Best women: Serbia/Greece
Best people: Belgrade, Serbia (totally biased but whatever)
Coolest travelers met: backpackers in Copenhagen/on trains to, from Belgrade
Best food: Novi Sad, Serbia
Worst food: Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark
Most beautiful city: Venice, Italy
Most beautiful non-city: Republic of Srpskom, Bosnia and Herzogovenia (or wherever the hell I really was)
Best beaches: Greece
Most interesting (recent) history: Hungary/Serbia
Best bang for your buck: Belgrade/Budapest
Worst bang for your buck: Copenhagen, Denmark
Coolest historical site: underground castle labyrinth, Budapest/Pompeii
Most English Spoken: Sweden/Denmark
Least English Spoken: Italy
Currency that was most difficult to calculate: Serbian Dinar (66 dinars to 1 USD? seriously?)
Weakest currency: Hungarian Forint, the HUF (1000 HUF = $5)
Most embarrassing moment that nobody saw: drying my clothes with the stove in Venice
Backpackers’ dream: Budapest (cheap, plethora of places to stay, easy to meet other travelers, high backpacker-to-tourist ratio)
Backpackers’ nightmare: Venice (very expensive, extremely difficult to navigate, shortage of younger visitors, very high tourist-to-backpacker ratio)
Most nazi-ish country about their internet: Italy (charge €6/hour for access at internet cafés, require passports and an Italian cell phone for hotspot usage)
Most terrifying place to cross the street: Naples, Italy (definitely saw a pedestrian get struck crossing the street)
Did I forget anything??
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Planes, trains, and automobiles. Well, sort of.
Train to Budapest. What an adventure. Something I tried to explain to Cali Rob is that the fastest trip is not the way to go when you’re travelling for a long period of time not only because it is usually the most expensive, but flying (unless you’re Xanax’d up, wearing all your clothes on-board Ryanair to beat some meager fees) is hardly an adventure. Taking the night train from Belgrade to Budapest certainly qualifies. Let me explain. I got on the train, read maybe 100 pages of my man s.k. and this kid got on the train, hopped in my compartment. Real nice, offered me a sandwich (I declined - I learned my lesson about that on the train from Munich two weeks prior), and we started talking Yugoslav politics. Extremely interesting (at least to me). Cut to the border police. I told him my story, how I was freaked out going to Belgrade - he laughed, as if to say "silly sheltered American" - so we stayed awake and dealt with them - both on the Serbian side, and the Hungarian side. Following the border police were the Hungarian conductors checking our tickets. I had the round trip which was sufficient, but apparently he had a multi-trip pass for Hungary/Austria/Germany which in the fine print said if you cross into a border country (AKA Serbia) the ticket is null and void (not sure how that makes any sense, but I whatever). The conductor tried to kick him off the train, but the kicker of it all was the conductor only spoke Hungarian (which neither of us did - no, I'm not even trying to pick up that language). So they are trying to communicate, I'm texting furiously to no avail, and the border police (still on the train, of course) are probably summarily executing passengers. Sweet. He says "how much is the ticket?" to which the conductor says "50 Euros" (which is a lot of money...duh), and then says "Forint?" as if to ask if he'll be paying in the shitty Hungarian currency, the Forint. He calculates it out, and it's something like a billion Forint (yes, I'm exaggerating). So this kid goes into his bag, pulls out 10 euros and maybe half a million Forint (whatever the equivalent of five more euros is) and shrugs his shoulders and hands it to this guy who looks like he's straight out of Pan's Labyrinth (I'd be lying if I said this wasn't him on the left: http://thekjwilson.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/panlabyrinth2.jpg). The conductor looks at it, calculates how much he's actually giving him, puts his index finger to his mouth as if to say "shh," and walks away. We shut the door, and just start laughing because we realize that the fleet-footed Pan had just been bribed with 15 euros, and we knew for a fact that 15 euros was never going to reach the Wasteels Railway system. I'm not sure if the story translates as well when written, but believe-you-me we had a good laugh over it. I would have taken a picture of the situation but I didn't want to be shot on sight.
Busy first day in Budapest. Woke up at noon (sue me, I didn’t get to the hostel till 6am) and managed to squeeze in a gyro (they don’t compare with Greece), squeezed in two Communist-era tours (the Terror Museum – true to the name, IMO, and the underground bunker hospital which, if I had to recuperate in during WWII I would have taken my own life; no medical treatment necessary), a quick pass-through of the labyrinth underneath the castle, and a half-day bike rental. Wow. Exhausted. An authentic Hungarian meal and four hours of Facebooking later and I was fast asleep in my shitty hostel bed. The next two days were relatively uneventful: more Communist tours (Hungarian history is pretty interesting since different countries kept pwning them every few years in the 40’s/50’s), some shitty Hungarian-Chinese food, and a day in the thermal spas (mmmmmm) and I was ready for rafting in Bosnia-Herzegovina (yes Sanja, I know, I know, the Republic of Srpskom – give me a chance already!). But first I have to take the train back to Belgrade. No big deal, right? I’ve done it before. Except this time was different. Imagine a train going to Calcutta breaks down and has to merge with a train going to the Sudan. And it’s 1000C (yes Jason, you heard me; it’s the temperature of Venus in the summer (as if Venus in the winter time is a tepid and cool climate)). And everyone is smoking cigarettes on the train(!). And it’s going so slow you’re being passed by old people in rascals (yeah, think Office Space). Got that image in your head? Okay, well that train would have blown by mine. Good thing my cell phone ran out of Dinars halfway through the ride. I blame Tito (nobody in America is going to get that reference; I should have said Milošević).
Cut to rafting. Holy shit, how much fun is that? Why don’t we do that more often in the States? Okay, let me start at the beginning. After getting off the Calcutta Express, Deki and Sanja picked me up in my sweatified state so that I could have some Rakija (ugh – more on that later) with Sanja’s dad and trade stories – in Serbian, no less – about the States. Good times (actually, it was quite nice – no sarcasm, for once). We met up with Dragana and the Kosta/Marija ‘crew’ and took off for Bosnia. It was good to be back; I felt like I was coming home in a way (don’t worry Jen/Riker/Mom, I’m coming back…soon enough, I promise). But it was great. We finally get there – after Deki almost drives us into a ditch and we plummet to our collective deaths – and it’s just this really cool campground with little bungalows for sleeping and an outdoor bar/restaurant area. No tents, thankfully. I take the coldest, most awful shower since Sprague Hall, have some dinner and more of that Rakija crap (hey, it’s the national drink of Serbia; ‘when in Rome’ and all that jazz), and call it a night. I awake to Deki banging on the door in some sort of attempted-Australian accent. Ever hear a Serb imitate an Aussie? It’s not pretty. A delicioussss breakfast later, and we’re driving on perhaps the least safe road in all of Europe to get up the river (see the video). The river is amazing. It’s crystal clear to the point you can drink out of it (yes, we did). It starts off as reasonably warm, but it gets colder as the weather turns for the worse. But the landscape is incredible. We’re in this canyon surrounded by mountains (think ‘Deliverance’ without the rape) with nobody but the other rafters and that elusive nature (it sure seems elusive in Dorchesta). I hadn’t been rafting since Montana with my dad back in maybe ‘95(?), but this was a legitimate blast. Watching people trade beers for Rakija, or whiskey for beers, etc., between rafts was more than amusing. And watching Deki chuck beers back up the river to get the other group of rafters to chase it and stop splashing us was priceless. We even stopped thirty minutes in so Kosta could try and break his neck base jumping. No luck, there. All in all it was well worth the ride on the Calcutta Express. It was even worth listening to Sanja, Dragana, and Žana sing Alanis Morrisette on the way back. Now that’s some high praise.
In Venice now, don’t want to talk about the train ride last night. It was the best train ride of my life going into Croatia. Really cool people, card games, beers and yes, more Rakija served by the conductor (Palmer would have loved it – we played ‘Bullshit’). Then the train mysteriously stopped, they herded us off in Zagreb, forced us on to a Hungarian train headed in the same direction, put us in the lowest class available (after we had paid for sleepers), and then the Croatian border guards decided to help themselves to some of my belongings. Assholes. Put them on the list of people I don’t like: Albanians, Hungarians, Patriots fans, cops, people who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials…you know what, this list is way too long to go into at the moment. Let’s just say, after all my travels and soul-searching and all that jazz, I’ve come to the realization that no, I’m not a people person. What a shocker.
People say Budapest is beautiful. Nuts to that. Venice is beautiful. Obscenely touristy to the point that I want to throw up, but beautiful nonetheless. Budapest had castles and amazing vantage points from the top of Buda looking down on Pest. But it also had a lot of old, run down ex-Communist buildings. And go to the area around Keleti train station. The best thing I saw there was a hundred year old man wearing clothes that hadn’t fit him since the Eisenhower administration literally farting his way down the street. Entertaining, yes; beautiful, no. But Venice with their canals (and their respective gondolas), their cool looking old buildings, their impossible-to-navigate alleyways, and their massive churches is breathtaking. But far too touristy for me to deal with for more than a day or two. Here’s the updated schedule, as it stands now. Am I ever coming home???
July 22: NYC
July 23 – July 31: Paralia Katerini, Greece
August 1 – August 5: Stockholm, Sweden
August 5 – August 11: Copenhagen, Denmark
August 12: travel day (at 12:01am I was near Hamburg, Germany; at 11:59pm I was near Subotica, Serbia)
August 13 – August 24: Belgrade, Serbia
August 25 – August 28: Budapest, Hungary
August 29 – August 31: Republic of Srpskom (I think), Bosnia (for rafting; via Belgrade)
September 1-2: Venice, Italy
September 2-4: Florence, Italy
September 4-6: Naples/Pompeii, Italy
September 7-11: Rome, Italy
Busy first day in Budapest. Woke up at noon (sue me, I didn’t get to the hostel till 6am) and managed to squeeze in a gyro (they don’t compare with Greece), squeezed in two Communist-era tours (the Terror Museum – true to the name, IMO, and the underground bunker hospital which, if I had to recuperate in during WWII I would have taken my own life; no medical treatment necessary), a quick pass-through of the labyrinth underneath the castle, and a half-day bike rental. Wow. Exhausted. An authentic Hungarian meal and four hours of Facebooking later and I was fast asleep in my shitty hostel bed. The next two days were relatively uneventful: more Communist tours (Hungarian history is pretty interesting since different countries kept pwning them every few years in the 40’s/50’s), some shitty Hungarian-Chinese food, and a day in the thermal spas (mmmmmm) and I was ready for rafting in Bosnia-Herzegovina (yes Sanja, I know, I know, the Republic of Srpskom – give me a chance already!). But first I have to take the train back to Belgrade. No big deal, right? I’ve done it before. Except this time was different. Imagine a train going to Calcutta breaks down and has to merge with a train going to the Sudan. And it’s 1000C (yes Jason, you heard me; it’s the temperature of Venus in the summer (as if Venus in the winter time is a tepid and cool climate)). And everyone is smoking cigarettes on the train(!). And it’s going so slow you’re being passed by old people in rascals (yeah, think Office Space). Got that image in your head? Okay, well that train would have blown by mine. Good thing my cell phone ran out of Dinars halfway through the ride. I blame Tito (nobody in America is going to get that reference; I should have said Milošević).
Cut to rafting. Holy shit, how much fun is that? Why don’t we do that more often in the States? Okay, let me start at the beginning. After getting off the Calcutta Express, Deki and Sanja picked me up in my sweatified state so that I could have some Rakija (ugh – more on that later) with Sanja’s dad and trade stories – in Serbian, no less – about the States. Good times (actually, it was quite nice – no sarcasm, for once). We met up with Dragana and the Kosta/Marija ‘crew’ and took off for Bosnia. It was good to be back; I felt like I was coming home in a way (don’t worry Jen/Riker/Mom, I’m coming back…soon enough, I promise). But it was great. We finally get there – after Deki almost drives us into a ditch and we plummet to our collective deaths – and it’s just this really cool campground with little bungalows for sleeping and an outdoor bar/restaurant area. No tents, thankfully. I take the coldest, most awful shower since Sprague Hall, have some dinner and more of that Rakija crap (hey, it’s the national drink of Serbia; ‘when in Rome’ and all that jazz), and call it a night. I awake to Deki banging on the door in some sort of attempted-Australian accent. Ever hear a Serb imitate an Aussie? It’s not pretty. A delicioussss breakfast later, and we’re driving on perhaps the least safe road in all of Europe to get up the river (see the video). The river is amazing. It’s crystal clear to the point you can drink out of it (yes, we did). It starts off as reasonably warm, but it gets colder as the weather turns for the worse. But the landscape is incredible. We’re in this canyon surrounded by mountains (think ‘Deliverance’ without the rape) with nobody but the other rafters and that elusive nature (it sure seems elusive in Dorchesta). I hadn’t been rafting since Montana with my dad back in maybe ‘95(?), but this was a legitimate blast. Watching people trade beers for Rakija, or whiskey for beers, etc., between rafts was more than amusing. And watching Deki chuck beers back up the river to get the other group of rafters to chase it and stop splashing us was priceless. We even stopped thirty minutes in so Kosta could try and break his neck base jumping. No luck, there. All in all it was well worth the ride on the Calcutta Express. It was even worth listening to Sanja, Dragana, and Žana sing Alanis Morrisette on the way back. Now that’s some high praise.
In Venice now, don’t want to talk about the train ride last night. It was the best train ride of my life going into Croatia. Really cool people, card games, beers and yes, more Rakija served by the conductor (Palmer would have loved it – we played ‘Bullshit’). Then the train mysteriously stopped, they herded us off in Zagreb, forced us on to a Hungarian train headed in the same direction, put us in the lowest class available (after we had paid for sleepers), and then the Croatian border guards decided to help themselves to some of my belongings. Assholes. Put them on the list of people I don’t like: Albanians, Hungarians, Patriots fans, cops, people who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials…you know what, this list is way too long to go into at the moment. Let’s just say, after all my travels and soul-searching and all that jazz, I’ve come to the realization that no, I’m not a people person. What a shocker.
People say Budapest is beautiful. Nuts to that. Venice is beautiful. Obscenely touristy to the point that I want to throw up, but beautiful nonetheless. Budapest had castles and amazing vantage points from the top of Buda looking down on Pest. But it also had a lot of old, run down ex-Communist buildings. And go to the area around Keleti train station. The best thing I saw there was a hundred year old man wearing clothes that hadn’t fit him since the Eisenhower administration literally farting his way down the street. Entertaining, yes; beautiful, no. But Venice with their canals (and their respective gondolas), their cool looking old buildings, their impossible-to-navigate alleyways, and their massive churches is breathtaking. But far too touristy for me to deal with for more than a day or two. Here’s the updated schedule, as it stands now. Am I ever coming home???
July 22: NYC
July 23 – July 31: Paralia Katerini, Greece
August 1 – August 5: Stockholm, Sweden
August 5 – August 11: Copenhagen, Denmark
August 12: travel day (at 12:01am I was near Hamburg, Germany; at 11:59pm I was near Subotica, Serbia)
August 13 – August 24: Belgrade, Serbia
August 25 – August 28: Budapest, Hungary
August 29 – August 31: Republic of Srpskom (I think), Bosnia (for rafting; via Belgrade)
September 1-2: Venice, Italy
September 2-4: Florence, Italy
September 4-6: Naples/Pompeii, Italy
September 7-11: Rome, Italy
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Belgrade: je t’aime, errr, volim te
So I left Københaven (Copenhagen) at 18:53 (6:53pm...sorry) Tuesday night. I got into München (Munich) at 8:57am (the German trains are so efficient it actually got me in early). Once I got into München, I took the 9:27am train to Budapest (which also got in early, I believe) which had an arrival time of 16:49 (again, 4:49pm...sorry!). Then I hopped the 23:00 (you get the idea) train to Belgrade. Traveling for well over a day at that point, all I wanted was to lay down. That much I could do on a sparsely populated overnight train to Serbia. I was soon asleep. However, at about 1:00am the Hungarian border patrol, armed with semi-automatics, came banging on the door speaking Hungarian. That was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. I looked outside, we were stopped on some remote part of the Hungarian/Serbian border, and had this fine gentleman decided to put a bullet in my head no one would ever find me. Sweet. Anyway, he start shouting Hungarian at me, I immediately jump up from my seat and hand him my ticket. Of course, he was asking for my passport, so he continued to yell at me. He took it, questioned it, and showed it to all his border guard friends at which point I was convinced I was going to the Gulag (I know that’s Russian, shut up). He asked the other guy (a nice Serbian guy who was extremely helpful since I had no clue as to what was going on) in the compartment what was in his bag to which he replied – I shit you not – “some stuff,” and the border guard moved on to the next compartment. Rattled, I laid back down and got some shut eye. Until 20 minutes later, when we had to do it all over again with the Serbian border patrol. Scariest night of my life since 2006 when I received last rites from a priest at Newton-Wellsley Hospital following my liver laceration. Cut to the next morning. Ever get the urge to travel for 40 straight hours by train then end up in a city where not only are the street signs in Cyrillic (and the map is in Latin – good luck matching Boulevar Oslobodjenja to the street sign reading “Булевар Ослобођења”), but your chances of being killed by an automobile while trying to cross the street are 1-in-4? Well have I found the place for you! As they would say on Ren and Stimpy: “beautiful Hollywood Yugoslavia!” Nobody’s going to get that reference. Oh well. But yeah, what a trip.
Thursday night, after taking about a 14 hour nap in my beautiful apartment, we go to Beerfest. Now, anyone that knows me knows I don’t like the taste of beer, so this might seem kind of, well, retarded, I suppose. But it gets me out of feeling guilty for missing Oktoberfest, so I go. Plus, it’s an excuse to get to Belgrade (as if I needed one). So after searching for about an hour for a parking space (which is a feat – in Belgrade they park the cars on the curb, on the median, on police officers – three high, if need be, they don’t care), we finally make it in. I’m not sure what was better, the beers for €1 or sneaking up on the 6’30” Serbian Sniper in front of the Bg tent. Six of one, half a dozen of another. But what on earth was that music they were playing? It was like Serbian folk music. I expected something…well, I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it wasn’t that.
Cut to Friday afternoon. Sanja picked me up and took me to Boris’ for just about the best hors d’oeuvres I’ve ever had in my life. Boris’ son Milan decided to call Japan from my cell phone. Thanks for that. But we had a nice relaxing evening, sitting back, talking economics (again, sounds boring but isn’t) be it Serbian, American, Russian, etc. It was very relaxing…initially. It was getting late and Boris had to put Milan to bed, so 'Magellan' (Dragana) swung by and picked me up and took me down to Hotel Yugoslavija. Kind of. I’m not even sure what the purpose was, but it didn’t matter because we never got there. We parked the car somewhere and began this epic journey in search of the Hotel. I should have noticed something was amiss when we took four lefts, preceded by four rights. That’s not something you get on Google Maps all that often. After about a half hour of walking there we realized we were lost (this was nothing new to me after being lost the minute I stepped onto Serbian soil) and turned around to go back. Except…where is the car?? All the streets look the same. Great. Three hours (I’m not really exaggerating all that much, honestly), several sit-down breaks, and a Costas Coffee run later (okay that part I made up…although I think we passed the same Costas Coffee place about four times), we find the car. It’s 3am. Super. And on our way back, what do we pass? You guessed it: Hotel Yugoslavija. Communists.
Cut to Saturday evening (it’s easy to do since my mornings have been basically non-existent). After a beautiful day spent on the River Sava at Nikola’s houseboat (see pictures), a bunch of us meet up at Skadarlija for dinner and drinks. It’s about this time that I come to the realization that no, Belgrade is not some war-torn ghetto you see in films in the States (they don’t specifically target Serbia, but rather the entire Eastern Bloc). It gets a bad rep being part of former Yugoslavia and being a very poor country, but I like it. It's not as pretty as Copenhagen or Stockholm certainly, but there are some hidden treasures here; Skardarlija, reminiscient of Monmartre, is an excellent example. So we’re sitting there, and I realize I am in the midst of paradise: it’s about 75F, there is live music and people cheering, beers are flowing and they are cheap (I’ll take a €1.50 Lav over a €6 Carlsberg (Denmark) any day), and the women (at our table, no less!) are stunning. There are eight of us at the table: myself, Stefano, Dusan (I think), and five absolutely stunning women (Dragana, Sandra, Natasa, Milena III, and some chick I’ve never met before). I know I sound like a broken record, but what is in the water here? I expected it on the beaches of Greece (you have to bring your A game there), but in downtown Belgrade? I’ve noticed the obesity epidemic we have in the States hasn’t gotten here (or to any of the places I’ve seen in Europe, honestly), but I can’t for the life of me figure out why: every five feet is some street food that is full of cholesterol and saturated fat, be it sausages, ice cream, or the local пекара (bakery) which offers nothing healthy whatsoever. Food is cheap and unhealthy; ditto the beer. How is everyone thin?? But I digress. The bill then came, and it was less than €57. Crazy. Three of us for dinner in Copenhagen was well over €100, and that was at a restaurant named “Puk.”
Cut to Monday. The Serbian Sniper picks me up at my apartment to go to Lake Ada and play basketball. For those of you that know me, I play basketball like an offensive linemen: I’m dirty, I use my elbows, and I have very little ball skill. I’m also not in shape to play regular USA basketball, much less Serbian basketball (here there is no “taking it back” – if you miss, you have to play defense right away). In what was undoubtedly the best play I made all day (which isn't saying much), I took this 60+ year old man off the dribble, turned around, and laid it up with my left hand. As I'm doing this, Djuro yells "you go American Fairytale!" Asshole. :) It was downhill from there. Then I went home and collapsed on the couch to Croatian Music Television. It’s not any better than it sounds, trust me. After watching Eurotrip ("Miami Wice, #1 new show!"), I was hoping I could catch some 'new' episodes of “Sliders” here in Serbia. No luck, though. I will say, though (completely unrelated, now that I’m in ‘revision’ mode), in Copenhagen and Stockholm I felt like a tourist. Here, I don't. It’s actually to the point where I feel embarrassed taking pictures just because nobody else is doing it, and it makes it pretty clear than I’m not from around here (as if the Buffalo Bills hat and magenta iPod Nano didn’t do the trick). I still feel like a foreigner - going grocery shopping when you don't know the language and have to point at everything and say "hvala" (“thank you”) is a trip - but generally I don’t feel like a tourist. It's a good feeling. I just wish I had a gym to go to. In Greece we played volleyball every day on the beach and ate one meal a day. In Scandinavia food was too damn expensive to eat often and I was probably up to ten miles a day on the city bikes by the time I left. Here? Well I'm getting the three squares a day and there are no bikes to be found. So much for getting myself into shape.
Speaking of getting into shape, chicken tetrazzini has got to be the least healthy thing in my repertoire. For anyone curious on how to make chicken tetrazzini in Europe, here are the conversions (what a pain in the ass):
1 stick of butter = 1/4 lb = 113 g
1 pint (whipping cream (“pavlaka”)) = 473 ml
2 cups (chicken broth) = 0.5 L
16 oz (pasta) = 454 g
1/2 cup (flour) = 120 ml
350 F = 177 C
Thank you, thank you, I know that was riveting for most of you. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.
On Tuesday, Deki (haha, you can’t get away from it Dejan) picked me up with his sister Irena and we met Sanja at Kalemegdan (which is this nice area in Belgrade with a park and the big fortress). After the worst lemonade in the history of water-based liquids (yeah, you heard me), we walked back through the pedestrian zone where I was able to display some killer 3rd grade recorder skills. Mrs. Moriarty would be so proud. Thursday (I think), Deki picked me up again (at what point do I owe him cab fare?), and we met up with Sanja and Dragana for crepes. Delicioussssss. Then we apparently went down to Hotel Yugoslavija (I shit you not – and I had no idea about this until days afterward even), and met up with Kosta and Marija for drinks on the river while unsuccessfully looking for karaoke. It was about that time I tried to put in 600 RSD for the bill, and received 700 RSD change. New math. Friday was the trip to Novi Sad (the Thessaloniki of Serbia, if you will) for an incredible meal at Salaš 137 (this random farm out in the middle of nowhere - the fact that they say "it's nearly impossible to get lost" on their website is maddening), and a trip to Novi Sad’s fortress and main square. Saturday was the big bash at my place and, if you’ve seen the videos, there’s not much else I can add to that. As nervous as I was to be hosting a party in Belgrade, it was a smashing success. Of course, I don’t know half of what was said at the party, but who cares? People had a good time, I had a good time, and we’ve got enough photographic and video evidence to keep me out of Congress forever. Time now to head to Budapest for a few days before I deadhead back to Belgrade for the trip to Bosnia for white water rafting. Just when you think it can’t get any better…
Now it comes to meet your maker, Belgrade. Drumroll please!
Women (why is this category always first??): A+/A. Did they send their best to Greece to represent? Certainly. But walk around downtown Belgrade and see if it's really that much of a drop off. Some of the younger girls have the potential but wear trashy clothing. Aside from that, there's little you can say negatively in this category. Deki says the hottest girls in Europe are Serbian and Polish. Why am I not going to Poland after this??
Nightlife: B+. Didn't see enough of it to really judge, believe it or not. But the rivers (Sava, Danube) and the lake (Ada) are extremely impressive. Much more beautiful than you would expect. The only knock on it is that it seemed too quiet when I was down there. Apparently the natives leave in August to go on vacation. Didn't go to any clubs (which really is a blessing).
Food: A. Didn't expect this, certainly, but all the local fare was excellent. Whether it was a meal at Salaš 137 or just Serbian hors d’oeuvres, the food was excellent all around.
Beaches: C-. Disappointing. All this water, but no real beaches to speak of (that I saw, at least). Not that I went to Serbia - a landlocked country - for the beaches. But I figured since I rated beaches for every other country (not that you can compare to Greece's) I might as well throw it in. I'm sure there are beaches somewhere, I just didn't really see any on Ada or the two rivers.
Public transportation: C+. Didn't take it so it's tough to judge. I will say that the busses looked crowded as hell every time I saw one, and there's not much of an underground subway to speak of (but rather trolleys everywhere reminiscient of the Green Line in Boston, which is atrocious). Neither the bus nor the trolley has a problem cutting you off in traffic or running you over if you try to cross the street.
Infrastructure: B. Better than I expected. From the stories I was told, I expected to see half-blown up buildings everywhere. While I did see one or two, everything was more or less in tact. As I stated before, it certainly wasn't as pretty as Scandinavia (and can we stop with the graffiti already? who thinks that's a good idea??), but there are some hidden gems in the city, and not just Skadarlija.
People: A+. Totally biased, I know, but even this random Serb on the train offered me a sandwich for no reason whatsoever.
Overall: A. I was sad to leave. I will see everyone again for rafting, but still. If it wasn't 5000 miles away from home (let's say it was just 500) I might never leave.
As it stands now, here is the projected schedule:
July 22: NYC
July 23 – July 31: Paralia Katerini, Greece
August 1 – August 5: Stockholm, Sweden
August 5 – August 11: Copenhagen, Denmark
August 12: Budapest, Hungary
August 13 – August 24: Belgrade, Serbia
August 25 – August 28: Budapest, Hungary
August 29 – August 31: Tara, Bosnia (via Belgrade; for rafting)
September 1: Venice, Italy
Thursday night, after taking about a 14 hour nap in my beautiful apartment, we go to Beerfest. Now, anyone that knows me knows I don’t like the taste of beer, so this might seem kind of, well, retarded, I suppose. But it gets me out of feeling guilty for missing Oktoberfest, so I go. Plus, it’s an excuse to get to Belgrade (as if I needed one). So after searching for about an hour for a parking space (which is a feat – in Belgrade they park the cars on the curb, on the median, on police officers – three high, if need be, they don’t care), we finally make it in. I’m not sure what was better, the beers for €1 or sneaking up on the 6’30” Serbian Sniper in front of the Bg tent. Six of one, half a dozen of another. But what on earth was that music they were playing? It was like Serbian folk music. I expected something…well, I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it wasn’t that.
Cut to Friday afternoon. Sanja picked me up and took me to Boris’ for just about the best hors d’oeuvres I’ve ever had in my life. Boris’ son Milan decided to call Japan from my cell phone. Thanks for that. But we had a nice relaxing evening, sitting back, talking economics (again, sounds boring but isn’t) be it Serbian, American, Russian, etc. It was very relaxing…initially. It was getting late and Boris had to put Milan to bed, so 'Magellan' (Dragana) swung by and picked me up and took me down to Hotel Yugoslavija. Kind of. I’m not even sure what the purpose was, but it didn’t matter because we never got there. We parked the car somewhere and began this epic journey in search of the Hotel. I should have noticed something was amiss when we took four lefts, preceded by four rights. That’s not something you get on Google Maps all that often. After about a half hour of walking there we realized we were lost (this was nothing new to me after being lost the minute I stepped onto Serbian soil) and turned around to go back. Except…where is the car?? All the streets look the same. Great. Three hours (I’m not really exaggerating all that much, honestly), several sit-down breaks, and a Costas Coffee run later (okay that part I made up…although I think we passed the same Costas Coffee place about four times), we find the car. It’s 3am. Super. And on our way back, what do we pass? You guessed it: Hotel Yugoslavija. Communists.
Cut to Saturday evening (it’s easy to do since my mornings have been basically non-existent). After a beautiful day spent on the River Sava at Nikola’s houseboat (see pictures), a bunch of us meet up at Skadarlija for dinner and drinks. It’s about this time that I come to the realization that no, Belgrade is not some war-torn ghetto you see in films in the States (they don’t specifically target Serbia, but rather the entire Eastern Bloc). It gets a bad rep being part of former Yugoslavia and being a very poor country, but I like it. It's not as pretty as Copenhagen or Stockholm certainly, but there are some hidden treasures here; Skardarlija, reminiscient of Monmartre, is an excellent example. So we’re sitting there, and I realize I am in the midst of paradise: it’s about 75F, there is live music and people cheering, beers are flowing and they are cheap (I’ll take a €1.50 Lav over a €6 Carlsberg (Denmark) any day), and the women (at our table, no less!) are stunning. There are eight of us at the table: myself, Stefano, Dusan (I think), and five absolutely stunning women (Dragana, Sandra, Natasa, Milena III, and some chick I’ve never met before). I know I sound like a broken record, but what is in the water here? I expected it on the beaches of Greece (you have to bring your A game there), but in downtown Belgrade? I’ve noticed the obesity epidemic we have in the States hasn’t gotten here (or to any of the places I’ve seen in Europe, honestly), but I can’t for the life of me figure out why: every five feet is some street food that is full of cholesterol and saturated fat, be it sausages, ice cream, or the local пекара (bakery) which offers nothing healthy whatsoever. Food is cheap and unhealthy; ditto the beer. How is everyone thin?? But I digress. The bill then came, and it was less than €57. Crazy. Three of us for dinner in Copenhagen was well over €100, and that was at a restaurant named “Puk.”
Cut to Monday. The Serbian Sniper picks me up at my apartment to go to Lake Ada and play basketball. For those of you that know me, I play basketball like an offensive linemen: I’m dirty, I use my elbows, and I have very little ball skill. I’m also not in shape to play regular USA basketball, much less Serbian basketball (here there is no “taking it back” – if you miss, you have to play defense right away). In what was undoubtedly the best play I made all day (which isn't saying much), I took this 60+ year old man off the dribble, turned around, and laid it up with my left hand. As I'm doing this, Djuro yells "you go American Fairytale!" Asshole. :) It was downhill from there. Then I went home and collapsed on the couch to Croatian Music Television. It’s not any better than it sounds, trust me. After watching Eurotrip ("Miami Wice, #1 new show!"), I was hoping I could catch some 'new' episodes of “Sliders” here in Serbia. No luck, though. I will say, though (completely unrelated, now that I’m in ‘revision’ mode), in Copenhagen and Stockholm I felt like a tourist. Here, I don't. It’s actually to the point where I feel embarrassed taking pictures just because nobody else is doing it, and it makes it pretty clear than I’m not from around here (as if the Buffalo Bills hat and magenta iPod Nano didn’t do the trick). I still feel like a foreigner - going grocery shopping when you don't know the language and have to point at everything and say "hvala" (“thank you”) is a trip - but generally I don’t feel like a tourist. It's a good feeling. I just wish I had a gym to go to. In Greece we played volleyball every day on the beach and ate one meal a day. In Scandinavia food was too damn expensive to eat often and I was probably up to ten miles a day on the city bikes by the time I left. Here? Well I'm getting the three squares a day and there are no bikes to be found. So much for getting myself into shape.
Speaking of getting into shape, chicken tetrazzini has got to be the least healthy thing in my repertoire. For anyone curious on how to make chicken tetrazzini in Europe, here are the conversions (what a pain in the ass):
1 stick of butter = 1/4 lb = 113 g
1 pint (whipping cream (“pavlaka”)) = 473 ml
2 cups (chicken broth) = 0.5 L
16 oz (pasta) = 454 g
1/2 cup (flour) = 120 ml
350 F = 177 C
Thank you, thank you, I know that was riveting for most of you. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.
On Tuesday, Deki (haha, you can’t get away from it Dejan) picked me up with his sister Irena and we met Sanja at Kalemegdan (which is this nice area in Belgrade with a park and the big fortress). After the worst lemonade in the history of water-based liquids (yeah, you heard me), we walked back through the pedestrian zone where I was able to display some killer 3rd grade recorder skills. Mrs. Moriarty would be so proud. Thursday (I think), Deki picked me up again (at what point do I owe him cab fare?), and we met up with Sanja and Dragana for crepes. Delicioussssss. Then we apparently went down to Hotel Yugoslavija (I shit you not – and I had no idea about this until days afterward even), and met up with Kosta and Marija for drinks on the river while unsuccessfully looking for karaoke. It was about that time I tried to put in 600 RSD for the bill, and received 700 RSD change. New math. Friday was the trip to Novi Sad (the Thessaloniki of Serbia, if you will) for an incredible meal at Salaš 137 (this random farm out in the middle of nowhere - the fact that they say "it's nearly impossible to get lost" on their website is maddening), and a trip to Novi Sad’s fortress and main square. Saturday was the big bash at my place and, if you’ve seen the videos, there’s not much else I can add to that. As nervous as I was to be hosting a party in Belgrade, it was a smashing success. Of course, I don’t know half of what was said at the party, but who cares? People had a good time, I had a good time, and we’ve got enough photographic and video evidence to keep me out of Congress forever. Time now to head to Budapest for a few days before I deadhead back to Belgrade for the trip to Bosnia for white water rafting. Just when you think it can’t get any better…
Now it comes to meet your maker, Belgrade. Drumroll please!
Women (why is this category always first??): A+/A. Did they send their best to Greece to represent? Certainly. But walk around downtown Belgrade and see if it's really that much of a drop off. Some of the younger girls have the potential but wear trashy clothing. Aside from that, there's little you can say negatively in this category. Deki says the hottest girls in Europe are Serbian and Polish. Why am I not going to Poland after this??
Nightlife: B+. Didn't see enough of it to really judge, believe it or not. But the rivers (Sava, Danube) and the lake (Ada) are extremely impressive. Much more beautiful than you would expect. The only knock on it is that it seemed too quiet when I was down there. Apparently the natives leave in August to go on vacation. Didn't go to any clubs (which really is a blessing).
Food: A. Didn't expect this, certainly, but all the local fare was excellent. Whether it was a meal at Salaš 137 or just Serbian hors d’oeuvres, the food was excellent all around.
Beaches: C-. Disappointing. All this water, but no real beaches to speak of (that I saw, at least). Not that I went to Serbia - a landlocked country - for the beaches. But I figured since I rated beaches for every other country (not that you can compare to Greece's) I might as well throw it in. I'm sure there are beaches somewhere, I just didn't really see any on Ada or the two rivers.
Public transportation: C+. Didn't take it so it's tough to judge. I will say that the busses looked crowded as hell every time I saw one, and there's not much of an underground subway to speak of (but rather trolleys everywhere reminiscient of the Green Line in Boston, which is atrocious). Neither the bus nor the trolley has a problem cutting you off in traffic or running you over if you try to cross the street.
Infrastructure: B. Better than I expected. From the stories I was told, I expected to see half-blown up buildings everywhere. While I did see one or two, everything was more or less in tact. As I stated before, it certainly wasn't as pretty as Scandinavia (and can we stop with the graffiti already? who thinks that's a good idea??), but there are some hidden gems in the city, and not just Skadarlija.
People: A+. Totally biased, I know, but even this random Serb on the train offered me a sandwich for no reason whatsoever.
Overall: A. I was sad to leave. I will see everyone again for rafting, but still. If it wasn't 5000 miles away from home (let's say it was just 500) I might never leave.
As it stands now, here is the projected schedule:
July 22: NYC
July 23 – July 31: Paralia Katerini, Greece
August 1 – August 5: Stockholm, Sweden
August 5 – August 11: Copenhagen, Denmark
August 12: Budapest, Hungary
August 13 – August 24: Belgrade, Serbia
August 25 – August 28: Budapest, Hungary
August 29 – August 31: Tara, Bosnia (via Belgrade; for rafting)
September 1: Venice, Italy
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Live from München Station
Well, the journey is underway. Actually, I won’t be able to post this until after I get in to Belgrade, but whatever. The last twelve hours have been a trip. First to the Danish War Resistance Museum. Smallest museum I’ve ever seen – is anyone surprised? Skip the trip to Copenhagen, I’ll give you a quick rundown: Hitler liked the Danes because they were followed his Aryan model and really had no use for their shitty country so he allowed the government to stay as long as they did what he said; the Danes were terrified of Hitler and didn’t want to make waves, so they just sort of did whatever he wanted. When some of the citizens (like eight of them, seriously) rebelled, Danish law saved them from death. You can imagine that didn’t go so well with ol’ Adolf. The Danish government was soon replaced, and rebels were executed. Clearly fed up with this, in 1944 as the Germans were losing the war, the Danes finally resisted. Way to jump on the bandwagon, guys.
Cut to the train ride. I get on the 18:53 (I guess AM/PM is only used by the States?) train for München (Munich). I get in a six-seat compartment and find I’m all alone. Score! This poor Italian girl (who’s English isn’t great and speaks zero Danish) is being told by a conductor who hasn’t got the time nor the interest to explain in great depth that her ticket is only good to some random shit town in Germany outside of Hamburg, not all the way to Munich (eight hours south of Hamburg). He doesn’t explain to her that it’s going to be a mere €4 to continue on to Munich. So I help her out a bit and squeeze a few answers out of the conductor (thank God I didn’t have to translate them to Italian. Andiamo? Ashpete? Yeah…) and she gets moved into my little, formerly-private compartment. But it’s two rows of three seats facing each other, so no worries right? I can still lay down. I beat the system, right? For 221 DKK (less than $44) I have a semi-private compartment and a “bed.” Scoreboard USA. That is, until we get to Hamburg around midnight. Good thing I got a few hours of sleep beforehand, because there was no more to be had when these sketchy Germans got on the train. First a mother and daughter came on and were very nice, sat on the outside facing each other (Italy and I were on the inside facing each other once we saw we were getting guests), and in the middle were these two sketchy German dudes who didn’t speak a lick of English and looked like Megadeth roadies. Both in their forties, one looked like a blond version of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers sporting an American Choppers t-shirt and whitewashed jeans, the other extremely overweight (of course he sat next to me, right?) with awful teeth and smelled like a dumpster (maybe he lived in one?). I figured if they were going to attack us when we were asleep, it being me and three women, I would definitely be first. Talk about food for thought while you’re trying to sleep (sitting up, no less – why don’t European trains have reclining seats??). So much for beating the system; so much for getting any more sleep. Maybe that whole “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” adage is truer than I thought…
So I’m on the high-speed train from München to Budapest going 160 km/h. Take that, Amtrak. I grabbed some breakfast at the station, but I refuse to pay €5+ for one of those horrendous looking sandwiches they’re walking around with now. So this German girl sitting next to me offers me just about the worst sandwich I’ve ever seen – swiss cheese and butter on stale Czech bread. And a carrot. This must be how the ‘other half’ lives. Devastating. But props to the Europeans for putting power ports on their trains. Now if I could just get internet…
Cut to the train ride. I get on the 18:53 (I guess AM/PM is only used by the States?) train for München (Munich). I get in a six-seat compartment and find I’m all alone. Score! This poor Italian girl (who’s English isn’t great and speaks zero Danish) is being told by a conductor who hasn’t got the time nor the interest to explain in great depth that her ticket is only good to some random shit town in Germany outside of Hamburg, not all the way to Munich (eight hours south of Hamburg). He doesn’t explain to her that it’s going to be a mere €4 to continue on to Munich. So I help her out a bit and squeeze a few answers out of the conductor (thank God I didn’t have to translate them to Italian. Andiamo? Ashpete? Yeah…) and she gets moved into my little, formerly-private compartment. But it’s two rows of three seats facing each other, so no worries right? I can still lay down. I beat the system, right? For 221 DKK (less than $44) I have a semi-private compartment and a “bed.” Scoreboard USA. That is, until we get to Hamburg around midnight. Good thing I got a few hours of sleep beforehand, because there was no more to be had when these sketchy Germans got on the train. First a mother and daughter came on and were very nice, sat on the outside facing each other (Italy and I were on the inside facing each other once we saw we were getting guests), and in the middle were these two sketchy German dudes who didn’t speak a lick of English and looked like Megadeth roadies. Both in their forties, one looked like a blond version of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers sporting an American Choppers t-shirt and whitewashed jeans, the other extremely overweight (of course he sat next to me, right?) with awful teeth and smelled like a dumpster (maybe he lived in one?). I figured if they were going to attack us when we were asleep, it being me and three women, I would definitely be first. Talk about food for thought while you’re trying to sleep (sitting up, no less – why don’t European trains have reclining seats??). So much for beating the system; so much for getting any more sleep. Maybe that whole “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” adage is truer than I thought…
So I’m on the high-speed train from München to Budapest going 160 km/h. Take that, Amtrak. I grabbed some breakfast at the station, but I refuse to pay €5+ for one of those horrendous looking sandwiches they’re walking around with now. So this German girl sitting next to me offers me just about the worst sandwich I’ve ever seen – swiss cheese and butter on stale Czech bread. And a carrot. This must be how the ‘other half’ lives. Devastating. But props to the Europeans for putting power ports on their trains. Now if I could just get internet…
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Day one solo
Not soon after Fletcher left did the realization that my adventure is going solo set in. What a weird feeling that was. My immediate instinct was to run back home where familiarity will return me to my comfort zone. But wasn’t getting out of my comfort zone what this trip was all about? Tuesday we (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’ of course) continue on to Munich, then to Budapest, then to Belgrade. Beerfest goes on until Sunday, and it’s a city I can finally afford. I also can’t wait to get out of this hostel-living for a week. A luxury apartment in the center of Belgrade for €40/night? Sign me up. No more showering in sandals dodging mold and mosquitos that made Sprague Hall look clean? Done. And a kitchen…I can’t wait. I haven’t had milk since I left.
Anyway, the last two nights have been crazy here. I met an interesting mix of people here: a few Americans, a couple of Canadians, a few Aussies…but no Danes. Too bad. Night one we decided going out around here was just too expensive, so we went to Sevs (7-11 for you common folk) and decided to “homeless it up” and drink at a park bench (which is completely legal here). Keep it classy, Copenhagen. What an experience that was. As we were all trading travel stories, people would stop by randomly and sit with us for a few minutes (or more), then take off. A homeless woman came by and started singing to us (quite loud, I might add; could be classified as ‘shouting’). Priceless. Cut to the next morning. I have to get up and walk Rob to the train station but my back is killing me. WTF? What happened last night? Oh that’s right, I fell asleep in the lobby at a 45 degree angle with my laptop on my lap…for three hours. Well done, sir. Dropped Rob off, got to the Carlsberg brewery only to find out that 1) it’s closed on Mondays and 2) the swastika isn’t as unpopular in Denmark as it is in, say, Israel (see picture). Spent the remainder of the day with these two Americans bumming around the city swiping city bikes from the bushes/stairwells/canals they were stashed away in. Hey, when in Rome, etc. etc. We walk up to the City Public Hostel to try and find them a room for the next night, and I run into Heath Ledger from Stockholm! What a small world. The four of us got a pizza (after another epic search for ice – wtf is wrong with this continent???), and reconvened at the hostel. Our group continued to climb to the point where there were six of us Americans, three Aussies, two Canucks, a Costa Rican. We decided to go on a pub crawl…in the most expensive city ever…in the pouring rain. Worst decision ever. We actually walked into this dive bar with the Sevs beers thinking we were stealth. We were not. The walk home was not a dry one.
Almost time for the epic journey to Belgrade for Beerfest. First I have to hit the Danish War Resistance museum (I have to see their tanks up close: http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/DanishResistanceAC2795.jpg/180px-DanishResistanceAC2795.jpg). But I leave tonight at 6:57pm for Munich, I don’t get in to Belgrade until Thursday morning (after changing trains in Munich and Budapest). I’ve got to be out of my mind…
Anyway, the last two nights have been crazy here. I met an interesting mix of people here: a few Americans, a couple of Canadians, a few Aussies…but no Danes. Too bad. Night one we decided going out around here was just too expensive, so we went to Sevs (7-11 for you common folk) and decided to “homeless it up” and drink at a park bench (which is completely legal here). Keep it classy, Copenhagen. What an experience that was. As we were all trading travel stories, people would stop by randomly and sit with us for a few minutes (or more), then take off. A homeless woman came by and started singing to us (quite loud, I might add; could be classified as ‘shouting’). Priceless. Cut to the next morning. I have to get up and walk Rob to the train station but my back is killing me. WTF? What happened last night? Oh that’s right, I fell asleep in the lobby at a 45 degree angle with my laptop on my lap…for three hours. Well done, sir. Dropped Rob off, got to the Carlsberg brewery only to find out that 1) it’s closed on Mondays and 2) the swastika isn’t as unpopular in Denmark as it is in, say, Israel (see picture). Spent the remainder of the day with these two Americans bumming around the city swiping city bikes from the bushes/stairwells/canals they were stashed away in. Hey, when in Rome, etc. etc. We walk up to the City Public Hostel to try and find them a room for the next night, and I run into Heath Ledger from Stockholm! What a small world. The four of us got a pizza (after another epic search for ice – wtf is wrong with this continent???), and reconvened at the hostel. Our group continued to climb to the point where there were six of us Americans, three Aussies, two Canucks, a Costa Rican. We decided to go on a pub crawl…in the most expensive city ever…in the pouring rain. Worst decision ever. We actually walked into this dive bar with the Sevs beers thinking we were stealth. We were not. The walk home was not a dry one.
Almost time for the epic journey to Belgrade for Beerfest. First I have to hit the Danish War Resistance museum (I have to see their tanks up close: http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/DanishResistanceAC2795.jpg/180px-DanishResistanceAC2795.jpg). But I leave tonight at 6:57pm for Munich, I don’t get in to Belgrade until Thursday morning (after changing trains in Munich and Budapest). I’ve got to be out of my mind…
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Where the hell are we??
…because I have no idea. This is the last time I let Fletcher pick a hostel. Check that - when I get to Belgrade I'm living in style. No more of this hostel shit. In Stockholm at least we were in the center of everything – Old Town (“Gamla Stan”) – and we could get anywhere in a city much, much bigger than Copenhagen. Now? I’ll be happy if we aren’t murdered in our sleep, and if poor Rob doesn’t call out of his 15 foot high bunk bed with no railing. If the blog suddenly stops someone contact the Copenhagen police department. I saw ‘Hostel.’ Did we walk all the way to Bratislava? It’s certainly possible. At least the Bates Motel was clean…
I should also mention that I found a Bills fan on the train. Some musician from Rochester happened to be on the train from Stockholm and pointed at my hat. I initially just figured he had confused it with some local soccer logo, but not the case. What are the odds?
Went to Christiana yesterday. Wow. They weren’t kidding when they said this was Denmark’s hippie enclave. What a neat place, though. It actually reminded me of a group of Deadheads who decided to stop traveling once Jerry bit it. A very cool place to visit though, with all the dreadie merchants selling their clothing/food/drugs (not joking, actually). I haven’t seen so much illegal drug paraphernalia sold since the last Greatful Dead concert I was at. Technically it is illegal in all of Denmark to buy or sell drugs (unlike Amsterdam), but that didn’t stop the people I saw. When you walk in there are signs everywhere warning against taking pictures, so I don’t have any photographic evidence of any of this, but it was an experience I’ll never forget. After you leave the merchants, you walk into the “bar” which is a bar that sells beer and tables with women dancing on them and people smoking all sorts of things all over the place. It reminded me of “From Dusk Till Dawn.” We must have stuck out like sore thumbs. The beers were actually the cheapest we’ve gotten (besides 7-11) but we decided collectively to return at night would be an extremely bad idea.
Aside from the hippie commune, Copenhagen is pretty boring actually. And extremely, extremely expensive. To the point that I don’t understand why anybody even comes here. There’s not much to do, and you pay a fortune to do it. Not hating on the country – I just love the fact that everyone bikes everywhere (the cities in the US could stand to learn a thing or two) – but I can’t imagine why anybody visits. Hell, I don’t even know why we visited. Went to Tivoli Gardens today (see pictures). That placed sucked hardcore. It was like a mini-Asian Disney World. 85 DKK down the drain. There was one ride – I shit you not – that you had to pull yourself up on a rope and bounce this carriage you were sitting in. Worst. ride. evar.
So I booked the train to Belgrade (well, to Budapest, but close enough). www.raileurope.com thought they were going to get me for $300+. They thought wrong. I got a ticket to Munich (610 miles from Copenhagen) Tuesday night for 221 DKK (about $42), and then switch to a train to Budapest (425 miles from Munich) for €51 (about $75). The train from Budapest to Belgrade (230 miles) is €15 (about $22). Beat that. I think I’ll spend a night in Budapest after the endless train ride to get there, arrive in Belgrade as the Beerfest celebrations peak. I can’t wait to get to a country I can afford. I might never leave.
What happens after Belgrade? Maybe cut back through Budapest and Vienna, then maybe to Rome? I'd still like to hit Iceland...maybe on the way back??
Copenhagen, you have disappointed me. Drumroll please!
Women: A/A-. Not quite the Nordic beauties of Sweden, but they hold their own.
Food: C+. Too expensive to enjoy, and not all that enjoyable on their own. The pickled/marinated herring is absolutely disgusting. And where is the ice??
Public Transportation: A-. City bikes are technically public transportation since they are free. But they make my Wal-Mart bike look like a Lance Armstrong customized Schwinn. Or something. And you can't find them anywhere. Check with Sweden on how to do it, guys. Didn't take the subway, but the train was quite efficient; heard the subway was too (just like the Tunnelbana).
Nightlife: B-. Supposed to be "crazy" compared to Stockholm...which isn't saying much.
Beaches: B-. Too many stick and shells in the sand. No volleyball. Cold water. Weak sun. But attractive people bring it up a bit. A nice place to bike to. Oh, and you get a good view of the windmills right off the shore which is pretty neat.
Overall: C+. Not all it's cracked up to be...whatever that means. When the DKK follows the path of the ISK I might come back. But probably not.
I should also mention that I found a Bills fan on the train. Some musician from Rochester happened to be on the train from Stockholm and pointed at my hat. I initially just figured he had confused it with some local soccer logo, but not the case. What are the odds?
Went to Christiana yesterday. Wow. They weren’t kidding when they said this was Denmark’s hippie enclave. What a neat place, though. It actually reminded me of a group of Deadheads who decided to stop traveling once Jerry bit it. A very cool place to visit though, with all the dreadie merchants selling their clothing/food/drugs (not joking, actually). I haven’t seen so much illegal drug paraphernalia sold since the last Greatful Dead concert I was at. Technically it is illegal in all of Denmark to buy or sell drugs (unlike Amsterdam), but that didn’t stop the people I saw. When you walk in there are signs everywhere warning against taking pictures, so I don’t have any photographic evidence of any of this, but it was an experience I’ll never forget. After you leave the merchants, you walk into the “bar” which is a bar that sells beer and tables with women dancing on them and people smoking all sorts of things all over the place. It reminded me of “From Dusk Till Dawn.” We must have stuck out like sore thumbs. The beers were actually the cheapest we’ve gotten (besides 7-11) but we decided collectively to return at night would be an extremely bad idea.
Aside from the hippie commune, Copenhagen is pretty boring actually. And extremely, extremely expensive. To the point that I don’t understand why anybody even comes here. There’s not much to do, and you pay a fortune to do it. Not hating on the country – I just love the fact that everyone bikes everywhere (the cities in the US could stand to learn a thing or two) – but I can’t imagine why anybody visits. Hell, I don’t even know why we visited. Went to Tivoli Gardens today (see pictures). That placed sucked hardcore. It was like a mini-Asian Disney World. 85 DKK down the drain. There was one ride – I shit you not – that you had to pull yourself up on a rope and bounce this carriage you were sitting in. Worst. ride. evar.
So I booked the train to Belgrade (well, to Budapest, but close enough). www.raileurope.com thought they were going to get me for $300+. They thought wrong. I got a ticket to Munich (610 miles from Copenhagen) Tuesday night for 221 DKK (about $42), and then switch to a train to Budapest (425 miles from Munich) for €51 (about $75). The train from Budapest to Belgrade (230 miles) is €15 (about $22). Beat that. I think I’ll spend a night in Budapest after the endless train ride to get there, arrive in Belgrade as the Beerfest celebrations peak. I can’t wait to get to a country I can afford. I might never leave.
What happens after Belgrade? Maybe cut back through Budapest and Vienna, then maybe to Rome? I'd still like to hit Iceland...maybe on the way back??
Copenhagen, you have disappointed me. Drumroll please!
Women: A/A-. Not quite the Nordic beauties of Sweden, but they hold their own.
Food: C+. Too expensive to enjoy, and not all that enjoyable on their own. The pickled/marinated herring is absolutely disgusting. And where is the ice??
Public Transportation: A-. City bikes are technically public transportation since they are free. But they make my Wal-Mart bike look like a Lance Armstrong customized Schwinn. Or something. And you can't find them anywhere. Check with Sweden on how to do it, guys. Didn't take the subway, but the train was quite efficient; heard the subway was too (just like the Tunnelbana).
Nightlife: B-. Supposed to be "crazy" compared to Stockholm...which isn't saying much.
Beaches: B-. Too many stick and shells in the sand. No volleyball. Cold water. Weak sun. But attractive people bring it up a bit. A nice place to bike to. Oh, and you get a good view of the windmills right off the shore which is pretty neat.
Overall: C+. Not all it's cracked up to be...whatever that means. When the DKK follows the path of the ISK I might come back. But probably not.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
"Fletcher – get the fuck up!"
I’m currently on the SJx2100 train from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Waking up at 7:45am and making an 8:21am train with ten minutes to spare is an art form, but the events leading up to this should be explained first.
Sunday was tame. Sunday night was not. The Swedish nightlife leaves quite a bit to be desired – state controlled liquor laws make the States look like complete anarchy. We saw one liquor store in all of Stockholm and we never saw it open. The beer sold in the supermarket was 3.5% and wasn’t cheap. All outside bars closed at midnight per state regulations, which blows my mind since you can only be outside at night for about six weeks in Sweden.
In any event, when the bar closed, Fletcher winds up meeting this group of Swedes who can’t be explained as anything other than characters. They end up leading us to this dive bar that had karaoke ironically called the Anchor Pub (anybody that’s ever been to Buffalo, NY knows the home of the buffalo wing is the Anchor Bar). Apparently Fletcher got absolutely wrecked (and racked up a 1000+ SEK bar bill) because the next afternoon when I tried to wake him up at 1:30pm for the bike tour he was completely unable to respond. Rob was nowhere to be found, so I did the bike tour on my own, what the hell. Now, Sweden for all it’s beauty, nature, and splendor has a history that’s almost completely irrelevant. Augustus Adolphus this, warrior king that, blah blah blah. They haven’t had a war in 200 years (which is great, but it makes for a pretty boring history). Berlin’s bike tour in ’07, by contrast, was full of relevant, recent political strife and war and was absolutely fascinating. But once you get past the history, biking Stockholm is something else entirely. It’s comprised of 14 islands so there’s water everywhere – some of it salt water from the Baltic Sea, some of it fresh water. People come out in droves when the weather is nice and the people of Stockholm, on average, are not unattractive people. It’s such an experience, the next day the three of us rented bikes ourselves and biked all around the city. It doesn’t hurt that Stockholm is the most bike-friendly city I’ve ever seen with dedicated bike lanes everywhere (edit: we just got to Copenhagen and it blows Stockholm out of the water re: city biking. More on this later.).
Monday night we met up with our new Aussie friend, Heath Ledger (that’s his real name. no, not really), and went to Södermalm (I believe literally means “the southern island,” but don’t quote me on that). Of course the outside bars closed at midnight so we had to cram into some bar/club combo…when it’s 75°F outside. Cali Rob got to meet the sketchiest guy ever (yes Beth, even sketchier than Dead Weight) before we went to what the Aussie’s call “Mackers” to have a pickle race. Not my idea, but watching Heath Ledger throw a pickle across McDonald’s and hitting the golden ‘M’ on the window might have been one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I guess you had to be there. Don’t blame me for not – you were all invited!
The next night we brought this pair of Dutch girls from our hostel out for karaoke. They were traveling with a group of six from Holland and four had split off and they looked a little lost, so we figured 'what the hell.' They thought it would be a good idea to teach me Dutch as we walked – why does everyone think I’m proficient enough at languages to pick them up on the spot? I can barely get through my own language half the time. We signed up for karaoke again, they didn’t get to us again, and again Fletcher got wrecked and ran up a huge bar bill. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That brings us to this morning. We all set our alarms for 6:30-7:00am. At 7:45am I shot up and realized no one was awake and yelled “Fletcher, get the fuck up!” We hadn’t packed and we had an 8:21 train for Copenhagen about a mile away. In what had to have been some sort of record we were out hailing a cab ten minutes later, and only by the grace of God we were at the train station by 8:11. Once the adrenaline wore off, the hangover set in. I’m sure the elderly woman sitting next to me for the majority of the ride enjoyed smelly, un-showered, booze-ridden Theodore sleeping next to her all morning. Life has it’s little bonuses, I suppose.
Now, for the scorecard, Stockholm (drum-roll please):
Nightlife: C. State liquor laws are just too much, and although this might have been a product of being there the wrong part of the week, the Swedes we met seemed to suggest otherwise.
Women: A. They look like the Children of the Corn sometimes, but they are beautiful people. Hell, if I was gay – which I’m not, thanks - I’d go after a dude from around here. Tough to compete with scantily-clad Mediterranean 20-somethings, but all the stereotypes about Swedes are true; they are beautiful.
Public transportation: A. We only took the Tunnelbana once because it was so expensive and too nice to go underground, but it was solid that one time. The train we’re on right now is quite comfortable, clean, and not prohibitively expensive (unlike the RailEurope, which is a fortune.) The public bikes, not unlike France’s “velib”, are an excellent way to bum around the city, and not surprisingly there is a ton of bike traffic everywhere. I definitely saw a woman get very close to being run over in a bike lane. Quality.
Food: B. God I miss American food. I ordered a sausage for dinner one night because it was “local fare,” and I think I got an oversized Slim Jim with chocolate sauce on it. Rob ordered a hot dog that tasted like plastic, and I got a hot dog wrap filled with mashed potatoes that made me feel like the guy in the opening scene of ‘Seven.’ The seafood that we had (fish and chips, mussels, crayfish) tasted very fresh.
Beaches: F. I think the only beach in Stockholm was this 10’x20’ “beach” on Långholmen (quite literally “Long Island”). Jones Beach it was not.
Parks: A. Greenest city I’ve ever seen. For all the hustle and bustle (yeah, you heard me) surrounding downtown Stockholm they’ve managed to keep a ton of the city green, and people take full advantage of it.
Overall: B+. The nightlife was too weak to get it into the ‘A’ range, but it was legitimately the cleanest, most beautiful city I’ve ever seen in my life. Didn’t seem like a singles hotspot to me (unlike Paralia Katerini) but perhaps more of a couples vacation spot. Nothing wrong with that, just that neither Fletcher nor Rob are really my type.
Copenhagen next. Then Belgrade for Beerfest. Then cutting it back and probably making stops in some of the big cities (Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Amsterdam?) before hopping the pond and making my way back (maybe a layover in Reykjavik?). But plans have a way of changing…
Sunday was tame. Sunday night was not. The Swedish nightlife leaves quite a bit to be desired – state controlled liquor laws make the States look like complete anarchy. We saw one liquor store in all of Stockholm and we never saw it open. The beer sold in the supermarket was 3.5% and wasn’t cheap. All outside bars closed at midnight per state regulations, which blows my mind since you can only be outside at night for about six weeks in Sweden.
In any event, when the bar closed, Fletcher winds up meeting this group of Swedes who can’t be explained as anything other than characters. They end up leading us to this dive bar that had karaoke ironically called the Anchor Pub (anybody that’s ever been to Buffalo, NY knows the home of the buffalo wing is the Anchor Bar). Apparently Fletcher got absolutely wrecked (and racked up a 1000+ SEK bar bill) because the next afternoon when I tried to wake him up at 1:30pm for the bike tour he was completely unable to respond. Rob was nowhere to be found, so I did the bike tour on my own, what the hell. Now, Sweden for all it’s beauty, nature, and splendor has a history that’s almost completely irrelevant. Augustus Adolphus this, warrior king that, blah blah blah. They haven’t had a war in 200 years (which is great, but it makes for a pretty boring history). Berlin’s bike tour in ’07, by contrast, was full of relevant, recent political strife and war and was absolutely fascinating. But once you get past the history, biking Stockholm is something else entirely. It’s comprised of 14 islands so there’s water everywhere – some of it salt water from the Baltic Sea, some of it fresh water. People come out in droves when the weather is nice and the people of Stockholm, on average, are not unattractive people. It’s such an experience, the next day the three of us rented bikes ourselves and biked all around the city. It doesn’t hurt that Stockholm is the most bike-friendly city I’ve ever seen with dedicated bike lanes everywhere (edit: we just got to Copenhagen and it blows Stockholm out of the water re: city biking. More on this later.).
Monday night we met up with our new Aussie friend, Heath Ledger (that’s his real name. no, not really), and went to Södermalm (I believe literally means “the southern island,” but don’t quote me on that). Of course the outside bars closed at midnight so we had to cram into some bar/club combo…when it’s 75°F outside. Cali Rob got to meet the sketchiest guy ever (yes Beth, even sketchier than Dead Weight) before we went to what the Aussie’s call “Mackers” to have a pickle race. Not my idea, but watching Heath Ledger throw a pickle across McDonald’s and hitting the golden ‘M’ on the window might have been one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I guess you had to be there. Don’t blame me for not – you were all invited!
The next night we brought this pair of Dutch girls from our hostel out for karaoke. They were traveling with a group of six from Holland and four had split off and they looked a little lost, so we figured 'what the hell.' They thought it would be a good idea to teach me Dutch as we walked – why does everyone think I’m proficient enough at languages to pick them up on the spot? I can barely get through my own language half the time. We signed up for karaoke again, they didn’t get to us again, and again Fletcher got wrecked and ran up a huge bar bill. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That brings us to this morning. We all set our alarms for 6:30-7:00am. At 7:45am I shot up and realized no one was awake and yelled “Fletcher, get the fuck up!” We hadn’t packed and we had an 8:21 train for Copenhagen about a mile away. In what had to have been some sort of record we were out hailing a cab ten minutes later, and only by the grace of God we were at the train station by 8:11. Once the adrenaline wore off, the hangover set in. I’m sure the elderly woman sitting next to me for the majority of the ride enjoyed smelly, un-showered, booze-ridden Theodore sleeping next to her all morning. Life has it’s little bonuses, I suppose.
Now, for the scorecard, Stockholm (drum-roll please):
Nightlife: C. State liquor laws are just too much, and although this might have been a product of being there the wrong part of the week, the Swedes we met seemed to suggest otherwise.
Women: A. They look like the Children of the Corn sometimes, but they are beautiful people. Hell, if I was gay – which I’m not, thanks - I’d go after a dude from around here. Tough to compete with scantily-clad Mediterranean 20-somethings, but all the stereotypes about Swedes are true; they are beautiful.
Public transportation: A. We only took the Tunnelbana once because it was so expensive and too nice to go underground, but it was solid that one time. The train we’re on right now is quite comfortable, clean, and not prohibitively expensive (unlike the RailEurope, which is a fortune.) The public bikes, not unlike France’s “velib”, are an excellent way to bum around the city, and not surprisingly there is a ton of bike traffic everywhere. I definitely saw a woman get very close to being run over in a bike lane. Quality.
Food: B. God I miss American food. I ordered a sausage for dinner one night because it was “local fare,” and I think I got an oversized Slim Jim with chocolate sauce on it. Rob ordered a hot dog that tasted like plastic, and I got a hot dog wrap filled with mashed potatoes that made me feel like the guy in the opening scene of ‘Seven.’ The seafood that we had (fish and chips, mussels, crayfish) tasted very fresh.
Beaches: F. I think the only beach in Stockholm was this 10’x20’ “beach” on Långholmen (quite literally “Long Island”). Jones Beach it was not.
Parks: A. Greenest city I’ve ever seen. For all the hustle and bustle (yeah, you heard me) surrounding downtown Stockholm they’ve managed to keep a ton of the city green, and people take full advantage of it.
Overall: B+. The nightlife was too weak to get it into the ‘A’ range, but it was legitimately the cleanest, most beautiful city I’ve ever seen in my life. Didn’t seem like a singles hotspot to me (unlike Paralia Katerini) but perhaps more of a couples vacation spot. Nothing wrong with that, just that neither Fletcher nor Rob are really my type.
Copenhagen next. Then Belgrade for Beerfest. Then cutting it back and probably making stops in some of the big cities (Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Amsterdam?) before hopping the pond and making my way back (maybe a layover in Reykjavik?). But plans have a way of changing…
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Greece rocks, Albanians suck, and discount airliners think they're tougher than they are.
I've been told I've been slacking, so here it is, hungover, day 2 in Sweden. Take it for what it's worth.
So the last night in Greece wasn't anything to write home about. We grabbed some beers and hung out on the beach and had a real good, but mellow time - nothing new, right? Then as we walked home, 10m from our hotel, I made the mistake of flipping off a group of Albanian bikers (in fairness, they were being dicks) and apparently almost got my ass handed to me as after we walked up to our room they circled back looking for me (I found all this out the next morning). Well done on my part. During one of my history 'lessons' during the week, I had been warned that the Albanians had been the 'least friendly' of the ex-Yugoslavs, and it may have been accurate. Call me a racist if you want, but Albanians are assholes. Probably not all of them, but so far they're 0-for-15 (it was a big group). After the Kosovo conflict, I don't expect any of my new Serbian friends to disagree.
Dajan and Sanja were nice enough to give us a ride to Thessaloniki airport Friday afternoon. Once you got outside of the touristy part of Paralia, Greece reminded me a lot of Jamaica, actually: smaller cement houses on random parts of hills, not all that much going on (until you got into Thessaloniki, of course). And the drivers made Mass-holes look like driving instructors. When we got to the airport I had a choice: pay €22 ($33) to check my bag half-way to my destination (and face another €20 fee at the layover airport in Berlin) or make my bag lighter. If you knew me at all, you know the answer already. I boarded the EasyJet flight with all my clothing on on a 95ºF day. Worst decision ever. Then I took off all the clothes on the plane (don't worry, pictures will follow), strapped them to my bag, and did it again in Berlin. Rinse, wash, repeat. The looks that I got from people on Ryanair taking off shirt after shirt after shirt after shirt almost made the whole experience worth it. Almost. Was it worth the €42 saved? Probably not. But we're in a recession; sacrifices must be made.
All-in-all, the Greeks scored pretty well:
women: A+ (they may have had some help from the Serbs - I can't really distinguish between them; I know a few Americans who can compete, but they are in the minority (sorry ladies))
beaches: A- (the beaches themselves were incredible, but the water had WAY too much seaweed and jellyfish and was even too warm at times)
food: C+ (the €2 deliciousss gyros kept them from being in the 'D' range; the souvlaki wasn't really any good, the veal was overdone, the shrimp was terrible; the food at the wedding was quite good, but I'm not so sure that qualified as 'typical' Greek fare)
amenities: C+ (guys, they have these things called 'credit cards,' learn to accept them....somewhere....anywhere. It's like the stone age over there.)
public transportation: B (they certainly didn't seem to run on what one might call a 'schedule,' but they got us pretty close to where we needed to be for an excellent price; plus, they had gypsies fighting the conductor)
overall: A- (good luck Scandinavia, you have a lot to live up to)
When we got to Nyköping (pronounced NEE-sho-ping) at 11:30pm, I was in paradise. It was a cool 65º (compared to Greece which didn't seem to sink far below 80º, even at night). I think the airport is only staffed with beautiful Swedish women (isn't that against the law?). Everything was clean, public transportation was running efficiently (are you listening Tom Menino??). The airport hotel was this swanky, modern hotel that looked more like an Ikea than an airport hotel. Try comparing it (http://www.connecthotel.se/default.asp?id=skavsta-en) to the LaGuardia airport hotel in Queens. Not even close. The room was a little small, but for one night extremely clean, comfortable, and modern. Big fan.
We took the Flygbussarna shuttle into Stockholm the next morning and walked to our hostel. What an interesting place this is. It's legitimately a maze (I will take and post a video at some point this week). It's in this really old, but cool building. We settled into our room (which is like a big dormitory), walked outside...right into the biggest gay pride parade in Europe. I shit you not. The videos will be up whenever I get around to it - beware, they are not all PG (I'm sure Facebook is going to take issue with one or two of them). Afterward we had a delicioussss lunch we scoured the city for hair gel and liquor stores, neither of which we could find on a Saturday. Unbelieveable. Then Fletcher led us on the Long March around Jiangxi to find this dive bar...I still don't know why. But at least he took a nap - he didn't sleep the entire flight over and as a result had been up for 36 straight hours, and I was getting 'Fletched out' four hours into the trip. That's a recipe for disaster.
My only problem with Sweden so far - and this is a serious problem I have with Europe - is why is it so hard to get ice around here?? Why would you want to drink anything (excluding milk, OJ, beer, and wine) without it?? It occurs here naturally like nine months out of the year! I was so upset I skipped dinner...which is probably a good thing since the exchange rate makes the Euro look like the Czech Kroner (don't I sound sophisticated...Jesus). But it is crushing us. I just withdrew 3000 SEK from the ATM - around $415. If that doesn't last me until Wednesday morning then I'm going to have to have a word with the Swedes.
Bike tour tomorrow of Stockholm. Wednesday we leave for Copenhagen. Then the plan is to head East to Belgrade (Beerfest!) for an undetermined amount of time. When I've finally overstayed my welcome there I'll head back and hit up Budapest and Vienna on my way to Amsterdam...maybe. That's the plan at least. It looks like there are no more rooms available at Oktoberfest, so that may not be happening. I'm not a real beer aficionado anyhow, so no harm, no foul. More to come as it happens...and as I can get an internet signal. I'd still trade the signal for ice any day.
So the last night in Greece wasn't anything to write home about. We grabbed some beers and hung out on the beach and had a real good, but mellow time - nothing new, right? Then as we walked home, 10m from our hotel, I made the mistake of flipping off a group of Albanian bikers (in fairness, they were being dicks) and apparently almost got my ass handed to me as after we walked up to our room they circled back looking for me (I found all this out the next morning). Well done on my part. During one of my history 'lessons' during the week, I had been warned that the Albanians had been the 'least friendly' of the ex-Yugoslavs, and it may have been accurate. Call me a racist if you want, but Albanians are assholes. Probably not all of them, but so far they're 0-for-15 (it was a big group). After the Kosovo conflict, I don't expect any of my new Serbian friends to disagree.
Dajan and Sanja were nice enough to give us a ride to Thessaloniki airport Friday afternoon. Once you got outside of the touristy part of Paralia, Greece reminded me a lot of Jamaica, actually: smaller cement houses on random parts of hills, not all that much going on (until you got into Thessaloniki, of course). And the drivers made Mass-holes look like driving instructors. When we got to the airport I had a choice: pay €22 ($33) to check my bag half-way to my destination (and face another €20 fee at the layover airport in Berlin) or make my bag lighter. If you knew me at all, you know the answer already. I boarded the EasyJet flight with all my clothing on on a 95ºF day. Worst decision ever. Then I took off all the clothes on the plane (don't worry, pictures will follow), strapped them to my bag, and did it again in Berlin. Rinse, wash, repeat. The looks that I got from people on Ryanair taking off shirt after shirt after shirt after shirt almost made the whole experience worth it. Almost. Was it worth the €42 saved? Probably not. But we're in a recession; sacrifices must be made.
All-in-all, the Greeks scored pretty well:
women: A+ (they may have had some help from the Serbs - I can't really distinguish between them; I know a few Americans who can compete, but they are in the minority (sorry ladies))
beaches: A- (the beaches themselves were incredible, but the water had WAY too much seaweed and jellyfish and was even too warm at times)
food: C+ (the €2 deliciousss gyros kept them from being in the 'D' range; the souvlaki wasn't really any good, the veal was overdone, the shrimp was terrible; the food at the wedding was quite good, but I'm not so sure that qualified as 'typical' Greek fare)
amenities: C+ (guys, they have these things called 'credit cards,' learn to accept them....somewhere....anywhere. It's like the stone age over there.)
public transportation: B (they certainly didn't seem to run on what one might call a 'schedule,' but they got us pretty close to where we needed to be for an excellent price; plus, they had gypsies fighting the conductor)
overall: A- (good luck Scandinavia, you have a lot to live up to)
When we got to Nyköping (pronounced NEE-sho-ping) at 11:30pm, I was in paradise. It was a cool 65º (compared to Greece which didn't seem to sink far below 80º, even at night). I think the airport is only staffed with beautiful Swedish women (isn't that against the law?). Everything was clean, public transportation was running efficiently (are you listening Tom Menino??). The airport hotel was this swanky, modern hotel that looked more like an Ikea than an airport hotel. Try comparing it (http://www.connecthotel.se/default.asp?id=skavsta-en) to the LaGuardia airport hotel in Queens. Not even close. The room was a little small, but for one night extremely clean, comfortable, and modern. Big fan.
We took the Flygbussarna shuttle into Stockholm the next morning and walked to our hostel. What an interesting place this is. It's legitimately a maze (I will take and post a video at some point this week). It's in this really old, but cool building. We settled into our room (which is like a big dormitory), walked outside...right into the biggest gay pride parade in Europe. I shit you not. The videos will be up whenever I get around to it - beware, they are not all PG (I'm sure Facebook is going to take issue with one or two of them). Afterward we had a delicioussss lunch we scoured the city for hair gel and liquor stores, neither of which we could find on a Saturday. Unbelieveable. Then Fletcher led us on the Long March around Jiangxi to find this dive bar...I still don't know why. But at least he took a nap - he didn't sleep the entire flight over and as a result had been up for 36 straight hours, and I was getting 'Fletched out' four hours into the trip. That's a recipe for disaster.
My only problem with Sweden so far - and this is a serious problem I have with Europe - is why is it so hard to get ice around here?? Why would you want to drink anything (excluding milk, OJ, beer, and wine) without it?? It occurs here naturally like nine months out of the year! I was so upset I skipped dinner...which is probably a good thing since the exchange rate makes the Euro look like the Czech Kroner (don't I sound sophisticated...Jesus). But it is crushing us. I just withdrew 3000 SEK from the ATM - around $415. If that doesn't last me until Wednesday morning then I'm going to have to have a word with the Swedes.
Bike tour tomorrow of Stockholm. Wednesday we leave for Copenhagen. Then the plan is to head East to Belgrade (Beerfest!) for an undetermined amount of time. When I've finally overstayed my welcome there I'll head back and hit up Budapest and Vienna on my way to Amsterdam...maybe. That's the plan at least. It looks like there are no more rooms available at Oktoberfest, so that may not be happening. I'm not a real beer aficionado anyhow, so no harm, no foul. More to come as it happens...and as I can get an internet signal. I'd still trade the signal for ice any day.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
I'm not sure what's more offensive here: assuming the attendees were 'extra large' or complete and total disregard for copyright laws concerning a movie I've never even seen. In either case, the name is a total misnomer; everyone looked legit terrific. But there were plenty of people.
For those of you that don't know why I started in Greece, it was for the wedding of my college friend Jim (birth name Demetrios; family is from Greece) and his beautiful wife Milena (who is from neighboring Serbia). A Greek wedding is impossible to describe in words; to say it was quite the experience doesn't do it justice (pictures to follow). We were told the wedding started at 7:00pm, showed up at the church (a magnificent structure directly on the beach here at Paralia Katerini) around 6:50 and waited...and waited...and waited. Did Milena change her mind? Was Jim being left at the altar? No...but apparently the lackadaisical attitude that runs the Greek public transportation applies to weddings as well. Not a problem though; it's been the attitude that's dictated the pace of the entire trip thus far and I wouldn't change it for anything.
The entire procession was in Greek (which is a relatively unspoken language, believe it or not - while everyone I met from Serbia, Bulgaria, etc. was multi-lingual, very few actually spoke Greek). This meant, of course, that roughly 75% of the people there did not understand a word of what was going on, but we got the gist of it all. When the ceremony ended there were hundreds of passersby who stopped to see what all the hub-bub was about, which was incredible in it's own right (see pictures). Jim's cousin Joanna(?) was kind enough to drive us to the reception so we didn't have to walk over a kilometre (that's right, I'm European now). The reception was incredible. Major props to Jim's dad for putting it all together. Not too much dancing in the traditional sense, but a lot of group dancing in circles. I am obviously a natural at it. Again, it can't really be described, but the pictures should shed some light on this. I've also never seen so many people run up and literally throw money at the bride and groom - by the time we left, the floor was literally covered with $1 bills. Had our government not completely ruined our currency I might have brought my own broom.
When all was said and done, I looked at Rob and told him that every wedding I've ever been to (excluding my sisters' weddings - I was too young) or heard of always felt like a funeral (I guess that's what happens when your parents get divorced six times between them). The Greeks treat it as a big celebration and make it into one. I asked him 'what the point' of getting married was, and he pointed and Jim and Milena - both with huge smiles - and said "that." No argument here.
I've been invited to Belgrade (Serbia) by multiple people and am seriously considering that my next stop on the journey after Copenhagen. After that, a quick stop in Sofia (Bulgaria) to meet up with my new friend Hristo (sp?) might be in order, and then who knows, a flight to Iceland? Ireland? A train ride to Italy? Unknown at this point. But that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Quotes of the trip so far:
1) "I speak Bulgarian, he speaks Serbian, he speaks Greek, you speak English, but we come together and all speak the same international language: mathematics." (This was said during a game of beach volleyball)
2) "Look at that guy, he's a regular European Conan O'Brien"
"You mean the father of the fucking bride???"
"Uhh...yeah" (queues Conan O'Brien intro music)
3) "These chopsticks suck, they keep breaking"
"Dude, you're using breadsticks"
N.B. I'm not going to bash other cultures unless they really deserve it (apparently Albania has it coming?), so in regards to the Serbian national drink Rakija (their answer to the Greek's Orzo, apparently), I will just say it is 'strong.' And that's an understatement. It hits you like a ton of bricks and just keeps coming. Milena's father put it down like it was water before buying us all a fine meal at this local beach restaurant (thanks again, Mr. Pezelj), which was rather impressive. Also, thus far, I have not seen a difference between Greek food here and Greek food in America, except that the pizza has no pepperoni and like in Canada, bacon is actually ham. Not sure how all these countries keep mixing the two up.
One more thing. In my first blog I said Greek women were some of the most beautiful women in the world. Apparently they are trumped by Serbian women. According to Cali Rob, the reason for that is, and I quote: "once we started bombing them [in '99] the good Lord looked down on the beautiful ones and..." I stopped him right there. His logic was flawless.
For those of you that don't know why I started in Greece, it was for the wedding of my college friend Jim (birth name Demetrios; family is from Greece) and his beautiful wife Milena (who is from neighboring Serbia). A Greek wedding is impossible to describe in words; to say it was quite the experience doesn't do it justice (pictures to follow). We were told the wedding started at 7:00pm, showed up at the church (a magnificent structure directly on the beach here at Paralia Katerini) around 6:50 and waited...and waited...and waited. Did Milena change her mind? Was Jim being left at the altar? No...but apparently the lackadaisical attitude that runs the Greek public transportation applies to weddings as well. Not a problem though; it's been the attitude that's dictated the pace of the entire trip thus far and I wouldn't change it for anything.
The entire procession was in Greek (which is a relatively unspoken language, believe it or not - while everyone I met from Serbia, Bulgaria, etc. was multi-lingual, very few actually spoke Greek). This meant, of course, that roughly 75% of the people there did not understand a word of what was going on, but we got the gist of it all. When the ceremony ended there were hundreds of passersby who stopped to see what all the hub-bub was about, which was incredible in it's own right (see pictures). Jim's cousin Joanna(?) was kind enough to drive us to the reception so we didn't have to walk over a kilometre (that's right, I'm European now). The reception was incredible. Major props to Jim's dad for putting it all together. Not too much dancing in the traditional sense, but a lot of group dancing in circles. I am obviously a natural at it. Again, it can't really be described, but the pictures should shed some light on this. I've also never seen so many people run up and literally throw money at the bride and groom - by the time we left, the floor was literally covered with $1 bills. Had our government not completely ruined our currency I might have brought my own broom.
When all was said and done, I looked at Rob and told him that every wedding I've ever been to (excluding my sisters' weddings - I was too young) or heard of always felt like a funeral (I guess that's what happens when your parents get divorced six times between them). The Greeks treat it as a big celebration and make it into one. I asked him 'what the point' of getting married was, and he pointed and Jim and Milena - both with huge smiles - and said "that." No argument here.
I've been invited to Belgrade (Serbia) by multiple people and am seriously considering that my next stop on the journey after Copenhagen. After that, a quick stop in Sofia (Bulgaria) to meet up with my new friend Hristo (sp?) might be in order, and then who knows, a flight to Iceland? Ireland? A train ride to Italy? Unknown at this point. But that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Quotes of the trip so far:
1) "I speak Bulgarian, he speaks Serbian, he speaks Greek, you speak English, but we come together and all speak the same international language: mathematics." (This was said during a game of beach volleyball)
2) "Look at that guy, he's a regular European Conan O'Brien"
"You mean the father of the fucking bride???"
"Uhh...yeah"
3) "These chopsticks suck, they keep breaking"
"Dude, you're using breadsticks"
N.B. I'm not going to bash other cultures unless they really deserve it (apparently Albania has it coming?), so in regards to the Serbian national drink Rakija (their answer to the Greek's Orzo, apparently), I will just say it is 'strong.' And that's an understatement. It hits you like a ton of bricks and just keeps coming. Milena's father put it down like it was water before buying us all a fine meal at this local beach restaurant (thanks again, Mr. Pezelj), which was rather impressive. Also, thus far, I have not seen a difference between Greek food here and Greek food in America, except that the pizza has no pepperoni and like in Canada, bacon is actually ham. Not sure how all these countries keep mixing the two up.
One more thing. In my first blog I said Greek women were some of the most beautiful women in the world. Apparently they are trumped by Serbian women. According to Cali Rob, the reason for that is, and I quote: "once we started bombing them [in '99] the good Lord looked down on the beautiful ones and..." I stopped him right there. His logic was flawless.
Friday, July 24, 2009
We're not in Rockport anymore.
I have no idea what time it is. Okay, that's a lie, my computer says 12:48 so I assume it's about 7:48 local time? We're GMT+2...whatever that means. What a day, today. Rob comes into the room at 2:30pm like gangbusters while I'm sleeping with earplugs and an eye-mask (it gets bright here!) and drags me to the beach. Yeah, 'drags.' A beach where attractive girls outnumber attractive guys 3-to-1, at a minimum. By 2:45pm I'm playing in my first of three (six in total on the day) games of beach volleyball. In between the games I'm swimming in the Aegean Sea and being looked down upon by Mount Olympus which is about which is less than 40 km away (do your own conversion). And of course by 'swimming,' I mean 'floating,' because there was nothing strenuous about it. Oh, and the water is maybe 85 degrees? Have I mentioned how nice it is here? The one negative was that there was an abundance of seaweed and too many jellyfish for my liking. But it beats choosing between Scylla and Charybdis, no? Ten points if you get that reference. I was about to say I didn't see a single guy in a speedo all day, and of course, just now, sitting down with my laptop on some random sidestreet outside my hotel I see a guy walking around in just about the most revealing thing I've ever seen. Devastating. There goes another one. I shit you not. Now there goes a kid in one. Come on Mom and Dad. Do they have a DCF in Greece??
Well, the exchange rate is killing me. Freakin' Euro. Food is expensive (edit: food was cheap; everything else was expensive, especially drinks). Everything is, really. But dinner seems to be the only meal people eat around here, and that's after an entire day at the beach. Oh well. Life has it's little challenges. Time to go find myself another gyro. I would imagine these little blurbs are going to slow down since nowbody wants to read/write about the same beach activities over and over. But believe me when I say experiencing them over and over isn't all that bad. I'm excited for Scandinavia, but I'm in no rush.
N.B. I forgot two important things from yesterday. The first one is that we saw gypsies on our train. They had so much shit with them it took them five expletive-laden (Greek expletives are so much more entertaining) trips just to load everything on. What a riot. I was going to take a picture, but I didn't want my camera stolen/smacked out of my hands. The second thing was I tried my first gyro...at three in the morning. That thing is going straight to my thighs. I was also offered a hard-boiled egg at four in the morning by the creepy "overnight" guy at the hotel (I put "overnight" in quotes because there's literally nothing for him to do). I think he was watching fuzzy porno in the lounge when I came in (since the internet signal isn't strong enough to reach our top floor room). Very bizarre.
Well, the exchange rate is killing me. Freakin' Euro. Food is expensive (edit: food was cheap; everything else was expensive, especially drinks). Everything is, really. But dinner seems to be the only meal people eat around here, and that's after an entire day at the beach. Oh well. Life has it's little challenges. Time to go find myself another gyro. I would imagine these little blurbs are going to slow down since nowbody wants to read/write about the same beach activities over and over. But believe me when I say experiencing them over and over isn't all that bad. I'm excited for Scandinavia, but I'm in no rush.
N.B. I forgot two important things from yesterday. The first one is that we saw gypsies on our train. They had so much shit with them it took them five expletive-laden (Greek expletives are so much more entertaining) trips just to load everything on. What a riot. I was going to take a picture, but I didn't want my camera stolen/smacked out of my hands. The second thing was I tried my first gyro...at three in the morning. That thing is going straight to my thighs. I was also offered a hard-boiled egg at four in the morning by the creepy "overnight" guy at the hotel (I put "overnight" in quotes because there's literally nothing for him to do). I think he was watching fuzzy porno in the lounge when I came in (since the internet signal isn't strong enough to reach our top floor room). Very bizarre.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Okay, I've officially been up way too late.
Wow, what a crazy day. I'm glad all these random people on Facebook 'liked' my first post. It was basically me falling asleep at an internet terminal in Dusselforf International Airport telling you how much life sucked at the time. But it gets better.
So, we had a 7.5 hour layover in Dusseldorf. Good times. I had delusions of going out and exploring the city, but instead we (Cali Rob and I) decided to sleep like homeless people in an airport. Killer decision. I seriously think, between benches in and out of the terminal, we scored more than three hours of sleep between us. On the plane (an Air Aegean A319 for those of you keeping track at home), Rob slept in the middle and I took the window...as the plane bumped it's way to 35,000 feet. On the aisle was this German guy named Guido (pronounced GEE-do for all of you anti-Italians and anti-anti-semites; no picture, sorry) who was extremely friendly, and we talked all about Europe and Greece and all sorts of stuff. (Rob definitely dropped an 'n'-bomb on him by referring to Ryanair as "Nazis.") I'll spare you the particulars, but when we landed in Thessaloniki at 6:30 local time they didn't have jetways - you got off the plane and boarded this shady bus that literally took you 200 feet to the airport. Way to prove your technological savvy, Greece. There was literally no customs as we just walked into the country with all sorts of illegal narcotics (just kidding, John Ashcroft). I talked Rob out of taking an €80 cab ride and taking this shady train to Katerini where we received this 45-minute long language on Greek history and linguistics from this attorney named Michael (pictures to follow). Sounds boring, but was actually really, really interesting. Then we went out to a club and apparently I'm still up. I left for JFK at 2:00pm EST Wednesday - whatever time it is there (almost 10:00 at night Thursday?) I'm still up. It's well past 24 hours. And it's not going to get any easier - beach time starts at 10:00am local time (seven hours ahead). Good times.
N.B. All the rumors are true: Greek women are beautiful. Fate always comes up with a new, cruel way of messing with me.
So, we had a 7.5 hour layover in Dusseldorf. Good times. I had delusions of going out and exploring the city, but instead we (Cali Rob and I) decided to sleep like homeless people in an airport. Killer decision. I seriously think, between benches in and out of the terminal, we scored more than three hours of sleep between us. On the plane (an Air Aegean A319 for those of you keeping track at home), Rob slept in the middle and I took the window...as the plane bumped it's way to 35,000 feet. On the aisle was this German guy named Guido (pronounced GEE-do for all of you anti-Italians and anti-anti-semites; no picture, sorry) who was extremely friendly, and we talked all about Europe and Greece and all sorts of stuff. (Rob definitely dropped an 'n'-bomb on him by referring to Ryanair as "Nazis.") I'll spare you the particulars, but when we landed in Thessaloniki at 6:30 local time they didn't have jetways - you got off the plane and boarded this shady bus that literally took you 200 feet to the airport. Way to prove your technological savvy, Greece. There was literally no customs as we just walked into the country with all sorts of illegal narcotics (just kidding, John Ashcroft). I talked Rob out of taking an €80 cab ride and taking this shady train to Katerini where we received this 45-minute long language on Greek history and linguistics from this attorney named Michael (pictures to follow). Sounds boring, but was actually really, really interesting. Then we went out to a club and apparently I'm still up. I left for JFK at 2:00pm EST Wednesday - whatever time it is there (almost 10:00 at night Thursday?) I'm still up. It's well past 24 hours. And it's not going to get any easier - beach time starts at 10:00am local time (seven hours ahead). Good times.
N.B. All the rumors are true: Greek women are beautiful. Fate always comes up with a new, cruel way of messing with me.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Day one: Dusseldorf International Airport
Okay, so a bunch of people told me I should 'blog' about this trip. Of course it's 8:53am local time (2:53am EST), I'm typing all of this on a German keyboard (very difficult), and i feel like I'm going to collapse. Worst blog ever. We should reach Thessaloniki, Greece 6:15 local time (11:15am EST), and then we trek to the train station and off to Katerini to fight the Minotaur. More to come when I'm more coherent.
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