.
  
• The service had lots of emotions expressed. I'm used to funerals being somber, sad events. Ghanaian funerals have (potentially professional?) wailers and sobbing/moaning family members, of course, but there was also a lot of singing and dancing. The church that ran the service brought the chorus. They banged tambourines, sang joyfully to songs about Jesus (I think? It was in Twi, but "Jesus" sounded the same...), and danced in a parade around the center of the funeral grounds - sometimes even around the body. At some point during the funeral, the corpse was moved discreetly into a coffin, which was then placed in the middle of the compound, and more dancing circled it. Some periods of the funeral had rowdy songs juxtaposed with people crying loudly. I didn't really know how to process the information during this service because I felt overwhelmed with emotions at the moment, but I think I was glad to have some levity in what normally is a dark event...even if the contrast was so stark.


• The service was quite long. In my world, funerals are for about two hours. Max. We ended up staying at this funeral for six hours before hopping back in the bus to return to Accra...and we had left early! Once again, funerals can last a long time, and apparently, I only got a taste of all that would be included in the ceremonies. To me, it was extremely long; understanding only a smattering of words - mostly being "Jesus" - probably made it feel even longer.
  
• We had to go through a lot of formalities. So much of the funeral included people moving around, shaking hands of everyone else attending the funeral. And much else of the funeral were different people making speeches (again, in Twi) in what appeared to have been normal standard operating procedures. I'm not sure most of what happened, but there seemed to have been some kind of formula to go through for the event. We did a lot of standing and sitting for songs and other parts that I didn't understand, as well.
  There was one part of the ceremony that was in English: the eulogies. And it was heartbreaking to listen to several people read out their written eulogies in between sobs.

After the initial religious part of the ceremony and people moved around the coffin a few times, it was time for the pallbearers to lead the hundreds of attendees to the burial. We were in a rural community, so everyone piled onto the road and slowly walked to the cemetery off on the shoulder of the road, at the end of the village.

Did I mention that it was hot out in rural Ghana? It was probably 100F/37.8C outside and as the sun climbed the sky, all of my colleagues and I started to pour sweat (I won't lie...I was comforted to see that I wasn't the only one sweating). There was a point during the day where I wasn't sure my clothing would ever come off again from my sweaty body. I wasn't sure if I'd ever know what it felt like to be cold again, either. There was some cooling wind...but not much.

At some point after the burial, I realized I had an urgent need to urinate. A few of my lady colleagues helped me find a village toilet, which was harder than it sounds as Ghana is known in my sector as having low sanitation coverage. Anyway, somebody showed us to a roofless structure with walls that wrapped around like a spiral and told me to have at it. I walked cautiously through the spiral to find a stained floor and a small hole in the side of the wall that outputted into a divet near someone's home. This was the only toilet in the community apparently, so I took off my pants and squatted...and proceeded to urinate openly and indiscriminately. It was so hot out I couldn't tell where my urine was going, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get any of it on my person. Oh well.

The happenings continued.

Our organization wanted to donate some money to the bereaved family, which meant the formalities continued for us. All 60 of us were ushered into a family compound where we sat and waited for the bereaved family members to greet us. My understanding is that we first had the widow's family leaders come to greet us and asked us our intentions, to which someone on our team represented us and stated our intention to donate money. The widow's family left, satisfied. Afterward, we waited for a while until the bereaved blood family joined us and we went through the same formalities again. Each time a new group or family came to go through this process with us, there was handshaking. Everyone had to give each other handshakes. Which meant I shook a lot of people's hands that day. Many of them seemed quite pleased to have shaken the hand of a foreigner at the funeral - it appears I added some prestige to the funeral and showed that our colleague had had an international network.

Once the handshaking ended, we then had to do the process all over again, this time in public at the official ceremony where donations were publically announced. Again, someone had to state our intentions to give money to the family, and we had to shake hands. The difference with this version was that afterward our team had to dance around the altar that replaced the coffin before we were able to leave the funeral and head home. 

We finally got back to Accra around 9pm - about 20 hours after our days started. But, of course, not without me peeing on myself one last time (this time at a gas station) while we headed back.

Overall, it was a fascinating experience. I wish I had thought to have read up more in what a Ghanaian funeral would entail, and I wish I had prepared myself better to deal with an overwhelming cultural experience in blistering heat. But it is still a memory that I will not forget and is giving me food for thought about my own future funerary experiences and last wishes. I'm sure I got some of the details mixed up or misunderstood, but based on my understanding of what happened that day, the Ghanaians hold their deceased in the highest of esteem and respect.

One last note: I found this article about how some of the funeral calls in Ghana can be quite comedic - enjoy!

Iceland Road Trip

A little fairy house we saw on our drive.

After our delightful time in Denmark, the CT Lawyer and I jumped over to Iceland for the remainder of our holiday. Our Iceland adventure included us flying to the other side of the country and drive south on the Ring Road for a few days back to Reykjavik. It was quite a fun road trip!

Day 1: Blue Lagoon
We got on a bus from the airport that headed straight to the Blue Lagoon. It was my second visit to the spa, but it was even more relaxing and fun than the first time! There are always a large group of tourists revolving all day through this place, but they do a great job making it enjoyable even with lots of people. We waded through the water and soaked for a while with their silicon face masks before dinner at their Lava Restaurant.

During dinner, my face turned bright red and steaming hot - my super sensitive skin had a reaction to the face mask. The reaction made me unable to really enjoy the good food, sadly. Fortunately, the rash went away during the 45-minute bus ride to our hotel in Reykjavik.

Day 2: Reykjavik to Egilsstadir
The next day we woke up to a bright and shining Reykjavik. We took a fast walk around downtown, where I insisted on eating a hot dog at a famous stand. It was pretty darn good (and cheap), though definitely not gluten-free.

We had an afternoon flight to Egilsstadir, where our road trip would begin. The domestic airport is in the heart of Reykjavik, separately from the international one that is an hour out of the city. We arrived two hours early (as we do for US flights), but, upon reaching the airport and reflecting the small size of Iceland, we realized that we were painfully early. The airport is essentially a simple room with access to the tarmac - it reminded me of the domestic airports in Puerto Rico or Myanmar. Without enough time to go back out and explore, we waited patiently in the quiet airport for our flight.

We picked up our rental truck right after landing in Egilsstadir. Getting to the rental truck, our lungs exploded with fresh air and my ears buzzed with the quietness of the area. There are, after all, only about 2,500 people who live in the area and a light sprinkle of houses contrasted with lots of open space.

This was something we experienced for the first few days of our road trip; we found ourselves in very sparsely populated areas; we would see no one else for miles, and when we did see people there weren't that many. It was wonderful.

Once checked into our guest house, we drove out a ways to visit the coastal town Borgarfjörður Eystri; we wanted to see if the puffin hotspot was still buzzing or if the puffins had left for the season. We drove through lovely countryside dotted with farms until we reached the mountains lining the coast, which is when the road started to wind tightly and become treacherous. To make driving even scarier, a thick fog settled around us, forcing us to drive at a snail's pace so we wouldn't fly off the road suddenly.

When we finally got to our destination, the puffins were long gone. There was a whipping wind in the tiny town, so we got back in the car and drove (slowly again!) back to Egilsstadir. Once we had returned to town, we ate dinner at a small house and I enjoyed one of my first bowls of delicious lobster soup. There wasn't much else to do as the sun disappeared, so we napped a little bit before we went back outside later at night.

Our goal that night was to espy some aurora borealis, clouds permitting. Our host recommended a few vague locations for us to see the aurora well, including a 10-minute drive to some vague location on the top of a hill outside of town. We tried a walkable location first, which was a little too well-lit...which meant we got into the car and got lost for about 30 minutes until we finally figured out where the host's directions were leading us. It was worth it - before the clouds overcame the sky, we got to watch the slow movement of a green swirly band of light caress the stars.

Day 3: Egilsstadir to Hofn
In the morning we started our long drive south to a town called Hofn. The host told us to not trust Google and take a specific route that was safer and prettier than the older road Google indicated in our directions (the "new" Route 1). At first, we were hesitant (we'd be going on verbal directions for hours), but we followed his directions and enjoyed long views of the water and rolling mountains. We were surrounded by natural beauty and barely made any contact with other humans or towns along the way - there weren't even other cars on the road for a long time! The Google-recommended road intersected with ours halfway into the drive and we saw a line of rental cars (with Google-navigating tourists), all muddied and battered from old road gravel. We were so glad we listened.

We started to see the outlines of glaciers on the horizon. The closer we got, the bigger and more daunting (and otherworldly) they appeared. We were going directly to one of those glaciers, actually - we had bought tickets earlier for a kayak tour of a glacial lake.

We checked into the tour in the parking lot of a dairy farm next to the glacial lake, put on our heavy-duty ice-ready gear, and shuttled off to the kayaks. After a few fits and starts (and almost capsizing), CT Lawyer and I decided to kayak in separate kayaks and joined our small tour group (about 14 people...and no other humans in sight) as we waded around calm yet ever-moving icebergs floating in the water. It was stunning. Part of the kayak adventure also included hiking on top of some of the icebergs. We put on ice shoe chains and learned about the lives of glaciers while we walked on the giants. It was an extremely neat tour!

After kayaking, we drove into the town of Hofn for dinner plan - one of the locals had started a business offering traditional, local meals for tourists, and we went to her home to enjoy some fish casserole. Upon arrival, she presented to us a fascinating walk through the history of Icelandic food. We got to try fish leather and fermented shark (which kind of reminded me of very strong brie) and whey (do not recommend). The fish casserole was creamy and comforting in the chilly weather.

Day 4: Hofn to Vestmannaeyjar
We drove towards the Westman Islands, but we had a lot of time between how long it would take to drive to the ferry and when our ferry was scheduled, so we took our time and visited a number of places on the way. We started to see more people (especially tourists).

The first place we visited was the famous "James Bond Lake" - Jökulsárlón Glacial Lake. It was busy with tourists on inflatable rafts. After ogling the lake, we soon went back into the car and kept our drive going. We were trying to run away from a storm that was traveling in our direction.

As we kept speeding down the road, we happened upon a beautiful, picturesque glacial area (Hvannadalshnúkur) with wildflowers hiding at a swampy marsh. We stopped to admire the background...and then we kept going.

We also took a quick stop to hike up a mountain and peek at the Svartifoss waterfall (where, again, we saw more tourists), but neither of us was feeling particularly dazzled and we went back to the car. We took other pit stops at waterfalls like Ásólfsskáli and a few others I can't remember (there are many waterfalls all over the place). We finally had put a few hours between us and the storm.

We also stopped at an outside turf house site. There's a little museum for the special houses in Keldur, but it was closed for the winter. Fortunately, the gate was still open (not sure if that was intentional...) and we quietly walked through the small row of sweet turf houses and circled the adjacent small, steepled church. In the back was a small graveyard that overlooked a swiftly-traveling river. The panorama was breathtaking.

We still had an hour or two to kill before the ferry, so we drove to a museum we had seen advertised on a billboard - the Saga Center. Essentially, it is an indoor exhibit that retells the famous Icelandic story called Njal's Saga. We, apparently, were the only people who thought this was a good idea - no one else was around! We walked through the exhibit (which had background noise of people fighting with swords) and read the storyboards throughout summarized the tale. The exhibit ends in a restaurant that was modeled after an old Nordic longhouse. In there, we found two guys manning the bar (in metal shirts) who were very eager to sell some ribs. I'm not sure why ribs were on the menu, but we humored them and ordered some. They tasted fine, the guys asked us a lot of questions about their cooking tactics (I doubt they had been serving many people lately). It was a strange place but an entertaining experience.

Finally, we got to to the ferry that would take us to the Westman Island. We were visiting the island specifically because it has one of the largest puffin colonies in the world, and we were hoping for a little puffin viewing action before we left the country. So we got on a very large freight ferry with a bunch of local families and semi-trucks that were bringing merchandise to the community.

The wind was strong and the seas were very angry; while the travel time was only 45 minutes, it was a harrowing ride and the ferry tipped every which way. I saw the locals running to puke in the toilets during the ride. There was a TV room in the ship that played continuous episodes of Friends, which I made Mr. CT Lawyer watch while being sure we were going to die in the waves.

But we made it to the island alive!

And the island was super duper windy - I mean, windy doesn't even describe the severity of the wind...gale-ish is more like it. This was slightly problematic for us because we were staying in a barrle cabin at a campsite and the toilets were only accessible by walking outside. But that made it fun, right?! And kind of nerve-wracking.

Upon checking in, the campsite manager let us know that there were pufflings (BABY puffins) out and about the island still and the Islanders were running around at night with cardboard boxes to catch them! She lent us her puffling box and we ran out to the port to go puffling hunting.

Let me explain.

Adult puffins leave the island in late August, but they leave pufflings behind to learn how to fend for themselves. Think of it as the teenagers being kicked out of the nest to figure out life. The pufflings now struggle with the island's urbanization; they get confused and lost at night because of the streetlights, which makes them susceptible to moving cars and hunting cats.

So we, along with local children and parents, were running around the port with our cardboard boxes, trying to catch pufflings and turn them into the local aquarium for tagging and release the next morning. The atmosphere was a lot like Halloween because people ran around the streets with flashlights and containers.

We honestly didn't think we were going to actually find pufflings. But we did.

We stalked the harbor for places pufflings could hide. I thought of how our little pup likes to find comfort by huddling next to walls, so I looked around the corners of buildings. Pretty quickly I found a little puffling cuddling the wall of a generator building by the water, trying hard to look invisible. I slowly approached the little guy and he ran under a nearby car...where a cat was waiting. CT Lawyer joined me and shooed the cat away. We then spent the next 10 minutes coaxing a reluctant puffling from under a car. He wasn't happy about being captured (CT Lawyer was holding him) and he pecked away at CT Lawyer's gloved hands while I grabbed the cardboard box from the car. Meanwhile, a local man slowed his car with the lights shining on what looked like a tiny black ball (aka terrified puffling). He got out of his car and professionally snatched the puffling before it could run away, but he started to look around his car thinking, “Well, what am I going to do with this puffling now??” I ran up to him to offer to care for the puffling if he didn’t have time. He shrugged nonchalantly and handed the puffing over to me. And then there were two.

There was a small challenge we hadn’t thought of; the pufflings were apt at escaping their box in the back of the car. We spent another 15 minutes digging around for two pissed off pufflings hiding in the nooks of the truck. At last, we got them in the box and kept them in the blustery campsite overnight until the aquarium opened up.

And our lives are now complete. We have unlocked all of our achievements and could go home right then and there. Well, we still had to bring the pufflings to the aquarium in the morning.

Day 5: Vestmannaeyjar to Kjarnholdt (aka middle of nowhere)

When we got to the aquarium, the floor was covered with boxes with live, mad pufflings. The aquarium was great with them, though – they measured the pufflings, weighed them despite being pecked, and asked if we’d like to release our two little guys off the cliffs. And we did, off the windy cliffs off Vestmanaeyjar, and boy did they fly! 

Also, there was an adorable adult puffin at the aquarium named Hetti who waddled around the exhibit (with an aquatic pitter-patter) and greeted the humans and pufflings upon entering.

Oh, and if you were wondering, puffins smell like fish.

Otherwise, Vestmanaeyjar was gorgeous but terribly windy, and we drove around the entire island in about 20 minutes. The other attraction there was a museum and buried outdoor village that memorialized a local volcanic eruption from a few decades ago, called the Pompeii of Iceland (it buried so much of the island, but I think only one or two people died in the eruption). The museum centered on an excavated home and was fun and engaging with games, videos, and music – if you’re ever on the island, you really should hit it up.

Before we ferried back to the main island, we stopped by a little fish shop for lunch. Everything was exceptionally fresh. I had a fish curry that almost made time stop for a few minutes for me.

After a less terrifying ferry ride, we drove west and headed more inland for a night, because why not?

We drove to the Gulfoss Waterfall and went to a camping restaurant to have some pizza (it,,,was not good). We eventually drove to our guesthouse that was so incredibly remote and off the main roads that we worried that we would be kidnapped and imprisoned in the guesthouse's basement.

But that’s not what happened; instead, we slept in a quiet ranch for a night.

Day 6: Kjarnholdt to Reykjavik

In the morning we drove to the Geysir for a hot bit and took a stroll through the Þingvellir National Park to see the tectonic rift under crystal clear water. There were hordes of tourists now wherever we drove, which was jarring and made us itch to escape the humans. In any case, we were in a rush – we had a scheduled event in Reykjavik.

The drive wasn’t very long, fortunately, and we had time to kill. We enjoyed the Perlan (which is a big, fancy Icelandic nature museum slash observatory). They had a simulated glacier walk in the basement (with real glacial ice) and a stellar view of the city.

The event we were running to was a four-hour class at elfschool. Yes, it was a class about elves - Icelanders have strong, fascinating mythology around elves still. It was fun…and mighty quirky (just how we like it). The elf expert was extremely knowledgeable about elf stories while keeping his class tongue-in-cheek. And he served us tea and pancakes, which was very nice.

After we earned our diplomas in elf studies, we went to our final dinner at an upscale restaurant, fishmrkt. I was tired of eating fished by then and ordered lamb (which is also popular in Iceland), and it was good despite their specialty in marine life.

Day 7: Reykjavik to Back Home

Our flight back home was later in the day, which means we had time to for one more walk around Reykjavik. We got another hotdog and visited the Icelandic Phallological Museum (aka penis museum), which is essentially a room filled with preserved penises from all kinds of animals, including humans.

A lot of the tourists, like ourselves, visited the museum for the novelty of it…but most didn’t get the full experience. We saw a lot of tourists walking around the room, chuckling and pointing at the jarred penises…but they didn’t experience the best part of the museum, which was the audio tour. The audio tour was so good because the guy who founded the museum was the orator…and he was a dry, academic older Icelandic man. He said things that were hilarious about his phallological studies without trying to be funny (favorite point of the audio tour: when the professor discussed how the penis collection used to be at his home until his wife ordered him to get rid of them). A perfect way to end our Nordic holiday.

Last Thoughts

Our trip was magical. There were some really great overarching things from our road trip I want to reflect on:

• Nature is the Best: While we were far east, we were completely immersed in nature, and it was magical. The landscapes were beautiful and humbling to see. It was a balm for our souls to be in nature the way we could, and it was really nice to slow down.
• Hot Dogs and Lobster Soup: There were two things in Iceland of which I ate a ton - hotdogs and lobster soup. The hotdogs were crunchy and delightful, and I would have injected the soup in my veins if I could have. Everyone made both dishes very well.
• Radio Stations are Great: The radio station we had listened to on our road trip (don’t ask me which one, I have no idea) was hilarious. The station played whatever records were available; one song would be some very modern rock song, the next one an Icelandic polka! We were confused and not at all sure what songs were on the queue while we drove, which made it more interesting for us.
• Tourists are Dumb: It's a shame how often we observed tourists being really stupid there. We saw many rental cars sinking in swamps or buried in the gravel on the side of the road. We saw tons of tourists stepping on the areas where signs explicitly requested them not to. And other things (see bullet below). There are 10 tourists per Icelander in the country now; the tourism boom has supported Iceland out of their recession, but the consequence has included making a tiny population of citizens clean up after a large group of strangers. We can be better than that, people.
• Outside Poo: Iceland suffers an unfortunate issue close to my heart because of the tourist boom – tourists poo out in the open in nature all of the time. There are apparently “No Pooping” signs all over the place. CT Lawyer was adamant to find a sign for me to enjoy, but when we asked locals where the signs were, instead they would just point to me where the tourists pooed. Often they included areas where locals traditionally foraged for wild berries.

A Danish Break

The famous Nyhavn port

The CT Lawyer and I try to take international holidays every year. For this year's holiday, we had a deep desire to go to places that were clean and quiet (and low risks of giardia - my own request). We chose Denmark and Iceland on our two-week trip.

It was indeed clean and quiet.

Much of our trip to Denmark was centered around Copenhagen. We had Airbnb-ed a very quaint boathouse on the edge of the city, which meant we woke up to beautiful rays of sun on placid water.

Much of our visit to Denmark was simply walking around the streets of Copenhagen and other towns, admiring the quirky old buildings alongside the sleek new ones. We walked so much mostly because it was really enjoyable and quiet to do so (and we were blessed with great weather). We also unexpectedly walked into Nyhavn, the hotspot port that all tourists orbit, which was indeed a lovely place. I was more fascinated with the port's great many public toilets along the waterway...but the colorful buildings were lovely to look at, too.

We also dedicated a lot of our trip to enjoying the great food in Denmark. I mean, Denmark is known for its amazing culinary renaissance, and we can confirm the truth in that. Even if we weren't eating delicious food at a Michelin-starred restaurant, I loved how vibrant and colorful the food was in most of our meals. I also was so pleased to have so many gluten-free options, including really tasty cinnamon rolls from Landbageriet! I ordered a box of rolls for myself on day one to consume each day we stayed in the country (they were that good).

One day we met up with my friend Martin who lives in Malmo, Sweden (it's only a 30-minute train ride to Copenhagen). Martin showed us around some tourist areas while we caught up and joked about American politics. He took us first to a greenhouse in the city so we could enjoy butterflies, and then led us to the Vor Frelsers church so we could scale the corkscrew steeple. It was a harrowing climb up the stairs - they were so narrow and curvy! It was clear the staircases were old. Once we neared the top of the steeple, we ended up outside, clinging to railings as we stepped up the corkscrew incline!! My fear of heights dutifully kicked in and I waited for CT Lawyer and Martin by the indoor stairs, grasping the building for dear life. The cool thing about going up and down the stairs for the steeplechase, though, were the hodgepodges of assorted churchy things scattered on the different stair landings - a heap of cherub statues lying down on this level, an old organ patiently waiting on the next....it was like hide-and-seek with Christian artifacts!

We then ambled towards Christiania, a micronation within Copenhagen that's all about free love and weed (but we didn't consume any - truly!). The lakeside community was very much doused with hippy paraphernalia...but honestly? The place looked kind of sad and run down. The buildings were worn significantly and there were lots of tourists pilfering magnets and mini bongs out in the open, which made it feel less like an alternative living experiment and more like a region in a dystopian theme park (with some artwork definitely appropriate for unsavory adults). We stopped for a vegetarian lunch (that was actually quite delicious) and headed out to take a quick look at the fun things in the Museum of Design and eat ice cream before Martin headed back home.

Later that night CT Lawyer and I went out for a nice dinner date at Hoest. We opted for a prix fixe dinner that was paired with mocktails. I cannot tell you just how incredible the meal was, but we were both floored by each of the dishes (and there were so many!). One of the mocktails was a tomato juice seltzer, and to be honest it was mind-blowing. I'll be thinking about it for years to come.

The one Michelin-star restaurant we reserved in Denmark (sorry, Noma) was so we could enjoy a Sunday brunch at Den Rode Cottage. When arriving, we found ourselves in a wooded area with a sweet little red house in the middle of a clearing - I was enchanted (...for a price! And the restaurant is out of the city and in a very fancy little town full of tennis courts and high-end shops.) We had a charming brunch that had a mashup of quintessential breakfast dishes for each course (pancakes, toast, eggs, etc.).

After my pants were charmed off at brunch, we cabbed over to a suburb called Fredericksburg to visit the Cistern Museum. The neat thing about this place was that, since it was historically a community cistern, it was underground and inside a bucolic park. The art exhibit in the quiet, dark, musty museum was simple and fun - there were soft balls shuttled around the cisterns on pulleys that would eventually ding one of the many singing bowls in the space, making nice meditative echoes.

We walked back slowly to the center of Copenhagen, making stops for rehydration along the way. Did we visit Tivoli Gardens? No, but we did walk past it! I know, I know...everyone insisted on us visiting Tivli, but while walking past we couldn't bring ourselves to disrupt our relaxing time with the buzz of a theme park.

One of the last days we were in Denmark we rented a car and drove across the country four hours to the oldest town in Denmark - Ribe. When we entered Ribe, we parked at the Viking Museum and explored the exhibitions inside. I have to say, it was a great museum - I highly recommend. After that, we meandered around the old town, admiring buildings that were so old that structures were sagging dramatically. We also visited the old cathedral. It was a really lovely respite from urban exploration.

We got back to Copenhagen in time for dinner. We swung by an outdoor market before they closed.

Before we left the next day, we wanted to make sure we could see a few of the Forgotten Giants hidden in different parts of the country. These art installations aim to get people exploring in nature more. It worked! We had to hike around an industrial park into a grassy meadow to find one; the other one required us parking at some stranger's house and trek up a forested hill. It was fun!

And then we were off to Iceland

Some final thoughts on Denmark I'd like to share:

• Toilets: The place is SO TOILET FRIENDLY! It's a big deal for me, and I was so pleased to keep finding toilets in almost every situation where I had an urge.
• Bees: We experienced a lot of bees swarming us. Almost every day there was a short period where we were surrounded by either bees or hornets. I'm not sure what that was about...climate change?
• Food: I already said this, but there really is some amazing food in Denmark! Just be warned that it's pricey. The ice cream there is ample and recommended, as well.
• Living vs Touring: While Denmark isn't exactly an exciting place to visit for most tourists, we were so excited about how livable Denmark really is. We read about it in the news a lot, and it was clear how true it was to us. There are so parks everywhere, and we saw many dogs frolicking around with their humans (this is very important to us). Copenhagen is on the water, and we got to use a ferry quite a bit to travel up and down the city, which is soothing. Some of the apartments there even had docks into the water with kayaks and floats stationed for use, which is a new life goal for me. Lastly, we didn't see many police lurking around, and people even honked more pleasantly (aka never)! If we only could figure out how to move there...

Taipei Layover

Toilet tourism!

My final leg on the 2-week, around-the-world adventure was a 24-hour layover in Taiwan. I arrived late in the evening and was really worried that I wouldn't be let in the country, despite having researched entry requirements three times. Why? Guess.

Luckily, I was let in without anything more than a sniff at my passport.

The train ride to Taipei from the airport was longer than I had expected, but it was clean and quiet (like much of the city), so I didn't mind much.

The youth hostel I stayed in was clean and quiet (and after the long trip I've had, I was looking forward to some quiet). One of the hostel volunteers offered to take me out to a night market nearby so I could try some street food before bed. I drank papaya milk and ate stinky tofu (I liked it) and a few other things.

Then I went back to the hostel and passed out for a night's sleep.

The next day was a whirlwind. My 24 hours was halfway over (thanks, sleep) and I needed to pad the end of my trip with an extra 4 hours to get to the airport in time for my international flight back to the US. I had to be very clear about what I was going to do for 8 hours in Taipei before I returned to the airport.

I wasn't that clear. Well, I thought I was clear, at first...until I went outside and felt the amazing heat early in the morning that was not mixing well with my stomach (I discovered after returning home that I was battling giardia). I improvised once I took notes on where I could be near toilets while adventuring (fortunately, that wasn't too much of a compromise).

I first hopped over to see some of the old temples around the Taipei Confucius Temple, which was also Confucius' original residence. Their toilet was very nice.

Right next door was the Dalongdong Baoan Temple, which was old and quiet and beautiful.

After the temple visits, I tried to hail a cab and go to some art village I had heard about. I never made it there; it seemed that it either wasn't open or was mythical because people had no idea what I was looking for and there appeared to be no English signs.

This was when I realized how disadvantaged I was visiting Taiwan without any knowledge of Mandarin. The signs were almost all hanzi character-based and many had no English translations or very poor translations that only confused me more. Also, despite many business people understanding English in the city, the cab drivers I happened to hail were not knowledgeable in English. With my inability to speak Mandarin, this led to a lot of confusion about wherever I was trying to go. Apparently there are translation services for situations just like this in Taiwan (it must come up a bit), and many of the cab drivers called a number, talked on the phone, handed the phone to me with a pleasant English speaker on the other line asking me where I was going to, and then taking back the phone with the other side of the line translating. In other attempts, I would show Google Maps on my phone to the driver to indicate the place I wanted to visit; this was only sometimes successful.

So here I was, with only a few hours left in Taipei, realizing I was at a real disadvantage to getting where I wanted to go. I decided to make things simpler and go to only big places that tourists were expected to visit and with easily-translated names. That worked!

So I walked around a few more temples and went to the Lin An Tai Ancestral House, which is an outdoor museum that educates people about older customs and living arrangements in Taipei back in the 18th/19th century. It wasn't crowded, which meant I got to take my time reading plaques, loitering bridges over ponds, and tastefully spying on a couple taking wedding photos.

The piece de resistance of my quick visit to Taipei - nay, my entire trip! - was the lunch reservation I had at a restaurant called Modern Toilet. The restaurant is, as you may have guessed, themed around toilets...and very tongue-in-cheek. The food was served in different kinds of toilet- and latrine-shaped containers and the food options were essentially curries and french fries (which means it looked like stuff that should actually be in toilets). And they had a little booth by the hostess stand that sold anything toilet or poo related - lighters, pens, erasers, legos, etc. It was kitschy, fun, and amazing. I had an absolute blast! The best part was the dessert - chocolate soft serve in a small squat latrine-shaped bowl. It was actually very tasty! And of course, was meant to test people's stomachs with its aesthetic. I saw another table order some monstrosity of a dessert with flan and jellies and all kinds of strange items - it looked like an overflowing toilet!

I've officially lived my best life.

After sating myself with toilet-inspired cuisine, I walked back to the hostel to pick up my stuff and head back to the airport. I passed by some popular-looking shopping areas. Amongst the shops included outlandish things such as penis-shaped pineapple cakes on sticks.

My trip to Taipei was too short, but I still found it interesting even when I was confused and lost! I think it's a place worth inspecting more in-depth at some point. I hope to visit again so I can see the areas outside of the city center, too.