When Travel Bug and “Love Bug” Meet

You know by now that we suffer from the travel bug.
I also have a “Love Bug” – the Volkswagen type. . .a Herbie, VW Bug.

Herbie, is my loved Bug. So when I travel I am always on the lookout for ‘cousins’ and on this Travel Photo Thursday I thought I’d show you where I found them and what they were up to:



This travelin' Herbie was heading out into the southwest desert after getting filled up at a station in Tonopah, Nevada.



Another hard-working Herbie was spotted in Las Vegas, Nevada’s Town Square Shopping Center.  As the dill pickle on top reads, “We Dill iver”.



This precious purple Herbie was parked on a street near a pile of garbage in Trabzon, Turkey.



Hellenic Herbie came zipping into the parking area to await a ferry on the island of Poros, Greece.



Cousin cool dude Herbie was in the Fashion Show Mall on The Vegas Strip, doing nothing more than being admired by shoppers.



Herbie, the Hawaiian, was sitting in the shade in Haleiwa on O’ahu’s North Shore.



This Baja Bug of a Herbie was in Cabo San Lucas,  Mexico last week.


For those of you who’ve not yet met my Herbie. . . here he is: a 69 VW Bug (stick shift, automatic) that my dad bought used in 1972 to serve as my college car. This photo was taken two years ago; four decades, two engines and nearly 200,000 miles later.

How about you?  Any Herbie’s in your life? Any icons that you seek out when you travel?

Don’t forget to hop in the driver’s seat and head on over to Budget Traveler’s Sandbox for more travel photos.

Turkish Tea and Toilets

We don't take the land tours offered by cruise lines because we prefer to explore on our own.  Sometimes we have a destination in mind and other times we don't. 

And often times the most ordinary of experiences make for our most memorable travel treasures.  Such was the case with the Turkish tea and toilets in Trabzon.

                                                      A Trabzon street scene

We realized that on this, our third stop in Turkey during our Black Sea cruise, we had not yet sipped Turkish tea from those fragile looking cups that look like miniature drinking glasses served on  tiny saucers with tiny spoons.  We chose a place that for decades had been selling tea and offering a vast array of those walnut-honey pastries, baklava.

The one thing it didn't offer was a toilet.

Toilets, our waiter said, were across the street about a half block away. And then he led us to them: Down a long hallway and some steps at the back of a banquet hall. He directed Joel to the "Bey" room and then ceremoniously opened and held the bead curtains at the entrance of the "Beyan" room for me.

What happened next makes me laugh now; but at the time it was quite perplexing: 
The ladies room was modern with motion-activated lighting in stalls equipped with an eastern-style toilet (think toilet in the floor, a 'squat-pot') which was fine until . . .
I squatted and the light went off. 
I stood up, the light came on.
I squatted and the light went off.
I did this three times thinking,"Is this "Candid Camera"?
Finally, I took aim and did what I had to do - in total darkness.

When I came out, our gracious waiter was still there  and again opened the curtains for me.  He escorted us back to the street, shook our hands, thanked us again for having tea. 

He returned to his shop while we tucked away another travel treasure.