[Not] Spoiled.

We had a busy summer of exciting travels.

July was spent in Canada, with trips to enjoy friends and family in Calgary, Vancouver, and Portland, a drive along the stunning Oregon Coast to the Olympic Penninsula in Washington State, and a stay at a former Burlesque house in the 19th-Century-preserved-wild-west town of Port Townsend.

August began with a long weekend of good food and great music in Amsterdam. Just a few weeks later we were back in the Netherlands for some birthday fun -- indoor skydiving, more fantastic food, and a weekend stay at Engelenburg Castle, including a six course meal with six paired wines.

September began in the Netherlands at the castle, five days later we were in Beirut for my birthday weekend of surprises. My first surprise was a trip to Byblos, the famous Phoenician port town founded in 5000 BC, for walks around the old town and the best squid I've ever had in my life. The next surprise was a tour of Chateau Musar Winery, and a visit to the absolutely stagerring Jeita Grotto. Between surprises, we spent our time walking the neighbourhoods of Beirut, soaking in its raw beauty and animation.

Another four day work week in the UAE, and it was Eid holidays in Jordan for a wide range of historical, relaxation, spiritual, and adventure travel experiences. The well-preserved Roman city of Jerash rivalled Ephesus, floating in the Dead Sea was surprisingly entertaining, and there was lots of good food to be had. Seven hours walking around Petra was not enough to absorb the vastness and intricacies of the 5.5 km long ancient capital of the Nabataeens, a truly ethereal place of natural beauty, dramatic landscapes, and monumental yet elegant architecture, that requires a high degree of fitness! Our trip wrapped up with an adventurous climb up the gorge-ous (pun pun) Wadi Mujib where I was twice rescued by Reinier from the rapids, and finally a walk through Amman's Byzantine ruins.

While enjoying another delicious three hour meal in Amman, Reinier looked at me holding a glass of Jordanian red wine and asked: "Are we spoiled?"

"Well, that depends on how you measure it. I live on the other side of the world from all of my family, and I live three timezones from my partner. I live in a city I don't feel connected to, where I cannot do many of the activities I most enjoy. I see injustice every day, and I don't have the luxury of knowing that there is a social safety net that is taking care of the under-priviledged, which I am not only helping to pay for via taxes, but I am also able to influence via a democratic system. My job is very challenging but exhausting, and getting anything done in the UAE is full of obstacles and frustration. We pay for this -- we can afford all of these trips financially, because we pay for it with lifestyle, distance, and stress."

Spoiled is relative. Anyone who enjoys security in food, shelter, and personal safety is spoiled. Within my current context of living in the UAE, spoiled to me is living in the same city as your partner, paying taxes towards the wellbeing of others, understanding your rights, living within a few hours of your family, and enjoying an active and engaging lifestyle with your urban and natural environment.

However, within my next context of being poor but happy living in Europe, we shall see how quickly I miss the luxuries I do have here: lots of vacation time, sufficient finances to spend on all the travels I want, daily swims in my pool, an exciting job, and having a tight social international community I can always count on. We shall see how long it will take me to realise that I am [not] spoiled here.

Kevin Mitchell on Making Sense of the Gulf.

"When confronted with such rapid transformation, it is difficult to make sense of what is happening in the Gulf and constant change precludes broad generalizations. One tends to either run in fear while ranting about the excesses made possible by the most extreme manifestations of neoliberalism or to stand frozen while expressing a perverse fascination with what is deemed to be inevitable."
- Kevin Mitchell on the Gulf countries in "Constructing Fact, Fantasy, and Fiction", Al Manakh 2006

2008 in Review: another point form summary of travels with promises of more thoughtful reflections to come.

My New year's resolution is to drink more water and by year's end to have books, films, music, recipes, and intriguing articles, websites or other tidbits to recommend in my 2009 review. For 2008, I have failed entirely at a balanced life and have mostly concentrated all my energy (and money!) on travel, travel, and escapism via travel.

I have been very fortunate to be able to travel so much this year, and with such good company -- I intend to do some justice to the people and places I have met along the way by dedicating more time to writing about them soon. Here is a brief summary of some of the highlights (in no particular order):



Lebanon - electric street life and urban renaissance in Beirut, and my first Muslim- and Lebanese- wedding in Tyre.



Oman - legitimate natural and cultural oasis, with authentic historical culture and remarkable old, decaying towns to set up camp in.



Yemen - one of the most extraordinary places I've been, with gingerbread-house-looking historical skyscrapers, beautiful landscapes, and a lot of able-bodied people chewing qat on the side of the road all day long.



Nepal - pagodas and dim sum, hinduism and curry, experiencing extremes of funky ex-pat communities in Kathmandu, and a weekend local-style in the village of my tea boy with his family.



India - an emerging economy with all the comforts associated with having a middle class. The legacy of thousands of years of progressive civilisation, and an overwhelming excitment for the future. I only scratched the surface of Delhi, Agra (the Taj Mahal), and Mumbai.



Sri Lanka - military offensives kept all the other tourists out, but there is just so much Sri Lanka has to offer. Preserved (and unexpectedly impressive) archaeological cities, stunning beauty, good food and crafts, and sacred buddhist sites.



Ethiopia - where to begin? Ethiopia has been secretly succeeding as a great empire out of reach at 2000 metres for thousands of years. It's the cradle of humanity, with many of the world's earliest hominids surfacing in the Great Rift Valley, it has been a 'civilised' Christian empire with a developed writing system hundreds of years before Christianity ever reached Europe, 11th Century churches carved out of bedrock (picture above), natural beauty, excellent food, the headquarters of the African Union, the only sub-Saharan African country to have never been colonised by imperial forces. The list continues.



Scotland - extended business trip to re-visit my first ex-pat home (Edinburgh) and finally give Glasgow the attention it deserves!



Belgium - cycling along canals to abbeys all over central Belgium, sampling the fruits of the monks' centuries of labour: Belgian Abbey Beers!



Germany - Christmas with my mother in Cologne, Bonn, the 'romantic Rhine', and Trier, just the two of us (literally -- all the shops were closed and the streets empty). Trier was a surprising highlight of our lovely, however frozen, German experience.



Paris - a romantic New Year in the most notoriously romantic city in the world.



The Netherlands - lots of laughs, meals, walks and wine, and a nine-hour long Christmas dinner in Dutch. I will have a lot more to say about NL in 2009.

Thankfully there's lots of water in Holland, which should help scratch off my first New Year's resolution!