The Mancation...Plus One - Prologue: Like a Snowball

It's like a snowball.

You want to travel. You tell your friend; the one that's always online, has the same 9-to-5 type of job, and like you, is itching to get outta here. You throw out destinations. You want to go to Latin America because it's cheap. He wants to go to Europe. You panic. Europe is way too expensive for you. You start to think that 2010 would be a better time.

Your friend says, "Screw that!" and drags you to Barnes and Noble to browse guidebooks. You insist on Costa Rica. "It's not that bad, really!" He's not buying it. You browse and browse some more, until you and friend see the Lonely Planet guide to Greece. You're intrigued.

You look online, at the site where you booked your last Europe Trip. You see packages for Athens and the Greek Isles so cheap that it's too good to be true. Out of the corner of your eye, you see packages for Greece and Turkey. You're more intrigued.

You tell your friend. He gets excited. You go back online and you see a package on the site that you didn't see earlier: Athens to Cairo to Istanbul. WHAT? CAIRO?? The Pyramids? The Sphinx?? Are you KIDDING me?

Your pulse quickens. You get jumpy. You and your friend go over the possible dates, flight info, hotels. You book your trip. You read the Rick Steves guidebooks to Athens and Istanbul all the way through. You read them again. And again. You pick up the Lonely Planet guide to Egypt, just for completeness. You read the tiny section on Cairo, and feel shortchanged.

You spend the night before your trip packing. You dust off your nemesis. You try to remember all the tricks you learned from your past trips. That's what travel comes down to, right? You get all your paperwork in order. You can't sleep. You're traveling again. You feel alive...

This time, I'll be traveling with my friend M and his sister J. What started out as a mancation with M has evolved into...a mancation plus one. The spirit of the mancation, however, will not die.

We will visit three cities with incredibly rich histories. They also have bulging populations. I have no idea what the next 10 days have in store for me. I could be riding a camel. I could be taking a Turkish Bath and be manhandled...literally. I could see the Acropolis at sunset, as the light turns the Parthenon into a golden brown. I could be harassed by Egyptian cab drivers. That's more of a certainty.

I'll be trying something new this time around. For the first time, I'll be tweeting my trip. Go to my twitter page, and you'll see what I'm up to. If I'm able, I'll post some entries here.

OK. Enough thinking...



Let's do this.