Brandle's Journal, Portion 2

THE BALKANS

2007-03-07T03:13:00.000-08:00

Entering the War-torn countries of the former Yugoslavia, known as THE BALKANS.

8.28.06, Belgrade, Serbia

My first impression of Belgrade was… damn, this place doesn’t look like much fun. It was raining and gloomy overcast all day. We ran into these two French-Canadian girls on the train, Crystal and Sara, and went to get some food with them. We exchanged our stories and ate kabobs, then split to go find a hostel. This hostel was pretty sweet. It is called Monster Hostel and it’s pretty much a loft flat above the city with a great balcony and chill room that has a great view. We were so tired that Mike and I crashed until dark.

Later that night, we were in the main hangout room on a computer and the French girls walked in! They were supposed to take a train to Budapest, but I guess they missed it and remembered which hostel we were staying at. We got a few beers and sat out on the balcony loft with these three local Belgrade guys. I found it interesting to hear these guys speak in English because their accents were so thick. It struck me that this guy is for real. He sounded like a Russian bad guy out of a James Bond movie. But this wasn’t a movie! They actually sound like that! He was telling me about the war in 1999, which at the time I didn’t really know anything about it. They said that there is a war museum here that contains the wreckage of an American Stealth Bomber that was shot down by a Serbian farmer with an RPG. They called him a National Hero. It sounded a little bogus to me but I figured I would go tomorrow and see for myself. We talked about sports and stuff. They knew the Denver Nuggets and Carmelo Anthony!

We decided to head into unknown territory and head into Bosnia. We had absolutely no idea what Bosnia was like and honestly, I was scared to go. I have heard nothing but war, war, war and movies like “Behind Enemy Lines” with Owen Wilson don’t portray this country to be a friendly place. Mike and I were trying to get to Dubrovnik, Croatia and the shortest route is through Sarajevo, Bosnia. We were a little hesitant because we thought the boarders would be difficult to get through… but you never know unless you find out for yourself.

8.29.06 Belgrade, Night bus to Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Mike and I found out our bus times, headed to the bus station and checked our bags into some lockers to leave them there for the day. So far Belgrade has been nothing but cold and rainy. Our bus didn’t even leave until 10:30pm, so we had an entire day of exploring the city. I grabbed my camera and we headed off.

We made our way North to find the Citadel Stronghold of the city and made our way through the alleyways and market places to get there. I found some places that look like a war zone, and probably was 6 years ago. There were bullet holes in a few walls and half standing buildings stand here, but most of the city looked new, clean, and friendly. I know from being in Germany and other European cities that when a city looks “new” like that, chances are it was completely destroyed within the last couple of decades. The tough part about navigating through was that the street signs were all in a “serylic” alphabet. Stuff like UTZA and other characters that I can’t type on this computer. They were not phonetics. We pretty much guessed our way up to the citadel.

Here I found old war equiptment, cannons, tanks, large mobile machine guns that were placed about outside. These were remenants of the war in 1999. I still had no idea what this war was about. I didn’t know who was fighting who and why… just that a bad war ended in 1999. It was creepy to see these machines of war all rusted up and camouflaged. I could just picture them roaming around through the forest on the hills. I walked into the Serbian War History Museum. I was hoping to learn more about the recent conflicts of Serbia in this museum and find out why they were at war so much.

Most of the museum contained artifacts all the way back from 1,000 BC. As you walk through, you travel through time to all the major wars fought by Serbia. After the WWI part I noticed that it ended. There was only one room left and it was about the 1999 war. Hmmmm…. What happened to WWII??? It is an interesting fact that Serbia was allied with Hitler and Nazi Germany during that war. What an interesting thing to OMIT from history?! Anyway, I ignored that and headed into the last room, the 1999 exhibit. The first thing I see is a giant plaque map on the wall showing the paths of American and NATO war planes and where they struck… SERBIA. Inside, they had an assortment of US and NATO weapons on display. The thing that disturbed me the most were the two uniforms of American pilots who were shot down, captured and killed, that were hanging up on the wall like it was some kind of damn trophy. Next to it was a piece of wreckage of a Stealth bomber the pilots were in when they were shot down. They also had on display “Uranium Bullet shells,” that NATO forces supposedly used on the Serbs. I don’t know if I can believe that. The reason why I was so pissed about this is because they didn’t mention one thing about what Serbia was doing at the time. They didn’t explain why the Americans and NATO bombed them. Instead they used it as propaganda to show how powerful Serbia is and finger pointed the US as bad guys who the Serbs somehow got the best of… which they didn’t. They lost the war, they lost everything. There was not one reference to the thousands of people they killed heading into Bosnia and the 11,000 people they killed during the Siege of Sarajevo. They didn’t mention that the US and NATO got involved to stop the Serbs mass murder and Genocide that they were committing. And they call this place a “History” Museum. There was an Impressions Book left on a table before the exit that people could write there opinions in. I read some. Not too many Americans, so I felt obligated to represent my country. Some people called the US Terrorists!!! Some people referred to the United States as Nazi’s. To me these people have absolutely no concept of what happened here and are blinded by a hate towards the US and NATO for radical reasons. My impressions of Serbia grew slightly dimmer after visiting their war museum.

We took a walk around the modern town because we had a few more hours left before our bus took off. Belgrade actually seems like a nice city. The sun eventually came out. It had a ton of shops and was a very fashionable, contemporary place. We walked till dark and ended up at a large Muslim-esque Church. It was obviously a Mosque before turned into a church. The fountains outside it were beautifully lit up with blue lights in the water and a fountain show would go off every 15 minutes or so.

With the day coming to an end, Mike and I made our way back to the bus station. While checking out our bags we met Ryan Schultz, a guy who does financial work for Microsoft and X-Box in San Francisco. We became friends right off the bat and we were all going to Sarajevo on the night bus. We even happened to have seats next to each other on the crowded, stuffy, double decker bus.

The movie they played on the bus surprised me a little. First of all, they started the movie at 11pm and they blasted the sound. So there was no chance of going to sleep. The movie was super violent and sex scenes ran rampant! This was on a public bus! I actually thought it was kind of funny, it was some French Cop movie. When we got to the Bosnian border, about 10 guys were forced to get off the bus and they never got back on… hmmmm.

8.30.06, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Where to begin… this city blew my mind away and is probably one of my favorite cities in all of Europe. The bus was winding around in the mountains right around the fog line where you couldn’t see the mountain tops. I woke up on the bus and looked down below me. I saw a beautiful city surrounded completely by green mountains. The houses were sparse up on the hill, but gradually became more dense around the cliffs and into the city center. It was POURING rain. The kind of rain that soaks you completely through within a 20 seconds. We got off, put on our rain gear and tried to gain our bearings. The city was nowhere around us. We must’ve passed the main city and ended up in some side village. We walked about half a mile in the pouring rain with our gear to the local ATM/Bankomat, got our some cash and walked all the way back to the bus drop off. We were soaking wet and so was our gear. We hailed a taxi to take us to Sarajevo.

Now I thought Belgrade looked a little War-torn… my jaw dropped when I saw the destruction of this city. Bullet holes were everywhere, on every building, sign, anywhere my eyes landed. There were shrapnel pockets and grenade blasts that punched holes right through the painted concrete walls of the city. Some buildings looked like swiss cheese. Of course rubble wasn’t on the ground, but most buildings weren’t re-built do to a serious lack of money. Despite the marks of war, the rain, and the cold, I still looked in awe at the city and how scenic and naturally beautiful it is. One thing that surprised me was the heavy Muslim and Arabic influence the city had. There were mosques, synagogues and cathedrals mixed together throughout the town. I still couldn’t see the mountain tops because of the fog. I just saw the houses rise up and out of the city and then just disappear into the heavy fog that blanketed directly over the city. It was so cool looking. The fog was not in the city. It was crystal clear. The fog was hovering thickly above the city. I haven’t seen such a cool weather effect before.

We came to this hostel only to hear from people crashing there that it was infested with bed bugs. We complained to the front desk about it and they brought us down the street to stay with this wonderful old woman named Hana. She didn’t speak a word of English, but welcomed us as if we were her own sons. So Mike, a British fellow named Alfie, and myself had a room together in this genuine Bosnian house. The hostel fortunately organized a tour for that day even though it was raining, foggy and cold.

The tour was incredible. Although it was raining the entire time, I know understand a little more about the horrible history of Sarajevo and its role in the Fall of Yugoslavia during the ‘90’s. The first place we stopped at was the man made underground tunnel entrance that desperately tried to sneak in the food, water, gas, medical supplies and weapons that the city needed to survive. This was a tunnel so small that I had to bend over in and so narrow I couldn’t extend my elbows to the walls. The city was completely surrounded from the hills around them by the Serbian Army, who wanted to take Sarajevo as their new capital city. So this tunnel was necessary because the city was totally cut off from the outside world. Everything was cut off. It was the only lifeline Sarajevo had to support thousands of suffering people. The Serbs couldn’t take the city through force, miraculously enough, so they tried to starve the people of Sarajevo and snipe/bomb/and rocket innocent civilians from their elevated position in the mountains to try to make the city give up. The men who talked to us when we walked into this house covered in camouflage netting showed us a 20 minute film of the destruction and Siege of Sarajevo. It was horrible. Completely horrible. People would be walking down the streets when a mortar smashed into a car or blew out a floor of the Holiday Inn Hotel and they would run for their lives for cover. Old men, women, children getting killed by snipers walking from the grocery store or playing on swing sets. It amazes me that this once wonderful, culture friendly and modern city that held the 1984 Winter Olympic Games fell victim to war. I remember seeing on the news war clips of Yugoslavia (which is now broken down into the countries of Serbia, Bosnia, Slovakia, Slovanja, and Croatia) and its refugees when I was a kid, but to stand here, now, and witness the city was a heavy experience.

I was looking around at the photos, weapons, grenades and other memorabilia in the room and noticed the guy who played the video for us was in many of the photos displayed. He was younger but it was obviously him. This must have been his house and he talked unlike most history tour guides do… He was actually there. This wasn’t something he studied in college or read out of a book. This was him. It happened to him, his friends, his family, his city. I walked down into the tunnel and tried to imagine what it was like to haul enough supplies and equipment through that tiny space for an entire city to survive… for 4 YEARS. As I walked out, I didn’t really know how to say thanks because it is something so personal to him. I just shook his hand and said thanks for sharing this information with us.

Next we drove to the Jewish Graveyard one of the hills in the “bowl” like geographical location of the city, facing to the large city towers and the Holiday Inn Hotel. This is where Serb snipers sat day after day sniping citizens of Sarajevo. Nobody was safe. Like I said before, old Men and Women walking down the street to get some bread, shot. For nothing. From this point, the snipers could hide behind the gravestones and still have a view of the city, especially “Snipers Alley.” This was considered the large cross section area between two major streets, the Holiday Inn and the two Twin Towers. Many people were shot dead in the street here, blind to their own killer. Children were even sniped on their swing sets here. So, the Bosnians would drape a massive curtain between the buildings to blind the snipers. Of course it was torn full of bullet holes, but it seemed to be temporarily effective. Sunny, our tour guide was 13 years old when The Siege happened. He said his favorite curtain was a massive pink one that had Pink Floyd written on it.

From here, Sunny explained to us the history of Sarajevo in great detail. It is a very open and accepting place. There are only a few cities in the World where Jews, Muslims, and Christians live peacefully with each other. There is a large Muslim influence here. During WWII, the Nazi’s couldn’t find a very sought out Jewish book which they knew was somewhere in the city. They looked searched the city for it but never found it because the Muslims of the city had hid it in a Mosque to protect the Jews! He also explained his intense dislike for the U.N. They were supposed to help Sarajevo and other cities in Yugoslavia, but did an incredibly poor job of it. They would fly over and drop “food” crates, which turned out to be stale 1973 cookies in large metal boxes. He said they loved the boxes, but hated the cookies. There is a book called “The Siege of Sarajevo Cookbook,” which tells the many ways the civilians used the stale cookies for ingredients to make meals. He said the cookies took a long time to get used to. They also dropped useless things like condoms and needles! At least the people of Sarajevo are practicing safe sex while being slaughtered. Every once and a while, they would leave tanks in the city and they were even fired upon from the Serbs in the hills, yet they never returned fire. The U.N. was worthless.

The most amazing thing about The Siege of Sarajevo is that they survived! The stories of how the citizens went about their daily business despite being constantly shelled and sot at is what kept hope for Sarajevo. The Serbs could not break them. One story was about an old man who was walking across Sniper Alley bringing a plastic jug of water back to his home. Snipers shot at him, but intentionally punctured holes in his jug so he water drained out. The old man turned and looked right up to the cemetery and flipped them the bird then ran off. He survived to tell the tale. Another example is that the first Sarajevo Annual Film Festival was organized and put on during The Siege. Students would go out to the hills and fight in the morning, then return later in the day, turn in their guns and go to school and study every day. That shows the spirit and will to survive that the Sarajevans displayed in which the Serbs could not break.

The last part of the tour was driving around the city from the hill tops. Just to give us a view of Sarajevo and how beautiful it was before the war and still is in my opinion. I felt so bad for Sunny, our guide. He was my age. As a matter of fact, most of the people I talked to lived through this hell. Even the our lovely Hana who’s guest we were in her house. I could see the sorrow and sometime anger in Sunny’s face when he talked. He told me that occasionally he would get someone who was pro-Serb in his groups and they would call him a liar and a propagandist. He responded that he spoke only the truth because it happened to him.

Well, after the tour Mike, Ryan Schultz and I headed to a restaurant with a girl we met on the tour named Jacolyn Munro but we called her Low Jack. We went to this really nice Bosnian restaurant next to the flooded, roaring, dark red river tearing through the city. It was of course delicious. Next we walked by the bridge where the Duke Ferdinand was assassinated, sparking WWI.

Later, Mike, Ryan and I partied at the hostel with 2 Liter Beers in plastic jugs and headed to a local bar. I talked to some locals, which most of them were due to the lack of tourism in this country. I met a girl named Slavica who grew up somewhere South of Bosnia. To this day, I can’t imagine what it was like for her growing up in the 90’s. I just can’t imagine.

8.31.06, Trip to Mostar

Woke up nice and early to meet up with Ryan and Kate, a girl we met in the hostel, to take a bus to Mostar which is located in the Southwest of Bosnia. I am sad to leave Sarajevo but I know that we’ll find places just as cool on our trip. On the way to the bus station I saw a disturbing image and had another reality check as to what Sarajevo was like before the war and how that all changed overnight. There was a large billboard sign from 12 years ago that had a little wolf mascot on it and is said, “Welcome to the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games!” It was a piece of the branding campaign left from the Olympics, directing people where to go who got off the trains. The disturbing thing was that it was completely torn and slashed up from shrapnel blasts and bullets. It is ironic really when you think about what the Olympic Games stand for vs. the chaos and havoc that war brings. The Olympics symbol stands for peace and unity but what does it say when it is full of bullet holes…

A lady at the train station saw us and asked us where we were going and told us that she has a friend in Mostar who would give us a room. The bus ride between Sarajevo and Mostar was one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever seen. The bus winded through the tall, sharp, and very green mountains and cliffs. We passed through small villages and vibrant turquoise and teal blue lakes. I wish I could show you all what it looked like, but a photograph just wouldn’t do it justice. The village farmers made these weird looking dead hay stacks. They look like little huts, twisted and full of sticks poking out of them. They sit out in the fields by the hundreds. The stone here is very white which makes it very stark against the deep forest green pine trees. I can compare the beauty with that of Yosimite National Park and parts of Canada. Bosnia has such amazing scenic and natural beauty, but you’ll drive by small villages that are just blown apart and scarred with bullet holes and grenade shrapnel.

Mike had a wonderful time when he found out that there was no bathroom on the bus. He had to go sooo bad. I could just see it by the look on his face; Pale, sweaty, bloodshot eyes full of the panic… ya, he had to go bad. So he walked up to the driver and asked him to pull over. Surprisingly he did and Mike jumped out and ran behind some bombed out building. I was thinking to myself, “that was the last time I ever saw Mike Flappan. He jumped off a bus in Bosnia to take a dump and the bus driver just took off.” He got back on the bus, mission accomplished.

Mostar is a little out of the tall green mountains and more into the bold, tall white rocky mountains. You don’t ever want to wander off trails and up into them because there are hidden land mines scattered everywhere. Right as we got off the Bus, a lady was asking everyone if there name was Ryan. I said yes and she said her friend called and invited us to stay at her home. She was so friendly. As we were walking to the house I asked why there was some Muslim writing created in stone up on the mountain on the left and a cross is up on the mountain to the right. She said that one side of the river is Muslim and the other is Christian and they hate each other. So, the Christians put up a cross to piss off the Mulsims on the other side of the river, and vice versa. The Muslims view Jesus Christ as a prophet. In Islam, Jesus is the number 2 man and of course the Prophet Mohommad is the number 1 man. They still believe in Jesus to be a prophet from God, but they see it as blasphemy to Allah when Christains worship Jesus. They should be worshiping Mohommad and Allah. The Christians believe Jesus was the son of God. So there is a minor conflict there.

In her home I noticed photos of her with her children. On arrival there were two old ladies, probably family members, and some kids running around. There were no males. I guess that most of the Grandfathers, Fathers, and Sons were killed during the war.

Kate, Mike, Ryan and I walked into town to take some photos. It was unbelievably beautiful. I know I keep saying that, but each new place seems better than the last. Mostar was scarred with bulletholes and destroyed buildings as well, but it was really bad. Some had gaping holes in the sides from grenades. But they did rebuild, considering the city was completely destroyed in the war. The old city was really something. It was made of white sand colored stone, with Mosque towers standing out against the bright blue sky. The old bridge was the coolest thing though. It is very tall and 120 feet below is the deep but crystal clear river that divides the city. Mostar is not only known for the bridge, but for the Divers of Mostar. These are a group of young local guys who dive off the bridge and do flips, spins off the 120 foot bridge! It is VERY cool to see. But unfortunately they are ass holes as well. I found out from some lady that they are a bunch of ex-soldiers who have nothing better to do since the war than dive and pick fights with tourists. Ryan and I were talking at one end of the stone bridge and we had our cameras out to take a photo when they jumped off. One of the divers with a crew cut and full of tattoos walked by and must have miss heard us. He obviously didn’t speak English very well. All of a sudden this bucket of water gets poured right over Ryan’s head. We turned around and that tattood asshole in a speedo started swearing at us. Ryan just went off in a cussing storm at the guy. He was holding a $1,400 camera and that dude almost ruined it. The diver thought we were laughing and making fun of him. He thought we were planning on stealing his money or something ridiculous like that. We said absolutely nothing like that and didn’t even know who that diver was! I didn’t even see him until he dumped the bucket. This guy did look like he could kill someone, and probably has killed a lot of people, so we didn’t want to fight. We got the hell out of there and told a cop who said he would take care of it. He said that they actually punched out a tourist the other day. Not a friendly dude.

We walked through the tourist markets along the river cliffs and I saw a bunch of pens sitting on the table. They were made out of bullet shells and I’m sure they have more than enough in stock. I bought one to remember my trip here. It is disturbing that this is what they do make money, make things out of spent bullets they found in their city.

Ryan and I climbed up one of the Mosque3 towers for a good view of the city. We took a couple nice photos to send home to Mom. On the way back to our house to freshen up for the night, a guy approached us in a very friendly way. We decided to be friendly and talk to him. I noticed that he really just wanted money, but I let him talk anyway. When we told him that we don’t need a tour guide and we didn’t have any money to give him, he went into a plee mode. He told me that he was homeless and he had no family. I don’t enjoy writing about this, but the experience was shocking and I feel the need to record it. He said that his brother and father were killed in the war. He said he was 13 years old when he watched as his little sister ran through the streets to get to him and she was shot in the head by a sniper. I don’t know about his mother but she must have been killed as well. I hope that he wasn’t making that up. It would seem too shallow for a man to make something like that up. I gave him some change and said I’m sorry. What pissed me off though was that he wanted more. Usually they just say thank you and go away, but he continued his horror story. Ryan and I eventually got away from him. It is so sad of a thing to see people resort to begging.

That night we all went out for dinner along the river cliffs at a restaurant with a great view of the old bridge. After dinner we walked down along the narrow cobblestone streets by the bridge and heard music coming out of this cave entrance behind an old watchtower/Mosque structure. It turned out to be this really cool club inside. Of course we went in and checked it out. We sat up on a cave shelf with a table and bean bags because you sit on the floor. We ordered a hooka and chilled. At one point, all the lights went out and this girl started fire dancing on the floor of the cave. She was swinging balls of fire around her body on chains wrapped around her hands all over her body to the music. The bartender also lit two liquor bottles on fire and was juggling them, occasionally blowing fire out of his mouth when one passed in front of his face.

9.1.06 Medugorje and Dubrovnik, Croatia

Kate, Mike, Ryan and I rented a private driver to take us to Medugorje and into Croatia so we could take our time and stop to see some small villages and take photos. The drivers name is Adas and he is from Mostar. The ride to Medugorje was about 30 minutes away. We drove up the windy, steep cliffs surrounding Mostar to get to there. Medugorje is one of the most pilgrimaged places on the planet. Millions of people come here to pray, or possibly witness a miracle. Blind people, def, mute, handicapped walk the jagged stoney path from the tiny village to a place on the side of a mountain where a miracle occurred in the early 1990’s. Six teenagers were walking along the mountain hillside when an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared to them floating just above the ground in front of them. She has appeared every day to the six teens since that day of the first appearance. The teens, no matter where they are or what they are doing will go into a trance-like state and will speak in a language as if they are praying. This could even happen in mid-conversation and all of a sudden they would go into trance. There have been claims that people who journey here have been healed of sickness, disease and disabilities.

Driving up and into the mountain village didn’t seem very different than any other. The most famouse landmark is the town Church. It has two large clocktowers and is very modern and contemporary. We parked and Asad said he would wait for us. We headed towards the church. There were groups of worshipers everywhere. There were private places to pray all around the church grounds. There wasn’t much time for us to spend here so we decided to head straight to the pilgrimage path up to the Apparition site. The path winded through grape vineyards and farmers backyards. I plucked a grape off the vine and ate it. Doesn’t get much fresher than that. There were people selling jars of honey and religious things like rosaries along the path. Everyone here was so genuine and friendly. They greeted me with a smiling and joyful expression on their face and they were always helpful to point us in the right direction. Once we reached the base of the mountain, the path turned to stones. They were white, rocky, and worn smooth from the millions of feet that have treaded over them. I was so surprised to see little old ladies walking up the difficult terrain. I was even more amazed to see that they were doing it barefoot! I guess it is a tradition or part of the ritual to hike the path barefoot. Halfway up there is a large cross that you can stop and enjoy the valley view below. It impressed me how quiet it was for the amount of people up there. I could hear the crickets chirp with a hundred people standing about. At the top there is a white marble statue of Mary. People kneel before it on the rocks and pray. It truly does have a powerful resonance to it. The aura is there. I kneeled and said a prayer of my own, took my time, and then walked about a bit noticing the faces and tears of the people around me. There were grave remembrance stones about and a cruxifition display a little ways up the slope from the statue.

On my way back down, I stopped to buy some rosaries for my family. They are made of chips off the path stones and contain dirt from the site. I was impressed by how inexpensive they were. I admire that because many people can’t afford some of these souveneers. They can spread the word and the story of Medugorje with these rosaries. As we walked back to the town I thought about how this site is truly a modern day miracle. It will be remembered and pilgrimaged for hundreds of years to come.

I poked my head inside the church where hyms were playing and walked up to the large statue of Mary to say a prayer before heading out. The church also had a massive outdoor canopy that is necessary to accommodate for the large crowds that come here. They even had an entire row of confessionals in different languages so everyone can use them.

We asked Asad if he knew any local restaraunts to eat at before we reached the Croatian border. We stopped in a small town called Pocitelj for lunch. This was another Muslim mountain town. White stone, castle roads, tall Mosques and to top it all off, a clear turquoise river gently running alongside it. Ryan and I decided to climb the ruins to get some photos while our food was being made. It was a tough climb up through the city and there was such a gorgeous view from the top. After lunch, we continued our journey to Croatia. Once we hit the ocean, I understood why people say Croatian coast is an unspoiled gem. The ocean was deep blue, crystal clear, turquoise green waters and gently met the rocky beaches along the islands. The tiny villages had white stone facades and rust red colored roof tiles. The colors complemented each other so well. Winding down the rad towards Dubrovnik was so nice. We would come across an inlet and see a person swimming in the clear water… I just wanted to jump in right then and there.

Adas dropped us off and we said farewell. He dropped us off right at the edge of the old city wall. Dubrovnik reminded me of Italy a bit. The whole city is made out of marble. It had the red roof tiles and was right on the coast. The thin alley we walked into descended way down into the large main city street. We headed down to find the tourist office because we neede a place to sleep. They called these two old ladies down to show us a room. These women were so damn funny! They didn’t speak any English but were so excited that we were going to see their house. Their place was right inside the old city walls… a perfect place to stay and an excellent find being in peak tourist season. Ryan, Mike and I walked out to explore the city. There was an occasional bullethole in the walls because even this Dalmatian Gem didn’t escape the horrors of war. Ryan and I bought football jerseys to bring back to the US. I didn’t really like the Italia jerseys, which would’ve been my team, but I got the French jersey instead because it looked better. I chose Zidane’s #10 because he was the guy who head butted the Italian because he was called a terrorist.

That night we hit the town. We went walking around just outside the city walls and down across the bay on some rocks. There was an amazing view of the old port and the sea wall of the city. The moon was setting and it was almost a full red color. It was so clear, probably due to the lack of pollution. There was a nice club there called East West, so the music was bumping in the distance. We hit up another club across town and Ryan bought our cover for us. We met three Irish girls there. I only remember two of their names… Aisling and Aifa. We all went walking the city later and ended up watching the sun come up on the rocks.

9.2.06 Lopad Beach, Crotia

Today Mike and I took a ferry to Lopad, an island one hour from Dubrovnik. Ryan couldn’t go because he got new that his Grandfather is dying and he needed to figure out how to get home. This was a very small island with a few beaches scattered around it. We walked across up and over the mountain to a small beach on the other side of the tiny port. It was amazing how clear the water was. So far, I think the Greek beaches are a little better than they are here. The island was full of pine trees and smelled like it too.

I was out swimming in the cove and this girl approached me. She said, “Hey! Didn’t I ride with you on bus to Auschwitz?” First traveler contact! Jill introduced me to her other two friends Gina, a teacher from Lebanon, and Emma, a fashion designer from Australia. We talked and Gina gave me some great info about traveling the Mid East.

We said we’d meet up with them later in Dubrovnik that night. Tonight was our farewell to Ryan because he had to leave in the morning to see his Grandfather. We bought some wine and drinks for the girls and walked to meet them at the “standing stone.” This is a small stone that juts out of one of the building walls on the main town street. It is folk lore that if you can stand on the stone flat against the wall, take your shirt off, and put it back on without falling, you’ll be a good lover. I am a horrible lover. I was pretty intimate with my face smashed against the stone wall though. We ordered pizza and carried it out to our place out on the rocky terrace overlooking the city and cove. Those girls had some pretty amazing stories. Emma told me to go to a place called Fethiya in Turkey where you can sleep in tree houses! I might have to check that out.

After the ladies said goodnight, we started walking through the old city and made one last stop at a “people watching” café off of the main street out in front of this cathedral. They only have couches sitting out on the cobblestone with tiny little coffee tables to put your drinks on. Ryan told us to save him a chair and ran off. We’re all pretty much half asleep and out of nowhere the waitress comes by with three Dirty Martini’s! Ryan said it is just to put a little cap on the night. We all said our cheers and Ryan said he was so glad that he met us and was hangin with us the last week. Now I have a friend in San Fran and he said next time he fly’s to Denver on business, he’ll give me a ring. One thing he said which was really funny was “Hot chicks carry grenades…” He said he would be happy to jump on a grenade for us. Or basically be a wingman. He also told me about a game called Snaps. You tell someone to whisper a celebrity name into your ear. You then look at your partner in crime and they try to guess it. It seems like your friend has mad telephathy skills and reads my mind just by looking at me. I won’t tell how to do it though. You have to figure it out for yourself.

9.3.06, Lokrum Island, Cliff Diving

Mike and I took a ferry to the island just off the coast of Dubrovnik, called Lokrum. The beaches here were phenomenal.We hiked all around the island looking for a place to cliff dive and found some beautiful coves and cliffs. Once again, the water here was so clear. We found a nice cove that had a rope swing and was totally closed off from the ocean view. It had a giant underwater tunnel that let out into the deep ocean blue.

We finally found an area with sharp, jagged, massive cliffs and headed out along them to try and find an area that was jumpable. Occasionally we would come across some naked bronzing German guy, or a naked tanning girl but it is impolite to stare… so we just took a few quick glanses instead. This place we found was so cool. There was nobody around. It was just Mike and I. As we are climbing over the sharp rocks, I come across this cliff that falls down into this little cove. It “looks” jumpable, but I was scared I’d hit something if I was to jump blind. I hiked down to the base of the water to get in and see how deep it was. It was very deep. It actually kind of creeped me out. The rocks were razor sharp, I would get cut if I touched them so I stayed away from the walls. If a swell slammed me up against it… well it would hurt very bad. I eased my way into the water and floated out into the cove. It was about 25 feet wide and was surrounded by stark white cliffs that liked like giant knives thrusting up out of the deep blue water. The white rock made the water look so blue it was just flat out gorgeous. I could see all the way to the bottom which was probably about 70 or 80 feet down. I was a little scared because I didn’t know much about the tides and such and I didn’t know if there were sharks or any other dangers. And it is scary when you are the only one out there. You didn’t see someone else out there doing it and you joined them… no, we were away from anyone… nobody knew we were out here. Well I decided to suck it up and jump off once I climbed back up and around from the opposite side of the cove. That was the only way to get back up was to try and climb up the sharp rocks and walk along the cliff back to the jump point. I even had to jump over a gap that dropped 60 feet to the water. I don’t know what it is, but I love that feeling of knowing that you’re about to do something unsafe, but something inside compels you to do it anyway. I’m standing on the edge, looking down into the turquoise blue, crystal clear water and I see a school of hundreds of tiny fish shimmering in the light out in the cove below me. That would be my target. I counted out loud so Mike could take a photo of me. 3…2…1… I lept out as far as I could, hearing the rush of the air getting louder in my ears as I fell faster and faster. I wore sandals to break the water. CLACK! SPLOOOOSH…..silence. I was about 10 feet under the surface lokking at all the white foamy bubbles I had caused rushing to the surface. I emerged and yelled out “whoooo hooo!” What an adrenaline rush. My splash was still falling on my head from when I entered the water. That was a new adventure for me. I was jumping into the unknown, pioneering a cliff dive. So Mike was next… “Cannonball!” We spent the entire day jumping here. I loved to show off to the occasional Kayak excursion that would float around the deserted part of the island where we were and pass by. Someone would say… “look! That guys going to jump!” and they’d all pull out their cameras as I did a cool dive into the ocean. Loved every second of it.

It was a little awkward though because our climbing route to get back to the top went right by this naked fat dude tanning by a rock encloseure. It is so strange when you think you’re completely alone and then, WHOOOA, you almost step on a fat naked guy hiding somewhere in the jagged rocks. Creepy. I never said anything to him, just walked by about 30 times. He was named “Sand Bag,” “Sayo’s” evil cousin… inside joke. We took the ferry back feeling very satisfied by quenching my adrenaline thirst.

9.4.06 Dubrovnik to Korcula (pronounced Korchula)

Today is our last day in Dubrovnik, so we thought we would walk out along the city wall and swim there on the rocks. The salt density must be higher because it was so easy to float. You could just cross your legs, put your arms on your head and hold your breath! I didn’t even need a floaty! The one thing to watch out for is sea urchins. They are everywhere on and in between the rocks. Stepping on one means a lot of pain. We spent half a day swimming, then had to catch a bus to the next island up the coast to Korcula Town. Mike and I had to run to the bus station in order to catch it, but when we arrived at the ticket office they were sold out. We put our heads together and thought we could possibly bribe the bus driver to let us stand in the aisle with no ticket… and it worked!

I spent the 3 hour trip standing but riding through thte coves and cliffs and mountains was worth the view. On the bus I ran into another couple I met at Auschwitz! The British couple from Exeter, England, Andy and Carolyne. They told us to stay at this hostel, One Love Backpackers Hostle, and we’d find a crazy guy holding a sign at the bus station. He was the owner, a guy from South Afrika named Zee. I guess he was on some kind of reality TV show like the Real World, but in South Afrika… Big Brother. We found him and followed him back to the hostle. It had a chill bar in the basement and very nice rooms. I recommend this place in a heartbeat to anyone traveling here.

Mike and I walked into our rooms and ran into Kim the couchsurfer from San Sabastian and Pamplona! I also ran into two people I met in Sarajevo and Sighisoara. The place was pretty active already so we just started to have a good time right off the bat. That night I met a lot of cool people. One guy was from Austalia and he told me that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter was killed by a sting ray. We all had a drink for Steve. This guy I was talking to was an X-Aussie Army soldier and fought in Iraq and Afganistan. I talked to him a little about it and he sounded as if he was an American soldier. He didn’t like terrorists, we’ll just put it that way. I also met this teacher from Bulgeria named Aylin. She told me something worth remembering. There are two types of jobs one can get. One is a job that you enjoy doing, and you do it all the time. The other job is one that you have to pay for what you enjoy doing. She enjoys biking around the world and it is convenient for her because she is a teacher and has three months to travel every summer.

9.5.06 Korcula Beach

Spent the whole day on da-beach-mon… It was rocky but still nice. There was a buoy about 75m out and I would occasionally jump in and swim to it. Mike and I bought goggles so we could see the seabed. Nothing too exciting except rocks and sea urchins. I have to not this because I know some of you are wondering… yes, it is a topless beach… and I like it very much. For lunch we went to this awesome place called Fresh. It was a little shack near an alley buy the old city that had some really good cheap wraps and smoothies.

That night was the celebration Moarco Polo. Korcula claims to be the home of this famous global explorer. There was a sea battle re-enactment which was honestly kind of lame. Except when the guards ignited the gunpowder cannons that I happened to be standing right next to. BOOM…(ringing.) I lost hearing for a good ten minutes.

I went back to the hostle and watched Anchor Man with Will Ferrell. Outside was a big dance party that the town set up with free burgers, hot dogs, and wine. They lit off some firewords too. Eventually we were all out there dancing and everyone wanted me to breakdance, so I did. Mike says everyone goes crazy when I do that. Good times, nasty wine, good burgers, fireworks, singing, dancing = a very good night.

9.6.06 Korcula

We went to a beach a little further down the coast from the old city this time. It was right off the rocks and was of course a beautiful view of the Croatian mountainous coastline. We ran into Kim and hung out with her the rest of the day. “Sandbag” had thankfully not shown up that day. Kim said she would like to go on our little boat adventure Mike and I had been planning since that French guy talked to us on that train in Romania.

Walking back to One Love, I ran into Zee sitting on the curb with his cowboy hat waiting for the next fresh batch of tourist to come out of the bus station. Kim and I sat with him for a while. He asked me if I knew what the most feared animal in all of Afrika is. It is a small, cute and cuddly little fellow known as the Honey Badger, but you should not be fooled by it. It attacks with lightning speed. It runs up to it’s prey and bites the balls right off any animal. That’s right, it will bite your balls off. Even Lions will see a Honey Badger and be like… “Fuck that! I’m outta here.” So now I truly know who is the King of the jungle.

The next morning had a ferry to catch. We were heading to the coast of Hvar and we have a new shipmate, Kim of San Francisco.

9.7.06 Hvar, Adriatic Sea, Croatia

Woke up around 5am and headed out. It was only about a 2hr ferry ride to get to Hvar because we were on a hydrofoil. As soon as we got there, we sat down to have some coffee and figure out what to do at Hvar. Mike, Kim and I decided to go rent a small motorboat and live on it for 2 days. We had some shopping to do so the grocery store was the next stop. I told them to buy canned foods so we could cook on the fire… which is illegal to have fires in this country, but whatever. Mike and I also bought green foam pads to sleep on the rocks with. We also brought two bottles of wine and some vodka for those clear cloudless nights.

The guy we rented our boat from was a little sketchy. We knocked the price down from 400 Kuna to 300 Kuna per day. He told us to meet him at the edge cliff of the port. He arrived with a larger boat than I expected! It had a canopy and room for 6 people with a motor on it. When he said, “I suppose you’ve all had experience with a boat before,” we all said, “of course!” (haha, ya right). He explained to me how the motor worked, how to ancor, and then we took off. We threw our grocery bags, backpacks, and sleeping pads into the boat and I was the first skipper. It was kind of scarey navigating through the main port where these huge shipping boats cruised in next to us in our tiny boat but I just kept heading out and out and out towards the islands off in the distance. It was such an amazing feeling of freedom to do whatever you wish and to go wherever you want. I steered the boat out about 3 miles until we hit the first cluster of islands and followed those coastlines for a while. The water was so clear and blue, you could constantly see the seabed… and this wasn’t shallow water. It had to be at least 100ft deep. Clear, crystal clear.

Most of the day was made up of anchoring off a coast here and there, diving in, swimming to shore, snorkeling, avoiding sea urchins and just floating around. It was a blast. Kim studied to be a Marine Biologist in college, so she was telling me all about the weird looking aneamies and urchins we found.

I pulled into this bay/cove that had a few boats here and there, but we were looking for a covered place to build a small fire. We found a flat and suddle sloping rock area to sleep on and an already made fire pit, (a few rocks angled upwards to block the view of the fire from the sea.) I started a fire and used small rocks as hot coals to lay around the cans of corn to be heated. It worked like a charm. They don’t want us to make fires out here because of the fear a fire will burn down the island. But realistically, we weren’t going to burn down anything so we made a fire anyway. I saw something really cool when I was walking over the sharp, wet rocks to jump onto the front of the boat and get my pocket knife. I saw an Eel hunting in between some rocks wedged below my legs. It was about 3 ft long. It was black and had white spots all over it. It had big, bulging eyes and sharp teeth. I watched it for a while impressed by nature’s creation and the way it lives and hunts to survive.

The moon rising that night was the best I’d ever seen. It was huge!!! An orange-red color. I tried to get some good photos of it but they wouldn’t do it justice. I was gazing up at the stars as we were lying out on the rocks drinking our “ocean-chilled” wine. A thought occurred to me about the many, many nights that I’ve pondered over the sky and our galaxy. All the shooting stars I’ve seen, all the satellites. It really brought me back to my Boy Scout days and all the fun times I had camping and trekking with my best friends. I remember looking up at the moon and thinking that 4 months ago I was staring at the same moon from my own backyard halfway across the world in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Back then I made a mental note that in the near future I would be looking up at this moon in an unknown place, far away from home. Well, now I’m in that once unknown place and it is not as scary as I once thought it would be… things are working out just fine… nothing to be scared of.

Kim, Mike, and I spent the night overlooking the Adriatic Sea, talking and reflecting on who we were in the past. What we were like in High School and College, etc. Kim seemed to get the impression that I was the All-American boy. I was in Boy Scouts, made Eagle, Captain of my High School swim team, etc. It made me feel good to hear that from someone. I’m proud to be American and I’m glad that it shows through. It really is sometimes hard to remember where you’re from when you are in such different places and you meet so many different people unlike you. It is important to have a little reality check every once and a while… that’s how you learn about yourself.

The night was very uncomfortable. Mosquitos were everywhere and all I had was pants, shoes, and my thin windbreaker to keep me warm. But at the same time I was glad to know that it is possible to do things like this without a tent. Don’t ever let yourself be stopped from doing something you want because you perceive it to be impossible… like camping without a tent… you just need to figure out an alternative.

Mike, Kim and I were joking before we went to bed that maybe this island is infested with Honey Badgers… sleep tight.

9.8.06 Adriatic Sea, Croatia, day #2

I am currently writing this on a rock, watching the sun rise up over the island in front of me. It is beautiful. I’m ready for another fun day in the sunshine and ocean blue. I ate some canned peaches for breakfast with my hand. We cruised out to our next location, off the far west coast of the island. Here we found some nice deepwater cliffs to jump. The water was more a dark blue instead of the turquoise near the island. This was deep water. Mike and I had to do a little rock climbing to get up to a good jump spot, swallow my fear of deep water and jump off into the cove. The water was a little colder today because we are on a wide-open sea front. If we were to take a boat off into the horizon, we’d end up in Italy a few days later.

Most of the day we just sunbathed and swam. I had to jump in and dive down 20ft to the anchor a few times and loosen it because it got stuck. We found a nice little rock shelf along the coast flat enough to sleep on for the night and claimed it as our camp spot. The sun was still out and we swam out into the glowing cove. It started shallow and got deeper and deeper. Schools of fish swam under my feet and a few really big colorful fishes deeper down. It was a good thing Mike and I bought goggles to see the ocean life and beauty. I just kept going, poking my head above the water occasionally to make sure I hadn’t drifted out to sea. I ended up all the way on the other side of the cove. Mike took some great photos of Kim and I floating in the sea with our legs crossed and arms folded behind our heads like we were sitting in lawn chairs. The water was so buoyant.

That night wasn’t as uncomfortable as the previous. We shared music and talked the night away, listening to the splish, splash, wish, wash of the lapping sea against our rock beds.

9.9.06 Hvar, Croatia

Our little adventure had to come to an end sooner or later. This morning was windy and cold. The water was not clear and waves were rocking the boat so hard we were worried it would get a hole punctured in the side from the sharp rocks. Lucky me, the anchor got stuck again and the others couldn’t dive down as far as I could, so I had to take my clothes off and jump into the now freezing gloomy water 25 ft to unhook the damn anchor. It was a nice chilly morning swim to wake me up. We motored on around the coast of the islands… it was shaped like a giant splatter blob with many coves and inlets, until we reached the main sea that separated it from the main island of Hvar. The boat was returned with no problems. Mike and I were pro’s at controlling the little boat and we anchored it right off the Old City sea wall to unload our bags. Our renter arrived and took the boat quick and easy. We walked into town a bit and someone asked us if we needed a room for a night. We were led up into the hills to the house and slept for the afternoon.

As I was walking along the sea walls of the old city that night I ran into Pippa, the British girl I changed clothes with in Transylvania. I said hi and talked briefly because it was a little awkward… I mean, we wore each others clothes at a cross dressing party, wouldn’t you be a little wierded out?

9.10.06 Hvar to Split to Ljubliana, Slovanja

Not a good day. I had nightmares last night and woke up feeling nervous and sweaty, like something was wrong but didn’t know what. It was 7am and our ferry left for Split on the mainland at 7:45. Kim, Mike and I packed up and started walking the 7minutes walk to the port. Everything was fine until Kim realized she left her bag and we kept walking while she ran back up into the hills to get it. So here is when one of the things I’ve dreaded not to happen to me…happened. Somewhere between the apartment and the ferry my bag must’ve busted open and my camera fell out. Either that or a pro pickpocket busted my zipper and stole my camera. I didn’t realize it until I was standing on the ferry dock and took off my shoulder bag. I immediately grabbed my stuff and jumped off the ferry. The ferrymen were pissed because the whole ship was waiting for Kim. I told the ferryman to hold on because she’s right around the corner. Kim came sprinting around the corner in the distance to catch the ferry but it had started to take off. Mike had no idea we didn’t make it until I saw him leaning against the rail on the front of the boat giving me the WTF look. I yelled at him “See you in Split?!”

The whole morning I frantically searched my pack and asked every ship owner/restraunt/café if they’d seen my camera and they all replied with a cold “no.” I left my email at the tourist office and police station just in case it would be returned, but I had lost hope. I spent a few hours filling out my insurance claim to get my money back for my stolen camera. I would have lost a lot of photos, but luckily I only lost my photos from Croatia and Medugorje. Which really sucked because I had some pretty extreme and AWESOME photos of Mike and I cliff diving off the coast of Lokrum.

Kim was helpful and gave me her digital photos of Croatia , so I had some. We got on the 1pm ferry to Split and met Mike at the dock. Kim said goodbye and headed off to her own adventures and Mike and I decided to get out of Croatia, it seemed time for a change. We bought a bus ticket to Ljubljiana, Slovanja for that night. It is 11 hours to travel north through the mainland of Croatia from Split.

We chilled for a few hours, walked around Split, ate a massive pizza sitting on the curb of an old smooth pearly cobblestone street, saw the Ancient Roman architecture and got on the bus. The next day is the anniversary of 9/11 so I was feeling very depressed and homesick. I know that will blow over, but it still sucks going through it.

SLOVANJA

9.11.06 Ljubljiana, Slovanja

The bus ride was 11 hours and was of course uncomfortable. We arrived at 4am in Ljublijana with nothing to do. Mike and I walked to our hostel to see if we could crash, but the guy said to come back later. We hung out at the train station café for a few hours and had some coffee and McDonalds. It was freezing cold and foggy. My mood was very down.

Later that day we took a walking tour of the city. I noticed our tour guide (a local Slovanjian) was wearing a USA hat with my flag on it. It made me remember 9/11 and made me very sad. Then again it made me feel good that at least some people in this world still remember. I didn’t say anything to the guy because I didn’t want to talk about it.

This place is actually pretty interesting, but then again, a city is a city and after a while they all start to look the same. While walking around I tried to figure out how many cities I’d been in since leaving the US and it’s about 53 so far. That’s quite a lot and they are all starting to look the same. I think I’m starting to get ready to leave Europe.

The city has a dragon to represent it. This is because the old legend of Jason and the Argonauts leads the hero Jason to this region where he is confronted by a nasty dragon in which he slays. There is a really neat Dragon Bridge that has four massive and fierce looking dragons poised with teeth bearing and wings up as a warning on the four corners of the bridge. I thought my Lions outside the SAE house in Lawrence were cool… These would just about scare anything away. The city seems to be a quiet, relaxing city nestled at the very southern tip of the Alps. It fortunately avoided the war and Fall of Yugoslavia because it kept to itself and played a neutral role. They claimed their independence and nobody had much of a problem with that. There was only ten days of bomb raids that Serbia tossed at Slovania. They basically just took out the radio and television towers in the hills surrounding the city.

That night was pretty uneventful. There was this creepy alley/bar area around the side of our hostel and everyone there was pretty much on drugs. There was this really messed up dude jamming and singing on an electronic keyboard and he sounded horrible, yet he had a massive crowd of zombie like people swaying to the beat in front of him. We got out of there fast.

I said my prayers for those whose lives were extinguished on this day 5 years ago and the suffering it has caused to so many of my own countrymen.

9.12.06 Ljubljiana +2

I compiled my notes and journals, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Mike and I hiked up to the castle at the top of one of the Alps hills. It is the center of the city. I could even see some hot air balloons drifting over the peaks in the distance.

That night our hostel put on a Sangria party. There were a lot of bands and people playing at thte hostle. There is definitely an art movement happening in this city. Artsy people, artsy bands and design… interior, graphic, architecture, is everywhere. There was a band playing in an ally was behind the hostel and I could have sworn that the dud was Zach de la Rocca’s twin brother from Rage Against the Machine. He sounded so bad ass. The band was called Moveknowledgment. We listened and walked around for a while talking to people. I ran into another two Brits we met in Belgrade and more Briths from Korcula. I have run into about 12 people I know since leaving home.

9.13.06 Bled, Slovanja

One of the two Brits I met last night had been to this place called Bled up in the Alps before. He said it was really cool, especially the extreme sports scene up there. One of them gave us this guys phone and address to call when we get there to hook us up. The other Brit, Will from England, went with Mike and I as well.

Damian, our contact picked us up at the Bled train station with his wife Mama. He was unbelievably friendly. Apparently we were the only ones staying in his hostel that night, XXL Hostel. It was really his house with a very nice bar in his basement. Damian organized all kinds of extreme sports to do in Slovanja. It surprised me to see such an old guy interested in such extreme new sports. He must have been in his late 70’s! There was rafting, kayaking, sky diving, off roading, caving and canyoning. We decided to go Canyoning since I’ve never heard of this sport before and it looked and sounded very cool. We would leave to go up to the canyon tomorrow morning.

Damian drove us around a bit and showed us his tiny mountain village before taking us back to Bled so we could walk around a bit. He dropped Mike, Will and I off and told us to meet here at 7pm to be picked up. There is a gorgeous lake here in Bled. It has to be one of the most beautiful scenic natural landscapes I’ve seen. There is a large lake out the base of a steep cliff and the large jagged Southern Alps. In the very middle of the lake, there is a very small island with a beautiful castle perched on it, reflecting timelessly in the water around it. The castle is literally just as big as the island. It was so beautiful to see the Church tower rise up in contrast against the greenery of the Alps. We hiked up a Cliffside to a castle on the edge of the lake to take in the view and then walked around the lake until 7pm.

Damian and Mama prepared one of the best meals I’ve had since I left. He was very proud that his food only comes from the farmers of his town. He only goes to the grocery stores for milk. We had a delicious soup, then salad, then a main meal of cooked meats and fries, then ice cream. We also had a nice Merlot local wine, that you could only get in this part of Slovenja.

9.14.06 Canyoning in Bled

Damian called his extreme friend and set up a time around noon to come and pick us up at the bus station for canyoning. We had a morning to burn, so Damian drove us out to the Gorge Vintgar. It is a beautiful Gorge that you follow through the narrow canyon walls on a wooden path walkway. I really can say that this is the clearest water I’ve seen. I swear it. It was so clear that in parts, you could hardly tell there was even water there at all! It just looked like a bunch of rocks in a basin. The walkway led to bridges over waterfalls and was just plain gorgeous. Something out of a National Geographic. We continued out of the gorge and walked up into the hills back toward Bled.

Bori, our extreme sports guy picked us up at the bus station. He seemed like a really cool dude. We drove about 20 minutes deeper into the Alps and stopped at this little cabin to get out. He tossed all of us a wet suit and said…change. We put on our wetsuit pants, shoes and crotch-vest zip ups. He told us it is nice to have such padding because your nuts when you jump from high places into the water. We walked up this dirt path to the start of the gorge. He told us that you should always bend your knees when jumping in because you will hit the bottom on some of these waterfalls. So, with that I began my first ever Canyoning experience. Standing at the top of this busted up damn, on the other side was a rust bar cable latter. I jumped into the water, swam over to the dam edge, hopped over the wall and climbed down the rusty latter about 20 ft. I ended up facing another cliff, this one about 15 ft. We are basically following the stram down a really thin gorge. So we come to the cliff. The walls are only about 6 ft in diameter around the hole I’m about to jump into. Bori tells me to just jump. I’m standing there looking down into what seems to be a tiny puddle at the bottom of this hole. His words of advice were, “Don’t hit a rock.” I jumped off through the narrow walls and down into the ice cold mountain water. The wet suit actually kept most of the water out, but my head and face were beet red from the cold. I came up and was in a tubular hole about 6 ft in diameter as well with a small waterfall drizzling down from above. “Are you OK?” Bori yelled, echoing down the gorge. I gave him the thumbs up. He said, “Good, now float over to the next cliff edge and wait.” I swam to a point where the water level and the cliff edge made a nice smooth surface slide down to the next puddle. I grabbed on and turned around to watch Mike and Will make the jump. The next jump was higher than the first. This time it was only a 4ft diameter hole and looked like we were about to jump into a long narrow pool. We all jumped again and I turn around to see Bori do a front flip into the waterhole! This time he said, “OK, next you will go headfirst!” We approached the next cliff and I saw something that reminded me of that scene in The Goonies when they jumped down that cave waterslide to escape the Fertellies, but this was real. It was a thin, tube tunnel carved into the rock and smoothed by thousands of years of water running down it. I jumped down it. It was so fun, the natural tubeslide made a sharp curve at the end before plunging off and down into another deep waterhole. When I looked up I saw the rising smooth grey rock walls and sunlight creeping down it. I couldn’t see the sky because we were so far deep into the canyon gorge. We did a few more slides and jumps down further into the gorge until we reached a cable that stretched across a deep paralleling gorge. Bori hooked up a zip line to it and the next thing I knew, I was zipping over another waterfall! It was so unbelievably fun! I have a new favorite extreme sport. Canyoning! As we slithered and slip-n-slided down the remainder of the gorge we came out the bottom to see some sunlight. We had to repel off the waterfalls a few times to get out. This was something that I’ve had some experience with, but not off a waterfall! The rock was wet and slick and your getting a facefull of water at the same time. Bori seemed to like us and thought we did alright so he asked us if we wanted to do one more jump. He free climbed back up this dry cliff and hooked up a rope. When I got to the top I looked down into the abyss before me, a waterfall on the opposite side. This hole was about 10 ft in diameter and about 30 ft deep. It was an awesome rush. I counted to three and jumped way out into the hole, seconds later splashing down and washing through a small maze of smooth rocks back to the end point.

We hiked back to the car and Bori offered us some Blueberry Snapps. This was some good local stuff. It actually had real Blueberries floating in it. We all took 2 shots to get warmed back up. Bori had some time to burn and so did we. He said he would take us the long way back to show us the mountains a bit. It was getting a little gloomy and started to drizzle, but that was ok. The clouds capped over the tall peaks and was stunning. He took us to this lake with an outdoor bar and sat down for a drink. I was interested in Bori and how he ended up doing rafting and canyoning and ice climbing. He told me that he used to be a downhill ski racer and was on the Slovanjian National team. He was even friends with Bodi Miller, the American Downhill Skiing Olympian. One day he wiped out and broke his legs and that pretty much ended it for him. He also added that they do heli-skiing in the winter. This is when they jump out of a helicopter onto a mountain peak and ski or snowboard down it. I told him that we both grew up in very similar places and we both learned to love the mountains from a very young age. We talked for an hour or so about skiing before he drove us back to Damians. He hung around with us for a while in the basement and then took off when Mama and Damian brought out some home cooked goulash and bread. It was the perfect thing to have after a day of jumping and swimming in mountain water.

Two British girls joined us that evening, Becca and Harri. We told them all about the Canyoning and convinced them to go the next day. That night we played guitar and talked about our travels.

Next Mike and I will head up into Austria and Germany for the biggest beer festival in the world... OKTOBERFEST!!!

Dodging Vampires in Romania

2006-12-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

8.21.06, Trip to ROMANIA

Mike and I got up early to begin our journey through the rest of Eastern Europe and eventually back to Germany for Oktoberfest 2006. Our next destination was Romania. We had to catch a 9am train back to Budapest and then from there to Sighisoara, Romania. We walked to the train station and with my luck, they didn’t accept credit cards, so I had 15 minutes to run all the way into town to the ATM and back. I ran my ass off and barely made it back, 1 minute before the train left.

One thing that I’ve become fairly good at is ending up with as little amount of cash before crossing over into another country. This way I don’t have to bother with exchange rates. So I bought a gyro at the train station and will be leaving Hungary with only 80Ft, about 75 cents.

Most of the day Mike and I read through a few guidebooks and decided waht we were going to do for the next two months. I decided to spend the majority of my time in Croatia because it sounds unbelievable. A saltwater paradise.

We met this french guy on the train to Romania who told us that he and his friend rented a boat and trekked from island to island for a few days. I really, really, liked the sound of that. We arrived at 4am. When we crossed the border from Hungary to Romania, the staff and guards switched. Our French friend had to bribe the Romanian guard because he said his ticket was invalid. A total lye, but what can you do?? You either pay him money, or get thrown off in the middle of God knows where. It was foggy and raining... and we had just entered the true Vampire Country... Transylvania. OOOOOOOOOh! We walked to our hostle down the creepy cobblestone streets to our hostle Nathan’s Villa. Luckily, the front door was unlocked and nobody was around except a few passed out people on a couch. We walked down into the bar and crashed on some wooden bar benches.

That morning an old lady came down tapped us on the shoulder and led us to a bunkroom to allow us to sleep in some beds. How nice. When I woke up, I was in a room full of sleeping travelers. But one in particular had black semi-curly hair and a goatee. Aaron had somehow ended up in the same village and hostel as Mike and I had, unplanned! What a coinsidence!

8.22.06, Sighisoara, Transylvania

I am writing this entry from a park on the hillside in the center of Sighisoara. It is a small town settled in the tree-covered mountains of Transylvania. It is stunning. I get the feeling now that I am out of tourist countries… I mean, who goes to Romania for their summer vacation?? There are old citadel spires rising up from the old but colorful buildings. I walked into a small open area where children were singing and playing. I sat on a nearby bench and listened in. I was taking photos and I showed them to the children. They laughed and I soon had a small crowd around me. A lot of them surprisingly spoke English very well. They were very interested in where I came from and how long I was staying. I told them I didn’t know how long. One little boy said…Total freedom, wow… He told me they were singing and dancing tonight at 6pm in the village square. I will definitely be there; I promised I would come to see what they have obviously put a lot of time into preparing for their performance.

This place is amazing. Untouched by tourism. It seems like I’ve walked back in time to the middle ages. The streets are dirt roads with rugged cobblestone. The buildings are old and multicolored through years of weathering. They seemed stained, but beautiful greens, pinks, and reds spread across the facades like watercolor. The buildings are crooked and un-even, with twisting and beautiful iron lamps that stick out overhead.

I was standing at the edge of some back alley, right on the side of a cliff overlooking the Transylvanian landscape and this old blind woman approached me from the darkness out of a tunnel. She was asking for money, but instead, I tried to give her a conversation. I showed her the notes I wrote down on how to say some Romanian words. She pulled out a Legally Blind card, which proves and identifies her as being a blind person. It showed her disfigured eye in a close-up. It was disturbing, but I did not physically show that. I understand that she wanted money, but I literally had none to give her. So I gave her some left over Hungarian change and asked if I could take her photo. She said thank you and headed off.

I was writing in my book there on the steps and a little kid came up the stairs ascending up the wall beneath me. He was smoking a cigarette! He said something to me; I think he was asking me for a cig. I said no. He motioned for me to follow him and he led me back behind the castle wall into some trees and sat down. This must have been his hang out. It was a trash dump along the city walls, hidden from view. He pulled out an old, wet half used box of soggy cigarettes that he must have found in the trash from the waistband of his shorts and lit one from the current cig he had. I asked him his name and he said Noah. I asked if I could take a photo of him. I did and he seemed proud and cool to be smoking a cig. Then he asked if he could take one of me. I was thinking in the back of my head that I’d better watch him in case he took off, but I trusted him though. I figure he trusted me enough to bring me to his hiding place, so I could show a little trust in return. He took a photo of me and laughed. I don’t know if he’s ever seen a digital camera before. I asked how old he is and Noah said 9 years old. He was not scared or intimidated of me whatsoever. He talked to me like I was one of his little friends. This must be a very peaceful, safe place with all these children running around all the time. I gave him some Hungarian money. He tried to grab my 10 piece, because it was the largest coin, but I told him that one is for me. I said salut and he shook my hand, and I left him there to enjoy his cigarette.

So I continued walking and it starts to pour rain. Most people would be like… damn, but I’m like… this is freaking awesome! I’m in Transylvania and it is pouring rain! The rain blew over and the sun cam out, leaving light streaks beaming down onto the old red rooftops. I climbed to the top of a clock tower to take in the view. There was this really cool egg holder with this neat winged lion on it. There was a guy there who got pissed when I took a picture, so I drew it instead.

I hung around a little until the dance festival started. Now this was a pretty cool thing to see. In the main square, high in the old city on the mountaintop, was a concert stage set up and a lot of tents selling meat and beer. The children were standing around waiting for the event to start. It reminded me of the same thing I had to do in Elementary School. Basically there were about six different age groups who were dressed in various cultural garments. You know, I’m kind of jealous. These young kids were dressed up in all kinds of flashy dresses and sparkly hats. When I had to do traditional dances, I was wearing my neon green sweat pants and spotted Nickelodeon T-shirt! Gotta love the 80’s…Thanks Mom. Anyway, the kids that I met at the park earlier saw me and I waved and said hi. I think they were glad that I showed up to see them dance. It eve started to pour rain, but I told those kids that I would stay and watch their dancing. It was so beautiful to see hundreds of years of Romanian culture through these dances, and how they spread it and continue the tradition through their children. These dances have been passed down for generations. Beautiful.

I ran into some 17 year olds on the Cliffside overlooking the lower city. Two of them spoke broken English. Their names are Tihi and Levi (Levee). I heard about a big graveyard up above behind the citadel and I asked them if they would take me there. They looked a little scared, but then finally agreed. So, the group of Americans, Canadians, and Romanians walked up to the graveyard. Once we entered through the creaky metal gates it started pouring rain again. I could just barely make out the names on the grey and black tombstones. There were paths that stretched out everywhere. IJ could get completely lost if I wasn’t paying attention. So, Tihi and Levi were telling me about how they usually have guard dogs roaming the graveyard at night. Well, in the distance we start to hear dogs barking and Tihi was like “RUN!” We all ran through the graveyard and up onto the porch of this mausoleum out of the rain and away from the dogs. I couldn’t help to think how insane this is. Here I am, in the middle of Transylvania, in Vlad Tepes (Dracula’s) birthplace and hometown, in a graveyard where the vampire myth originated! I guess it would be convenient now to tell you the story of Vlad Tepes.

Vlad Tepes was the son of the reigning King Dragul, who was feared for his unkindness and brutality. Vlad was named Dragula, the son of Dragul. The King sent Vlad away when he was a boy because he was too soft hearted and not mean enough to be a future King. He sent Vlad to be tortured somewhere in the East. This is where Vlad learned a method of torture that he would use to drive fear into his future enemies. Vlad returned and became King. He became known as Vlad the Impaler when an invading army of modern day Bulgaria failed at attacking Vlad’s Empire. He impaled 20,000 men on the battlefields surrounding his castle in Bran on 10 foot spears and left them dangling there to die. The next wave of attackers saw the rotting bodies and skeletons of their former colleagues and fled back to their home country in fear. This man was born in a house just down the road from where I am standing, and I’m standing in his graveyard… cool!

On the walk back down from the old city to the hostel, I was talking to Levi and Tihi. Levi taught himself English in two years. I know they wanted to speak to me for practice. They told me that I’m lucky to be able to travel. Most of them haven’t even been out of Romania. They thought we were rich. I explained to them that I worked hard to make money to travel. They explained to me that it is very hard to make money here because their currency is not strong. It is 3 Leu to 1 USD. Even though we might have the same amount of money and worked just as hard for it, the value of it is different. It is easier to generate money in the US. They would have to work 3 times the amount I did to gain the same value of what I have earned.

I exchanged emails and cell numbers and said goodbye when I reached the hostel. I went inside and hung out for a while before going to sleep. Maybe I’ll wake up as a vampire, you never know.

8.23.06

Mike and I went to get a haircut in town. This little old lady in her barbershop didn’t speak a word of English. I was going off of chance here. Mike went first. He said, “just a little shorter please,” She practically completely buzzed his head. I tried to hold my laughter and realized that I was next. When I got up there, I tried to do some hand motions and describe a little more in detail so I didn’t end up like Mike. I was lucky. She did a great job.

We walked around the village and stopped to get some food. I was recommended a dish by some Romanians I met in Prague, the Ciorba de Burta, AKA Cow Stomach Soup. When I got it, it looked like a nice yellow broth. I put my spoon in and brought up some of the meat from the bottom of the bowl. It was shredded cow stomach. It looked God-awful. It was white and very chewy with a texture similar to squid. The meat was tough and elastic like. I guess it didn’t taste too bad, but the thought of knowing that I was eating a cow gut kind of grossed me out a bit. But I didn’t want to be rude and I ate the whole thing. Yum.

I ran into the old blind lady on the street and she seemed so happy to see me! She gave me a big warm smile and took my hand and kissed it. I smiled back and said thank you as I was walking away. I realized I could’ve said more but oh well. Now that made me feel so good inside to know that I made a small difference in her life and she was so thankful and happy to see me. I love connecting with people on an emotional level like that, no matter who you are.

Well, the Nathan’s Hostel apparently didn’t receive our reservation for the next night, so Mike, Aaron and the two Canadians and I had to leave. Fortunately, we only had to walk 5 doors down and we all stayed in this old lady’s house. We rented the basement from her. Mike and I headed out to walk around the village again and headed to the graveyard to see in the daytime. It was at the very top and was on the tallest point of the hill. The gates were open and the sun was shining. It was a wonderful overlook out into the dense forested hills. After meandering for a while, we met Aaron, the two Canadians, three German girls, and two British girls for dinner at this place called The Rustic. I tried the next thing on my “Romanian Foods to Eat” list, and the Sarmale was next. It was delicious. They are minced meat rolled in cabbage. It tasted like my moms croc pot stew she used to make me as a kid. For dessert, I had ice cream wrapped in a crepe with chocolate sauce.

That night things got a little crazy and I hope that whatever photos were developed instantly burn up the second they see light. We all walked back to Nathan’s Villa to hang out with the rest of the youths and I had no idea what I was walking into. They were having a cross dressing party. The girls were wearing the guy’s clothes and the guys were dressed in the girl’s clothes. After a while of feeling like an outcast, I was like “Screw it”…and told Pippa, the British girl, to follow me towards the bar and asked her to switch clothes with me. I walked out, reaching a new low in my life as a MAN, and one of the Romanian girls ran up to me with makeup and just went to town on my face. I walked out of there wearing barely fitting girls pant and a blouse with eyeliner and lipstick on. If anyone ever sees the photos of that night and tries to laugh or use them as blackmail, it will not faze me. My response will be… Dude, I was in ROMANIA! That should set things straight.

8.24.06 To Brasov (pronounced Brashov)

Mike and I decided to head to Brasov today and see Dracula’s Castle. We bought our train tickets, got on the train, and started to relax for our 2.5-hour train ride to Brasov. The conductor comes around and we give him our tickets. He looks at us funny and says, “Brasov is that way,” pointing the opposite direction. So, we were heading off into the yonder, not knowing where the hell we were. We got off the train at a small, small village. Nobody was there except for some guys repairing the train tracks. We figured out that the next train to get back to Sighisoara didn’t come for 3 hours. We sat and waited.

Two kids, age 12, sat down next to us on the busted train station bench. Mike said, “Hey, what are you guys doing here?” and one kid said, “This is OUR place.” Well they were on summer break and they pretty much just came to the train station everyday to hang out. When I say train station, I mean a busted up, paint peeling ticket booth, 2 benches, and a train track. The village behind me had only a few houses, some tractors, and a hell of a lot of chickens. There wasn’t much for these kids to do around here. I think they were excited to see two foreigners sitting in their usually empty hangout spot. We started talking, they were asking more about us than we were of them. I had my IPod out, watching Top Gun and they thought it was amazing. One kid asked if I had any 50 Cent or Eminem. It is amazing that Eminem and 50 once grew up on the streets of urban America and now their names are known in the smallest of towns around the globe… and representing America as well. So I trusted them and gave them my IPod so he and his friends could listen to their gangsta rap. One even asked me if I had any Porn on it!! I was sorry to disappoint him. One hour later there were about 6 kids surrounding us. Only one of them spoke English, so he would translate for us. I decided this would be a good time to show off one of my magic tricks because no matter who you are, everyone can relate to magic. I put one quarter in the palm of both my hands. Then, palms up, I folded down my fingers over them and asked the kids to place on more quarter on each one on the tops of my now covered fists. I asked them if they believe in the laws of gravity and say that I’m about to break them. I “swallow” the coins resting on the tops of my fist in through the cracks of my between my fingers so they all can see that all the quarters are now in my hand. I asked them if they are prepared to be amazed. When I opened my hands, there was only one quarter in my left hand and three in my right! I transported one quarter to the other hand miraculously. All of the kids gasped and went “WHOOOOOAA!” They were all so amazed that they wanted me to do another trick, but honestly, I didn’t know any more!

I had a half loaf of bread and some jam that I didn’t want so I offered it to the kids. The said, “No thanks, but they will,” and pointed to these three little boys, probably about five or six years old. They were picking berries off the ground on the other side of the tracks and eating them. They were filthy dirty. They didn’t have any shoes, messy hair, dirty faces and hands. It was a very sad sight for me. One of the kids we were sitting with yelled something in Romanian to them and all three raced over to me and snatched the bread out of my hands. Then the boy who spoke English took off his sandal and chased them away, threatening to hit them with his sandal. I asked him why do you chase them away? “Because they are stupid. They have bugs on them and they are dirty.” This amazed me how little affection these kids had for the homeless. He said, “they don’t really have a home, so they go from town to town sneaking on to trains to ask for money or just to find food. They can’t return home without money because their father will beat them.”

Our train came and we waved goodbye to the kids. They all wanted to shake our hands. We arrived back in Sighisoara and we had 2 more hours to burn, so we walked back into town to get some pizza. The train to Brasov was amazing. The scenery was like something out of a movie. There were lush green fields with farmers working on their crops. Children were running up to the train and waving as we cruised by. I spent most of the time standing up with my arms and head resting out the window frame, allowing the clean breeze to blow through my hair. The mountains grew larger and larger as we approached Brasov.

A man approached us right when we got off and offered us accommodation. Any time somebody approaches us we are cautious right off the bat. He seemed genuine and he offered to let us stay at his place. His name is Florin and he was so helpful to us. He even gave us a map that he drew on to tell us the major destinations to see in Brasov. He warned us that all the professional pickpockets in Romania come to Brasov because it is the main tourist destination.

We walked down to the main town square for dinner. The mountains just tower right at the edge of the city. At the top of one peak there is a no so attractive “Hollywood” sign that says BRASOV in large bold white letters. We ate at a recommended restaurant by Florin. I had the “Romanian Special” which I was worried was an excuse for the cooks to put something in my food that didn’t belong there, but it turned out fine. It was minced meat on potato wedges. We enjoyed our meal and walked back to Florins apartment to watch some telly and pass out.

8.25.06 Brasov

I slept in until 1pm, something I haven’t done in a long time, and it felt great! Mike and I walked down to the supermarket to buy some sandwiches and brought back to the house to eat. One thing that I’ve seen here in Romania more than anywhere else is the amount of people limping, or is crippled in some way. It is sad because most of them can’t afford any kind of help for whatever illness or injury is dealt to them. So they just have to deal with it.

We walked into the city looking for some shopping street and instead ran into the base of the mountains. So, I said, “Why not?” Mike and I started climbing up the slope. We had no idea where the trail would take us, but we just kept going up anyway. It got very steep. I would say that the mountains here are the closest comparison the Rockies. They aren’t as highly elevated, but the trees and landscape looks somewhat similar. We met a guy on the trail who pointed us to the summit. I asked him if it was dangerous at all. He said, “Just watch out for the bears.” I explained to Mike as we were hiking what to do if we run into a Bear. I have extensive knowledge on this topic thanks to my Mother reading my Brother and I Bear attack stories on our road trips throughout America and Canada when we were kids. If we were to ever run into a Bear, she would have us well prepared for it.

We made it to the summit, which happened to be right where the giant BRASOV sign was. There was a beautiful look out over the entire city nitched into the base of the mountains below us. It was so steep, the city looked to be directly below us. We met a guy from Vancouver named Marco. He was pretty much doing the same thing we were doing and is taking a year off of his Chemical Engineering job to travel and get some life experience. The only thing is he is traveling the World in the opposite direction. He gave me some great advice about China, like hiking to the top of Hua Shan Mountain in Xian to see the sun rise. We offered Marco to come back to our place to eat some pasta and headed back after another stroll around the town square. Marco told us all about his time wandering around China and Tibet. He actually got sick in China and had to go to a hospital for a week. We agreed to meet Marco tomorrow to go to Bran Castle and he took off. Mike and I headed to the internet café for a few hours before going to bed.

8.26.06 Brasov +3

Well, first thing I learned about Bran Castle is that it IS NOT Dracula’s Castle. Dracula actually had nothing to do with this castle, and he probably has never been there at all. It is simply a tourist stunt to bring in the crowds. The castle was very cool to see though. I think the film Bram Stokers Dracula was filmed here, which would explain the hordes of Vampire and Dracula T-shirts and accessories available for purchase outside the gates in the tourist shacks. It was perched upon the top of a piney hill, with a central spire and very triangular pointy, steep rooftops, which is typical for the Transylvania area. The castle was neat looking on the outside, boring old photos on the inside.

On the way back, Mike, Marco and I had to literally jump on to the moving bus to get back to Brasov. The driver didn’t wait and we weren’t going to wait for the next bus, so we jumped in through the open front door. Oddly, the driver was completely OK with this. Marco had to catch a train so we told him to meet us at Oktoberfest in a few months.

Our next destination was to get to the tourist office to find out if we could catch a train to Belgrade, Serbia. It started pouring rain and we got 100% soaking wet. We found out how to get there and walked home, made dinner and slept for a few.

That evening, Florin woke us up. He said it is traditional in Romania to give his guests a homemade shot. He poured us three shots of some clear liquor that he made in the country with his Grandfather. He warned us that it was strong and it was… very, very strong. Probably the strongest drink I’ve had the entire trip. After that we all headed to the billiard down the street to play some table tennis and pool. Now Florin is quite the athlete. He used to play professional soccer for Romania and he claims to be very good at table tennis, which is a very popular sport here. I always thought of table tennis as a fun game you’d play as a kid, but this dude was serious! He has been playing for 30 years. We get to the table to play and I bend down to tie my shoe. When I came back up I see Florin cracking his neck, jumping up and down, and stretching his arms out. He gave me a few pointers before he brutally destroyed me. He did however show me some really cool tricks. He was also really good at pool. After a good three hours and a beer, we walked back in the pouring rain.

8.27.06 To Bucharest, Timosaura, and then Serbia.

Today is yet another travel day, as we head over to the Croatian Coast. We woke up and Florin said us off. He truly is a great guy and I’ll recommend him to anyone heading this way. He gave us some ramen noodles on our way out as well.

This time we made sure we got on the right train. Yet again, the scenery was stunning. It was a foggy day along the forest and mountaintops. We had about six hours to burn in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. This place is a hole. From my experience there is nothing to do here, it is just an endless city. So to buy some time, we found a movie theater and walked 2 miles in the hot sun with all our gear. We piled our gear into the theater with us. We saw “Over the Hedge,” in English. We took the metro back and bought some food at a grocery store to load up before our night train to Beograd…Belgrade, Serbia.

I was stunned when I walked by a shop in the train station and a John Elway #7 Denver Broncos jersey was hanging in the window. I stopped to pay homage to the quarterback god and rubbed it in Mikes face that even Romania supports the Broncos. I even made him take a photo of it with me in it…hahaha. Another extremely uncomfortable night train ride later and we were in the Serbian city of Belgrade.

Slovakia and Hungary

2006-11-27T00:57:00.000-08:00

8.13.06 Trip to Bratislava, Slovakia

My first real scam happened to Nithin and I today. The guy at the desk at our Hostel told us to take the tram to the train station. He didn’t tell us about pre-buying a ticket to get on the tram. We waited at the stop, like everyone else and got our money out to pay for our ticket from the tram driver like we’re used to. Right as we get on the tram, it takes off. We are obviously travelers with our backpakcs on and we are immediately approached by three big guys with id’s to check our tickets. I gave him 5 Kc to cover both Nithin and I. he looked at me like I was a bug. He put his hand up and said, “ I don’t take money, I just check tickets.“ So we tried to explain to him that we had no idea WTF was going on and to let us off the train. They kept threatening to call the cops on us and I was like, hell ya! Bring the freaking cops over! The guys said we had to pay 100 for us, and on top of that 75 for our bags, instead of the usual 2.50Kc. I accepted that we made a mistake here and I will follow the law, even if I think it is rediculous, but I know that whatever money I give to these bastards WILL NOT end up in the tram companies pocket. They will pocket it, and thus rob us blind. So, seeming that they were being complete ass holes to us, I pretended to not understand them when they tried to talk to me, and not fully cooperate with them just to get them pissed off. Even thought they threatened us with the cops, they never really went over to them because they wanted to pocket our 175Kc each. I told him that I will go to the cash machine and get the money but I am NOT giving it to you! I insisted that we go to the ticket salesman in the booth and give it to him. Of course they tried to convince me that that was no use. I got the cash, walked to the booth, and that he said something in Polish to whomever I was looking for help from. He obviosly convicted me as a lawbreaker and a bad person before I could communicate to them to help me. It instantly demonized Nithing and I as criminals. Even the policeman looked at us as if we were dilinquents. Sot they got us there. He also took our ID’s earlier before he pretended to get pissed off at us, when we trusted him as an official. Note to self... DON’T EVER GIVE ANYONE YOUR ID. People like this use it as blackmail for money. I told him to give me my ID and I will give you the cash. We exchanged, but I grabbed both Nithin AND my ID. The ball was half in our court. Nithin then told him that in order to get Nithins money, he needed to give us a reciept. The guy instantly complained and pretended as if he didn’t know what we were talking about. But we refused to cooperate whatsoever until he gave us a reciept. After about a minute of pissed off conversing, the guy gave in. He pulled out a tiny reciept book that he HAD THE WHOLE TIME, and filled it out. I watched to see if he was writing down the correct amount of money on the ticket so he didn’t get away with 1 cent of our money. He tore the ticket, Nithin grabbed it, gave him the money and we took off. They looked so pissed, even though we lost about 50 USD to a freaking tourist scam, at least those losers didn’t pocket any of it. I fealt good, like we just one a game of chess, out manuvering the enemy.

The bus to Bratislava took forever, 10 hours. Uncomfortable, as usual, but we did drive through some amazing mountains. Some had castles on it and fog was rising out of the forrests. The boarder check points always look a little intimidating. I guess they are supposed to. Then I just reminded myself... Dude, he’s just a border guard, what the hell is he going to do to me. It’s like being afraid of the mall security guard at Park Meadows. The guy walked on the bus and looked us all over, only taking a select few, of course he took Nithin and mine... the fiercest looking criminals on the bus, and brought them into his booth to be checked. As I predicted, Nithin and I had no dirt on us, so we got our passports back.

We arrived in Bratislava later that night, just before dark and wandered the city to find a hostel. The one we found was full, but they called another hostel for us and they even came to pick us up! This was convenient because it was pitch black outside and it did not look like the kind of place to be walking around in after dark. The guy who owned the place, Yuri, came to get us and an English couple. I figured he didn’t speak English very well because when I asked him if he had children, he responded, “hmm, maybe, I don’t know.“ He dropped us off at his house and we dropped our stuff off, then asked if he could take us to a grocery store on his way out. We would have to walk back of course, but it was only a 10 minute walk and we fealt safe.

Later that night, we started talking with the four British girls that were staying at Yuri’s place that night as well. We told them how to play some card games and they taught us some. Then Nithin and I decided to watch the horror movie, Hostel, because we were in Bratislava after all! Before we started, I asked Yuri if he was in the movie, and thankfully he said, No.

8.14.06 Bratislava to Budapest, Hungary

I meandered the town with nothing but my camera. This city is nothing like I thought it would be. The perception of it, after seeing EuroTrip, was that it was incredibly poor, filthy, boring, grey, and concrete. But now I see that it is a very well developed city. I believe it is the second richest city in Eastern Europe. The main thing that hostel got right was the women. They are drop dead gorgeous out here. I think we have a new winner on the worlds hottest women list. Everyone here is very fashionable. I guess this city used to be a large walled and moated city. I came across this really cool brand theme for a musical festival going on at that time. I think that is something I would like to do in the future. I would like to create environmental branding and event design. It looks and sounds fun to completely brand an event. There aren’t as many tourists here, but I could tell the areas that were.

Nithin and I walked to the train station hoping that we could get a ticket to Budapest. We did, but the train was so crowded that we had to stand in the aisle. I got lucky and ended up sitting in the stair well to the door in the connecting section of the two passenger trains. While sitting on the floor, I met a nice English girl named Becky. We talked about all kinds of stuff. Sports, places we’ve been and places we want to go, etc. She asked me about the electric chair and why our country uses it. It made me realise that the electric chair seems like a pretty messed up way to die. It is no worse than hanging, something Britain stopped doing in 1960. Anyway, I gave her my email address and told her to mail me if she ever wanted to come to Colorado.

When the passport guards came through they tried to open the bathroom. The Polish girl and Italian guy sitting next to it said it was broken because it wouldn’t open. The guard was like... It’s not broken and used his key to open it. The whole 1.5 hr ride until that point we thought it was broken and jammed, but the door opens all of a sudden and this stoned kid emerges through the pot smoke bellowing out of the WC. His head and hand appeared so lightly, that it almost appeared as if the kid was floating out into the doorway. The guard looked at his passport and gave it back. The kid slowley floated back inside and the door shut. It was so damn funny! We all started cracking up because we had no idea he was in there!

The train arrived and the tourist squad rushed in, asking us if we needed a hostel. I guess there is a large Mob syndicate here and they are everywhere. We didn’t know this at the time, but Mike told us that the turkish and hungary mob fight over parts of the city, including hostles. So I don’t know... maybe that friendly guy who got us our hostel worked for the mob?? I hope he doesn’t show up later and ask me to do him a favor in return.

Once Nithin and I arrived to our hostel we walked over the bridge from Buda to Pest to try and find Aaron, Mike, and Mr. Ryan. We found out what room they were in and they weren’t there. I left a threatening not on their pillows and the room mates said they went to a Hooka bar and gave us directions. Nithin and I decided to go on a mission to find them. Operation find Ryan, Aaron and Mike and kick their butts for not telling us where to meet them that night. We wandered the city, and eventually found a hookah bar. We wrote another note on a beer coaster and asked the waiter to deliver it to those three Americans over there at that table. Then, while they were reading it, we stood directly outside the window across from their table. When they looked up, we made the cut throat motion with our hands and pointed at them. Mwahahahahaa. The whole thing was really pretty anti-climatic, so we just walked inside and joined them.

8.15.06 Hammans and Siget

Mr. Ryan and I went to the Budapest Baths today. I had no idea what to expect, but basically it is like a giant set of swimming pools that vary in size indoor and outdoors. The pools vary intemperature as well from really hot to really cold. It is meant for relaxation, not screaming little kids, diving boards, etc. each pool shas cerain minerals added to it to make your skin feel a different way. I explored all the pools. Some were disgusting because they smelled like a million people just took a bath init and it smelled like sulpher. But I took in the culture and sat in them anyway. It was probably a little more difficult for me because I was a lifeguard at a pool for six years and I know this water would certainly not pass under a health inspection. In the outdoor pool, the water was brown, but it was really warm like a hot tub. Old men were playing chess in the water on these floating boards. Chess was everywhere. It was in the water, on tables. There were classical sculptures and fountains spraying water into the pools. I guess you move from cold water and gradually move up the pools to the warmer temps. I really liked the sauna. I was scorching hot in there, and it burned to breath in through your nose. But when you get parched enough you could walk out and jump in this little pool that is ice cold. Then run back into the sauna. It was actually quite relaxing. One room we walked into was this wet suana. I opened the door and steam bellowed out. It smelled somewhat like the sweat of 100,000 pudgey old men mixed with a dead animal corpse of some kind. I turned around and left immediately. Ryan and I decided... why not, lets get a massage! So we signed up and had a beer while waiting for our turn.

Mr. Ryan went first. I couldn’t believe the massuse he got. She was a drop dead gorgeous blond Hungarian. As he was walking in, I noticed a grin on his face that said, hell ya! Then my turn, I got a beautiful brunette girl. She walked me in and told me to lye down. I was worried about my feet because as you can imagine, 3 months only wearing sandals can do a little „“re-modeling“ to your feet. I thought she would either pass out unconscious or run out screaming, but then I thought that they were probably happy to have us two yound skinny guys due to the fact that they push around the pudgy flub of fat old men all day. I’ve never had a massage in my life, but it was amazing. I must know the ways of massage and hopefully I’ll learn it in Thailand. She used lotions and oils and totally worked out all the knots and kinks in my calfs and shoulders. Of course I was smiling the whole time because a Hungarian girls was pretty much messaging everything on my backside, but she couldn’t see my face anyway. It was only 15 minutes but I felt like a million bucks after that. Ryan and I had an international rock festival to attend, so we had to leave the lovely ladies and baths.

Siget is an annual major concert held on an island in the middle of the Danube River. There are about 100 bands that play non-stop, day and night for 7 days! It is a camping festival, so people bring their tents. We where going on the last day to see Prodigy play.
Nithin, Aaron, Mike, Mr. Ryan and I bought a bottle of wine and drank it while walking on the way. It was called Bulls Blood because in the old days, the war clans would drink this wine and it would dye their beards red. The incoming attackers would see these red stained beards and think these crazy warriors drank bull blood! They would get scared and retreat. We didn’t have an opener, so we did the vagabonder way and pushed the cork in, then just took swigs and passed it around. The true way to enjoy a fine bottle of wine.

The concert was massive. I’ve never seen a bigger concert in my life. The entire island was covered with stages. The main stage was huge! We walked the entire island listening to bands from around Europe and the rest of the globe. We planned on staying up all night, so I started to drink my coffee.

Prodigy was great. They came on at 11pm. They haven’t come out with anything new in like 10 years, but they know how to put on a show. I think one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen at a concert was during Prodigy. There was a bungee jumping crane that hung over the massive crowd. People were bungee jumping while Prodigy played! Can you imagine how insane that is!! Wow! There were also people zip lining over the crowd from a tower off to the right of the stage.

After Prodigy played, we were all somewhat drunk and decided to do Kareoke in front of hundreds of people. Were thinking of doing the Bohemian Raphsody by Queen because we knew it would be a big hit with the crowd, but unfortunately we didn’t make it to the stage in time. The people ahead of us were the last ones to go. Damn, that would have been hilarious. Well, we danced the night away. They were playing a lot of American music so it was great. We stayed up the entire night walking around the island and dancing. It was a blast. We took a bus in the morning back to our hostel to sleep all day.

8.16.06 Budapest

Today I walked around the city to get a feel for it. I’m starting to feel like the unfamiliar is becoming familiar. Every city seems similar to me now. It’s not that I’m getting bored, it’s just that I’m getting used to it. I’ve decided that I’ve done enough of the city hopping and it’s time to really get off the beatin track, starting with Romania in a couple of days.

Budapest is beautiful. I know I’ve said that for about every city, but they all are beautiful in their own way. The Might Danube River runs directly through the city, dividing the city Buda from Pest. There are many large bridges that gap over it. I won’t be there to see it, but in a few days there will be the Red Bull air competition where planes fly about 10 ft above the water and go under the bridges. Anyway, the Parlaiment building is probably the most famouse and recognizable building in Budapest. It looks very gothic with sharp spires and flying butresses. I went over and laid out in the lawn for a few hours. The grim but powerful building reminds all of yet another city haunted by the brutal Communist rule of Eastern Europe. Like so many other cities, hundreds of people were gunned down here, mostly students protesting the Soviet dictatorship.

Like I mentioned before, the mob is very dominant in this city. As I was walking home, I passed club after pub after strip club, etc. Every one of them had large bouncers outside that wouldn’t surprise me if it were a mob club. Mike roomed with some guys the night before that said they went out, three of them, to a small bar for one drink. When they got the bill, it said that one drink cost 100 Euros!! The bouncer/thugs escorted them to the ATM to give them the money. So... the lesson here is don’t go to any bar where there is nobody else inside.

Every time I walked by a strip club the bouncers would target me!! Not any of the other guys on the sidewalk, but me. It really pissed me off. I know thta they just wanted to mug me anyway. Apparently they mistook me for someone who needs to go to a strip club.

That night we went to go see the movie Thank You For Smoking. It was a very funny movie. It was in Hungarian subtitles, so I figured out we were the only Americans in the theater when we laughed and nobody else in the room did. This is because most people didn’t understand American sarcasm. I think that is something very American... sarcasm.

8.17.06, The Terror Museum and the Opera.

Mike left to go to Balatonfured, across the lake from Siofok in Hungary. I will meet him there tomorrow. Nithin and I walked around again to see the House of Terror. This is a former Nazi and then Soviet headquarter for Budapest. It was turned into a museum and memorial when the Soviet Union fell.

Hundreds of people were killed in this building. Most of the museum was devoted to the horrors of Soviet Communism. The most surprising thing about this building was the underground Soviet torture cells and prisons. After the Soviets rushed in and kicked out the Nazi’s, they made underground tunnels to connect the entire neightborhood block. This was a James Bond movie/video game reality. I felt like this was something out of a bond film. This is where the Russians tortured people with electric currents, beatings, starvation, etc. These wer specific cells one could be thrown into. One was a room filled with about 2 inches of water on the floor. The walls curved and sloped off at the bottom, so there was no way to climb out of the water. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be thrown into a cell fullof water for months. Another one was a standing cell. Similar to a very small closet with an eye hole like a speak easy. There was only enough room to stand there with your arms at your side. Another room was a low concrete ceiling that is pitch black. You can not stand up or stretch out. The last room, I walked through was the Gallows. This is a cell where they would hang people. I never quite understood why the USSR and Communist government was considered such a bad thing until visiting Eastern Europe. The Soviets closed off everything and took over everyones lives. You would be exectued if you tried to leave, or even if you spoke ou against them. All of this ended only 15 years ago. Most of those country’s lived in terror and were closed off to the rest of the world for about 40 years.

On our walk over to the largest Jewish Synogogue in the World, Nithin and I walked by a long line of locals waiting to get some food. We thought...hmmm....long line of locals...lets check it out! This small food stop seemed to be a very popular local place. This was my first experience when I couldn’t read anything on the menu and nobody spoke English. I just observed what others got and then pointed to the food that I though looked interesting. I got some kind of cabbage stew with fried mushrooms and a piece of bread. It had to have been one of the best meals I’ve had yet.

We walked by the Opera House and decided to go see an Opera tonight. It was only $12, so why not? Nithin and I were a little worried when we showed up and everyone but us was dressed up. Nithin was wearing the same shirt that he wore to the Sziget rock concert 3 days earlier, and I was wearing the only semi-clean clothes I had... a mildewy t-shirt and stained pants. We were looking hot, watch out ladies. But I did wear my shiny leather shoes, which had to count for something. We saw the ballet “The Taming of the Shrew,“ by Sheakspear. It was very good. We were in the nose bleeds, but still had an excellent view. I find it amazing that these people can describe an entire story, emotions, character developement, etc... just with the movements of their bodies. That’s how you know it is a good ballet, when nobody has to say anything and you understand the entire story. Nithin brought up a good point. If you go to see a movie, it is just one person who runs the reels to entertain you. At a ballet or opera, there are 30 hardworking people putting on a show for you. Anthe they don’t get paid much. That is devotion and love of art and drama.

We sat next to a Canadian guy, Greg, who has been a high school history teacher and traveler for the last 10 years. After the opera, we all went out for a beer and he gave us some great advise on india, Thailand, and Japan. He also told us about his trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, somthing we planned to do ourselves.

On our walk home, I said goodbye to Nithin because I didn’t knkow when we’d meet up again. We were in two different hostels, so we split.

8.18.06, Balatonfurer, Lake Balaton

As I was looking out the window of the trai, the lake, Lake Balaton, appeared through the trees and the first thing I saw was a dozen kite surfers riding th ewind along the coast. Mike was waiting for me at the train station at Balatonfured and told me that we’d be staying with this lady who offered us her house. She didn’t speak a word of English, so it was a lot of fun, and we had to play our own little game of charrades to communicate when she came to pick us up. Her place was a little beach house about 1km from the water. It was probably the nicest place we’ve stayed in during our trip. It was a nice, clean, traditional lake house.

Mike and I wandered in town i search of a post office, a hair cut, and a grocery store. I had a ton of stuff to mail home, which would significantly decrease my backpack load tremendously. Most people here speak German because this is a tourist area for Europeans. There are no English speakers anywhere here. Thank god Don and Linda Wagner bought that mini pocket translator for me before I left. Well the haircut place was closed, which suckes. Mike and I look like semi-groomed Neanderthals, and could go for a little trim. I got lucky with the post office though. It closed in 10 minutes, and I had no way to communicate with the post lady except playing charrades. We got it figured out by speaking broken German.

That night, we went down to the docks for some wine tasting. There was a long boardwalk that stretched all the way down along the beach, kind of like a park with a lot of trees and walkways. You would put down a deposit for a glass and then walk up and down the boardwalk trying different wines. We were with an Italian guy, Daniel, who knew his wine. He also knew Hungarian, so he would translate for us. We hit the clubs after that and headed home. The girls here are amazing.

8.19.06, Balatonfured and Siofok

Slept most of the day and switched hostels. Went down to the docks and read. That night we would take a boat across the lake to Siofok and party all night until the next morning when the ferry returns at 9am. That way we didn’t have to pay for another night in the hostel...problem solved.

Siofok is to Europeans (mainly Germans) what Cancun is to Americans. It is a massive party on the beach of Lake Balaton. We didn’t have anywhere to stay that night, so our plan was simple... party all night till the ferry takes us back to balatonfured in the morning. We left the docks around 9pm and it took an hour to cross the lake. As we got closer, I saw all the lights from beach clubs flare up and twist into the sky. There were giant spotlights rolling across the sky to attract people and bright neon pinks and greens pulsing to loud techno music. We went to get some food at first at an Italian place. We bought a bottle of wine and sat in the park to kill some time. We sat and talked while the clubs boomed in the distance. Around 1am, we decided to move out. I noted this place for later in case I wanted to crash on a park bench to sleep.

The first place we hit was a blacklight bar. It was cool, but was filled with 16 year olds. We moved on fast. Ran into a club that cost 3,800 Ft just to get in. That’s like $20... not happening. Sw, we headed out to the beach. Now this is where it started to look like we were on MTV’s Spring Break. The beach was packed with clubbers and dancing all up and down the docks. There were volleyball nets in the water and bkinis everwhere. We pretty much danced from club to club thta night. Ravers on the beach, people climbing up trees and dancing, glowsticks and strobe lights... It was awesome.

8.20.06

I opened my eyes hazily to a blurry silhouette against a light blue sky. I woke up on a bench in the park to some clubber asking me something in Hungarian. It took me a while to get my bearings. There were six guys hovering over me and one fat guy sat down next to me and cracked open a beer. I motioned to them that I had no lighter or cigs. Then he asked me if I had any Extasy or Coke. I said no. I couldn’t understand anything, so I got up and started to look for Mike. I found him on another bench asleep. We were in that park that we started drinking the bottle of wine in the night before. I woke him up and we started to walk back towards the docks to wait for our ferry. I found a video arcade and started playing this shooting game. From out of nowhere, the only English speaker I heard jumped out and yelled “Shoot the mother fucker!!!“ He was obviosly still drunk. He was this big ripped guy from Toronto. He told us all about how crazy his night was. Although we were talking to a drunk Canadian, it was nice to hear some English.

We returned and slept all day. Woke up to go down to the docks and watch some fireworks because it was Hungary’s Independence Day, so a lot of people showed up. They had this stage floating out in the middle of the cove, playing music and would eventually launch fireworks. Unfortunately, the obviouse occured and a massive rainstorm hit. So we ran home and watched boondock saints on my IPOD.

Off to meet Dracula in ROMANIA, booya.

CZECH ME OUT!!! Czech Republik and Poland

2006-11-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

8.2.06, Prague

I flew into Prague around 1pm. This was the first time I experienced ending up alone in a country where I didn’t know or speak any of the language, couldn’t read any signs, and didn’t understand any of the currency. I got some money out and it was like 1,000…2,000…or 3,000 Kronos! The currency exchange was so high. I was completely lost. I roamed the city blind… the map I had was useless because I couldn’t read any of the steet names. I was desperately looking for an internet café because I didn’t have anywhere to sleep that night and I had to find a place before it became dark. I frantically took a metro all around the city to hostels to find out any had openings for tonight. Three out of four said no. I was walking to my last resort hostel and bumped into two Finnish people and a guy from Mexico on the street and decided to find a room together. Leena and Peter are from Finland and Jorje is from Mexico City. The A and O Hostel had a room for all of us.

Jorje and I decided to start walking out into the city. He was a photography teacher so we had a lot to talk about. We stopped at a bar and I asked the bartender where we could find some cheap Czech food. She wrote down Goulash and told us to go to 4 Zieke. We found the place with some help from the locals and it was a traditional Czech restaurant, in a tourist way of course. There weren’t separate tables, they were just long cafeteria wooden tables. One guy would walk around carrying pints of beer and trying to give them to you because they would charge you money for it. Some carried the bread and wine around on a serving tray. We only wanteded to eat the Goulash and leave. It was unbelievably deliciouse. By far the best thing I’ve tasted on this trip. It consisted of 4 dumplings (2 bread and 2 bacon dumplings), sitting in a veal and beef stew.

I was still hungry after dinner, so we stoppede at a pizza place and I bought a tuna pizza. Jorje (Hoorhay) and I walked down the bank of the river like true photographers. We snuck up behind people to pull off a shot. The castle in the distance was beautiful and picturesque. Prague is known for the old architecture because it wasn’t destroyed from war.

On our way back, we ran into the Fins. We sat down in the main square and had some drinks. A night of incredibly interesting conversations followed with Italians, Finlands, English, Australians and Germans. Unfortunately I don’t remember any of it.

8.3.06, Prague +2

I checked out of A+O, went to the metro to find Hostel Marabou to meet up with the others. I was on a bus and some guy was feeling my pockets. Of course I’m always aware of pick pockets when I’m crowded on a bus with my gear, so I caught him. I just gave him the “I see you, I’m not a fucking idiot look,” and he walked away.

I got off the bus and czeched in to my new hostel (haha, czeched in…I crack myself up…) I met Mr. Ryan and Aaron and we went out into the lobby, had some beers and exchanged all of our crazy stories that happened over the last few weeks. We made a grocery run and made beef quesadillas with red peppers, avacados, and cheese. Mmmm…mmm…good. We also bought 6 Czech beers. BEER IS CHEAPER THAN WATER HERE, and it is some of the finest on the planet. That night we met a few Mexican girls, one of which is a graphic designer. Denise Chaves is studying in London now but lives in Florida usually. It was cool because I got to tell my Running of the Bulls story for the first time and they ate it up! We also exchanged music with some French girls and sang traditional songs with a group of Romanians!

8.4.06 Prague +3

Today I completely vegged out. I did some laundry. I haven’t washed my clothes in about a month. Keep in mind that I only have three T’s, two pants, and 3 boxers. Ya…pretty bad. I found some Queso at the store. Ryan edited some video footage while I wrote in my journal.

Later that night we pre-drank and taught the Mexicans, New Zealanders, and Romanians how to play King’s Cup. Then we went to go out to this dance club that people keep talking about. It was about midnight and the club doesn’t close until 5pm. That is not a typo. It is open from 6pm to 5pm. So we’d be out all night because the metros and busses stopped at midnight. We followed some Slovakians to the Charles Bridge and the club was located right at the bridge corner. The place was called Karlov Lazne. Apparantely it’s the biggest club in Central Europe. It is five stories tall with each level specializing in different music and atmosphere. The second floor had this crazy electonica music and green lasers everywhere. On the wall there was this giant metal angel and red lasers came out of slits in its eyes. It was a really cool decoration. It would look around the room, painting people with red laser beams. The stong strobe lights made everyone seem like they were flash images dancing. I ran into the Russian and Italian that I met the night before and they bought me drinks. The night was pretty fun, I danced to the crazy Euro-techno that dominated the Contenent. I walked back with Mike and Aaron at about 4:30am and helped some people along the way by pushing their stalled out car. It was a long walk.

8.5.06 Prague +4

The World Trippers had a little group pow-wow to determine what the route for the next month and a half would be. We might split up and meet in Krakow, Poland, on the August 9th. Nithin and I decided to go on a road trip to see the countryside of Czech. Aaron, Mr. Ryan, and Mike were going to head to Chesky Kromlov.

We moved out of Hostel Marabou and into Levir Hostel located in a different part of the city. Basically it was two large rooms with bunks in them. You had to walk through one to get to the other. Nithin and I decided to do a major walk around the city, to see the sites. It is a magnificent city. It has survived many wars, including the destructive WWII, and a harsh Communist rule, so most of the architecture is still intact as if it were hundreds of years ago. Many are still lined with gold pieces and crests placed onto building facads and sculptures. Most of the time the city is gloomy with overcast and rain, but that only emphasizes the brilliant colors of Prague. I can truly feel the Communist rule of the past in the architecture. Some buildings are very tall, flat, emotionless, grey, dominating with powerful facades. There are sculptures lining nearly every building in the city.

The most impressive point in the city is the St. Charles Bridge. It is important because a miracle occurred here hundreds of years ago. A man was thrown over the bridge to face the icy cold river below and greet death. I don’t remember why he was sentenced to be tossed over, but he was surely to die. While falling, five golden stars appeared over his head to form a halo as he plunged into the water. The bridge has since been decorated with black and gold statues that look down from sides of the bridge onto those who walk across it. These depict things like angels, a crusifixion of Christ, and even St. Charles with his five gold starred halo around his head. I wish I cold be hear during the winter season to see the freshly fallen snow blanket the bridge statues and the cathedral spires that break the skyline. The bridge leads to the castle and large gothic cathedral that sits at the top of the hill and dominates the city view.

As Nithin and I were walking up through the tiny streets to the castle, we heard a lot of singing and commotion from a tiny midevil pub next to us. We decided to stop in for a drink. I told the bartender to give us something “Czech.” He showed up at our table with a shot and a beer each. I don’t remember what the shot was called, but it was some strong stuff! I think it was some kind of vodka. It burned the hell out of my throat, but I took it like a champ. We also ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, some garlic and onion fried bread. ( Make mental note not to eat this on future dates ;) The yelling came from 10 drunk Italian guys at the end of the table. They had a megaphone and were yelling at people walking by out thewindow to come inside and drink. They were yelling things like, “Italia! World Cup Champs!” I cheered them on and they said “Hooray America!!” then we attempted to sing our own National Anthem and failed miserably, which was very embarrassing. We walked with them over the bridge. Now I know where Italian guys get their reputation. They would walk up to women, young, old, and take a picture with them. Then they would all walk up and give them a kiss for being in the photo. Amazingly, this worked!… for Italians. If I tried to do that, I’d get slapped.

On the way home, I did a little shopping and one of the girls working there was talking to me. She said she escaped Russia from the Communists. I can’t help but wonder what her life was like growing up. Her name is Lucy. That night, I just hung out at the hostel with a group of Irish girls from Dublin. They seemed very interested in our stories about Tornadoes. There was also a girl there who had met JD and Turk from “Scrubs“ in a coffee shop in Amsterdam.

8.6.06 Prague +5

Walked to the Dancing House, a medern architectural wonder, then continued all the way up the river to the north part of Prague to the Jewish section. I saw synogogues around almost every corner and the Star of David was engraved all over the place. I noticed thsi part of town was not nearly as flash as the other parts. The Synogogues were hardly noticable except for a Star of David emblem on the well.

I walked back down the river to see the Astronomical Clock in the main square next to the St. Charles Bridge. This thing was mesmerizing. It was built in the 1400’s and hasn’t stopped since. I couln’t figure out what all the symbols meant. I recognized some Zodiak symbols, but had no idea about the others. At the top of every hour the clock comes to life and there is a small skeleton that pulls on a rope to ring the tower bell (he represents Death.) It was so anti-climatic and lame. I can’t believe I wasted 2 minutes of my life on this puppet show. There was even a puff of smoke that is let out at the end and a waning kazoo sound occurs. LAME.

Back at the hostel, Nithin and I ran into a new group of English kids. We taught them how to play Presidents and Assholes. Then moved onto a bar because we were being too loud and the hostel owner pretty much kicked us all out. There were also two girls studying in France, one of them from Mexico and the other from Taiwan. Another girl was from Japan. We all talked about where we come from and attempted to draw maps of our countries on bar napkins with crayons.

8.7.06, Czech Road Trip to Uncle Harry’s!

I was thinking about getting up at 4:30am to walk to the bridge and photograph it, but I thought that walking alone at night with my camera wasn’t a good idea. The previous day, Nithin found a flyer that said ,“Two day road trip, meet at the Travelers Hostel tomorrow.“ So we walked to the van and met Peter, our driver and two Aussies, Sarah and her brother Daniel. So the van will tke us around the Czech Republic to see some sights and then spend two nights in a completely remote town at a hostel called Uncle Harry’s. The first stop we made was in Kutna Hora to see a church made of human bones. There was a graveyard here since the 12th century. Around the 16th century, so many people were buried here that there wasn’t any more room to bury people. They think the remains of around 300,000 people located around the church. So they decided to decorate the church with the found and dug up bones. Some were soldiers in past Czech wars because you could see that some skulls had holes or massive damage done to them by a weapon of some sort. There is a chandalier dangling from the ceiling that contains every bone on the human body. It was definately a morbid feeling when you have thousands of human skulls staring at you. I wonder what these people would think of where their remains are now, and how they are being used as a tourist site...

It was pouring rain out and we headed to the small town of Dalecin. The countryside was very interesting. There are NO tourists here. Nobody speadks English. I find it interesting that I am really covering some ground here. I can tell a difference in the way people look. The bone structures are different. I thin kthe Czech/Slovik people have brioad, flat faces. The women here are very pretty. The clouds were rising out of the forrests like they were evaporating out of the trees. It seems like a very cold, wet place, but Peter assured me that it does get sunny here too. It had been raingin so much that the rivers were flooding as we drove through the tiny villages. We finally pulled up to Uncle Harry’s and met the other people staying there. Nathan, an Australian, and Fred from Norway. They told us that Uncle Harry was the name of the village drunk. They said maybe we might even see him tonight if we’re lucky.

We eventually went to the pub. This is only one of two in the entire town. It was only a short walk and it really turned out to be the basement of some families house. A beer here only cost about 60 cents US for a .5L. I sat with another American, Chris from Maryland and Nathan. Chris works at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. We immediatly hit it off because I’ve been to Philmont a couple of times myself. I found out that Nathan was well on his way to being a special forces Sniper for the Australian SAS, but he injured his back during a training excersise and had to quit. The girl serving us had to have been about 15 years old. One drink led to another, and another, and a shot of Slivovice, and another, etc... We drunkenly stumbled back to Uncle Harry’s and put on some music. Drink led to drink, led to screwdrivers, led to wine, led to tequila... ya, you can see where this is going... COW TIPPING!!!

Cow tipping is a game made up by incredibly bored teenagers in very small towns around the globe. They have nothing better to do than sneak up to cows in a field when they are sleeping. Cows sometimes fall asleep while standing. With enough experience and talent, one can sneak up to the cow and... push it over! Hahahahahahahahahahaha. It is quite an amazing site folks. So, we all stumbled out into the country fields behind Uncle Harry’s almost unable to walk in search of the elusive Czech Cow. Nathan was so pissed (drunk) that he fell over into a puddle deep enough to cover his head and was laughing so hard that he couldn’t climb out for a good 10 minutes. We had to get across the electric cattle fences which was an adventure in itself. Well, we never found any cows. Little did we know they are usually put into the stables at night by the farmers. The rest of the night consisted of head banging to Rammstein and breakdancing to NWA. Another adventure in the bag.

8.8.06, Czech Road Trip continued

Today we drove to a cave system in the southern part of the country. Unfortunately the rain had flooded some of the caves so we couldn’t go rafting in the underground lakes, but we still went inside to have a look. It was nothing too exciting. It reminded me of the caves at home and in Carlesbad Cavern in Texas. As we were driving away from the cave, I was watching people we drove by the small towns. I wonder what their lives are like. I am seeing them, these souls, through my point of view. What if I could switch souls right then and there and be in their body. What would it be like living in this small village in Czech? We stopped for lunch in this small town and Peter was friends with the owner. It is known for their Borsch Soup and of course their dumplings. Peter made it clear to order only one because they are both very filling. He has never seen anyone finish both the soup and the dumplings in one sitting, and he has brough hundreds of people here. Well, Daniel decided to try both. I got the soup and it was so good. It is Russian, but they make it very well here. It is made of beets, and is served with whipped cream on top. It is a sweet broth soup. Very very good. Daniel did not finish both. The dumplings are so dense, it is amazing how only three of them would fill you up. When we got home, Peter helped us figure out how to get to Poland from here.

8.9.06, Travel to Krakow, Poland

Peter drove Nithin, Aaron and I to a city in Czech and told us to take a bus from there to Oloumoc. From there, we would catch a train to Krakow. A two hour ride later we arrived in Oloumoc. The bus broke down on the way and we stopped another bus on route to drop us off because we had to catch a train and didn’t want to miss it to arrive in Poland late at night.

Oloumoc was a pit. Nothing but cold concrete, flat walled apartment complexes, and large fumimg towers from power plants surrounding the city. I can imagine it would get very depressing here come winter. We had a 2 hour layover here so Nithin and I walked around while Aaron read and guarded our luggage. There was random trash pits and an occasional concrete slab wall, graffitied of course, with barbed wire running along the top. We were lucky and it was sunny out, otherwise I’d probably have to shoot myself. OK, I guess it wasn’t that bad, but I just can’t imagine what there is to do in this town growing up as a kid or living here. The further East I go, the more old lady’s with canes I see. I guess they can’t afford medical aid, or can’t afford a retirement home, so they simply walk around enjoying the occasional sunlight they get.

We arrived in Krakow, the air was warm, the building facades were tinted pink, orange red colors from the setting sun. We stayed at the Good Bye Lenin Hostel. It was a hip little place with a brand new bar and layout in the basement. The whole theme was about the Anti-Communist revolution. The walls were painted with revolution symbols used in the past to topple the unwanted Communist rule throughout Eastern Europe.

There was a barbique that night, so I sat outside and talked. I met some Romans who took a large interest about the US. They me a lot of great information about Poland because they had been there for almost two weeks already. I thought it was funny because I was talking to Giulia and I said the word „sweet“ in responce to one of her cooking recipies and she started to list off sweet Polish foods. I explained to her that „sweet“ is a slang word and I didn’t mean for her to list sweet foods. Luca and Giulia invided us for dinner tomorrow night and wanted to cook us a real Roman dinner. Some REAL Italian food.

I also met some Aussies and Irish people. I tried some Polish Vodka which was very strong, and then a drink that the bartender made up. It was a shot of vodka dropped into a glass of apple juice. It tasted great!

8.10.06 Krakow

Today, Nithin and I explored Krakow. We walked around the entire city. The architecture here is different from any other I’ve seen. In the town square there is a large tower with spires that run high up above the city and are all topped with shiny golden orbs. A trumpeter trumpets a song at the top of every hour which has been a tradition for hundreds of years. Krakow seems to be next on the „soon to be swarmed with tourists“ list. There was a guy with a little Elvis puppet show. Great... I come all the way to Krakow to see some cheesy Elvis gig. We climbed one of the towers to see an overview of the city. We were walking to the castle from the main square and saw this cathedral and thought... Why not go inside? Turns out there is an exact replica of the Shroud of Turin displayed on the wall. It was amazing to see. Although it wasn’t the real one, which is kept in a locked and protected box in Turin, it was so mysterious. You could actually see the oils from the skin of whomever’s body was wrapped in it. It is supposedly the cloth wrapped around Jesus after he was crusified.

We continued to walk up to the Krakow Castle. I proved to be a complete iditot when I somehow managed to reconfigure my combo lock on my backpack. I had to crack a 999 possibility code in order to get back inside my bag. I was walking through the streets carefully turning the dials one by one and pulling each time to see if it opened. I eventually got the right digit combo at number 393. Hope that doesn’t happen again. The castle had a cathedral on top and looked like it had some different features on it that must have been added over it’s long history. It looked like a giant puzzle piece that was fit together over the ages. There was a main tower with a giant golden clock on it, then a tiny peak off of that with little golden orb spires, then they slapped on some gargoyle water spouts, but they resembled Oriental architecture?!

On the walk back home, we passed the house of Pope John Paul II. We asked what was inside and the ticket woman told us some of his old property like the Pope’s old snow ski set and bed set. I really didn’t want to pay money to see JPII’s old checkers board, so we left.

I strung up the Hostels old and crappy guitar so I could play it and relax, then took a nap. Later that night I went to the clubs with two Irish girls, four Irish guys, one English girl, and Kyle from Indiana. Kyle was a great guy and had been teaching English to kids in Switzerland for a while. I had absolutely no clean clothes. I think it has been about a month since wash, so I had to wear my tacky swimsuit out and flip flops... to a dance club... felt a little awkward but screw it, I don’t care.

It figures, my drinking buddy was an Irish guy. The first round he ordered for me was a double jager bomb. Buyt they ran out of Jager, so instead we used some really hardcore Polish stuff. So basically, we had to drop 4 shots into 4 glasses of red bull and down them all in a line. Ha, I didn’t drink the rest of the night, that set me up pretty good. I was dancing with the Irish girls and noticed there were more guys in the club than girls. I went over to talk to Kyle and some guy had told him that we were actually in a gay bar. Then things started to sweep into perspective. Lots of guys, tight clothes, flamboyant bartender... yup, it’s a gay bar! It was a cool place and all, but we decided to go to another club.

By this time, we’re all pretty tipsy and I’m standing outside this club taking with the guys and this dude comes up to me. He askes me if I had seen a girl standing outside like he was looking for her and couldn’t find her. I told him that I hadn’t and we just started talking about the club scene. He walked up to the bouncers and said something in Polish to them, then they just let us in! We all headed towards the bar but ran into a massive line. The guy that got us in told us to follow him to another bar on the other side of the club, so we followed. There was no crowd over there. Kyle and one of the guys with us bought a drink. By the way, MGD is huge here. The guy asked me if I wanted a drink. I was like... hell ya I want a drink! So he brought me one from the bar. As we’re walking back across the dance club Kyle grabs me and says, „Dude, that guy is totally hitting on you.“ I asked him if he was sure because I just thought he was some cool Polish guy who wanted to buy a round. Then I saw him dancing like a woman on the dancefloor and realized Kyle was right. Maybe gay guys are attracted to hawaiian swim trunks, but damn! That’s twice in one night! Anyway, we all started dancing with the girls and Kyle goes into this breakdance. So I jumped in and did some backspin, windmill stuff and everyone flipped out! People were coming over to shake my hand and girls were looking at me and whispering to each other! I felt pretty cool! Kyle kept trying to make me do it again throughout the night but I was getting too tipsy and there were more guys who seemed to respond to it than girls which made me worry a bit. We stayed out until the sun came up and then walked home.

8.11.06, Auschwitz and Berkendau (Auschwitz II)
THIS SECTION IS VERY EMOTIONAL. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO FEEL DEPRESSED, SKIP OVER IT.

Aaron, Nithin and I took a mini bus to the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Berkendau. It was about a two hour ride to get to the city where they are located on the outskirts of. I was talking lively with the people around me on the bus, but started to realize as I was getting closer that I was about to walk into a place where 1.5 million people were tortured, gassed, and murdered. As I got out of the car I thought to myself... this doesn’t look like a concentration camp. It was a sunny, nice afternoon with a suddle breeze.

We walked into the visitor center and bought a guided tour ticket. You couldn’t see anything from the outside. I read some of the letters on the display in the hallway from people in the capm to their loved ones, and it was tearjearking. I couldn’t help myself and was trying not to get teary, but those letters where horribly sad. They were basically saying that they knew they were going to die and wrote their goodbyes to their families. We entered an auditorium and watched a brief film and afterward the tour started. I walked out of the tour center and stopped in front of the camp gates. ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work gives freedom. These are the steel molded letters that struck fear into the hearts of thousands as they walked underneath and through the iron gates. I’ve seen photos plenty of times from outside and at a distance, but now I have an idea of what it was like on the other side. The guard towers and electrified barbed wire fences sent a hellish feeling down my spine. I just walked into the hell of 1.5 million people. The camp didn’t look like what I originally had thought. This camp was inside of brick buildings, not the wooden horse shacks. Auschwitz was not a full fledged Death Camp until the Nazi’s decided to initiate the Final Solution and terminate all the Jews in Europe. They would either kill you immediately or send you to work and starve to death.

Throughout the tour, we walked into the barrack buildings which are now museums and saw the left overs of those who died. Entire rooms were filled with womans hair, luggage, glasses, crutches and false lims, teddy bears, clothing, shoes, and empty cannisters of Cyclon B pellets. It is truly an overload of emotions to see and almost be directly connected to the murdered. The shoes of the children struck me the most. I can’t describe how horrific the feeling is.

They took us to Block 11 which is also known as the Death Block. This is where people were taken to be punished. Hardly anyone who went in ever came back out. There were special cells here. Walking to the dungeon below and through the cells was horrific. If you payed close attention you could see scratch marks in the walls. Some had etchings of christ, or names or some were simply scratched over ande over again into fingernail streaks. One room was large enough for 20 people. They would put 40 people inside and only leave one tiny little airhole. When 20 people would suffocate, then they would let the others free. Another torture cell was called the standing cell. This was a brick walled cell only large enough for one person to stand. They would put four people inside, brick them up and leave them for death. It is haunting to think about the amount of unthinkable, horrid deaths that occured in this 3 ft square area that I was standing right in front of.

Outside Block 11, in between it and the Womans Block, was the excecution area. All the windows of the buildings were blocked off so they couldn’t see or figure out what was actually going on there. Here the SS actually acknowledged that they were breaking international laws of execution, so they simply put a blindfold over their operations and closed off the yard from public view to minimize the witnesses. The most efficient way to kill people, the administrator thought, was to use 1 bullet for 1 person. So, they used the shooting wall to line prisoners up and deliver one bullet to each of their heads. But the SS did it by shooting them from the back of the head and not from the front, which is a very dishonerable way to die.

We eventually arrived to the gas chambers. These were the first gas chambers and crematorium ever made. This was by far the most disturbing part of my experience. 70% of all people brought to the camp were sent immediately to the gas chambers upon their arrival. They were told to leave their stuff and to go take a shower. They crammed about 700 men, women, and children into a room, told everyone to undress, and walked them into the chamber. It had shower heads fixed into the ceilings just to make them actually think they were in a shower room and not to spark panic and chaos. They locked the massive doors and dropped tiny little gravel size pellets of Cyclon-B in through the room. !5-20 minutes of panick and screaming followed as everyone sufficated from the poison gas. In the dark concrete room I was standin inside, the SS murdered 10’s of thousands of people. There were horrific scratch marks in the concrete, on the walls and ceilings. Now, the only thing that remains in the room is a memorial gravestone with flowers in the center. It is hard to think of that many people dying. I mean there were so many souls extinguished in this room that you have to catagorize them as numbers, like 10’s of thousands. But it is hard to just imagine only one of those souls being killed in such a inhumane way. Directly next door is the crematorium. The SS used other prosoners to haul all the bodies out of the room and into the massive ovens to burn the bodies. They would take the ashes and distribute them amount the exterior fields of the camp. This whole process took no longer than an hour until the next mass murder was to occur. When it got crowded, people would have to wait outside while the group in front of them were gassed and burned. I remember hearing a nothing screaming people in my mind while I walked through. Horrible... completely horrible.

After we left the chamber, we all got a 20 minute break before we headed to the next camp, Berkendau, which is 3 km away from Auschwitz.

Berkendau, Auschwitz II, looked very familiar and much more like a concentration camp to me. It was a massive field with row upon row upon row of barracks and electrified barbed wire fences and watch towers. The most famous view here is the train tracks that go directly through the large brick walled tower entrance. The camp had four gas chambers and 4 crematoriums. When the Nazi’s implemented the Final Solution, these death machines wer used non-stop, 24 hours a day. They would kill about 1,400 people per day. I walked into some of the wooden barracks. These are meant to hold horses, but can fit about 200 people inside it. The Nazi’s crammed triple the amount of people it is meant to hold. Usually, people had to share a bed with two other people, or sleep on the floor piled with disease ridden straw. The Nazi’s generally didn’t go near the barracks because they smelled so horrible. The beds had straw matresses filled with bugs and disease. There was usually no heat so the temperature outside was the same as inside. The prisoners only had their striped clothes and a stringy thin blanket. Prisoners were only allowed to use the bathroom twice a day and only had a limited time to do it. There were only a dozen concrete holes to use as a tiolet, so people had to scramble and beat one another to use it. You would be severly punished or killed if you went to the bathroom any time other than the given two times. I walked all the way down the train tracks and onto the other end of the camp. Here, the SS frantically dynamited the other four gas chambers in attempt to deystroy the evidence of their genocide. The ruins are still left untouched after they were blown up. I can’t help to think when I look at those bombed ruins of the gas chambers, how these soldiers who dropped those Cyclon-B pellets in from the roof could sit there and listen to 700 blood curtling screams of people as they are sufficating day after day and not have any feeling of wrong doing. Men, women, children... I can hear the screams of those people in my head. They don’t stop until I look away. 1.5 million people screaming...

I took my time and walked back to the entrance. I kept thinking that every foot step I took, somebody had probably died there. There had been so much human ashes and bodies spread and distributed around the camp that it had completely fertilized the whole place. Human remains are literally all around me... in the foilage, in nature. Every blade of grass, every tree, every shrub and bush. Everything, even nature has been affected by the dead.

I met up with Nithin and we took a train back to Krakow. Aaron had left us a little earlier so he could travel with Mike and Mr. Ryan to go to Budapest. As we walked back through the town we stopped to get some traditional Polish Dumplings, which were of course excellent. That night I hung out with the Irish and Kyle. We had a late night pizza craving and went out to a cafe to get it. After a nice culture exchange talk, we went to bed.

8.12.06 Krakow

Nithin and I decided not to go to Ukraine today because the train situation didn’t work out for us. We didn’t want to end up in Lviv at 10pm with no place to stay, so we went to another hostel, King Hostel, and vegged out for a day. We decided to head to Bratislava, Slovakia the next day.

Great Britain and Beyond

2006-10-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here is another part of my trip up and ready for you to enjoy! Have at it!

7.23.06 London

Made my way into London and tubed it to my hostel in Central Hendon. I spent most of the day planning and making reservations for the next two weeks. I went to a Jewish park, bought a baguette and Nutella for lunch. I could tell I was in Britain because the kids around me were playing Cricket, Tennis and Soccer! For dinner I had some nice salty vinegary Haddock Fish and Chips. Bought myself a beer and went to shower. There’s something about drinking a beer in the shower that calms me down. Must’ve been a reminisance of those good ‘ol college days.

Met some others who were staying there and we talked in the basement. One guy, Micheal, sho I think was probably and alcoholic, but I noticed how he talked to people. We went across the street to
buy a beer and bhe talked to the Pakistani owner. He asked him his name, then if he had any children? How many? The guy seemed to warm right up to him. We returned back to the hostel and hung out in the basement for a while and I had a very interesting conversation with a Scottish girl from Edinburgh. We exchanged views and perspectives about our home countries. She said that America is very nice because it has a piece of every geographical landscape. This explains why Americans are a little more self centered. They don’t need to go anywhere else.

7.24.06 London City!

I headed out to walk London and do a massive “see everything” walk through the city. My impression af London before traveling there was that it was old, gloomy, and not very interesting. Aft
er visiting it though, I have to say it is one of the coolest cities on the planet. In school, you’d only learn about British History, not present. It is a smorgasborgue of Ancient, Historical, and powerful remnants of the Britain Empire and contemporary state of the art architecture and design movements. The Thame River I walked through the South Shaw cathedral. I continued to see Big Ben and Parliament which was very impressive. Big Ben is not too tall, but the architectural detail is amazing. I had a bus to catch down south to the coast to Portsmouth. I barely made the bus. I had to run to the bus station. I got on the bus all sweaty and nervous because I didn’t have any place to stay.

7.25.06 Portsmouth

The bus driver dropped me off at a hotel, very nice, the previous night. I ran into a serious problem because I planned on sleeping in the bus station, but they will apparently arrest you for doing so. Therer were no rooms anywhere! Fortunately the lady at the desk offered me a room out for maintanance for 40 pounds (that’s 80$). It was the cheapest I could find so I took it.

I had a great night sleep in a hotel, showered and shaved, and headed out to the Navel Shipyard Docks. I’ve read and learned about the famouse Battle of Trafalgar throughout College. This is probably one of the most famouse naval battles even when the British Royal Fleet defeated the power hungry Napolean with his French and Spanish fleets in 1805. The movie “Master and Command“ will give you an idea of what it was like as a British sailor. The Commander, Admiral Horatio Nelson is considered a national hero. He led the entire fleet from his flagship, the HMS Victory crashing directly through the French and Spanish fleet. The Admiral did something never before attempted in sea warfare. Instead of lining up the ships parrallel to their enemy and blasting each other to hell, Nelson led at the front of two separate lines of ships perpendicular and crashed through the enemy barrier of ships. Sailing in two separate lines lessened the chance of their ships getting hit and it severed half of Napoleans fleet rendering them useless because they would have to turn around and that would have been too late to save their navy.

Nelson was hit in the chest while standing on deck on the 1st ship, the Flagship Victoory, leading the attack. The survived only long enough to be told they were victorious and passed away below deck after the battle. It wasn’t just the incredible leader of Britain, that won the battle. Napoleon lost because he was going up against an island nation. A nation of sailors in their own territory, protecting their country, families, homes. They certainly are masters of the sea and have been for thousands of years. Napoleon’s fleet, although good, did not match the training and skill s that has been bread into the British.

Well, Napoleon would be rolling over in his grave to know that the Victory survived the battle and still sits afloat in portsmouth. I spent the day walking through the museaums of the British Navy, walked through the massive Victory, and took a boat tour of the port to see all of the new and old Royal Navy battleships.

I would’ve looked to go south and see the D-day Museum in respect for the “Great Generation“ and their soldiers lost. Unfortunately that’ll have to wait another day. Time calls to go to Penzance, the Pirate City on Lands End! ( Little did I know that the entire time that I’ve spent in London, my watch has been an hour ahead. So I waited and probably could’ve seen the museum after all... oh well.

This was my first time on a train solo. Although simple to some, it was a challange for me. I had 3 exchanges in 2 different towns. It was hard for me to decipher the thick accents of the overspeakers, so everytown I arrived at, I had all my stuff ready to jummp out if it was the right place. Well, I jumped out too earlly at Exeter Central, not Exeter St. David station. So I had 20 minutes to run through the town to get to the next station before my Penzance train left. I was relying on some crazy sequence of directions that this janitor guy gave me and had to remember. I guess all those nights working as a server paid off by enhancing my memorization skills. I ran through this unkown city but found the station about 10 minutes before my train took off. Exeter seemed like a nice small British village and seemed pretty cool during my little panicked jog. You know when you are in a very open geographical space and the further out you look the more pale blue everything looks? Well thta’s what the countryside around Exeter looked like. A paleish blue fog, brightened by the suddle setting sun over old potted chimneys and rolling hills. Oh ya, I forgot about this part. Right before I got on the train I went to a vending machine with a craving for Skittles. Well with my luck the freakin Skittle bag got stuck dangling in the machine. I’m already pissed from my own stupidity of jumping off the train to soon, so I shook the machine to knock it loose. A Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter Bar fell instead. Damn it! I want my Skittles! So I kept shaking, despite the awkward stares of bystanders and it eventually fell along with another candy, Maltesers. Boo ya! Luck paid off and I got away with 3 candies. A sign that Penzance holds a fun time for me and I think I’ll blend in quite well now that I smell like a bloddy Pirate after my run.

The train arrived and I walked along in the dark with all my stuff through a town known for Pirates...ironic isn’t it. I found my place, a bed and breakfast pension called Camilles Bed and Breakfast. The wonderful lady, Kathy, waited up late for me to let me in. I immediately passed out.

7.26.06, Penzanca (Penzaance)

I walked down the street after a lovely English breakfast made by Kathy, which consisted of a fried egg, a lemony flavored fried piece of toast, thick bacon, a fried tomato and coffee. I had an entire day and night in front of me, so I was all about sitting back and relaxing. The smell salty sea breeze air and the harbor instanly set off a barrage of memories. I hopped over the sea walk edge and down onto the rocks where the tide had left tiny snails and sea creatures in the nooks and cranny’s. I used to do this as a kid walking along the Marginal Way off the coast of Ogunquit, Maine. I felt like a kid again, getting my hands and clothes dirty looking for slimy sea creatures. I found a really cool place behind the sea wall of this swimming pool. The rocks led out and behind the pool wall from the street, completely hidden. Around the corner the rocks came to an end with a cluster of rocks. Some hand rails extended off the rock and into the water. There were 3 booey’s, each about 100 meters out from each other. Stretching straigh out into the bay. A lady with a swim cap was calmly swimming back from the booey. I’d have to come back later and try that.

I walked on the beach looking for sea shells to the large St. Micheals Mount out in the next bay. A few fishermen claimed to see the Archangel Micheal appear on top of the rock island just off the coast inside the bay. So, they built a castle on the top in dedication to the sighting. The cool thing about it was that there was a causeway that lead from the beach out to the island and you could only get to the mount at low tide. The walkway swallowed by the sea at high tide. The castle was so-so. the view on top was awesome. I especially liked leaning over the edge of the wall to feel the constant sea breeze blowing up the rock walls and through my hair. It smelled of the sea and perfumed by the flower garden at the very base of the wall. I took my time walking back and read my book on the beach. It was nice to just take a time out and not have to be somewhere at a certain time.

I made it to the bus station and tried to catch a bus to the Minnack Theater and Lands End. The bus system was a total mess. I couldn’t figure out which one to get on and didn’t want to pay, so I just walked back to the spot behind the pool sea wall, read and looked into the sun. A teenage girl apprached me and started talking. She said something kind of weird. I told her I was from the US and described my hometown, then she asked me if it was the same plase as America. Then she asked me if there was a lot of “Dark skinned people“ down there. I said “Black people?“ She said ya. I told her “Yes, I guess it depends where you go...“ Then she said “isn’t it dangerous in America?“ I kind of laughed and said it depends where you go. I said probably no different than walking around Penzance late at night.

I decided to go get some Fish and Chips and try some English beer, so I walked up the steep slope into town. Penzance is definately a tourist town because everything was laugh out loud expensive and modern, but if you walk foar and deep enough, you’ll find the real deal. I found this fish stand right next t oa pub...perfect. I walked into the pub andasked her how Scrumpy Jacks is. She filled up a small glass and gave it to me. It turned out to be a ccider and said no thanks, I want some English beer. I went to get some cod n chips with lots of salt, vinegar, and ketchup and then bouth a pint of Eden. Good, strong English beer. I sat outside on a pub bench and took in the rays of the late afternoon sun. I was watching this guy playing with these two youngsters. He was pretending to fight them and looked like a fighter himself. A real English tough guy, maybe a boxer, not bulging with muscles but you just know he could kick some ass. Everyone was just so laid back and ready to start a fun night of drinking. It seemed like thy all knew each other. A really nice small town bond that maybe I will experience some day. I was getting extremely tired and had walked many miles onver the last two days, so I went back and crashed.

7.27.06

I woke up around 7am and decided to grab my towel and head to my spot on the harbor coast behind the swimming pool. I had determined myself to swim out into the bay to the third booey, 300 meters. The water was frigid cold, but as I noticed an old lady splash in right next to me and slowly doggy paddle out, I mentally punched myself in the face and said stop being such a bab y. Even grandma over there doesn’t mind the cold. So I dove in off the rocks and started to head out from the coast. The cold immediately took my breath away but I told myself to keep swimming. I know that I’m a string swimmer and could handle this, but I had to keep reminding myself to breath. When I looked down into the water and only saw dark, almost black blue, I started to get a little freaked...especially because the last chapter in the book I was reading ended with this guy getting attacked by a shark. I knew there were no nets installed in the bay because seals were swimming around earlier. The cold, the dark, the deep, and the distance all started to freak me out. I was passing grandma by this time and couldn’t tell if she noticed that I was loosing my cool. I just wanted to touch the 100m booey turn around and haul ass back. I knew it was very deep here and seeing how far away from the rocks I was just made me swim faster when I turned around. I knew it was highly unlikely, but I just kept having images pop up in my head of a shark rising out of the deep to take my legs off. I made it back in one piece though. Well, I was a little dissapionted with myself. The guy who was captain of his High School Swim Team, the guy who ran with the bulls, couldn’t handle a little swim in the bay. Well I’m sorry I can’t handle deep dark and cold ocean water, but I was born and raised in Colorado for crying out loud...whatever.

When I got back to the pension, Kathy had made breakfast for me already. She was so nice and I told her about my swim. I think she could tell because I was shivering. Good thing she gave me coffee to warm up. She even put my suit in the dryer for me. I said thatnks and took off for the bus to New Quay (New Key.)

New Quay, a surfer hot spot in Europe. I only had an hour here, so I checked my email. I took a taxi to the airport. It took me 40 minutes to get from New Quay to Cardiff. I had an entire night to burn but I planned on crashing on an airport bench so I had to stay near to the airport. My flight took off early that morning. The security guard told me there was a free bus to Roose, a town 3 km from here. I went to the bus and asked the driver if there was any food in Roose. He looked at me like I was crazy and said why do you want to go to Roose? There is nothing there! Well I decided to go anyway because it beats sitting at the airport. I had an awesome conversation with the guy. Never got his name, but he told me the has a wife, two kids, and has never lived in more thtan two towns in his whole life. He found out what I was doing and pretty much cursed himself for not doing it himself before he got married because his wife doesn’t like to travel anywhere. I told him not to worry because he has 2 beautiful children. I noticed his face brighten when I said that. I knokw he didn’t like his job. He was regretting not traveling, but when I mentioned his kids he lit up. He asked me some things about America and Colorado. He said that all he hears about America is violence and guns. I said well the movies don’t really help that. He found it interesting when I told him that the states all thgouh they look like small countries are very unifies as America. He told me that in Britai, the Welch hate the Cornwalls, or the Scotts hate the English, yadda yadda. He said they’ll even treat you differentely depending on where you’re from. He asked me about racism in America. This was interesting because he was a black man himself. I told him that it does still exist, but it is slowly dwindling out with each generation. He asked about crime and I mentioned Detroit and New Orleanes as being pretty bad. Then he brought up the topic of the Hurrican Katrina and how the government didn’t help anyone. I explained to him the way our country works and the difference between the state and federal governments. The federal will help when the state declares a state of emergency and that is where the mess up was. I said that people try and spin it one way or another for their plitical gain, but thats what it really comes down to. He said the papers reported that George W was a Racist!!! A racist!! I laughed and said that is so rediculous to think that soething like a natural disaster rescue operation failure could be blamed on race. I told him our president is not a racist. He seemed to be enlightened more than anything. He was absorbing my info instead of debating it which felt really nice for a change to know that somebody wanted to learn about my country instead of condem it. We talked about currencies and unions and the French...haha... We both agreed that they complain way too much and that their country revols around people protesting, striking, and rioting...in a joking, stereotypical mannar of course. Anyway before I said goodbye to him I told him he should take the train to France someday. Traveling is really not as difficult as you might imagine it to be. I wonder if I had any effect on him when I shook his hand and said goodbye. Maybe he will try and travel out of Britain for once and expand his borders.

Roose was such a small Welsh town. It had one restaraunt and it was closed for the next week. So I bought a Lunchables from the gas station. I felt like I was packing a lunch from kindergarten, but it did the trick. I wasn’t going to just sit there for 5 hours, so I decided to explore. I kept thinking about this quote I wrote in the front of my journal...Experience is not what happens to a man, it’s what a man does with what happens to him – Aldous Huskey. So I found a path leading down into a field. I followed it about a half a mile and it opened up to this beautiful rocky cliff coast of a large sea inlet. The other side was miles and miles away. I went down to the rocks below and explored the caves and cliffs. The tide was coming in and I didn’t want to be caught down there when it did, so I had to hurry back to a spot where I hid my backpack. A little kitten had appeared next to me when I was sitting there. It had a tag on it, so I knew it was just one of the locals. Anyway, he tugged along with me for a while. After enjoying the view, smells, and sounds of the Ocean, I walked up into a field above the cliffs, followed by the cat, and watched Wedding Crashers on my Ipod. The sun was setting and it was getting cold, so I said goodbye to my friend and took the bus back to the airport.
By the way, my clothes have now gone from smelly pirate to craggy mountain yetti.

7.28.06 Glasgow, Scotland

What’s the first thing to do when arriving in Glasgow? Go see Superman Returns of course. I hadn’t seen a movie in so long that I treated myself to one. Glasgow is a very industrial city. You can tell just by the look of the cranes that hang over teh river as it travels deep into the city. The reason I came here was to see the design of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Mackintosh 4. They were a milestone in design history and can be seen through art, architecture, etc. It was an Art Nouveau style and can be seen on pretty much every building in Glasgow. I went to the Glasgow School of Art. A place I studied while I was a student at KU. Unfortunately I missed the last tour because it was full. But I did get to go inside for a bit. Walked around town for a bit and went home to take a nap.

I went out to a bar that night that a girl recommended to me called Campus. The Glasgow nightlife is supposed to be the best in Scotland. It was alright. Campus’s theme was a “Frat“ college party. So pretty much everything I’m used to. But I met a guy wearing a Coheed and Cambria shirt and we had a long talk on good bands. He told me some great Scottish bands to look up. I bought some Subway and walked home.

7.29.06 Stirling

I took a bus to Stirling, where William Wallace defeated the English at the Battle of Sirling Bridge in 1298. This is a very cool city, nestled just below the highland mountains. There is a Wallace Monument, a tower placed on a nearby peak dedicated to Wallace, Scotlands national hero. The city is on somewhat of a slope, with Stirling castle resting on the top. Much smaller and less touristy from Glasgow. I stopped at the hostle, Willy Wallace Backpackers, and met Victor from Holland. He was sleepingn in the bunk above me and we both decided to start walking around. We bought some food for dinner at the grocery store, then walked 3 miles to the Wallace Monument. It is a very narrow, very tall column, kind of like a miniature Saurumons Tower in the Lord of the Rings. Outside, a Scottish guy dressed as a soldier fighting for Wallace gave a re-enactment of a soldier about to fight at Stirling Bridge. The English threatened to take away Scotlands independance and they were fighting to keep it. I love the way they talk, amazing. Halfway up the tower is William’s actual sword. It is massive, at least 4.5 feet, probably 5 feet with the handle. In order for a man to carry a sword this big, Wallace must’ve been about 6.5 feet tall and very big. After Wallace was betrayed and tortured to death in London, his body was dismembered and sent to the four corners of Scotland to remind the Scots not to cross the King. But it did not have the Kings desired effect. Robert the Bruce continued Wallaces fight and 16 years later he defeated the English at the bBattle of Bannockburn. 5,000 Scots defeated 20,000 Englishmen! Completely amazing. You can understand why the Scots have so much pride of their county and heritage. The top of the tower had amazing views of the Fifth of Forth Valley and you could see the battlefields of the past where William fought at... Falkirk, Stirling, etc. The thing about Wallace was that he was only a common man. He was not a noble. He had no titles, nor was he rich. He just had followers and they believed in his cause.

It started to rain and Victor and I walked back to Stirling. The remainder of the day we spent talking to travelers in the hostel. Victor traveled the Aussie Outback for 6 months. He told me taht he worked on farms and in return they gave him a room and food. It is a very cheap way to travel. He said the water was so fresh there that they would drink right out of the stream, or grab leaves and tip them to sip the rainwater from them. A group of Jewish girls asked me to open the front door for them because they weren’t allowed to on this Jewish holiday. I tried to ask her to explain it but she laghed and said don’t even bother. They served in the Israel army, which all citizens must do, and have been teaching in Sweden for a year and is now returning home. They tried to convince me to go. Still, even though they are now at war with Lebanon they say it is not as dangerous as you might think. It is sad because they wish to travel around the World, like Egypt, but they are forbidden to because they are Jewish. Muslims will not let them travel in their countries. I met another guy from Hungary and we probably spent two hours looking at a wall size world map and talked about where we’ve been, where we’re going and so on. I talked to some Aussies from Melbourn about surfing and telling shark stories. Met a guy from South Africa who is in a very famous rock band and he let me play his guitar. I told him about myspace.com and showed him how to load his music up for free and he flipped out on how cool it was. Victor and I made some pasta. I ran into the Jewish girls again they let me eat some of their kosher food. One girl grew up in Cleveland, Ohio until she moved when she turned 10 to Israel. Went to bed.

4.30.06, The Trossachs

Victor and I took the bus out to the Highlands, the Trossachs, to do some hiking. There are not many people out there, so we had to ask the bus driver to let us off at a trail along the road. The Highlands are gorgous. They are very wet and gloomy, but the sun was out when we arrived. The foilage is very lush green and the Loch Achray and Loch Katrine are nearby. We got off at a place called Tigh Mur and hiked up to the top of a mountain called Ben A’an. It was about an hour hike to th etop, fairly steep. When I got to the top I could see so far in the distance. I felt like braveheart standing on the cliff overlooking the Trossachs, and I couldn’t get that damn Braveheart theme song out of my head... although it did add a little more sense of Scotland to the scenic view. The air was very clean and little streams trickled down everywhere. The grass seemed to grow right over the trees and mossy rocks, so it looked as if a green river flowed gently over the terrain.

We made it back down to the dirt road and sat on the side of the road waiting for a bus to drive by. She did, thank god, and we returned to Stirling. I decided to introduce my new friend to Quesidillas. Incredibly simple to make, yet nobody over here has heard of them. So we bought some groceries and dropped them off at the hostel. Next, Victor and I walked up to Stirling Castel and tried to sneak in without paying. We failed. The doorman was alert and ready to catch those pesky travellers who had no money. So instead we wandered through the graveyards and explored a bit. We came across the “beheading stone“ ... hmm I wonder what that was used for... It was the which stone used to place peoples heads on before it was separated from the neck by a dull axe blade.

Back at the hostel, these two girls were messing around with a program on the computer called Google Earth. It is basically a visual modle of Earth put together by satelite photos. It zooms in so much that I showed the visitors aroud me Mile High Staduim, the pool I used to work at, and even my own backyard with my trampoline visible! Completely amazing. Sw we took turns zooming into our own homes.

I showed Victor how to make Quesidillas. The rest of the night was spent hanging out and exchanging music. I showed Victor my Ipod video and convinced him to buy one when he returned to Holland.

7.31.06, Edinburgh

I ate cold spaghetti for breakfast, better than nothing and it actually didn’t taste that bad. It was an hour and a half bus ride from Stirling to Edinburgh. I bought some groceries while wating for the free shuttle to my hostel, th Globetrotter Inn. It still baffles me how expensive this country is. I have had to have spent close to a thousand dollars jsut in these two weeks. I am going to have to save some serious cash down the road. Crackers, meat, cheese spread...mmmmm.

The hostel was out on a lake miles out of the city. I had to plan out what I wanted to see because I would only have about three hours to see museums, etc. I took the bus back into the town center. Edinburgh is a really cool looking city and has to be the best in Scotland. It is midievil, has large castles, scary architecture and has an incredibly haunting past. Some say that it is among the most haunted places on the planet. I walked the hills and saw the castle, cathedral and a few art museums. I decided to spend my limited cash on a tour of the undercity. The dark side of Edinbugh.

I went back to the hostel and slept until 8pm. Took the bus back to Edinburgh, walked to the store and bought a Tennents bresky, just to get into the mood for walking into one of the most haunted places on the planet. It started at 10pm, so I had a little while to wait on the steps of this cathedral and watched as the sunny Edinburgh slowly turned into the dark and gloomy Edinburgh. I met this Aussie who was waiting for the tour to start as well. He had been roadtripping around the US for a month and told me all about it. I guess he ran into some guys with a van in Seattle and he just hopped along with them and ended up driving all the way to Boston!

<<< I warn you, this is not for the faint hearted>>>
I’ll try and describe to you what our tour guide said. Edinburgh had a very nasty past. Over history, the Scots have put about 9 million of its own people to death. There used to be a small lake or pond at the base of the old city which is now a park. The streets were so crowded that many people were homeless, and the King decided that being homeless was illegal. Thus anyone who was homeless must be tortured and killed. So the bodies of these people were eventually dumped into this pond because they couldn’t bury them anywhere. Now here comes the gross part... The lake would eventually become full of bodies. On a hot Edinburgh day, it was said that a “crust“ would form over the lake so thick that it could support the weight of a grown man. Oddly enough, this was Edinburghs main source of drinking water as well. Then came the Witch Burnings. Accusing someone of being a witch was as simple as pointing out a mole or birthmark, which was thought to have controling powers over evil animals, or simply by wearing too much make-up. Also if one girl wanted revenge on another... call her a witch! It turned into a form of entertainment for the city to kill these young women. In order to see if she is truely a witch, they would perform the “float test.“ Back then, people considered water to be a holy liquid, after all, it did fall from the heavens. They would nail the victim’s hands into her kneecaps and cut a hole in the rotting crust of the lake and throw her in. If she sank, she died, but she was a true christian after all and is now in heaven, so everything is ok. If she floated, then the devil must’ve been using his force to hold her up and therefor she must have the devil burned out of her. By the way, they would always float because the fluffy dresses they wore took a while to fill with water to sink. So, they would hang the poor girl just to know her unconciouse to tie her to a stake and light a fire at her feet. It was common curtesy to knock her out so she didn’t feel the pain. If murder and burning witches isn’t enough to give this place a bad wrap, next is torture. I’ll skip describing the items used because it’s simply way to horribying. Just ask me some time and I will tell you.

Now, the city couldn’t really expand outwards because there had been a wall built to keep the English out. So they built downward, literally creating a sub city. The tour guide brought us down into the streets below edinburgh. This was a very, very creepy place. You wouldn’t want to be left alone in this place, no joke. They have reported over 170 people coming out of the sub city with burns, cuts, or bitemarks that are inexplainable. Even in the tour this has happened. There were many evil people who used to live in these walls. One was a famous murderer and rapist. Women seem to be more often hurt down here than men... interesting. The sub city was not a pleasant place. The rock cieling swould leak constantly from rain and human waste dripping down from the streets above. There were no bathrooms or trash bins. The floors would be coated in waste and straw. The next vault is known to have one of the highest levels of paranormal activity and has been featured on may ghost film documentaries. A fire occured a few hundred years ago and the city fled to the undergrounds for protection. The vaults were pitch black and over crowded. The fire burned for three days with no escape. Every singel person down there was cooked to death in that dark hell hole. When the bodies were discovered they were not buried. They were simply boarded up and blocked off in the vaults, hoping that they would be forgotten about. This is the vault that I was now standing in, lightless, and honestly scared. I can now understand why people think this place is haunted... hell, I can feel why it’s haunted. Well I survived the haunted sub city of Edinburgh with out getting any bite marks, but there isn’t a doubt in my mind that if I were down there alone by myself I would have a heart attack.

8.1.06, Newcastle, England

Nothing really exciting today. I took a bus from Edinburgh to Newcastle and walked around for a while. I walked into the city Library to mooch off their free internet, then walked back to the train station in the rain. I had to burn off the remaining British Pounds I had so I went to buy a 6 inch Meatball Sub from Subway. Then I bought my metro ticket and rode to the airport. I found a nice secluded area to take up the next 12 hours in the airport. I sewed on my remaining badges and tried to get some sleep. I tried to get comfortable by sleeping on the airport chairs, but those fixed arm rests alwayse get in your way. I slept on the floor, but at least it was carpet this time and not tile like it usually is. I have had enough of Britian for now. I think I will head now to.... Eastern Europe?!

Germany to Holland!

2006-09-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

***I know it has been a long time and I have a lot to cover still, but I wanted to update everyone a little bit. Unfortunately, I lack the technology right now to post up photos. So my text might seem a little boring without the eye candy. You will just have to use your imaginations for now. It might be easier to read if you copy/paste the text here into a word document and print it out to read... It is easier on the eyes that way. I hope you enjoy!!***

7.12.06 Plane to Germany

While waiting at the Santander bus station we were just talking about how excited we were to move to Germany. I saw a girl sitting on the bench and helped put her bag up in the bus. She was German and we happened to be on the same flight to Frankfurt. Her name is Carolyn Sauer. She is a Special Ed. teacher in Madrid and is going home for summer vacation. I sat next to her on the plane and she told me how to say a bunch of things in German. Things like…”One more Beer please” (Noch ein bier, bitte) and “You smell bad like Bratwurst,” (Du riechst schlecht nach Bratwurst). I showed her some good raggea from the US and I said I would email her some good songs.

Aaron was meeting his relative at the airport to go and stay with them. Upon arrival we met Linda Murphy and she offered to let all of us stay with them instead of paying for food and a hotel. An offer we couldn’t refuse of course. She offered to cook us any food we wanted. They lived on an American military base so she could buy pretty much any American food. We settled on Burritos for tomorrow night.

While driving to her home in Darmstadt, I looked out the window and noticed that Germany looks completely different from Spain. I feel like we literally ended one trip and started the next.

We arrived and Linda offered us some beer! So we sat out on the patio and drank our first German brewskees. Her son and husband, Brian and Mike, arrived home from their Midievil practice. Midevil is a sport where they actually re-enact the battles of the renniassance. I asked Brian if I could try on his gear, so he hooked me up with his metal armor, helmet, and gave me a wooden sword an shield. He told me to stand still and proceeded to slam me with his wooden sword. It’s amazing how the metal dispersed the hit. He even took a full swing to my head and it still didn’t hurt. My ears were ringing pretty bad though. It was cool because you normally would think about how heavy those old armor plates were. You had to be one strong and tough dude to go into battle with all that armor on, and have enough energy to swing your weapon and beat down your opponent. This sport has an entire system set up. There are kingdoms depending on where you live that you would join. There are Kings and Knights and all sorts of different status levels that one can obtain, but they are only attainable through word. For example, if someone of higher status than you notices you have some serious skill in battle, then he can knight you and raise your status. It is based on a total honor system. The king believe it or not was Mike! He was King of the entire Kingdom of Europe. There only a few Kings, one in America and Africa and so on. In order to become King you must challenge him to a fight and win. Mike has not been defeated.

We sat down and Mike brought out some of his finest whiskey and rum collection. I tried some really hard stuff that night. He gave us a nice little introduction to Germany. It was a very nice night for conversation.

7.13.06

Walked through downtown Darmstadt. It was so quiet. We were downtown with cars and people and you could hardly hear anything more that a whisper! It was a little strange to me. Brian explained to me that the Germans respect and enjoy silence. There is a national quiet hour curfew at 9pm and they are very strict about it. He said that the cops are so strict that they could hit you if they wanted to. Another interesting fact is that if someone owes you money and you haven’t gotten it in a while then, on courts order, you can go into their home and take whatever you deem of value to what they owe you.

We stopped at our first Bier Garten (Beer Garden) and I had a Weisner Hell. This is a social area to go and drink a lot of beer. We talked to some local Germans and they all seemed very friendly. We continued walking and we went right by this lake with people sunbathing and swimming. There is nudity everywhere! The Germans definitely don’t consider the human body as something to hide. But besides the nudity, I find the best thing about Germany so far is the Gummy Bears. They are so chewy and they started in Germany so you know you’re getting the real deal. I had my first Bratwurst and mustard. It was packed so tightly that it seemed to burst in your mouth when you took a bite. I’m drooling right now just thinking about it.

That night we had a nice family dinner with the Murphys. Linda made excellent burritos. She takes pride in them because she lived in New Mexico for 30 years. I could tell because the burritos were so spicy my eyes couldn’t stop watering. We bought a lot of beer for them to show our appreciation and thank them for their hospitality. That night we spent at the house just hanging out and watching movies. I think that in a way this house seemed like home for us, and we wanted to enjoy something that a lot of us haven’t felt in a while. So we had a little sleepover, but unlike when we were 12, we had an entire stockpile of Weisner beer. This eventually led to massive consumption of Macaroni and Cheese. Anyway it was a lot of fun to be back in a more familiar environment.

7.14.06 Road trip to Berlin!

We took a train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt to rent our cars. While waiting a girl approached Mike and I. She is American and was traveling solo for a year as well. She was going to Summer Jam in Cologne, Germany and asked us if we wanted to tag along with her. We had our own plans though and had our own music fest to hit up…the Love Parade.

It was really fun to drive across Germany. We each took turns driving so we could say that we drove the Autobahn. I started out as the navigator which proved to be very stressful. I couldn’t read or pronounce any of the street names and the streets were just sprawled out in every direction. A lot of these towns were not constructed on a grid system like in the states. On top of that, the guys in the back were being loud and obnoctious as hell. This gave me a flash into the future when I have my own kids yelling in the back when I’m trying to get the family somewhere. Are we there yet??? Anyway, we stopped and had some more brats and drinks on the side of the road. I tried some Saurkraut and it was awesome! Now I know where my Dad became a fan of Saurkraut and now I discovered how great it is.

Arrived in Berlin and navigated through the S-Bahn and U-Bahn metro systems to our hostel. There wasn't much daylight left, so we went down to the hostel bar to talk. We met three film makers from Amsterdam who were here to film the Love Parade. We had some very interesting conversations about politics, religion, and all sorts of juicy stuff. I think I shed some light on why Americans voted for George W. because a lot of Europeans are baffeled for some reason as to how he got back into office. The most interesting conversation though was with this guy from Amsterdam. We got into the subject of WWII. I got a very unique perspective from a European youth that you can't find in a text in the states. He said that it pisses him off that the Germans fly their flag and pretend that nothing happened 60 years ago. He said that he saw a sign that some German soccer fans made and hung on the side of a bus that said, "We are German, friends of the world." He then told us how the Germans tortured his Grandfather and mad him work in the coal mines which eventually led to his death. His other Grandfather escaped from a German work camp and was shot in the leg while running away but he made it to this Dutch farmers house. He lived for a zear and a half in the pig pen, eating the pig food that the farmer fed his livestock with. The Nazis thought his last name sounded Jewish, which it wasn't, and they still tried to kill him. I could just see the anger in his eyes when he talked about his Grandfathers and the Germans. He said that the emotions run so deep that it will take a very long time to heal. The modern youth try to pretend it didn't happen or ignore it. They will say things like...we are friends to the world... but 60 years may not be enough time for some to let the Germans back into their lives. One thing that really made me feel good and was something that I've never heard anyone say before was this.

"My grandfather told me to give your respect to the Americans. They saved us. They left their homes to go to a land that most of them had never seen before and died to help us. Always respect the Americans."

I don't hear many good things these days about Americans here in Europe besides bickering and arguing about things that they themselves don't bring any solutions to. When he said that, something struct deep inside me. I didn't really think of it that way, but ya... My Uncle Jim and my Grandfathers went to war to a place unfamiliar to them. They won that war with the help of the Brits and those whom they liberated. But to hear someone, European, give their respect to mz grandfathers and their generation in this day and age was truly unique. He also said that one thing he respects about America is their constant drive to defend their country and values. He said it is inspiring to the smaller countries, like Holland, who don't have enough resources to do so. He said he is proud to be an ally of the US.

It is interesting to see both sides of an emotional trench in Europe. The German youth want to progress and work with the new world, while at the same time the new world isn't necessarily ready to work with them. He said maybe in about 200 years, but not 60.

7.15.06, the Love Parade

The Love Parade starts at about 2pm and goes until about 11pm. It is composed of an assortment of the worlds most popular DJ's and is considered to be the worlds largest rave. Over a million people parade down the long stretch of road between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, the Siegessaule.

While walking to the parade from our hostel, I couldn't help to notice a few things. The city is so contemporary. The tall, modern buildings are very well designed and gridded. We walked across a cobblestone line which I later realiyed was the former path of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Walll, that divided East and West Berlin. A very cold feeling brushed over me.

I planned on going to the Love Parade for half the day to photgraph and then return all of my stuff to the hostel and come back later to see the big DJ's around the Siegessaule. The music was so loud when we got there. People spread as far as you could see from the Siegessaule to Brandenburg Gate, where the infamous photos of the Nazi flags hung as the Germans drive and marched through. There were about 40 large semi-trucks blasting music from large speaker systems built into the front and back ends. In the middle of each truck there was a stage where 30 or so people danced and partied, kinda like the VIP ride. The trucks would slowly drive down and back from the Siegessaule to the Brandenburg Gate and the crowd would follow along the truck they liked.

I took tons of photos and Ryan got some great video. I’ve never seen so many weird people in my life. Some people dressed up like Aliens, etc. We returned back to the hostel after a while and walked back a different route. This time there was an actual chunk of the Berlin Wall standing up that we walked by. Just to touch the graffitied concrete sent shivers down my spine as to the millions of people held under its tyranny.

We replaced our beer bottles into large plastic water bottles because they wouldn’t let you bring glass into the park area and headed back to the parade. When it got dark, the masses gathered around the towering and intimidating Siegessaule. This was bulit in the 19th century but wasn’t placed in the center of Stern Grosser roundabout until Hitler put it there. The sides of the monument are decorated with the cannon barrels of victorious German battles. People climbed up onto the street lamps and stop signs and danced while the DJs played music from the base of the tower. The trucks started to circle only around the tower at this point and stopped driving all the way down to the Brandenburg Gate. The trucks circled round and round and had tuned their speakers to emit the main DJs music at the tower, so while they drove by the sound was magnified from both directions. The smoke and beams of light blasting up into the night were very cool. They flashed and pulsed to the beats. I saw some really famous DJs, including DJ Tiesto of Holland and Paul Van Dyk from Germany.

Afterwards, we all walked back to the hostel. It was about midnight and Mike and I drank some coffee to keep us awake to go out again. The others went to bed, but we walked the streets of Berlin pondering its disturbing history. We ran into a few Germans and tried to speak with them. I think the German accent is the most fun to listen to.

7.16.06
It seems like the younger generations of today need to mend the wounds and také responcibility for their older generations war. The international community will not let the Holocaust be forgotten. They must face the music, even though the modern youth had nothing to do with it. So Berlin is full of museums and monuments dedicated to the memory of wartime Germany and their actions. It can not and will not be forgotten, so they built these as an act of mending.

I walked through the Jewish Museum and learned about Jewish history. The museum was more like an educational place to tell the story of the Jews. The Holocaust was of course included in this, but it also shined some light on what Jews have done today and how they have influenced modern times.

I then took a walk to Museum Island and ran into the Lustgarten, which is an open grassy park that lye’s right at the doorstep of the Berliner Dom Cathedral and the Atlas Museum.

As I’m sitting here writing this, basking in the sun rays, sitting on the grass, I’m looking 100 yards in front of me at this amazing cathedral. It is so beautiful with its assortment of colors. The grey stone has been blackened, maybe from when bombs had crushed Berlin 60 years ago during the fall of the city. There are rusted copper green sculptures and gold crosses. It still gives an eerie feeling of the grim past. The museum next to the cathedral takes the shape of an ancient roman temple, but its exterior is stark black stone. The 18 black eagles perched along the roof line were built before the Third Reich, but the symbol will forever be tarnished by the use of it as a Nazi symbol.

I fell asleep for a while on the grass, but woke up late to meet my friends and had to pretty much run back to the hostel…which was a long way. We were going to go on a Berlin pub crawl and had to be at a certain bar at a certain time to go on it. So I finally met them there and we started to have a drink. The five of us pretended not to know each other just to have some fun with people we met, but I think people figured us out eventually though. One bar we went to was this bombed out building bar. The whole side of the building had been blown off and you could see all five stories to the top. But they used the building to make a bar, so each floor had a different themed bar on it. I walked all the way to the top and there was this chill lounge that looked out over the city. Mr. Ryan, Mike and I eventually hung back from the group after a while and tried to quickly buy a kabob at a stand. When we turned around though the bar group was gone! We lost our own pub crawl. Oh well, we walked to a few other bars and then went home.

7.17.06 Berlin Tour
Today I took a free walking tour of the city. I recommend this tour to anyone traveling to Berlin. It was excellent, and our guide was very good. It differs from other tours because with the “working for tips” tour guides actually need to impress you and do a good job if they want to get paid. Other tour guides could care less what impression they give you because they are aware of what they are going to get paid. The tour met at Brandenburg Gate. It was built in the 1700’s by the Ottoman Empire. It has seen quite a lot, including Napoleons army when Berlin fell in the 1800’s. It also has had Nazi flags hung on it as Hitler and his army marched through the center. Another crazy fact was the balcony behind it was the balcony that Michael Jackson dangled his baby over a few years ago. A few km away from the Gate is the German Reichstag. It does sound intimidating, but that’s because it played the role as the Nazi headquarters for a decade. Today it is still the parliament house of Germany and there was one addition they made to it. They placed a large glass dome on top of the roof. It is a very interesting design and has a very good purpose. I like it because it is concept driven. The German government after its fall in WWII, needed to be rebuilt. It also needed to rebuild the trust between itself and the people. So the concept was created “For the German people” and everything revolved around this motto. The glass dome is open to the public. You do not have to pay to get to the top. This is because at the top of the dome there is a funnel that you can look down and actually see directly into the Chamber of Parliament. This is to symbolize to the people that there is nothing to hide and they are always a part of what goes on inside. The next place our guide took us was Hitler’s Bunker, which actually doesn’t exist anymore. Basically, when the Russians took over Berlin, they stumbled upon this bunker amonst the completely deystroyed city and the rubble. Once they found out what it was, they wanted to blow it up and completely bury anything related to Hitler in case of any following of Nazism in the future. So they tried to blow it up but couldn’t because it was so well made. So they buried it instead and told no one about it until it was discovered again in the 1960’s by an apartment complex that was being built in the area. I know there have been a lot of conspiracies about Hitler and how he died. Well, now I know what really happened. Hitler was one crazy bastard as you all know. But so was his wife apparently. They both planned their own suicide in case they were to be captured. But this plan didn’t really go according to the way they wanted it to. Hitler had in mind a glorious taking of his own life along with his love to be remembered forever in history. It played out a little differently. Berlin was being bombed so badly that they could hardly stand. Hitler told the guards hiding in the rubble to help him out a little. Imagine bombs exploding everywhere, shaking the foundations of everything, buildings falling and crumbling and these nervous Nazi guards who’s chief commander is asking them to help kill him and his wife. Hitler tells the guards to take his and his wife’s body outside and bury them after they shoot themselves inside. When his wife was ready, Hitler shot and killed her. Talk about true love… such a gentleman. Then he did the world a huge favor and took his own. The guards are half scared of being blown to pieces and shot by the Russians seiging the city that they grab the bodies and just tossed them pretty much right outside the doorstep, lit them up on fire and got the hell out of there. So much for his glorious transition into the next life… I can only guess where that might be. Now we get to modern times. The only thing left where the bunker used to be is a crator and a bulletin sign that explains what used to be here. Ryan, our guide, told us that it took a lot of petitioning to even get this sign up. He said it is because the Germans are so ashamed of their former leader that they want to bury anything related to him into the past. They wanted to forget about Adolph Hitler. But, obviously, that would never happen. So they blew up the bunker yet again, then buried it, and now there is only a sign.

The next stop was the German Air Force Headquarters. It was obvious Nazi architecture. It was a massive gray stone building to convey the dominance, strength, and superiority of the Nazi party. They wanted the architecture to be as significant as the Romans and would convey their superior message thousands of years into the future. The façade was solid, flat, concrete, and was rising very high with flat columnar porch columns. There were small Nazi emblems implanted all over the building, but they were ripped out over time which left circular holes all over the place. Even in the large iron front gate had an empty place, which would look like a doorknocker was missing. The Nazi empire wasn’t the only evil regime that had taken resident in this building. The Communist Red Russia and the GDR came next. They used the building as a communist work center. When the East Berlinian workers started to protest about the government cutting their wages and at the same time tried to make them work even harder, the GDR called Russia for their help on handling the situation. The protest of hundreds of hard working people was in the courtyard where I was standing and right out front of the porch I had just described. The Communists replied with their usual way to solve a problem and sent in their tanks and soldiers to slaughter every single one of them…right here, right where I was standing. The building had an ironic propagandized mural painted beneath the massive porch façade that symbolized the lovely Communist ideals and how happy the working people lived together in harmony. This was the same mural that these protestors were staring that day when they were slaughtered by the Communists. It is understandable why nobody in modern times wants to take residence in a building as massive as this one. It creeps the hell out of me.

The next stop was the Jewish Memorial which opened last year in 2005. Why it took so long to create a memorial here?? It was because the people of Berlin never wanted to remember their country’s past and wanted to move on. It was finally approved and now a massive area in the middle of the city is covered by large grey, cubes. It is set up on a grid. The landscape looks like an uneven bumpy terrain of flat cube surfaces. In between the cubes are alley ways. You can walk in from any side and follow straight through in any direction to the other side. The design itself draws up emotions that nobody likes to feel. It looks like many things and is different to anyone who stares upon it. But whatever it reminds people of, it is not a good thing. Fear, death, gravestones, helplessness, torture. The ground as you start to walk into the cubes is even, but slowly drops down until the cubes are 15 feet above your head. You find yourself feeling completely isolated and alone. You are surrounded in a forest of concrete grey wall. There is really nowhere to hide because you can be seen all the way from the exits because it is a grid design. You turn one corner and there is the exit. Turn another and someone can see you. There is no running away. The cubes represent the holocaust and the lives it claimed as faceless numbers. The ground as you walk further into the center gets uneven and wavy, angular. You lose your balance and sense of direction. You pretty much become lost in this scary place with no one to help you. The design accounted for every detail. The temperature even drops 10 degrees as you sink deeper into the memorial, and the sunlight is not reflected off the stones, thus making it darker in the middle. As I walked out, towards the other side it started to get warmer, the ground started to become more flat and the cubes became smaller until I was outside in the hot sunlight again. The design is an amazing piece of work and certainly accomplished its purpose and goal. An interesting fact Ryan told us was that the constructors used an anti graffiti spray to protect the blank concrete walls from taggers. After spraying the entire memorial, it was uncovered that the chemical company who manufactured the spray was the same company that created the cyclone B tablets which were used to gas thousands of Jews. This was obviously a big, big problem. The company did not do this intentionally of course and said that they would not charge anything for the spray. It is a gift to preserve the memorial and to remind people of what happened in the past.

Next was the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. It is called this because there were three entry/exit points installed in the Berlin Wall that divided the city into two halves, the US, French, and British sector, from the Soviet sector. They were called A, B, and C, or in military code words… Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. The only thing that is left is a booth in the middle of the street and a large sign that rises out of the intersection. On one side of it, it has a large photo of an “American” officer and says “Caution!!! You are entering the American Sector.” On the other side the type is Russian with a different soldier mug shot photo on the sign. This was the only place in Berlin where Allied Forces and the Soviets ever met. There is a uniformed American and Russian officer sitting there for you to have your passport stamped. A little tourist quirk, but I still thought it was neat. The building next to the booth is the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It tells the many tales of escape from the Eastern Communist sector to the American sector. Tales of horror, valor, and heroism. This build was not always a museum. I notice that there was one large blown up black and white photo of these people running across the from the wall. I then notice that the photographer must have been standing in the exact place I was standing. I looked down out the window to see the same perspective as that photo was shot. A very uncomfortable feeling shot through me. The faces in the large black and white photos expressed the conditions that they were in at the time. They were grim, expressionless, living in terror. There were also photos of the people who had made the escape running across the barbed wire and into the hands of the American officers awaiting them on the other end. Their faces were shining and relieved to be safe and out of the hellish East Berlin. Our tour guide was very good at verbally describing and painting a mental picture for the listeners. I never realized the historical importance of this place. One gloomy, rainy day, WWIII almost occurred here. And when I say almost, I mean that the fall of a pebble, or a loud noise…a misfired nervous shot could have destroyed the world. Let me explain. During the cold war, Russia and America were not on the best of terms. The soldiers on the two sides of the wall hated each other. They taunted each other and made jokes, but when it came to doing business they were of course professional at doing their jobs. One day however, a Russian soldier offended a group of American soldiers at the wall gate. The Americans responded back and threatened the Russians. They said something like… “Ya, you and what army… where are your tanks?” That ended the dispute for now, until the Russian showed up later with a tank aimed through the gate at the Americans. The Americans of course reported this and the order was given to prepare for attack and get more tanks aimed at the Russian tanks. This kept building and building until there were a number of tanks, and a hundred armed soldiers on each side yelling at one another to step down. If one of the nervous soldiers as much as sneezed… nuclear war would have occurred. There standing in the rain, looking down the barrels of the enemy they waited for something to happen. Word had reached the top dogs of the American military. They called the Russian top dogs and said what the hell is this all about. The Russians said they do not know what is going on. I don’t know who was in charge of the Russian military at the time but they took the step down. They said we will remove one tank if you do the same. And so the Americans did, then the Russians, then the Americans and so on. Not many people are aware that this ever occurred. It would probably scare the hell out of them to know how close the world was to Nuclear War.

Next on the tour was Book Burning Square. This is where Hitler rallied the University students to grab any book that they considered to be “Non Arayan” and throw them out into a bonfire in the courtyard. The piles grew so high and the entire library was almost set up in flames. This inspired the youth of Germany around the nation to do the same, thus starting the burning away of history. I tried to imagine the horrific scene that took place here. I think there is a scene in Indian Jones and the Last Cruisade that shows a somewhat accurate view of what happened that night. Now the courtyard is encircled by larger than life size painted bears of every country represented in the United Nations. Each bear is painted differently to represent the nation. In the center there is a small square of see through plexi glass that you can walk over and look down upon a large empty library room with empty bookshelves.

Ryan finished his tour on the lawn outside the Berlinerdom Cathedral explaining how the wall fell. Well it is quite interesting and I’m sure the history books will tell a different story. It was all a political accident on the part of the Russians. I guess one evening, the Russian who was in charge of the Berlin area was placed into a live national interview on television, and I guess it was somewhat unexpected. The leader went on stage un-prepared for the questions he would be asked. He must have been under pressure or something because a question was asked something like… “Are the people of East Berlin considered free?” and he replied, “Yes,” not realizing what he just said. Meanwhile, all of Berlin is watching along with the guards at the gate of Checkpoint Charlie. An East Berlin citizen walks up to the guards and said “Did you just hear what he said? Can I go?” The guard replied, confused about what his commander had said as well,… “Yes.” And so the first free man to walk out of East Berlin did. Following him were more and more people until a mad rush through the gates occurred. On the other side, the party already waiting for their separated comerades, hearing the unbelievable TV interview as well. That night, Ryan tells us, was the biggest party the world had ever seen. People went hysterical and were full of joy as Berlin was now free before the Soviets could really even figure out that it was all a mistake under pressure. Of course that night the people brought their axes, shovels, hammers, drills and started ripping the wall to pieces, taking pleasure in watching the Soviet guards do absolutely nothing to them.

We tipped Ryan very well. He was the best tour guide I’ve ever had. We walked home to grab our gear and move out from one hostel to another across town. It was getting late and little did we know that this hostel was a piece of crap out in the booneys. I did not feel safe here. Mike and I were meeting Aaron at this place, so it was just us as we walked down the dirty streets. We passed through the slums, getting hollard at by strippers and bouncers welcoming us over to their club, and kabob shops trying to get us to eat at there place. The hostel was so shady. We did not go out that night.

7.18.06, Museum Day

Today I headed to the Pergamon Museum, which was full of Ancient Greek sculpture and architecture. It was amazing! I studied so many of these things off slides projected onto a wall in a dusty, boring, hot, crowded room in Kansas. Now I was standing right in front of the real deal. It is a very different experience… The Altar of Pergamon is the highlight of the Museum. It contained the pieces of an entire Greek temple and was pieced together as well. So I walked into the first room to find myself in a huge white open area. I was standing in the courtyard in front of an Ancient Greek Temple. It was excavated from a place called Pergamon and I’m not exactly sure what country that is in. The entire façade and frieze depicts a battle between the Gods and the Giants. The sculptured frieze is just jaw dropping. The incredibly lifelike, but idealized, bodies of powerful giants and god like physiques are mesmorizing to see with your own eyes. Their faces and body language show power, pain, misery, etc. They are finely detailed down to the wavy locks of hair and wrinkles in the faces. I took my time admiring the work of the Greek artist who chiseled this marble thousands of years ago.

The next exhibit blew my mind even more. I didn’t even know what I was about to see even existed. I thought it was lost to legend, myth. I entered another very large room, large enough to contain a temple itself. But it didn’t hold a temple. In front of me were the dazzling deep blue gates of the ancient city of Babylon! If you ever saw the movie Alexander, then you have an idea of what the gates look like. The entire façade of the outer walls were completely intact. They had cuniform designs on them…repeating forms of Dragons, Cows, and Griffyn-esque monsters. The blue color was so deep. I couldn’t believe that they were still this colorful after thousands of years. They had these massive winged lion sculptures that sat in front of the gates on each side. It was very, very cool to see this. This was also considered to hold one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but those have been destroyed for a long time. So after a day at the museums, I met Mike and we headed back to our hell hole hostel to meet Aaron and catch a bus out to the airport where we would meet Mr. Ryan and Nithin for our flight early next morning.

Unfortunately, Aaron wasn’t there and we couldn’t find him, so Mike and I hoped that he could make it to the airport on his own.

That night, we all slept on the tile floor of the ticket check in at the Berlin Airport. Our next destination was to Amsterdam! We were all very excited because we’ve heard about how amazing a city this place is.

7.19.06, Amsterdam

Well, we missed our flight. Not because we slept in, but because the reservation was actually for yesterday and not today. There really isn’t a reason to explain this except that we are all complete idiots. End of story. We did manage to get tickets to Amsterdam though on another flight. We landed and took a train from the airport to the city. As I walked out of the train station entrance, I could immediately tell that I would like this city. The sun was shining and the gleaming off the Dutch architecture. The city is beautiful and full of canals. From a map, it kind of looks like a giant spider web with the web being the canals. The buildings all look like they are towering and leaning over, looking down on you. That is because they actually are leaning inward toward the streets. This is because the Dutch use a pulley system to raise furniture and other equipment up to the top levels of their homes since they can’t carry them up the narrow stair cases. There is a black hook at the pinnacle of each rooftop so the toss a rope up there and hoist the washing machine or whatever else they are trying to get inside. We headed into the bustling cobblestone streets to find our hostel, The Flying Pig. We found it, and wow… is all I really have to say. This place is unique in its own way. I highly recommend it to anyone traveling here. We checked in our stuff and headed out to walk around town. As you all know, Marijuana is “legal” here so there are some very interesting people and shops around town. I put it in parenthesis because it is technically illegal, but due to the Dutch culture they think of it as a “minding your own business,” or “if it isn’t hurting anybody than I’m fine with that,” outlook on not just marijuana, but pretty much everything in general… like prostitution. We took a stroll through the infamous Red Light District and found quite a surprise… Women!... in windows?!! That’s right, window shopping is “legal“ here. Don’t worry Mom and Dad, you have raised your son well enough to know not to get a hooker. The windows are lit up with a red light and I’m not going to lie, the women are smoking hot. I mean, if you’re a stock broker you go to Wall Street. If you’re and actor you go to Hollywood. If you’re a hooker, well then you go to Amsterdam. So the competition is fierce, thus driving the hot ones to the top and into the windows to do business. When you walk down the street, they look out and taunt you to go inside and they are damn good at it too. It’s like witchcraft, it seems like they just cast a spell on you, except instead of using a wand they use their boobs. I guess it’s something only a man can understand. Anyway, I saw a group of young guys in front of us standing there looking at the girls in the windows. All of a sudden their friend stumbles out of the building. The group cheered and patted him on the back as their buddy approaches like he just walked on the moon, all weak kneed and wobbly, hair all messed up. It was pretty freakin hilarious. Oh ya, and if you’re interested in doing business here, stay away from the purple lit windows. Apparently you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise because those “ladies“ are not really ladies if you know what I mean.

We walked into a Koffee Shop to find wonderful little pastries all lines up in the window. Hmmm, I wonder what those are made out of. I can guess from the look on that dudes face sitting over there in the corner. I did find it amusing that outside of every Koffee Shop there was a Kebab stand, or some kind of fast food place. I’m sure they get all kinds of business during the summertime. We walked back to the hostel and got ready for a night on the town. Mike and I met this girl from California named Kelly Cole. She worked for a University I think and was a supervisor for her Sorority. It was her first day here as well, so we walked around as a group that night and got some drinks. The city does look beautiful at night with all the lights reflecting off the water, silhoutting the many bridges gapping the canals.

7.20.06

Today we walked to the Heineken Brewery, hooray beer! It was ok. I don’t think it matched up to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, but they did give us a neat little bottle opener prize at the end. We enjoyed the sunshine and walked around the parks. Bought some food at the grocery store and ate in the park. You have to be very careful when walking around the city because there is absolutly no warning for the tram and bike paths. Many people aren’t used to looking out for 6 lanes of traffic when crossing the street.

For dinner we made some spagetti down in the basement hang out room. The basement and kitchen was so thick with smoke I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get my point. On that note, dinner was freakin hilarious that night. We all walked back upstairs to chill at the check in hang out, playing some cards and talking with all the other travelers. One guy gave us a great idea to rent a bike and ride up into the country side. Mike and I decided to do that tomorrow. As we were talking, I saw something unthinkable happening in the corner. This guy, has obvioulsy smoked a lot of pot in his day. He was piecing together pieces of tobacco paper and being very careful at every move he made, like he was performing surgery or something. Within a few minutes, he finished his masterpiece and held up a foot long joint. Everyone had been quiet for the time, but then everyone burst out applauding due to his mastery and wisdom of the joint rolling technique. A true Guru in the ways of weed.

I ran into this guy who was amazing with his guitar. I guess he was in a band, but I heard somebody playing a guitar and I had to search around to find out where he was. He was sitting out back in the courtyard. I think he was from Israel, I’m not sure. I struck up a conversation with him and finally asked if I could play his guitar a bit. I was going through some serious guitar withdrawl because I haven’t touched one since leaving home two months ago. Your fingers really thirst for it… it’s hard to explain unless you’re a musician. This guy was a total pro compared to me but he did like one of my songs. My brother taught it to me though so I gave Tim credit. It is an acoustic version of The Postal Service song called Great Hights. Well, I made a new friend and moved on back upstairs because it was getting late and Mike and I had a bike ride to do tomorrow.

7.21.06, Bike Ride Holland!

One thing that I wasn’t really pre-paired for was the co-ed shower room in the basement. You heard me. One bathroom for both sexes. Each shower stall had a door though, so don’t let your imagination go too crazy.

Mike and I walked to a bike rental place and the guy was shady as hell. He wanted us to give him our passports while we had the bikes. Mike looked at him like he was from another planet and said “umm…no.“ He was a jerk as well, so we walked across town to find a different one. We rode out into the countryside along small green canals and lovely flowers. We had to take a ferry across a large canal to get North of Amsterdam to get up into the country. Life was good, I thought as the breeze blew across my face riding the street bikes down the canal paths. We passed a bunch of tiny little towns out in the middle of nowhere. Some people even have their own little ferries that they use to pull themselves across the tiny canal to the doorstep of their house. Most of these towns consisted of a few houses at the edge of a very small canal, and that was pretty much it. They would boat to the next town if they needed anything. That was so weird that they were in the middle of a grassy plain, yet they still used canals to get from one place to the next! There were roads too of course, but that seemed to be secondary to boats.

We stopped at a town called Broek in Waterland for some Dutch Pancakes. The small restaraunt was called Pannekoeken Huis, or The Pancake House. I ordered a bacon-pineapple pancake. It was about the size of a medium Papa John’s pizza though the crust was very thin. It is basically a massive crepe with whatever you want baked into it. It is the kind of thing you would have at Epcot Center, but this is the real thing!

We continued the ride through the countryside, which is below sea level, and headed to the ocean. The land rises up very high at the coast because it is a large dam made of earth that surrounds the whole mainland to keep the ocean out. We stopped at the edge of the coast, out on a penninsula and relaxed on the rocks down by the water. As I was sitting there, I loved thinking about where I was at that time and zooming out in my mind to pinpoint the exact point on the planet that I was currently sitting. It just struck me what a fun and amazing time I was having with my buddy Mike at that time. We were chilling on the coast of Holland and watching the sail boats slowly move across the horizon with a constant breeze to keep us cool in the sunshine. We continued on, except I put my headphones on this time to really get into a groove mood. Mike and I managed to get separated believe it or not, and we had a deadline to get the bikes back by 5pm before the shop closed. So, I had to give up on searching for Mike and headed back down the coast and into the outskirts of Amsterdam to the ferry. I wasn’t very sure on how to navigate back to the shop and Mike had the map. I looked around and found a tourgroup that happened to be from the bike shop I rented from. So I kind of snuck into the tour and rode with them all the way back to the shop without the tour guide noticing. Sometimes I surprise myself at my ninja stealth techniques. I should join the CIA. Anyway, Mike was already waiting for me at the shop and I have no idea how. Maybe he should join the CIA, his skills seem to be much better than mine. We bought some groceries and sat down on a bench between the trolley tracks in the shade to eat.

It was time to leave the Flying Pig and move into a different hostel, St. Christophers Hostel and checked in. We roomed with and Aussie named Jeff. He is a 22 year old Composer from Melbourne. We went out into the hostel bar, which was very nice with white leather couches and full of bright colored paintings… very contemporary. Mike, Aaron, Jeff and I all bought a round of drinks. When it was my turn to buy, I walked up to the bar and ran into some girls that I somehow remembered were on the same tour as me in Berlin. I didn’t even talk to them, but their faces jumped out at me as people that I’ve seen before. I talked to the four of them for a while and they were surprised that I remembered them. I played it cool though, and said maybe I’ll see you later. Walked back to my boys with the brewskys and continued our drinking. We got up and walked around town again. Jeff hadn’t seen the Red Light district yet, so we took him there first. It was about 10pm by then and on the way back to the hostel I ran into the girls I from earlier. See, this is where my plan was executed. Earlier when I walked by them at the bar and recalled that I knew them from Berlin, I established myself as someone they knew… even though they didn’t, but I am now a friendly face to these girls. When I said maybe I’ll see you later and left, that showed the sign that I don’t really care that much about them and don’t need them to have a good time. The good time is with my boys. This, as a fact of human nature, makes them want what they can’t have… and something they didn’t have was my attention anymore. So later when I actually did run into them later, I was immediately invited into there group like we had been friends for a long time. I just find it fun to approach people in different ways and figure out easier ways to break the ice. This was just one of them because I already broke the ice earlier in the night. Anyway, the four girls were wondering if we wanted to hang out with them and go to a club. Amazingly, neither Mike, Aaron, or Jeff wanted to. So it looked like I was flying solo tonight. On top of that, one of the girls pointed to the group they were going out with… there were about 7 local guys at the corner who were taking the girls to some clubs that they knew. So I was in for some serious competition. As a guy, I know that those guys would do anything possible to prevent me from looking good in front of the girls because I was getting in there way of making an impression. It was time to turn on some charm. As we walked to the club I was talking to the four girls and getting to know them. By the time we got to the club there was a line, but one of the local guys said it’s ok and that they can get everyone in for free and ahead of the line. Ok… I can see there strategy and it was time to counter it. I knew that they would let all the ladies in and then when it came time for me to be let in the bouncer would tell me to get lost. As the guys went in past the bouncer, I was looking inside and around the club. I was trying to look a little bored and said to the girls, “This club looks kind of lame, do you want to go to a bar and sit down?“ I must have said the right thing because as the last of the local guys went in, the girls turned around and said… ok! This had to have been one of the best moves I’ve ever pulled off. Not only was I heading to a bar with four girls, but I ditched all 7 LOCAL dudes at the same time. How’s that McDonalds jingle go… I’m Lovin It…

We went to some random bar and just talked for a while. The two girls I saw in Berlin are sisters from California. Lex and her younger sister are traveling aroung Europe for a month or so and where going to London next and then back home. The other two girls were some friends they had met in their hostel. We all eventually walked back to St. Christophers Hostel and sat down at the bar there. Lex Hamilton goes to school in Santa Barbara and is studying International Relations. I think we hit it off pretty well. It came time for the girls to go back to their own hostel across town and I offered to walk them home. I took the girls home and when we got there, Lex didn’t go in with her sister. I asked her if she wanted to just keep walkin and she said ya! I could tell that her little sister didn’t approve of Lex going out with guys she just met, but she didn’t know that I check out as a nice, legit guy. We walked and talked the entire night. We even watched the sun rise from one of the canal bridges. It was one of the most beautiful sun rises I’ve seen. I walked Lex back to her hostel around 7am and told her I’d meet her at the Dam Square Monument in the center of the city at 3:30 later that day and took off to get at least a little sleep.

7.22.06, Amsterdam and on to the UK.

I woke up with only 2 hours of sleep behind me and walked to Central Station for another free walking tour with Mike, Paul, and Aaron. This guy was just as awesome as Ryan in Berlin. He started the tour by saying “God created the Earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands!“ This is a saying that the Dutch have because they are very proud of their nation. And in fact they did themselves create the Netherlands. It all started right here in Amsterdam Square which was a small piece of land with a river outlet going through it. The founders dammed it up so the rive bent around the dam. They pushed the water back all the way to form modern day Holland. They literally took the land from the sea to form their own nation. Now one can understand why the Dutch are so proud of their culture and heritage. The original dam caused canals to flow throughout and thus branched out over all of Holland as the dams grew bigger. Many sailed from Amsterdam and out into the uncharted sea. They eventually dominated the world in business and trade. The Dutch consider themselves neutral and play the middleman. They are strictly business. The Dutch put up a “facade“ of how their culture is percieved to be vs what it is really like. This is how such things as Marijuana and prostitution have come to be “accepted.“ They put up a “facade“ saying… Marijuana?...what Marijuana, we onlz have coffee shops here… Technically they don’t have anything that truly advertises it, but what happens behind the “facade“ is their own business. You see this notion of a facade culture throughout the people and architecture.

We walked all throughout the town learning all kinds of crazy, interesting facts. Some of them are hilarious. For one example, it is illegal to urinate on any buildings. So they have put up these metal angled slabs in the corners of alleyways so that when a drunk pisses there, it will splash back onto the pisser himself. But any smart aimer would simply turn an piss around the piss gaurd. So they weren’t very efficient. Another funny thing is when the British took rule to the Dutchland. They were a culture of system and order, and the Dutch were simply whatever they wanted. So eventually the ruling government needed to create addresses and document who lived where. Most Dutchmen only had one name. There was no need to have a surname. So the time came to line up the people of the town and ask them their name. The Dutch thought this was funny and decided to make up a few names to stick it to the authority. They didn’t really think this one through when making up their new surnames. There are now names here in the Netherlands such as Jan Bighead, and Marco Dumbass. Of course this is in English, but this is what some Dutch names actually mean! Whoops. Another thing our guide told us was that the Amsterdam shield has a large XXX on it. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the modern meaning for this symbol. It is just an interesting coincedence that drugs and sex are very abundant around here. It has been around for hundreds of years, so there is quite a lot of theories on what it means. One theory is that it is three crosses.

We walked to the Anne Frank house and he explained a little about that. I’m pretty sure everyone knows the story so I won’t discribe it. It struck me when I noticed the large bell tower at the end of her street as the bell tolled. I remember reading about how Anne used to love to hear the bell tower ring when she was hiding. Here I am, hearing the same bell ring that she had, only I could see it. A very grim moment. I didn’t go into the house. I think I regret not taking the time to do that, but I’ve seen the room in photographs and studied it in school. There was also a 2 hr line to wait in and it cost a lot of money to go in. So I skipped going inside the house.

The tour ended and I ditched the others to go meet Lex at the Dam Square. I didn’t see her at first, so I sat down on the steps of the monument. It started pouring rain. But I was having a great time watching all the tourists scatter towards the canopy’s and safety of the tourist shops along the edges of the square. I didn’t mind the rain. It was fun. So as I’m sitting there thinking she might not show up. Then out of nowhere she sits down next to me, from behind my shoulder, completely drenched and says… “So what do you want to do now?!“ This girl was awesome! She didn’t even give a damn about the rain… pun not intended. So we walked through the streets again in the pouring rain. This was some heavy rain too. I was really completely soaked down to my boxers. We walked back to her hostel and waited a while until the rain died down. She gave me one of her towels to dry off. It really sucked because I had a flight to catch later that day so I didn’t have much time to spend with her. We walked down to a coffee shop and had some coffee… real coffee people, this is not code here. Well we spent every hour together until it was time for me to go grab my stuff and head to the train station. She actually ditched her sister and a few people she was supposed to meet just to walk me to the train station. On the walk to the Central Station, the sun came out and warmed the city. She gave me a very good goodbye and I headed into the train station feeling on top of the world. Maybe I’ll see her again. I hope so. I guess that’s life on the road though. You will meet a lot of people that have a lot of commonalities. I mean a lot of the people I meet are other travelers and we all share a bond through that alone. But fate calls and you have to keep moving.

As I was pulling out of the train station, I felt great. I was now completely independent for the first time on the trip. I was heading to the UK and would be there fort he next two weeks traveling solo. I had just met a beautiful genuine girl and had a blast with her, and now I’m off to England and Scotland.

I landed late that night in Standsted, London… yet again, and slept on the floor near the check-in counters. I wore my sunglasses to block out the light coming from the check-ins to help me sleep. Although I was alone, away from my friends and family, and laying uncomfortably on the tile floor of a foriegn airport, I must have fallen asleep that night with a big ol smile on my face.