Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
DATELINE: Belgrade, Serbia
Author: Natalie
TUESDAY AUGUST 24 Today I wandered around Belgrade - it�s very, um, urban, and not all that charming. But the people are friendly and helpful. After several tries, I found an adaptor for my computer charger. I told the guy, �You just made my day. Now I can write to my dad again.� He seemed to appreciate that. I also bought a few snacks. Everything in this country costs 50 cents: cup of coffee, pastry, slice of pizza. And I used the free map provided by my hostel to explore a bit. The Nikola Tesla museum was indeed aces, as Andy promised. It�s full of model machines he made, operated/demonstrated by the English-speaking guide. Tesla made extraordinary and uncalculable conributions to modern technology, and after wandering through his museum I still don�t understand them one bit. But I saw his ashes; they�re in a spherical urn in a spookily-lit room. I managed to find a few streets that are for pedestrians only, lined with cafes. And at the end of one of them I reached the ethnographic museum, which contained a very charming and thorough display of 19th century Serbian costumes and artifacts from home life. They had the implements needed for several of the major farming industries: corn, grapes, fishing, tobacco, and olives. In the late afternoon I walked up to the park. It was lovely and I�ll return there tomorrow to see the old fortress. I was pretty worn out by the end of the day, I think partly because of the walking and mostly because my brain is tired from reading the language. I absolutely love this language; it is so fun to pronounce. I�ve developed an utter compulsion to read aloud every word I see (Sam spent several days in Sarajevo listening to �Zel-ya-NEET-sa: Spinach pastry. Krom-pee-ROO-sa: Potato pastry. Doh-vih-JEN-ya: goodbye. Mlee-YEH-com: milk. SEER: cheese. VEESH-na: cherry. Bo-ro-NEET-sa: blueberry. Bee-YELL-ee: white. Blash-chee-CHAR-na: Old Town. GAV-ree-lo PRINT-sip: dude who shot Franz Ferdinand and kicked off World War I. ZHEN-ska: woman.�) Here in Belgrade, the word-pronouncing continues, but now it�s more challenging because the words are often written in cyrillic. nEKAPA is pronounced PEKARA and means �bakery�. And that�s just one of the easy ones. I think if you say it out loud, �pekara� does in fact sound like �bakery,� but maybe I�ve just been here too long. The baked goods in this country, by the way, are total crap, and I should know because I eat about five of them every day. If you�d like to read about the best loaf of bread in the entire world, go to http://balkanbonanza.blogspot.com for Sam�s rhapsodic description. I can�t do it justice. On a final note, I saw a picture of Gavrilo Princip - aforementioned initiator of World War I - and, is it wrong of me to say, homeboy was kind of hot?
DATELINE: Belgrade, Serbia
Author: Natalie
From Sarajevo to Belgrade, I shared a train compartment with the most ADORABLE little old lady named Ivanka who, after I established very clearly through hand gestures and blank stares that I did not understand a word she said, continued to speak quite companionably to me in Serb throughout the nine-hour trip. In that time I gathered that a) she thinks my name is pretty and b) she has been to Australia. The Australia trip was sponsored by the number �two� - I understand the word �dva� and two fingers held up. So either she has been there twice, or she went for two weeks. Or perhaps she went there with two people, or visited two cities, or enjoyed two beers. I would continue this line of reasoning to suggest that she may have seen two kangaroos, but she didn�t pantomime any hopping so I kind of ruled that one out. With one hour remaining we were joined by a handsome Serb named Milodrag, and I assure you I am not spelling that right. �New York City?� he said, �America�Red Hot Chili Peppers!� So we hit it off right away. �Faith No More�I hear them, festival, EXIT, in Novi Sad.� Andy, I hope you are reading this. At the conclusion of the trip I helped Ivanka leave the train by carrying her bowling ball collection (I�m guessing), much to the appreciation of her son who met us on the platform. He was very nice to me, and Ivanka and I said a fond goodbye. In all - and this is borne up by my experiences today as well - Serbs are extremely friendly. Andy was right - you find yourself really liking these people, and then you�re like, �But wait, they bombed the smack out of the Bosnians for pretty much the time I was in high school.� Leaving the train station, I found my hostel very easily. I�m staying in the sort of place that I alone can enjoy. All of my past traveling companions - I�m totally talking to you, Sam. And Andy and Nick. And hell, let�s throw in Dan and Sharon and Shaheen and Elaina and anyone else who�s ever traveled with me - would shudder in absolute horror at the dorm bunkbeds, the grainy patchwork seersucker sheets, the crowded, mildewed unisex bathroom down the hall, the smoke-and-noise filled lobby. And, ok, I couldn�t do this forever. But for 3 nights, I�m happy. There�s something satisfyingly uncomplicated about locking all of my possessions into a bedside cubby. I was assigned the bed closest to the air conditioner, so I get to regulate it all night according to my own comfort level�no helpless freezing or sweltering for me. (and there�s no one around to steal my blanket in the night, ahem, you know who you are!) The young guys running the front desk are super sweet and helpful. When I checked in, they looked in confusion from my passport to me and said, �Whoa. You look a lot younger than you are.� I�ll take that any day, thanks. And being surrounded by the chatter of ten-years-younger travelers of all European nationalities is better for me right now than sitting in a hotel room alone with my thoughts. This was probably the best place for me to go after saying goodbye, one by one, to the guys. The �Balkans Bonanza� adventure of me, Andy, Nick, and Sam is over, but I�m only 1/8th of the way through my overseas sojourn. Mostly I feel pretty great about it - I feel lucky that I don�t have to leave yet - but I do miss having the guys around. I�m only on my own for a week, though, before I arrive in England for Naomi�s wedding.
DATELINE: Belgrade, Serbia
Author: Natalie
I wrote a nice loooong entry, but I cant get online from my computer so now im just on the public computer in the hostel. so this is just to let everyone know that i made it safely to serbia and am enjoying myself quite a lot.love and miss you guys, more to come soon i hope. xoxo Nat
Monday, August 23, 2010
GPS Fun
View Balkan Bonanza Moments in a larger map
-Andy
DATELINE: budapest hungary
Author: Sam
I can't believe that I spaced on mentioning one of the most transcendent bread experiences of my life. Around sunset Saturday, Natalie and I went for a walk through the part of the old town Sarajevo we hadn't explored. I'm a sucker for good bread and I saw a crowd lining up outside a service window at a bakery wafting a heavenly aroma through the street. Our tour guide from the other day, Mustafa, told us that all the bakeries in town are run by Albanians, except for the ones from before the war, which he said are significantly better and which only the locals know about. This walk up window was one of those magical places. The bread, piping hot out of the oven, was flatish and round like pita but was almost spongy on the inside and was sparsely sprinkled on top with cracked black pepper. It was too hot to eat when we got it, so we walked through one of the country's ubiquitous cemeteries (way too many were built in 1993) while it cooled enough to eat. As I said, the experience was transcendent. We learned the following day from an extremely helpful waiter that the bread is only baked and consumed during Ramadan (Ramazan in BiH), which answered our question as to why the queue formed at sundown. That was seriously some seriously good bread. Seriously.
DATELINE: sarajevo bosnia and herzegovina
Author: Sam
And then there was one... Natalie should by now be on her train to Belgrade. I'm just sitting around waiting to get my taxi to the airport in a couple of hours. I think I might be at a bit of a loss for words right now. It was an incredible, unforgettable trip. I learned more about the habits and neuroses of my traveling companions that I probably should know, but I'm SURE the same could be said about my, um, quirks, by them. Ive swam in the Adriatic, so that's something. And I found out that the former Yugoslavia is completely different than what I had anticipated. When most Americans think about former communist countries, I think we imagine lots of drab, gray concrete housing blocks and wide boulevards designed for the efficient marching of soldiers and missiles for the amusement of Party members. Admittedly, we found that in spades in Albania, but the former Yugoslavia is among the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The mountains are breathtaking. The coastline is magnificent. The architecture, well, the old stuff is quite beautiful and I was taken completely unaware of the massive Turkish/Muslim influence in the whole of the society. The newer stuff is a bit too much poured concrete and wide boulevards for my taste. The food was by and large underwhelming, but I have a new obsession with pinjur, a roasted pepper and eggplant salad we ate in Ohrid, Macedonia. And to be fair, while I was pretty unimpressed with food preparations, the quality was exceptional. (I will also start a prompt search for Bosnian bakeries in NYC. THEY are amazing.)Lastly, for a people who have been so utterly beaten down by war and life in general, the Kosovars and especially the Bosnians were incredibly warm and gracious and those few with whom we were lucky enough to talk seemed to be more or less at peace with the atrocities of the 1990s, while still maintaining an overt desire to educate and make aware anyone who will listen about their former plight. Thanks to Andy for organizing this trip, for convincing us to come along, and for being flexible enough to stray from the blueprint for the benefit of our collective sanity. And thanks to Nick and Natalie for providing such excellent conversation, friendship, and needed balance to our group. I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend so much time and see the world with both of you.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Wait, welcome to where?!
Delta offered a $500 voucher for any volunteers willing to give up their seat on the flight, which was overbooked. So I took the offer. And I got upgraded to business class on the flight to JFK, AND the plane was an Airbus A380! I got to sit in the "upper deck" of the largest passenger airplane in the world. My first flight ever, when I was 13, was on a 747 and ever since I've been fascinated by airplanes with staircases - and the A380 has TWO of them. I geeked out so hard, I spent half the flight running around taking pictures of all the bells and whistles. They have a live camera feed from the tail so you can watch your own plane flying over the earth(!) In the end, i'll be getting home only 4 hours late. And the voucher thing is great symmetry too, since I paid for this plane ticket mostly with vouchers from other times I've been bumped off fights.
-Andy
DATELINE: Sarajevo, Bosnia
Author: Natalie
I hope you have a safe trip home, Andy. And then there were two. Sam and I switched lodgings yesterday to the vastly-more-luxurious Hotel Europe for our last two days in Sarajevo. God works in mysterious ways: Sam had been longing for a community with whom to observe shabbos, having kept the last two all by himself in, respectively, Tirana and Pristina. During our Friday afternoon tour of the city, Sam met an Israeli man in the Jewish cemetery. I especially like this story because our tour didn't even incorporate the history of the Jewish cemetery; we were just up there for the view of the city. Anyway, this Israeli dude was part of a 30-person delegation sent to Bosnia and Serbia from Israel to study the dwindling Jewish community in the Balkans. He invited us to evening services at the synagogue, and we stayed for dinner as well. They were a really friendly, intelligent, and laid-back group. It was nice to see how happy Sam was to be, at last, among like-minded religious people. He, in turn, was both amused and kind of shocked to see how very shy I get when thrown in with a group of new people. But I relaxed eventually and managed to make some friends, both on Friday evening and the next day when they invited us back to their hotel for lunch. I particularly enjoyed talking to Dorit, an Israeli woman of Lithuanian descent, who has a brother living in Wisconsin. She works as an architect and her role on the trip was to examine and attempt to reconstruct some of the really old buildings. She was a very interesting person and also really sweet. I felt like I made a friend. I also realized that I hadn't had a substantive conversation with a female since August 5th. I've just been hanging out with a bunch of dudes. :-)
DATELINE: Frankfurt, Germany
Author: Andy
This will likely be my last post from the field, as I will shortly be getting on a plane back to the States. Stay tuned though, Natalie has three more Balkan countries to go so she might very well post a thing or two here about her solo work. In the meantime, I thought I'd share our high-school-yearbook-like accolades for the five Balkan countries at the core of our trip. MOST CHALLENGING: Albania --- MOST CHILL: Macedonia --- MOST INSPIRING: Kosovo --- MOST BEAUTIFUL: Montenegro --- MOST INTERESTING: Bosnia. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a plane to catch y'all.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
What do I have in common with a lion in Africa?
We're both not native to Germany and we both ate antelope for dinner.
-Andy in Frankfurt
DATELINE: Sarajevo, Bosnia
Author: Natalie
Normally I am not so into guided tours, but yesterday�s was amazing - thanks to Andy for setting it up. Our guide, Mustapha, was a 28-year-old Bosnian Muslim whose family survived the siege of Sarajevo from 1992-1995. The tour really helped me to get a better sense of what went on during the war. We started at the tunnel museum, visited a portion of the front line, proceeded to the hilltop Jewish cemetery for a view of the city, and culminated at the old Ottoman fortress for an even better view of the city. With that perspective, it was much easier to see how Serb forces completely surrounded the city and terrorized the civilians with shells and sniper fire. The first victims were two young female medical students who were shot while crossing the Vrbanje bridge in April of 1992. During the nearly-four-year war, over 11,000 people were killed, 70% of them civilians. That figure includes 1600 children under the age of 12. The only area not controlled by the Serbs was the airport, a small strip of land in the Eastern region of the city. The airport was under the supervision of U.N. forces and was used to deliver humanitarian aid. Our guide was not so impressed with the quality of the aid provided - canned goods from 1972, he said - nor with the support of the U.N. who essentially did nothing to curb the violence against civilians. The Bosnian forces, with help from civilians, dug an 800-meter-long tunnel beneath the air strip to connect Sarajevo with the free Bosnian territory in the hills far beyond. Anecdotes from survivors suggest that the tunnel was mainly used for delivering weapons from the city to the soldiers fighting in the hills, and especially for bringing supplies in to the city from outside. It also contained an oil pipeline and an electric line, making it particularly dangerous due to frequent flooding. Our own guide was twelve during the war, and he vividly recalls receiving food packages from his father, a soldier. He said that he himself wanted to fight but was too young. He told us that for the first six months of the war, his family lived in a bunker with 80 other families - so, about 400 people total - beneath a municipal building in the center of the city. He recounted how he left his house with his mother and sister just five minutes before it was bombed. The siege caught the population of Sarajevo quite off guard. �One day,� our guide recalled, �My Serb neighbors just disappeared. They had been tipped off that the Bosnian Serbs were planning an attack against we Muslims, and they fled for safety.� The tanks and militia began amassing in the hills surrounding Sarajevo soon after that, but the army told the Sarajevans that they were merely there for military maneuvers and practice drills. Then the shelling began, and did not let up for over three years. In all, some five million shells were dropped on the city of Sarajevo. With the belated diplomatic intervention of U.S. President Bill Clinton, the war ended in November of 1995 with the signing of peace accords in Dayton, Ohio. After the tour, Andy, Sam and I went to lunch and ate a truly obscene amount of bread.
DATELINE: Frankfurt, Germany
Author: Andy
Alas, my Balkan journey has ended. I've got what effectively amounts to a 20 hour lay-over in Frankfurt. The film museum was closed and the Museum of Communication doesn't have English signage. So I'm gonna give the modern art museum a shot. Meanwhile, Sam and/or Natalie, who are still in Sarajevo, should be posting a recap of our adventures there shortly.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Sniper's nest
The Serbs set up in the Jewish cemetery, using gravestones for cover as they shot at civilians on the streets of Sarajevo below.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
DATELINE: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author: Andy
Gonna keep this relatively short since I'm writing it on my phone. We got up early and took the scenic mountain train from Mostar to Sarajevo. Along the way I realized why there's only two trains per day that make the trip; there's only one track for almost the whole route through the difficult mountain terrain. Upon arriving, Natalie and I went to the National Museum, the History Museum, and a quirky cafe dedicated (tongue-in-cheek) to Marshal Tito. After a quick stop at our hotel, I ventured off on my own to the Jewish Museum and the "Sarajevo 1878-1918" Museum. Of today's four museums, I'd rank them as follows in terms of worthwhile-ness: (1) National, (2) Jewish, (3) History, (4) 1878-1918. My two favorite individual exhibits: At the National museum they had a mind-blowingly large and well-organized collection of minerals, and at the 1878-1918 museum they had the gun that shot Franz Ferdinand to kick off WWI.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Vintage Vinyl
We passed this elderly Bosnian couple selling vinyl LPs on the streets of Mostar. About 2/3 of them were AC/DC, but then I saw these. At about $3 each, how could I not buy them? Besides, is there anything more goth than a copy of Floodland that survived the siege of Mostar?
-Andy
Super Choco Racist Puffs
Sam yet again. This is actually from all the way back in Ohrid, Macedonia. Natalie and I were walking around the town popping in and out of stores when we came across this in a small supermarket. I figured I needed to share it with the world. Enjoy.
Reconciliation
Sam again. The city of Mostar is named after its premier landmark, the Stari Most, or Old Bridge. This breathtaking structure was originally built under the auspices of Suliman the Magnificent in the mid 16th century. It survived both World Wars, but during the civil war, some prick thought it would be a good idea to blow it up. 64 tank shells later and it was a pile of rubble and dust floating down the Nereteva River. In 2003, 10 years after its destruction, reconstruction commenced using stone cut from the original quarry and traditional 16th century building techniques. The result is an exact replica of the first bridge, which now carries additional weight as a national symbol of reconciliation. The bridge itself is as astounding as its story is uplifting.
The Old Front Line
Sam here. We're currently in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovena (BiH is the local shorthand). The town is both mindblowingly gorgeous and melancholy as a result of its position on the front line of the 1993 civil war. There has been a whole lot of rebuilding, but plenty of scars remain out in the open. I am not sure if it is for the benefit of the locals or the tourists, but the pock-marked face of both the new and old cities is a unique kind of photogenic I don't know that I have ever experienced prior.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
DATELINE: Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author: Andy
Although Montenegro and Bosnia share a land border and a handful of direct crossings, we somehow found a way to pass through no fewer than five passport checkpoints on our seven-hour trip up here from Budva. To wit: (1) Exit Montenegro, (2) Enter Croatia, (3) Exit Croatia (at the Bosnian town of Neum), (4) Re-enter Croatia just after Neum, (5) Enter Bosnia and Herzegovina. At numbers 3 and 5, the border guards just boarded the bus and looked at everyone's passport and gave it right back. At number 4, the guards just got in the bus, rode it for a little while and then got off in some town without checking anything. Also, at some random town just after the Bosnian border, they had us climb out of the bus and switch to a whole other bus for no apparent reason. We met a nice girl from Vancouver along the way and I attempted to explain the Bosnian War from memory. In particular I struggled with remembering the extent to which the Bosniaks and Croats teamed up against the Serbs, but all that means is I need to go back through Lonely Planet one more time. We've been in Mostar now for about an hour and already we've seen some stark reminders of the conflict. Several buildings still have bullet holes in them and there were several massive recent-looking cemeteries along the road into town.
Bonus country!
Even though there are a handful of direct border crossings from Montenegro directly into Bosnia, this bus apparently makes a stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I'm tempted to not count this as our fifth Balkan country since we're not leaving the bus station.
Monday, August 16, 2010
DATELINE: Budva, Montenegro
Author: Andy
I sent an email ahead to the hotel in Mostar because they say that they will pick you up from the bus station if you let them know when you're arriving. Unfortunately the email client on my phone spell-corrected the subject heading without me realizing it until it was too late. So "Mostar reservation" became "Mortar reservation" which is a bit of a faux pas considering the town is in Bosnia.
DATELINE: Rome, Italy
Author: Nick
As I sit here listening to Built to Spill and preparing for bed and my flight back to Philly in the morning, I can't help but miss Natalie, Sam, and Andy. It's been a great trip, and I can't wait to see you all again back in the the good old U.S.A. This will probably be my last post, unless something really spectacular happens on my way to the airport. By the way guys, remember all the fun we had opening beer bottles with lighters, keys, etc? I had an opener in my bag the whole time. Found it when looking for my keys to open a bottle of beer just now.
Be seeing you!
150cc's of awesome under my Roman ass
I got out of the old city for a bit to see what else was around. The answer? Lots of closed stores and empty streets. It was a ghost town - apparently Monday are a day of rest, and August is vacation month, so most folks split town.
I also got to see stuff I'd never see any other way. I followed the old city wall for miles and miles (it's big - 100' tall in places. And long - I started following it at it's halfway point.) I followed the Vatican wall completely around he perimiter of Vatican City (several hilly miles). My favorite surprise was the vista next to the Medici house at the top of a tall hill next to The Piazza del Popolo. I got there as the sun was starting to set and had an amazing view of the City. Above is a bad pic of the view.
Double Vision
The Piazza del Popolo is a large, perfectly symmetrical plaza. How symmetrical? They built two big ass churches at one end to keep the balance...
What do you keep in YOUR Basement?
At the Vatican, they keep the mortal remains of all the Popes in what I lovingly call "The Pope Cellar" AKA the basement under St. Peter's Basilica. At the center of the place, directly under the massive dome (designed by Michaelangelo) and under the high alter where the Pope says mass now and then, lies the alleged tomb of St. Peter himself (which is why the Basilica is where it is of course...) The whole damn place was built as a grave marker and just got out of control from there. The latest pontiff to be interred in the Pope Cellar is none other than Pope John Paul II. A lot of the popes down there had rather ornate sarcoughogous, complete with sculptures on the lid depicting their contents. Creepy. JP2 had a simple marble slab with his name, years of birth and death, and a big Chi Ro. Simple and humble, as it should be. I was impressed.
DATELINE: Budva, Montenegro
Author: Natalie
Greetings from Montenegro; my new favorite word is "kleptocracy". I miss Nick, but the remaining three of us are enjoying our further travels up through the Balkans, where the women get hotter and the pizza more expensive as we continue north. (Though I predict those pizza prices will dip again in Sarajevo). I haven't been offered anything resembling a dumpling this whole trip, which leads me to conclude that we are technically NOT in Eastern Europe. Andy's post covered our arrival in the coastal town of Budva, so all I will do is reiterate that the bus ride along the coast was ab-so-lute-ly beautiful. The seaside is framed by mountains and lined with craggy rocks. Budva is quite a bit more developed than I hoped - it's kind of a Montenegrin Wildwood - but today I had an adventure on a mellower beach. Andy went off on his boat ride, and Sam and I started out on foot. Based on an aerial photograph I had seen of the region, I decided that we could "hike up to the highway, walk over the ridge, and descend down to the water via this path through the woods here...". Not long into our hot, dry, sunny hike, we decided it was a better idea to cab it. Good thing we did - the hike that I had estimated as 3 miles was more like twelve. And that "path through the woods" terminated in a fifty-foot cliff at the water's edge. So, in conclusion, it's amazing how much you can't tell by looking at an aerial photograph. Sam and I had a perfectly lovely day on the beach, swimming and scrambling over jagged rocks, looking at sea urchins and live sand dollars, gazing at the mountains in the distance, and eating pizza at a little cafe. We've been getting along so well on this trip; it's really nice. I was happy to be there for the second of Sam's major motor vehicle adventures on this trip: last week Nick and I taught him to drive a stick shift in the mountains of Kosovo, and today I suggested that we hitchhike back to Budva, which he had never done before. We were quickly successful, and enjoyed the company of a nice Russian man who spoke not one single word of English. Not one word. Through the use of hand gestures and the occasional unexpected Slavic cognate, we determined that he was a mason by profession, and that he believes Montenegrins are very hard workers except for the ones who do nothing but drink and smoke.
DATELINE: Budva, Montenegro
Author: Andy
Today's Balkan T-shirt hits: "Wild Eyes HUNGRY TO ROAM", "Disaster Zone Canoe Team" and my favorite: "Greenwood Village New York". Last night we noticed to many of these there's a formula. It goes something like this: [Non-Sequitor Phrase] [American City] [Year]. Play along, it's fun. Here are some of my ideas: "Rockstar Quarrel Sacramento 1985", "Laser Frisbee Disco Detroit 1998", and "Greet My Monkey Dallas 1975". Last night we went out in the old town of Budva, which is enclosed by a stone wall and is populated by short stone buildings divided by impossibly narrow small paths. Today we started out by making hotel reservations for Mostar and buying our bus tickets. I then went to go on a boat ride out to Sveti Stefan and back. The aforementioned Sveti Stefan is one of the most picturesque spots on the whole coast, do yourself a favor and do a Google image search for it. It was nice being out on a boat again. couldn't help recalling that in the original plan I had in my bag when I left New York, we didn't have any firm plans to go to any waterside resort towns at all, now this our third one.
DATELINE: Vatican Ciry
Author: Nick
Faith is a gift, or a curse - it depends on what you have faith in. I have faith in Jesus Christ, and I trust how this faith manifests itself through my thoughts, prayers, and actions here on Earth. St Peter's is the manifestation of faith in Christ's promise of bodily resurrection. and one hell of a public works project. Was it money well spent? They do have a really nice Pope Cellar...�
Russian tax dollars at work
We're not saying these yachts belong to the Russian mob, but we're not not saying it
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Four Countries in One Day
So I woke up at 5AM in Pristina, Kosovo; 8AM flight to Tirana, Albania; bus into town and lots of time in cafes; 6:15 flight to Rome, Italy. Got on the wrong train into town (which thankfully put me 10 metro stops from my destination without the 2KM walk through Termini Station to the Metro, so it was a blessing in disguise...) Pizza and beer for dinner, then off to St. Peter's Square (Vatican City) to finish the book I was reading - Becoming the Answer to Your Prayers (Prayer for Ordinary Radicals). Surreal, and I did not burst into flames. See the above pic to see what I saw while reading.
-- Nick
DATELINE: Budva, Montenegro
Author: Sam
lots to cover in a little span. so, i havent added my 2¢ in a while. we intended on spending a couple of days in pristina, but upon arrival realized that that would be about 24 hours too long. our hotel was smack in the middle of the hammered aluminum and used vcr district, which lent itself to scenic views, and painfully noxious air. with that said, it was pretty cool to be in the capital of the world's newest country. there is a real aura of hope for the future and ive never been to a place that so dearly loves the american people. since there isnt so much to see beyond the statue of bill clinton and the museum dedicated to how awesome the united states is (it was at one time filled with priceless archeological treasures but the serbs borrowed them a few years ago and dont want to give them back), we thought it would be a good idea to go try and talk our way into the nato base, where we heard there is an awesome thai restaurant. the soldiers at the base were amazingly friendly and accomodating and the greek soldiers at the gate were really rooting for us to get into lunch, even going so far as to pull over some american soldiers to escort us onto the base. unfortunately, we needed 72 hours notice to get security clearance, so we got indian food instead. not that they'll see it, but thank you to pfc santiago and everyone else who helped us out and answered out questions about what exactly nato is still doing in kosovo. (as an aside, the base was built in an area called film city, which apparently was the old center of the eastern european porn industry.) we headed out to motenegro later that night for an overnight trip through the mountains. the police at the border gave us a little bit of trouble because our passports werent stamped when we crossed into kosovo. apparently it was our, rather than the original border guard's responsibility to get them stamped. who knew? the trip was also eventful in that i sat next to a kosovar gentleman called esset who has been living in sheffield england for the past 11 years and was back visiting family. we spoke for four hours about life in both pre and post war kosovo and his and his family's experience prior to, during, and after the war. long story short: americans are a bunch of softies who have pretty much no reason to complain about anything. ever. but we are also blessed to have been born in a country that, despite its myriad problems, by and large offers the opportunity of education and personal betterment to pretty much every one of its citizens.we are now in budva, montenegro, the adriatic's answer to the jersey shore. it's a cross between margate and wildwood, with much nicer architecture, beautiful cliffs, and only slightly more russian spoken. also, it's nice to know that there are both men and women hairier than myself here.
DATELINE: Budva, Montenegro
Author: Andy
I have to admit, the Adriatic coast of Montenegro is up there for me with the coasts of Catalonia and Northern California as one of the most picturesque I've seen. The bus up here from Ulcinj was a mercifully short two and a half hours, hugging the coast most of the way. This is a completely different scene from Kosovo. Literally overnight we've gone from a struggling international reconstruction project to a idyllic playground for wealthy Serbs, Montenegrins, and the occasional Russian kleptocrat. The sleep deprivation from the bus rides has helped accentuate this contrast. It's a good time.
DATELINE: Tirana, Albania
Author: Nick
Here I am, back where we all started the Balkan part of this adventure. Sipping an ice cold Korca at the old Piazza bar/restaurant next to the national museum. My flight to Rome leaves in 6 hours so I have some time to kill, so the plan is to hang here for a while and catch up on my travel journal, write a few blog entries, sort through hundreds of photos, and reflect on the amazing week I've had traveling with Andy, Sam, and Natalie.