World Travels - Mideast and Eastern Europe

Sorry - this map is a little schizophrenic (not that there is anything wrong with that!) in that you are looking at two endings in a way. The end of Year One on the road takes place with me going from Cairo to Instanbul - the tail end of my Latin America and Africa leg. I flew to Cairo from Cape Town. The northern portion is the end of Year Two, and my entire trip. I had to skip China, Mongolia, and Russia due to SARS. Cutting three months off my trip. I flew into Helsinki to commence my Eastern European leg in the Baltic states.

And in fact, I cut that leg short too, flying home from Budapest, Hungary and leaving Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Morocco untouched. That is almost another six months of travel.

I just ran out of energy and was homesick, and in keeping with listening to my heart, I decided to throw in the towel and declare victory. Those countries would have to wait for another time. In fact, I was just in Greece last summer (May 2005) and may go to Morocco in 2006.

In the map below, the orange squares are Travelogues I wrote and clicking will open that piece. The blue circles are just little snippets of interest, holding your cursor over it should tell you a little about that spot.

I met Sarah (above) in transit to Jordan and we met up in Syria, where she studied for a year and speaks Arabic nearly fluently. She was my tour guide to Damascus and took me to a famous pistacio ice cream shop in the old town souk. Her understanding of the culture gave me much more insight into the region. Also, she could sing a mean aria as a trained mezzo-soprano!

Prague felt like a crossroads, I met a American commercial pilot Brian who I hung out with, a former Air Force pilot. We ran into someone outside a bar, he turned out to be from San Jose, my hometown - what a coincidence.

An attorney, it turns out he went to San Jose State, and studied mechanical engineering. I asked him if he know a Professor Seto or took any of his classes.

His face froze, "Professor Seto? Of course, he was great! I loved his classes. He inspired me with his love for the topic which came through in his enthusiasm for teaching!"

"Well, that's my dad"

He laughed, "You're kidding, Professor Seto is your old man?!"

He sure is. Professor William Seto is my father and in the past few years since his retirement from full-time instruction, my sisters and I always seem to run into former students of my Dad who always recall him.

Any my 'old man' is no slouch either, I asked him about the guy on the Prague street and my Dad quipped without hesitation, "Oh yeah, of course I remember him, good student, I give him A-minus."

My Dad told me he taught over 10,000 students in his thirty years as an engineering professor - he claims to recall them all. I know for sure that many of them remember him.

Click here to see my Mideast photos