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
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