Aaron and Anne-Sophie

Anne-Sophie’s mother and sister Florence have arrived safely this morning from France via Dubai. They’ll be here until Wednesday May 3rd. Of course we’ll let you know where we visited and what we did after they leave (or what you could have done if you visited us . . . you’ve missed your chance! Though we’ll have plenty of friends here in Yemen willing to host you if you want to go in the future.)

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Organizing our trip after Yemen has been an enormous pain. Finally we’ve secured a ticket back to the US (we arrive in San Francisco on August 9th), but we had to pay for a new ticket, as we were never able to book the return flight of our ticket, because all the tickets that we qualified for were sold out in August due to the World Cup and when we originally bought the tickets, it was too far in advance to book for August. Now that that’s all settled, we’re having visa issues for Iran and Syria. Being an American with those countries is not the best thing right now. Though for most people in the world, getting a visa to a western country is even a bigger hassle. I’m sure it will all work out. Despite our frustrations and failures, I wanted to offer up some general travel tips that I’ve learned, often by making mistakes. (more…)

Today we decided to visit our neighbor Ludvi, because although we see him every so often at his cafeteria to watch a football (soccer) match, he’s always so busy and we don’t get to talk to him that much. Another Iraqi guy moved in next door also, where Ludvi’s other friend was living. So we chatted with both of them over tea. It’s remarkable (rather sad) how the Iraqis’ optimism for a stable Iraq has changed over the last few months. (more…)

Our time is almost through in Yemen. Though we’ll miss many people and things here, to be honest there’s a part of us that’s very anxious to go. The blackouts are increasing as the weather heats up on the coasts and since Sana’a provides power for the whole country. The internet is even more schizophrenic, as it works often for one minute very fast and stops for 10 minutes. Often we’ll get the front page of a site but none of the links work. (more…)

The future is starting to become clearer for us (at least the near future). Anne-Sophie’s mom and sister are definitely coming to visit us at the end of April. Also our plans for travel this summer are coming into place and our time in Yemen is beginning to come to a close. We decided to try to use up our airline frequent flyer miles (before they all go bankrupt and cancel them) to make the most of the 2 months we have to travel. (more…)