Our New and Improved Countries We Want to Vist Bucket List

Greetings to our blog readers in Cambodia, Spain and Portugal, which are three countries which missed our cut.

Since we have recently arrived back from Costa Rica, a country that always made it onto my top 10 countries to visit list, we thought we'd provide an update, which once again has Iceland (see top image) at the top.

Morocco is second (middle image, strawberry vendor in Tangier) and Norway is third (bottom image of Bergen), and with some research as to suggestions by both Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide, countries like Georgia and Macedonia made it on to the list, as did one of the world's tiniest nations.

We were delighted to see Turkey, my late father's country, ranked high in the Rough Guide, but since we have been there 15 times, we thought we'd focus on countries we've never visited.

Here is the bucket list:

1) Iceland

2) Morocco

3) Norway

4) Georgia

5) Chile

6) Panama

7) Scotland

8) Malaysia

9) Macedonia

10) San Marino (the tiny country we were referring to)

http://www.lonelyplanet.com

http://www.roughguides.com

http://www.visiticeland.com

http://www.visitmorocco.com

http://www.visitnorway.com

Amadeus in Bethesda- The Return- Entry 3 of 3

After finishing up with the National Gallery, my mom and I decided it was time head back to the hotel in northern Virginia via the DC Metro and then get on I-66 towards Front Royal, Va., a small town that actually objected to being named in an "X-Files" episode some ten years ago. The drive from the DC suburbs to Front Royal takes approximately an hour depending on traffic congestion.

Since my mom was very tired, I volunteered to take over for the rest of the drive in Strasburg, Va., another small town that is 15 miles south of Front Royal, which was known for some kitschy tourist attractions, such as The Museum of American Presidents. Alas, many of them have abruptly closed within the last two years for failing to make a profit, among other factors.

We were discussing where we could eat in Strasburg. I knew there was Christina's Cafe, a quaint coffee shop that has only been open for a few years and a Mexican restaurant. But, we found a Denny's that I had never seen before in Strasburg. Sure enough, it was owned by the local J.R. Ewing, a local oil tycoon from Mount Jackson, Va., named Bill Holtzman. (Seemingly every other business in Shenandoah County, which includes Mount Jackson and Strasburg, is owned by Holtzman; I used to a be a reporter for a local newspaper in the county).

While there, I ran into someone who is somehow still a photographer at what was a rival newspaper of our's when I was at "The Shenandoah Valley-Herald" in Woodstock, Va., from 1999-2001. We had not seen each other in over ten years. I was amazed he was still in the newspaper business given that turnover is high, and cutbacks in recent years have become even more drastic than they were when I was a reporter for the 'Herald."

So, it was my turn to jump behind the wheel. I was expecting that it would take about two hours and 45 minutes to get to Roanoke from Strasburg. As I've gently hinted at on this blog before, my mother is someone who likes to be the leader in a group as she was the oldest of six children growing up in South Carolina. This is not easy for anyone who is her offspring (well, I am not speaking for my sister), but in recent years she has made an earnest effort to be more accomodating.

Nevertheless, right away, my mom started telling me to slow down even though I was driving about 63 miles per hours in a 70 MPH zone. And, she didn't want me to 'get to close' to the other vehicles even though I was a good 20 feet behind them even as big trucks were sneaking up on me in the rear view mirror.

Somehow, as I passed the teepee near Mount Jackson, the statue of Johnny Appleseed in New Market and the old hotel sign in Harrisonburg, three of many things which stand out as one journeys through the Shenandoah Valley corridor of I-81, I knew the night was going to turn into a Stephen King novel.

And, when we got to Staunton, there was indeed major road construction. The lanes started to merge. Immature drivers were starting to try to creep into my lane as their lane was gradually closing, and my mom ironically told me to get close to the car in front of me to keep them from butting in. This lasted for about an hour.

When we got to Lexington, I started to brief a sigh of relief. But, around Buchanan, a very small hamlet which is 23 miles from Roanoke, I realized that we had not left Godzilla*, the family cat, enough food. Sure enough, when we got home Godzilla had devoured all six cans we had left him. He was hungry; he was mad. I fed him and changed his liter box. But, of course, he wasn't happy for Godzilla wanted out even though it was midnight.

I then went on the Internet to see, just in case, if there was a terrorist attack or an earthquake/mud slide somewhere, since the radical evangelical nutcase Harold Camping was forecasting doomsday. Of course, there wasnt' anything of that sort, though when I woke up in the morning, I realized much to my shock and horror that I had come down with a sinus infection.

*-Godzilla is not the family cat's real name, though he does act like him quiet often.

Amadeus in Bethesda- The DC Trip (Entry 1 of 3)

This marks the first of three entries on this blog about a very hectic, yet very exciting trip that my mom and I took to Washignton, DC, last week. Though the trip was very brief (it lasted about 36 hours), we are actually dedicating six entries to it, with three on this blog and three more on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." That is also known as my B-side blog (it gets like ten percent of the traffic on this blog for some odd reason?!).

I was eagerly hoping to go to Washington, DC, to see the Paul Gaugin exhibit at the National Gallery. The fact I had missed a chance to see a heavily-publisized Pablo Picasso exhibit at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum in Richmond, Va., made me even more eager to get to DC before the Gaugins left the building on June 5th.

There were complications in getting my mom on board. I needed both to help with expenses and to actually physically get to DC. Ironically, even though I fit many cultured urbanite intellectual sterotypes with my seven magazine subscriptions and interest in films by directors like Akira Kurosawa and Jean-Luc Godard, I hate traffic! And, the I-66 exchange that starts in rural Front Royal, Va., gets very congested once a traveler comes into Manassas, Va., which is DC's southern-most suburb. Going Greyhound was not really an option, since the bus left circa 6:15 a.m. and I am not a morning person!

Initially, mom wanted to go to Florida to see her sister/my aunt, but she soon realized, the timing was not right for that trip which is considerably farther away from southwest Virginia than Washington, DC, even though it is still a five and a half hour drive if you stop to eat, get gas and have to patiently wait in traffic.

So, we did end up going to Washington, DC, on May 19. My mom had a radical notion that we could somehow see the Gaugin exhibit on that day, which was Thursday, even though there would be little time to get that in. So, we got to the National Gallery at 4:45 p.m. I had misread the museum's web page and made the assumption that they would be open until 6:00 p.m. In actuality, there were open only until 5:00 p.m., so that gave us 15 minutes to tour the museum, had we chosen to do that (we didn't). Oddly enough, the security guards checked my mom's over-sized green pocketbook anyway.

I had seen a mention of a Turkish restaurant in "The Washingtonian" magazine called Ezme on P Street in the Dupont Circle part of town. Mom decided that we should jump into a taxi and head over there. Upon arrival there, we learned that they did not start serving dinner until 5:30 p.m. Since it was 5:05 p.m., we had time to kill.

So, we headed over to a nearby Starbucks, where frappucinos are considerably more expensive than they are in places like Roanoke, Va., and Greensboro, NC. We chose to sit outside, and I overheard two men speaking Turkish, my second language (my late father Mehmet Gokbudak was from Turkey). It turns out the men were urologists who were in town for an international urology conference. Interestingly enough, both men were smoking?!

We finally got to Ezme and I ordered Manti, a meat and noodle dish that though native to Turkey can be hard to find even in Istanbul, Adana Kebab, a spicy meat dish native to the central southern Turkish city of Adana and lastly rice pudding. My mom had similar dished though she opted to have "Ayva Talisi" (the Pear Dessert) instead of rice pudding.

Then, much to our shock, we saw that the street was closed. I had seen some man who appeared to be Japanese bowing as he exited his limosine and I had presumed he was some high-ranking diplomat and that was why all the police officers were in the area.

But, we found out a short while later, that President Barack Obama was headed to P Street! The motorcade passed by us and even local DC folks were stunned by what was happening. Many took cellphone pictures even though they would probably not get anything more than the back of a Secret Service agent's head.

A college-age guy looked at his BlackBerry and told me that Twitter said Obama was eating at Pizzeria Paradisio, which is a very casual place. It was not until researching this piece today that I found out that Obama was actually meeting a donor, who may have been the Japanese man, at an office above the pizza place. But, pizza was provided for them.

Ironically enough, I asked the waitress at Ezme if anyone famous had dined there. I had even mentioned Michelle Obama. She said (in Turkish) something to the effect of: "No, not to my knowledge."

SIDEBAR: We are naming this series "Amadeus in Bethesda" because the Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda, Md., is currently performing the acclaimed play "Amadeus" with an extended run until June 12th.

Quote of the Week- Allen Ginsberg

Gazooks! I forgot to save while I initially wrote this entry. At any rate, our subject in our continuing series of quotes from left-wing circles continues with a quip of the great American poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) who was a close friend of William Burroughs.

In 1956, the year he wrote his landmark poem "Howl," Ginsberg professed admiration for the then-new Cuban leader Fidel Castro according to Wikipedia. But, Ginsberg said he had his own idiosyncratic views of communism.

In the 2010 film "Howl," actor James Franco played Ginsberg who was also a gay rights activist.

Here is his quote:

"Follow your inner moonlight, don't hide the madness."

SIDEBAR: Honeymoon in Kigali? Yes, the east African country of Rwanda which underwent a dreadful period of ethnic strife and genocide in the 1990s is literally ready to put their past behind them.

Rwanda's tourism site (yes, there is such a place) is recommending that travelers viist the Akagea National Park where one can see zebras and elephants and a large concentration of waterbirds, such as the shoebill stork.

The site also states that Kigali offers many great restaurants with both regional and international cuisine.

The Lonely Planet does recommend that visitors take precautions, and that the border with Burundi is among the areas that one should avoid in Rwanda.

SIDEBAR TWO: It may not be as exciting as Katie Holmes telling the world that she is pregnant with Tom Cruise's third child, but "City Paper" in Washington, DC, has reported that the female Chinese panda Mei Xiang is apparently pregnant. Zoo officials will be checking to see if the panda, who is believed to be mating with male Chinese panda Tian Tian, is indeed expecting.

Top 10 Countries to Visit in Next 10 Years...

I have a feeling some folks are going to scratch their heads over this list, which I initially made on New Year's Eve.

Egypt was actually on the original list at number ten, but do to riots, looting and political unrest, we have replaced Egypt with Burundi, even though that is where one can find the man-eating crocodile Gustave, who has had some 300 people for breakfast!

The images above are from Costa Rica, Honduras and Bolivia respectively. And, as it will seem quite obvious to most folks, I really, really want to go to a Scandanavian country.

Here is the list:

1. Bolivia

2. Honduras (yes, we know they had a coup in 2009)

3. Costa Rica

4. Finland

5. Sweden

6. Norway

7. Iceland

8. Denmark

9. Uzbekistan

10. Burundi

Misadventures in Boulder

In case you were wondering if I had been abducted by a UFO, I was in Colorado visiting my sister last week and despite my best efforts I was unable to blog from there, which is perhaps a good thing!

Here are some highlights of the trip:

*I made all my flights, and only one delay the whole trip- that was in Chicago because of a broken windshield

*Went to Denver Art Museum and saw a kewl exhibit on sixties rock posters

*Watched "Easy Rider" with my sister and brother-in-law on Friday night to go along with the art exhibit......still hard to believe Dennis Hopper became a Republican though he did vote for Obama.

*Went to Boulder and shopped for gifts. Highly recommend the Boulder Bookstore and that funky place that has an assortment of Buddhist stuff.

*Went to a sock store in Estes Park. Got a friend some Denver Broncos socks. They didn't seem to have any NFL teams east of the Mississippi, but they have just about everything else.

* Ate sushi and other Japanese food

*Spent four hours at Zigi's coffee shop in Longmont where I read Scott Smith's thriller "The Ruins." Not exactly "Alice in Wonderland."

*Watched a pro lacrosse game, but alas the home team (the Denver Outlaws) lost.

*Saw the new Michael Caine film "Is Anybody There?," which was pretty good though it's a bit of a tear jerker

*Ate at a very good Vietnamese place in Boulder

*Saw "Star Trek." Quite good. Hard to believe Leonard Nimoy has now outlived my dead grandfather.

* Went hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, which was the highlight of the trip. My sister and I saw some sort of exotic wild bird there (probably a grouse) which was in pursuit of a lady friend......apparently, 'tis mating season.

*Saw lots of kewl Obama mercandise at Dulles (Washington, DC, airport) on the way, but alas no room in the luggage for anything else!

The trip had a few fiascos:

*-I actually lost one of my tennis shoes in the snow while hiking.

*-I actually lost shaving cream at the airport in Greensboro, which I knew not to pack!

*-I barely made it the returning flight out of Denver as security took a lot longer than I anticipated.