Fred and Julia's Lifelong Travel Blog

New Chernobyl Content

2012-02-24T12:02:00.002-06:00

Not really new, but I originally wrote a long-ish post on Chernobyl, only to delete it a few minutes later and substitute it with a few words and photos. My memory of the event has gotten hazy after less than a year, and I figured I would re-post it before it was lost forever.

Original blog post with videos, photos and summary: http://www.fredandjulia.com/2011/04/chernobyl-most-romantic-honeymoon-spot.html
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(originally posted in April, 2011, and deleted by myself minutes later - my apologies for the unedited typos)

Well, huh, where to even start this one?

Get ready for a lot of photos (not typical Fred-style, I know), some videos from Youtube that are close to 20 minutes long (and repetitive for the average viewer). This was an experience I will probably never forget, but unfortunately not one that entirely fit my expectations.

...and how could it possibly do that? I've seen so many Chernobyl blogs and photos, especially of the amusement park and ferris wheel, that it became somewhat of a fantasy - something you need to see in person to really get the full experience. Let me preface this post by saying that it does and will not fulfill the image that most people interested in Chernobyl have of it. Maybe it is the tour's fault, or maybe it's the hyped image. Maybe it's the hours upon hours spent in a bus with only a short time to explore on your own time. Maybe it's the vast number of tourists (ok, 30) that snap photos the second they leave the bus and don't take the time to suck it all in with their eyes.

Yes, I took a lot of photos. More than I've taken in entire countries. Most of these were taken while walking and pointing and shooting (thanks to our new awesome Canon which makes me a little happy that our old Nikon broke) and that explains the sometimes blurry and not so artsy photos of the disaster zone that is Chernobyl. By the end of the trip, when I was finally given a half hour to explore a middle school in Pripyat (the closest town to the plant) I decided against taking photos and instead hit the record button on my camera and walking through it without much thought to what I was recording. This was what I wanted to see. It wasn't until we finished up and headed to the contamination checkpoint that I started to get a little nervous again.

Again, this probably explains why the video might be boring to most after a few minutes. To me, it was the most fascinating and exciting part of the ten hour trip. It wasn't just a photo opportunity to add to the millions of images that come back on Google when you search 'Chernobyl', but myself actually walking from classroom to classroom, seeing most of the same in each room, and getting a real chill of the events that happened here.

And this is probably a good opportunity to begin my experience of the tour that is Chernobyl.

This tour had been in my mind for ages. It wasn't the reason for coming to Ukraine. But knowing I was coming, I knew I'd kick myself if I didn't see it for myself. The price was $150 - expensive by our standards. It included the bus ride from Kiev to the Chernobyl evacuation zone (which was about 30km long), lunch, and of course the tour itself.

Many people thought I was insane for doing this. My parents didn't express much concern. Julia's parents were a little different. Completely understandable given the circumstances. There weren't exactly many Ukrainians on this trip. A few crazy Russians, yeah, but mostly westerners and a few Japanese. When I first booked the tour, I was excited and prepared for everything to come. When I woke up in the morning and headed down to Independence Square to present my passport, pay, and hit the bus for the journey, I started to get a little nervous. What if... will I... ?

My memory sucks. Julia points this out every day. I don't remember where I was, but I can visually place myself in every spot I was at today. Most of the tour involved riding in a bus from Point A to Point B, viewing a few sights, a few leftovers from the evacuation, and a few things that were over my head from a scientific perspective. It didn't help that our tour guide left most of this to our imagination. Videos will help me remember some of areas that I'll soon forget.

I was underwhelmed and somewhat bored for the first few hours. When we hit the actual reactor that exploded, I was somewhat terrified. I got out, took some quick photos, and headed back to the bus. Not risking this one., We were supposedly 300m from the plant, but it looked a lot closer. The thing was massive, but I knew it was still leaking. Construction workers from across the globe were working to seal it off once and for all. It's only taken 25 years.

...and to make things even more fun, yesterday was the actual 25th anniversary. The president of Ukraine showed up. Today, they were many government officials in the area (or men with nice fitted suits - I'm just making the goverrnment official part up). There was a city within the evacuation zone, where heating pipes were built above ground to avoid the radioactive soil, where many people lived, slept, and worked in the area. It was odd to see the newly built houses surrounded by abandoned radioactive Soviet style apartments.

We saw the river that provided cooling to the plants. We saw other plants that weren't shut down until 2000. We saw random schools on a guided path. It felt like I was following a blog (just like you're doing!) and not really experiencing this thing myself. But all I really remembered was the amusement park with the creepy ferris wheel. You know the one. Everyone takes a photo of it. It's the Eiffler Tower of Chernobyl.

It felt like a roller coaster ride, except most of this ride is you going up, up, up until out of nowhere you take a huge downward turn and get hit with everything all at once and all too quickly. I came for the ghost town. For Pripyat. I wanted to see what life was like in 1986, when things stood still.

Let me get a few things out of the way. I think a lot of the Chernobyl experience is complete bullshit. There were creepy dolls everywhere, as if staged perfectly by some guy whose job it is to wake up before the tour buses arrive and carefully place all the eerie things in their spots. Records next to music sheets, stuffed animals in ferris wheels, magazines spread across the floor (I saw one with a cover advertising MP3 players - USSR must have been craxy advanced back in '86).

It was a facade. It was trying to hit us with what we expected and wanted to see. We wanted to see the most macabre images we could find. To me, it felt as real as the hill tribes in Southeast Asia.

..until we hit the middle school in Pripyat. This is where things became real. This is where the tour guide told us we had 30 minutes, and I was able to bolt out and try to explore the four floots of the school on my own. This is where my camera didn't take a single photo but instead followed me around (experience this by watching my long, long Youtube video). This is where walking through the hallways, peering into classrooms, bathrooms, and libraries felt like something stuck in time without any disturbances. I couild have spent hours here. Time passed by as I wanted so badly to open up the books fallen from the library bookcases and see a different world. Walking into the bathroom was both disgusting and somewhat fascinating.

Most of this place is imaginary. It was designed to thrill you no differently than a theme park. It was custom created to match exactly what you'd expect to see from a city evacuated and left to dust 25 years ago. When you ride into town and see a somewhat bustling town, you know things aren't exactly what they seem.
Despite the facade of the dolls and carefully placed objects throughout the grounds, Pripyat was still an amazing experience. I'll probably soon forget the whole Chernobyl experience, but I won't forget wandering through the school and rarely seeing another person. I didn't intentionally choose to ignore narrating most of the long video - I was just caught in the moment (and also watching my footing and my head to avoid stepping on too much glass and hitting my head against hanging lights).

Finally, I am aware of the pain this caused my new family and my wife. In my view, this place has been forgotten by the new generation living in Ukraine. It's more of a, 'why could you want to go there?' than a 'are you insane'' question. Maybe I'm wrong, but that was my impression. It's become a huge tourist attraction for both Ukraine and the city of Kiev. No doubt that the government is cashing in one this. I wish I knew the reason I wanted so badly to come here. I suppose it's a slice of history that few have seen. Or maybe it was just the ferris wheel. Aside from wandering the school, I thought the remnant shells of old communist buildings (restaurants, hotels) were the nost visually appealing places in the evacuation zone. Other than in North Korea, where else can you find these things?

As outsiders, I think we will always be fascinated by a former communist town stuck in time - sitting just 100km away from a post-communist, bustling city.

Ciao

2011-07-15T09:16:00.003-05:00

Eastern Europe - Planned Route vs. Actual Route

2011-07-05T10:39:00.001-05:00

We changed our minds about where to go on an almost daily basis while in Europe. We originally drew out a route on a map that we thought would hit everywhere we wanted to see while also getting us to Italy without having to backtrack.

It all goes to show that the best planned trip can't compete with the flexibility of making last minute changes.

Original Route

Actual Route (original route in black, actual in red)

Oh Noes - It's Over!

2011-06-30T17:03:00.001-05:00

Until Julia's short post on Budapest last week, there had been a long dry spell in our blogging. When we hit Budapest and spent our week there, we entered some sort of 'this is coming to an end' personality change. There wasn't any sadness or daily crying fits, but we automatically and subconsciously started to transition ourselves back into our life in Chicago.

We saw a lot of Budapest and we loved a lot of Budapest. We did, however, download an entire season of AMC's The Killing and finished it in a few days (though we saw the finale in Italy, which made us hate that show forever). Blogging about this show didn't fit into the context of our blog description, though. We also just felt like living and lazily going through the final moments of our trip. You can also get this sense from the number of photos we took there. There was plenty to snap a picture of, but we just didn't feel like taking photos, and sometimes even forgot to take a camera with us. We apologize to those who may have been looking forward to a huge Budapest write-up, but we can attest to the city being awesome, even though it was one of our most expensive destinations. Ask us about Budapest in person and we'll give you a detailed run-down.

This entry is being written from Julia's parents' house in Arlington Heights. We move back to our home in Chicago tomorrow morning. This means the honeymoon is over - for now. We'll continue to use this space as our blog for anything and everything travel. We don't take too many Disneyworld-esque vacations, so hopefully it continues to be interesting reading material every now and then. We'll continue to write about long-term travel in general and link to other resources and articles as well. There won't be any leaving work and traveling the world for six months for a long, long, long, long time, but hopefully we can continue to inspire others with the same passion to jump in.

In general, we're both extremely happy we did this. We learned more about each other in the past six months than we ever could have hoped. It's all those small things, good and bad, that just never would have come out unless you spent every waking (and sleeping) moment next to one another and put into both extremely pleasant and extremely stressful situations. The stressful situations, especially, helped us see our own strengths and weaknesses. I, for one, have learned to never try to navigate us around a city that is not on a grid street system like Chicago. Julia would agree.

I'm hoping to conclude all this with a few more specific posts (what we liked best, how much money we spent vs. how we budgeted, where we spent our money, and what we would have done differently). Budget-wise, we came almost right at the number we planned for. While planning, though, we didn't expect more expensive places like Istanbul and Croatia. We disagreed on favorite place, but Bulgaria was the most interesting to me as a whole while Croatia was destined to be Julia's jewel. We both agreed our favorite city was Lviv, Ukraine (sorry Kiev). Our biggest disappointment was going to Serbia and skipping Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. Once I get our financial data organized on Mint.com, I'll be able to put together costs by country, but gut feel tells me that Ukraine and Bulgaria were our cheapest countries - even cheaper than Southeast Asia.

So despite the title of this post, there's still a little more to come - once we get the time and energy. Right now, it's fun being an unemployed bum, but work starts up for both of us too soon.

To everyone who has been following our blog since the beginning - thank you! While this blog will serve as a journal that we'll treasure for the rest of our lives, we also appreciate sharing it with an interested audience. Aside from close friends and family, we're not quite sure who has been following along and reading. If you're out there lurking, let us know!

Szia, Budapest!

2011-06-26T16:29:00.000-05:00

We're back in Chicago by now and it's somewhat hard to get the motivation to remember what we did two weeks ago in a land far, far way. However, we spent an entire week in Budapest and really enjoyed the city, so here's a few interesting facts that we learned:

1. Hungarian is a super hard language to learn. We were told that the closest related language to Hungarian is Finnish, however, we're also told by a Hungarian that he doesn't understand a word of Finnish. One of our tour guides told us that Hollywood sometimes uses Hungarian as a language for extra-terrestrials in movies. For example, Yoda from Star Wars speaks Hungarian. Finally, if you want to know some Hungarian, you can greet someone by saying, "see-ya!" to say good-bye you can just say, "hello." Makes lots of sense, right?

2. Hungarians are very proud of their inventors. One of the most recognizable ones is the Rubik's cube. Another one is the hydrogen filled airship, which was later sold to the German, Zeppelin. Other notable Hungarian inventors are responsible for telephone exchange, many parts of the Ford Model T and (co-inventor of) the assemble line, nuclear chain reaction, Microsoft Office applications and the modern diesel engine.

Saint Stephen's Basilica

Széchenyi Chain Bridge over the Danube river

The Hungarian Parliament Building

The Great Synogogue

The Road to Budapest

2011-06-14T12:55:00.000-05:00

Budapest wasn't always the ending point of our trip (the trip before the Italy wedding, that is, which is when we become 'real' vacationers even though we aren't ditching the backpacks). We originally planned a few days here which is what most travelers recommend. Then again, most travelers do 2-3 days everywhere they go just to fit enough in.

Before setting out to Europe we had no idea where we would end. We assumed we'd probably take some kind of ferry to Italy for the wedding once our time had run out. This easily could have worked in Croatia, where multiple ferries a day left for Italy - and how cool would it be to cross the Adriatic like that?

It wouldn't happen, though, because of the way we booked our flight from Kiev to Istanbul, and Budapest to Florence. We wanted to see Istanbul. We didn't want to travel across Ukraine to see the rest of Eastern Europe, and we definitely wanted to fly directly into Florence airport instead of some odd roundabout way. This all sounded great and worked out (it still does). It did leave us with an itinerary, though, of having to reach Budapest by a certain day. We have to catch a flight from Budapest on the morning of the 16th - there's no way around that. If that flight wasn't there, I could see us heading through Slovenia and making our way by train to Florence with plenty of time to spare.

Regrets? Not too many. We thought Zagreb, being the capital city of Croatia and all, might be a good hub for transportation - but, no. There was a single direct train to Budapest that required a change from train to bus (tracks were under construction a-la the brown line CTA tracks) and needed a bus to bypass said construction. So by train, bus, train, we were able to make it to Budapest.

Problem? We really wanted to see Pecs in the southern part of Hungary. A larger city (nowhere on the scale of Budapest) that has a university town and what everyone has said is a great atmosphere was unfortunately missed. The only way we found to get there was to either take a bus from Zagreb back to Belgrade up to Pecs (wtf!?). No. The other way was a train to Budapest (which we took for 6 hours) and then backtracking to the border. No thanks.

So Budapest for 7 days - 4 more than anyone else recommended. 5 days in, I'm saying it was a good decision. We're liking it here. Again, we're taking it easy and not going crazy on the atmosphere, but the place has a really good vibe. Followed by Croatia, Hungary is the most westernized country we've visited on the trip. With Italy to follow, I think we're subconsciously trying to slowly adjust back to life in Chicago. There's a lot of modernity mixed in with a bit of communist-era touches that make this place a nice transition point.

Upon arrival we hit the metro to take from the international train station over to the hostel we'd be staying at for one night. We bought a 7 day pass after reading that validating tickets on trains and trams is a bitch and that fines are often targeted toward tourists. We also later realized we would take public transit several times a day and made our money back after only a few days. A woman who spoke English, who after hearing us yelling at each other in a confused post-long-trip sort of way, told us she'd help us buy tickets. We paid our money, signed our names onto the 7 day pass (why? we'd find out later) and headed toward the metro.

Kiev flashback. Enter the metro, have a ticket guy examine your ticket (that's right, no machines, even though 4+ people stand at each entry/exit point) and take a long escalator down to the tracks. The trains are all German, but this is pretty common across old USSR countries. I've yet to do any research, but did the Germans create all the infrastructure for this? I've never seen anywhere in America that requires a minute escalator ride down to a station. Having a fear of heights here really sucks.

I'm not going to say much about our first hostel except that we needed a night to stay on Thursday and planned to leave the next day. The place was creepy in a way that only a Hostel movie (maybe only part 1) could be. The guy working there was equally as creepy, and that was before I hit the bathroom late at night to see his torrent application open to a dozen porn videos. Seriously, if you're going to do that in a public place, at least lock the screen. Even a screensaver. Please.

We bolted out of creepy hostel and headed to... the Le Meridien. That's right. Hostel to hotel, once again. It never gets old. Especially when you head toward the front desk with a huge line and bypass all the old people (I assume they're all French) to the Starwood Preferred line. It's even better when you get bad looks. They're dressed all fancy and I'm wearing the same clothes I wore for the past week. Sign said 500 euros for a standard room. I liked my hotel points plus a $60 fee.

It was nice to have our first high-powered shower all Euro-trip that was strong enough to act like a head massage and enough to flood the rest of the bathroom. Even better to be directly above all three metro lines (red, blue, yellow - like the CTA!). I'd complain that the yellow line metro (told it's the oldest subway in Europe, next to the London underground) made our room rumble a bit, but the brown line across our condo helped us not care a bit about it.

There's more Budapest to come. Interesting stuff, like why Buda and Pest are two different neighborhoods separated by the Danube, or how many malls exist in the Budapest metro area (hint: we have been to 3 of them). We also learned a bit about the sex trade after the Le Meridien kindly supplied us with a flyer that advertised erotic massages but on their website claimed, 'we do not offer sexual services!', but really retracted that in their photo gallery section. Either way, we checked the googles and it's legal here. Still funny that the Le Meridien had this flyer right next to Opera performances and all that other Frenchy stuff.

Unfortunately, again, we've slowed down on our photo taking and spent more time just living here and relaxing before we need to go home and take care of fun stuff like car insurance and Comcast installation appointments.

We'll see you again soon from Budapest, this time with a little more about thermal baths, our walking tours, and how we've generally spent our time here in this great city.

Croatia - My Happy Place

2011-06-09T17:23:00.000-05:00

Beaches and sunshine make me smile which means Croatia made me smile A LOT. I think that it's the most beautiful country I've visited. Fred complains that the beaches are not so great because they're all rocky, but the clear, turquoise water and steep cliffs that line the shore put me in awe. I literally could not sleep on buses (I always fall asleep on buses) because I could not stop starring at the scenery. We've been in Croatia for about 10 days, yet this is the first detailed post about it. Why? Because I've been too busy enjoying myself. I found my happy place.

Scenery viewed from Bus

It definitely helps that Croatian is almost identical to languages spoken in Serbia and Montenegro, and we got pretty used to understanding it. We had the least amount of difficulty communicating in English out of all places in Eastern Europe (Poland is a close second). Croatians were almost always friendly and the accommodations were pretty good, despite the higher prices.

DUBROVNIK
We arrived here straight from Kotor Bay. I thought Kotor was beautiful, but the ride to Dubrovnik foreshadowed that I was going to be impressed. The red roof tops on a hill set against a blue sea was nothing less than stunning. This must explain why Dubrovnik has some of the biggest cruise ships I've ever seen or imagined. In Dubrovnik, we spent most of our time strolling through the old town and eating fresh seafood. We met up with Ken, our friend who we met in Bulgaria and saw in Montenegro to continue much of our Croatia trip.

With Ken and Monica at sunset

Dubrovnik from above

Most amazing sunset

Dubrovnik old town at night

One of the highlights of Dubrovnik for me was taking a quick ferry to Lokrum island where we were met by wild peacocks and rocky beaches. This is where we first learned about FKK beaches, which Croatia is apparently known for. FKK stands for the German word Freikörperkultur, which loosely translates to "Free Body Culture". Read more about this natural movement on Wikipedia and don't ask me if I participated. There was also a "Dead Sea" on this island which took forever to find. Unfortunately, we quickly found out that it's not really 'dead' since there were fish swimming around it and we weren't floating like you would in Israel's Dead Sea. It was just a nice, relaxing cove to splash around in.

Tourists and peakocks

The not so "dead sea" cove

These rocks are what Croatians call a beach. Perfect for me!

HVAR
In Hvar island, Fred, Ken and I had the most memorable homestay. Most people that visit Croatia don't make reservations, but they rather just show up to their desired location and find a tourist office that sets them up with private room in a building where the owner lives. There are also many many women and men that stand where tourists get dropped off that offer rooms in their homes for rental. Well, Fred was reluctant to just show up like everyone else does. Instead, he went to Tripadvisor and found an excellent Sobe (private apartment) owned by Jagoda and her husband.

With Jagoda on her terrace

We quickly got acquainted with Jagoda. She asked for our occupations back home and then explained her former occupation (she was an economist before she retired) as well as her two sons. She gave us information about the nightclubs, supermarkets and her other visitors. She even went out of her way to introduce Ken to two single female travelers (snobby French girls who just said 'hi' and shut the door) as well as give us a tour of the rented room of another family staying there (without their knowledge). After her comment that they were messy, I made sure to be on my best behavior and keep our rental clean because who knows who she's going to show our apartment to!

We quickly learned that Jagoda felt comfortable enough with us to enter the apartment without knocking. When we asked for oil and spices, she brought us olive oil that she made herself as well as zucchini straight from the garden. She tried to encourage us to get fish, but we never made it to the market at 7am. Turns out that all the restaurants buy the fish early in the morning and 7am is latest that we can arrive to get good fish. She made sure to come looking for me whenever she thought I needed cooking advice and I made sure to hide in the shower. It was one of our favorite experiences of the trip because we never felt so connected with our hosts in other apartments or hostels. We miss Jagoda approving/disapproving of what we were eating or doing and gossiping about the other guests!

Look at that clear water!!

Hvar town

At Palmizana island, close to Hvar

SPLIT
This is Croatia's second largest city, but it felt like a nice resort town. Situated on the sea, it was as close to being on an island, without really being on one. We were a little tired of seeing Old Towns (although Ken told us that we missed out on cool underground castles), but we still enjoyed this city. We were lucky to have arrived on a day where there was a qualification match between Croatia and Georgia (the country) taking place in Split. Unfortunately, all the tickets were sold out, but we had an excellent time watching the game on a big screen in a large square with a bunch of locals and tourists. Although Croatia is a better team, Georgia defeated them in the last match three months ago. After ending the first half 0-1, Croatia scored two goals in a row during the second half to beat Georgia... and the crowd went wild!

Go Croatia!

Split beach is too crowded!

Split old town

ZADAR
When we arrived in Zadar on a Sunday, the whole town was completely dead. This is the first place where we did not make a reservation in advance and we had to walk about 2 kilometers in the heat to find the tourist office, which we walked right past and circled about five times. Oh well, we found a decent Sobe with a private bathroom, big kitchen and a (non-functioning, it turns out) washing machine. We walked through yet another old town and along the promenade next to the sea. Turns out we missed some of the highlights of Zadar because they were new and not in our guide book, so here you can view them on youtube:

The Promenade

Old walls and more clear water

ZAGREB
We were so lucky to actually know people who live in Zagreb! Laura and Ivan offered us a guest room in their condo for two nights and it totally made our trip to Zagreb worthwhile. We didn't hear anything exciting about visiting Zagreb, but it was really nice to share our experience with locals and for the first time in a long time to feel like we're at home. Not only did they offer us a comfy bed and a big bathroom, but they also arranged a barbeque with their neighbors where they made hamburgers and American steaks. They sure know the way to a backpacker's heart.

Eating breakfast with our Zagreb hosts, Laura and Ivan

Zagreb actually turned out to be really charming for a capital city. It didn't have the cold and distant feeling of Sofia or Belgrade. We loved our walk down Tkalčićeva, which was filled with cafes and pubs. Zagreb is a city known for it's museums and Fred and I are known for not really liking museums. I felt that I had to see at least one museum, so I chose the museum of sculptor Ivan Meštrović, which I enjoyed a lot! BTW, check out his famous statues in Chicago.

Cafes and pubs on Tkalčićeva street

Courtyard of Meštrović museum

Church of St. Mark

Love this bike, outside a cute boutique

Finally, we accidentally stumbled into the most unique museum we've been to, The Museum of Broken Relationships. This is a permanent exhibition of objects that symbolize the end of a relationship and the story behind it. Not only was this museum quirky, but it was also touching. Watch a cnn report about the museum here.

My favorite inscription in the Broken Relationship Museum

Detour in Kotor

2011-06-04T12:11:00.005-05:00

We ended up in Montenegro. Somehow. I keep looking (I mean, thinking) about our original plan and a hand-drawn map of our travel route. How different it is.

I feel like I cannot really say that I have been to Montenegro since we only visited one of the most touristy parts of the country - Kotor Bay. I had never heard of it before hearing about it from a chef from California staying at our hostel in VT, Bulgaria, but he told us it was a must-see. As mentioned in other posts, we heard Romania ranged from OK to blah.

Julia started a search on how to get to Kotor. We could either go by land across Serbia to Kosovo (how I regret not going there) or through Macedonia and Albania (also regretting). Instead, she found a flight with Montenegro Air for $95 each from Belgrade. Not bad. This set us back on course for our travel plan #2, which was to skip Romania and go through Serbia. We needed to hit Belgrade to fly out, so why not see a bit of the country? You could see in Julia's post that Serbia, while not our favorite place, gave us some much needed insight into the Balkan region.

Once going through Nikola Tesla airport (yeah, I did not know he was from there either) we hit Tivet, a small airport outside Kotor. We caught a cab and were in for some Dubrovnik-like breathtaking scenery. I'll show you some photos, but imagine a sunny bay of the Adriatic surrounded by cliffs you have never set your eyes on before. Beautiful. While you could not swim, you could spend hours looking up at the mountains or down at the sparkling water - or both at the same time. Food-wise we were excited about the idea of eating black risotto (risotto with squid ink) and were certainly not disappointed.

Black risotto with fresh squid inside... num-num-num


Kotor Bay at dusk

We stayed in apartment (Tianis Apartments) that had a full bedroom with satellite TV (nothing like watching E! while abroad), a kitchen, fridge, and a balcony overlooking the mountains surrounding the bay.


Incredible view from our apartment balcony

Our friend Ken (who you have met in previous posts) was planning to meet us in Kotor after a trip through Macedonia and Albania. We had originally thought of sharing an apartment since our place claimed it fit three people, but we realized we could do no sort of furniture rearranging to make it work without jumping over his sleeper couch into the bathroom.


Ken's bed that was not to be

We met up and did as much non-touristy stuff as possible since touristy stuff makes Fred cry, even though everything cool has been touristized. There is an old town surrounded by incredibly beautiful walls but destroyed by hordes of cruise ships with old people who make the old city cry out in terror each and every day. But no matter because they are gone by dark. There is also a fortress that we almost climbed to see the best view of the bay but laziness and Fred's seasonal allergies (which he spent weeks avoiding a pharmacy or doctor to treat) got the best of us and we instead spent it watching some movie with Owen Wilson in it.

Fortress at night which would be way cooler if we had a DSLR camera

We left the city by bus to Dubrovnik and wished we had a car to explore the smaller towns along the coast. If only we had learned to drive stick while back home. But for now, unlike the couple of the last post, I cannot really say we have seen Montenegro. It's like saying you saw Mexico after a weekend at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallerta.

Either way, we loved Kotor. Go there if you can. Get a car. Drive along the coast all the way across the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. You will probably crash your car because you will not look away from the scenery along the way.

Yeah, this was taken from a bus and pretty much looked this way all five hours of the trip

You might notice my using 'do not' or 'cannot' as I usually do not but have not in this post (even though it is the correct way). That is because this keyboard is strange and has the quotation mark in a very strange and unnatural place, so it is easier to spell words more formally. Thank you for understanding. Also, the z and y keys are swapped so I apologize if you see a 'zou' where a 'you' should be.

More Insights Into Travel (and a little trash-talking too!)

2011-06-02T12:11:00.001-05:00

Really, how much do you know about Yugoslavia - other than it being a country you had to memorize for geography class (and even then it was easy because it was one big lump of land like the USSR was). I gotta say, being here has opened my eyes up to the headlines you read about in newspapers. When Julia last spoke to her grandfather, he said that all wars start here in the Balkans, and now that seems to make a little more sense.

The idea for this post popped up when I turned the TV on (our first in-room TV since Asia) and saw reports coming from Serbia on both BBC and CNN. I figured maybe it was because we were in Montenegro and the satellite feed was probably coming from a Serbian-owned satellite? I hopped on the net, and sure enough, it made top headlines even in the US. Ratko Mladic, the alleged (hate that word) war criminal during the Bosnian war, allegedly responsible (but really, responsible) for ordering the mass genocide of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims during the war over 15 years ago, was arrested by Serbian police and waiting extradition to the Hague for his war crimes.

I'm not sure how many people back home cared much about this, but it made sense to me in a way that Calculus never did. We'd just left Belgrade a week before and were sitting in Montenegro, a former Yugoslavian territory. Now there's mass protests by ultra-nationalist Serbs and injuries / violence all over the place. When I see news footage, I can't really recognize exact places, but I can recognize the feeling of what it was like to have been there.

What's the whole point of this? This trip was worth more than a year of college (probably more) - more than any history class could have hoped to achieve. It makes sense why studying abroad is not only a recommended thing to do, but something that should be required.

Despite wanting to, we didn't go to Kosovo because of timing and logistical reasons (really, we found a cheap flight from Belgrade to Kotor and needed to travel through Serbia). We did meet people who have, though, and while they didn't necessarily rank it on the top of their lists for must-see places, they did say they are glad they went for the cultural insight. I mean, really, other than the footage you saw back in the 90's of us and the rest of NATO bombing this shit out of the region, how much do you know about Kosovo?

Kosovo declared its independence in 1998 and was soon recognized by the UN and many other nations. Serbia would disagree. As would Russia, China, Spain, Argentina... (the list goes on - most of these countries have their own territory disputes, like China with Tibet and Taiwan). It's so much of an issue that crossing the border into Kosovo, getting a stamp in your passport, and then trying to enter Serbia will get you turned away. There are signs all over the central square of Belgrade advertising anti-NATO protests. We even saw a residential building in a suburb of Belgrade (why we were in the suburbs will be discussed in a future post) that had graffiti on the wall saying FUCK NATO.

We'll be posting some amazing, beautiful photos from Montenegro and Croatia (both former Yugoslavian regions) but that doesn't mean you spend 100% of your time sitting on the rocky beaches enjoying the crystal clear Adriatic surrounded by breathtaking rock formations (sorry). The extra bonus is that events outside of your own little world start to become as close to you as the circus that is the trial Rod Blagojevich (also of Serbian descent, by the way).

There's an older couple we met in Bulgaria who I'm going to spend a bit trashing (I can't remember if I gave you guys the name of our blog, but if so, and if you're reading this, I'm sorry - but you really are not the travel-savvy cool Americans that you constantly proclaim to the world that you are). They've been traveling for over two years with a goal of going to 100 countries (yay, the Centurian club). They spend a few days (sometimes a day) in a country and check it off a list. When we were both heading to Veliko Tarnovo and buying bus tickets, they didn't even know the name of the place they were going. In the morning before hitting the bus station, the guy asked a student staying at our hostel, studying at a college in Blagoevgrad, where he was going to school. When told 'Blagoevgrad', he said, 'Yeah, that's where we're going too'. The student was confused because it's a smaller city and doesn't really get many tourists, if any. I guess it almost sounds the same as Veliko Tarnovo. On a sidenote, they also mentioned they were going to 'some island in Turkey' but couldn't because of the whole flotilla thing. We later found out that 'island in Turkey' was Cyprus.

One more paragraph, I promise.

We just so happened to be staying in the same hostel as them in VT. Over dinner in the hostel, they were looking at their Lonely Planet book to try and figure out what countries they could hit up next. They were planning to go through Romania and saw that Moldova was on the way. Moldova doesn't really seem like their place. I mentioned how you sometimes need to go through Transdniester, which is a region that declared itself a country away from Moldova. Nobody recognizes it. The 'country' is pretty much known as a place you travel through to get to another country. It's also known for shaking down tourists for bribes when you travel through. It's probably their only source of income. But this couple wanted to visit Transdniester because they could check another country off their list. Seriously?

Ok, one more.

The guy is writing a book about how Americans can travel by 'unhooking' their belongings back home and traveling for life. Sounds cool, which is one reason Julia and I initially thought they were the role models for Americans. It turns out they owned a business, sold it, and are currently renting out their mansion right on the coast of San Diego. Yeah, sure they're unhooking. The book will be a joke because they've unhooked by getting rich (but keeping their home) and selling it off to everyone else like anyone can do the same. Really, good for them for being able to do this. I'm envious and maybe that's why I've spent a few paragraphs (and even more hours over conversation with other backpackers) writing about how they suck. But really, their experiences going out to mass audiences is deceptive and wrong. I could travel for the rest of my life too - if I didn't want a family or hit it big by the time I retired.

I wish this post could have been more about places we've been, but at the same time, these things need to be recorded so I don't forget them later. Why write about one of the dozens of fortresses you've been to but never spent more than a few minutes later talking about? The other reason is that every place we've been to on the coast is using T-Mobile (it's a German company if you didn't know) wireless for their network and while the download speeds are crazy fast, uploading seems to be a no-no because it limits you to under 1k a second after about 30 seconds. Our photos are unfortunately stuck offline at the moment.

Julia's last post came after we finally were able to upload our photos from Serbia. We'd been slowing down on our post per week rate and it seemed that we could use another. This one will go photo-less.

One more thing before I forget, because Ken (our friend here in Croatia who we met in Bulgaria who we're now sharing an apartment with) and I keep making jokes about FKK beaches everywhere we go (check it on Wikipedia). We saw on a map on Lokrum island (off Dubrovnik) a bunch of signs that only said 'FKK'. We didn't know what this meant until we finally decided to Wikipedia it. We figured it meant nudist beach because that's what we saw at every FKK checkpoint, but it really goes beyond that. Oh, Germans, you almost beat the Japanese in what you do.

Sofia, Niš and Belgrade

2011-05-31T15:39:00.002-05:00

Sorry we've been gone for so long, but a combination of slow internet and not much to write about kept us away from the blogging. So, let's get down to the city summaries.

Sofia
This is the capital of Bulgaria. After being swept away by charming little cities and stunning scenery, we were prepared for what other travellers have called just "another big city". We felt it was just that. We saw some churches and walked around city center. There is a yellow brick road, which I thought would be some crazy model of the Wizard of Oz movie set, but it was just a few streets that used yellow bricks (now a dirty greenish brown) instead of pavement. What I did like about Sofia was the excellent selection of modern cafes and bars that lined the main street.

Center of Sofia

Pour your beer from your very own tap

Niš
When we read "tower of skulls" and first Nazi concentration camp in our guide book, we immediately thought we had to go to Niš. However, most of the sites we came to see ended up being disappointing. We really thought that the skull tower would be an actual tower, but it was just parts of the tower stored in a small chapel. By the way, what is this skull tower? Its a tower that the Turks built from the skulls of Serbian rebels. What a creative way to prevent uprisings, right?

We also visited the Red Cross Concentration camp, which was the first Nazi concentration camp in Yugoslavia. However, after visiting Auchwitz and Birkenau no concentration camp will stand out. We also walked through a fortress turned into a park, which was nice, but nothing to write home about. I'll give it to Niš for the pedestrian street that is lined with endless outdoor cafes. We really enjoyed chilling out on that street, people watching and debating whether there are more pregnant women or women showing their midriffs.

Our favorite story from Niš was meeting a very unique 18-year-old. Her mother lives in Dubai, but can no longer work as a police officer there because of her daughter. This girl convinced her mother to let her drive a car, although she was not allowed at her age. Well, she crashed the car and now her mom cannot work for two years according to the UAE government. This girl was very opinionated. She hated everything about Serbia and about Niš. She said traffic in Belgrade was "ujhaz" (a horror). She almost lost her balance because of construction on the sidewalk and swore about how terrible Niš is. She pointed to a guy riding on a motorcycle and said (in Slavic accent) "if a car hits him, he will die". She insisted that people in Serbia don't care about pedestrians or bicyclists and wouldn't stop to help a person they hit. Finally, she told us about how stupid Lady Gaga is. Despite all this she missed at least three buses to stay with us until our bus came.

The uninspired "Tower" of Skulls

Restaurants and Cafes lining the Pedestrian Street

Belgrade
Yep, another big city. We started out pretty badly considering that our hostel directions told us to take a specific tram, but that tram line was under construction. We found a random girl with a pink suitcase who looked Serbian, but also lost. She didn't speak English but we figured out she was looking for the same tram and she ended up taking us to the "replacement" bus.

We only had one whole day in Belgrade so we only really saw the fortress. Starting to see a pattern? Fortresses for us are like waterfalls of Asia (Fred's quote).

Belgrade Fortress

Belgrade decided to stick its tennis courts in the moat of the ancient fortress

Quick Update

2011-05-27T02:58:00.002-05:00

It's been awhile since any kind of substantial blog, but we thought we'd provide an update on what we've been doing and where we're off to next. We've been getting lazy with the blog posts, as well as taking loads of pictures.

At the time of the last 'real' post, we were on the Northwest corner of Bulgaria. From there we spent a quick two nights in Sofia, the capital city, doing not much other than eating and sitting at cafes. Maybe an hour of sightseeing thrown in.

We ventured on via bus to Nis, Serbia, where we spent another few nights in an empty hostel. We then moved on to Belgrade, where we had purchased a cheap one-way flight to Tivat, Montenegro. A guy in a hostel in Bulgaria told us we needed to see Kotor, Montenegro, so we changed our course from traveling up Serbia to Hungary and instead going down the Montenegro / Croatia coast and making our way back north toward Budapest (and on to Italy), where the journey ends and real life begins.

We're sitting in Kotor, ready to leave toward Dubrovnik, Croatia, tomorrow morning.

Julia should be posting a Serbia-related blog as soon as the motivation strikes. We've also been having issues uploading our photos lately, even though the number of photos has drastically decreased of late.

One Month to Go

2011-05-22T11:11:00.007-05:00

A bit of a lame title, but fitting given that... yes, it's one month left until we're back in the US, working again, getting back to a normal routine, paying the mortgage, watching too much crap TV, and re-figuring out the meaning of life.

There will surely be a post-trip entry to follow this one, but it's also something important for us to understand where we're at now. For at least myself, as I've once mentioned before, a lot of things are starting to blend in together. I've thought about this at nights when I've been unable to sleep or at cafes drinking beer, wine, coffee, tea (really, a cafe is a bar and a bar is a cafe which also might be a club depending on the day of week or mood of the staff). I almost feel like I've hit a routine here, but it's also been a somewhat stress-free one.

I'll stick with the word 'somewhat'. Anyone who has backpacked will understand this. Anyone who has not will label it entirely as a vacation and a time away from work. Anyone who has stressed - over how to find a place to stay in wherever you're going, or been rushed to catch a bus to whatever city you're headed to next, or been crammed into a tiny bus, or been stuck in a train compartment with staggering heat, no air, and a need to use the bathroom except the bathroom is too gross to even spend a second in, a sign you can't read, a person you can't understand, a language you try to speak but fail at, a random high school girl who grew up in Dubai who misses her own bus to help you, a hostel that has 20+ Greek girls partying at all hours of the night giving you no chance to sleep for a week, a need to stash your USD, your credit card, your euros, your ATM card, the currency from the previous countries that you forgot to exchange that are now pretty much worthless - yes, maybe they will understand and know that even though it's a gap from the routine of life, it's still a routine and still one that requires a functional brain. An all-inclusive resort this is not. Granted, a yuppie problem it is.

...not to say I'm complaining or even regretful, or even comparing it as an equal to life back home. This has been an eye-opening experience. People will say six months isn't enough to change someone, but I'll be coming back as a new person. I think Southeast Asia was indeed a vacation. It was so tourist-dependent and so easy to live essentially stress-free that Eastern Europe has felt like the challenge level has been amped up several degrees. We blend in here. We aren't the easy tourist traps waiting to get that tout. We sit somewhere and get spoken to in the local language, and sometimes we come close, but usually we fail and ask for the Angliski version. Julia, who speaks Russian, has been my crux throughout the trip. Even though she can't understand Serbian or Bulgarian or whatever Slavic language we encounter next, she'll come close enough to help me through a situation. One word of understanding is enough to lead you in the right direction.

At this moment, though, I think we both feel that our experiences in Eastern Europe have far surpassed those in Asia. We feel less like tourists and more like part of the society. We haven't interacted with enough locals - mostly those in hostels or the occasional random person we meet along the way - but we've followed on our path instead of being led around. Having never experienced any part of Western Europe myself, I can't say with certainty that this area of the world is something special, but for me - yes, it's something special.

It's absolutely beautiful here, and it's under appreciated by the world. Prague has become the new destination, but it's still a part of Eastern Europe. Give it a few years, and we'll have a few 'New Pragues'. Budapest is already getting that name. We'll keep moving east, and suddenly everyone will know that the world is filled with places that go far beyond what Prague has to offer. These places are content without tourism - in fact, they're probably better off. I say this with a lot of naivety because I've rarely seen the outskirts of where I've been, knowing full well that life outside the upper-middle class is dominate. But isn't every city? Who visits Chicago and ventures to 95th and Halsted? I spent half my life in Peoria, Illinois, and visited the south side of the city only to finish up summer school and rush back home.

Life almost feels like a Sunday now. You're relaxing because you know the next day, the few moments to yourself are coming to an end until the following week. We can start to see that our days have become a Sunday because of the fewer and fewer pictures we take, the more often we walk around lazily without a real purpose, the lack of planning around sights and the more spur of the moment decisions, the choice to visit a town without the tourism infrastructure over the one with sights galore because we've seen enough. A coffee or ice coffee (that actually was a coffee with ice cream) under an umbrella, sitting on a couch, in the middle of the street, surrounded by locals, listening to music we loved twenty years ago - that's what we're loving right now.

We'll come back different people. We'll come back as a couple that actually made it through six months of spending almost an entire day with each other. We'll come back with a new perspective on what actually matters in life.

I can't provide enough existential photos to fit this post, so I'll post some recent ones that seem to work with where we're at today.

Two Days to Go See Some Stupid Rocks

2011-05-19T16:50:00.004-05:00

We arrived from Veliko Tarnovo to Vidin (both places in Bulgaria, by the way) via train. Not just one train, mind you, but three trains, all stopping and requiring a change at places we can't even remember. It was a journey of some odd hours that lasted from ten in the morning until sometime in the early evening.

Our destination was Vidin because we had heard and read it was a great base for exploring some beautiful sections of northwest Bulgaria. We saw the Danube for a brief period, but really don't know if across the river was Bulgaria, Romania, or Serbia. Either way, we needed food and went out to find some away from the river. We ended up having our best meal in Bulgaria, at an Italian restaurant, where pizza was the specialty (where is it not?). We had a bottle of wine for about $6 - a local wine from Vidin. I had some sort of pork dish that was amazing. I only wish I had a picture.

But ok, the rocks... they weren't that stupid. In fact, they were beyond words (for me). I'm planning to have Julia finish this post with more photos and more commentary on just how amazing this place was. And by place, I mean Belogradchik, a small, sleepy town about an hour south of Vidin.

We originally checked into a hotel in Vidin (which was practically a suite for a budget price) only to soon realize the staff had absolutely no clue about Belogradchik or how to get there. In the morning, we did some quick searches on the web and found next to nothing. We checked with the staff again about buses to Belogradchik - again, nothing. We went online again and found one mention of a guesthouse on the Lonely Planet Thorntree forums, from someone who had been there and loved it. We got on the phone and called them, asking for help on getting there and if they had availability. There was definitely a room available and possibly a bus, so we asked the hotel where the bus station was. After a few minutes of 'simple' but really convoluted directions, we found two different bus stations and headed to the one closest to us. We lucked out by arriving at 11:20 am and finding what we figured was a bus to Belogradchik at noon. We had no clue how to pay or if this bus even existed, but a guy came up to us and told in a few words that we paid on the bus, and it's coming soon. We waited and the bus came.

...and we were stunned by what we saw.

This is where Julia inserts everything about Belogradchik. Except my quick social commentary on our guesthouse - Angel, the owner of Drakite Guesthouse, was a fantastic host, despite us being the only people in his place. As we were about to grab our taxi to the nearby train station (which reminded me of my study abroad town in Japan, only slightly bigger), he told us he made a living as a translator. Not just any translator, but one for Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet. His work includes Hoarders and Sister Wives. I feel very sorry that he needs to watch these. I feel even worse that we subject these shows to the people of Bulgaria.

But, okay, rock time - Julia's post begins now...

I'm not going to pretend to be some geology expert and go into some deep explanation of how these rocks were formed. All I know is they're made of limestone and sandstone and they have cool vertical shapes. Many of the formations are named based on legends associated with them.

An example of one of these legends: There once lived a nun who was known for her beauty. She devoted her life to God, but one day a young man came riding to her village on a white horse. He fell in love with her and she knew that he was the man of her dreams. Their relationship was discovered when one day the cries of her child echoed through the convent. The nuns and monks decided to expel her from the convent. The beautiful nun was devastated and begged for forgiveness, but was not pardoned. On the day she was meant to be banished a great storm passed through. The convent and monastery were demolished and the monks, the Madonna and the White Horsemen riding back to his beautiful lover were all turned into stone.

How romantic...

One of the coolest sites we've seen this trip so far is the Belogradchik fortress, which is surrounded by these rock formations. We also took a hike through a meadow where we could see these rocks. The weather wasn't so great, but I think the fog added to the surreal feeling of the formations.

Rocks and a horse on the way to the fortress

In front of the fortress

In front of the fortress, on the way out. Look at the fog!

View of Belogradchik from the fortress

Starting our hike

Foggy formation ( I think this is Adam and Eve)

View from the trail

Plovdiv and Veliko Tarnovo, or 'How Bulgaria Makes Us Lazy'

2011-05-15T14:25:00.001-05:00

It's been over a week now since we arrived in Bulgaria, which is really hard to believe. Our last posts on Bulgaria touched on what we've been doing here, and really, other than pictures, there's not a whole lot more to add (but that won't stop me). The title here almost sums it up. We've been at Hostel Mostel in Veliko Tarnovo, a small university town (with incredible scenery) a bit north of Plovdiv (the second biggest city in Bulgaria). We find talking about these places cool because we'd never heard of them before we got here, and I'm guessing you haven't either. In fact, at this point, name the capital of Bulgaria to yourself. Automatically disqualified if you grew up in Eastern Europe, by the way.

Plovdiv was a great introduction to Bulgaria. It's always great to be pleasantly surprised, which for us has always happened. Again, conjure up your idea of Bulgaria, and now throw it completely away. Yeah, we thought the same thing too. We arrived into Bulgaria in the same way we did to Warsaw. Bus, driving by communist-style block concrete buildings. The only difference here was that we finally found an Eastern European country to meet our stereotypes - everyone was wearing a track suit! Thank god!

...but once we hit the center of the city, all that changed. We walked through an impressive promenade of cafes, street food, beer gardens - even a brief stop at an M-Tel shop (cell phone provider) to pick up a local SIM card. Christ, they sold legitimate I-Phones here, and even the Samsung Galaxy S. This is a country in the EU, after all, but maybe we suck for not expecting that.

This is a cafe we had wine/tea at that also came with a cat who looked exactly like ours

We had a pretty cool hostel, and I hope anyone doing a google search on where to stay in Plovdiv or Veliko Tarnovo can find this blog in addition to all the fantastic reviews to finally settle their mind on where to stay. Hostel Mostel has been great. They just opened a new branch in Plovdiv (which explains so few reviews). Free breakfast, free dinner, and it even includes free beer. And a great staff.

This also applied to the one in Veliko Tarnovo. The one where we decided to hang out and do absolutely nothing for five nights. Most people here spend a night or two, max. The guy who worked here when we checked in hadn't worked since that day. When we came in today, we were the only people left since that day. We see a new rotation of people every day. I can't remember the last time we were this social. Maybe this contributed a bit to our laziness.

There's a few sights to see here, but the big one is Tsarevets fortress, constructed somewhere around the 5th century. This place was special to me because I have been getting tired of old buildings that were built ages ago but restored to look in some form like they did back then. Here you climb up a hill and walk around the equivalent of a large park and find random ruins and stones that once made up the most important fortress of the Byzantine empire. Check that out, I provided not only the name of a place, but some history behind it too. I'm growing up as a blogger.

Fortress stuff

Outside the fortress

Inside the fortress

Fred showing off his new shirt that says 'Fred' on it

Fred wondering if it's OK to go run and climb around on the walls

This dog literally followed Julia around like it was her own - it was our town tour guide dog, free of charge

Julia expressing her love for old stone columns

I'm going a bit backward in time here since I (and most people, I'd guess) are better at remembering what happened more recently than a week ago. It'd be strange if the opposite were true. But Plovdiv is where we started our Bulgarian adventure. Again, Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria. I'm not sure what the third is, but this is a small country, so I'm just going to make the comparison of Chicago to New York and Los Angeles - everyone's heard of the latter, but we all know the former has more character and is better in every way.

Sofia is the capital city (and largest) of Bulgaria. We haven't been there yet, but I've seen pictures, and now a film, set in the city. It looks sad and congested and devoid of distinction (like NYC and LA - sorry residents). Go ahead and get ready to laugh when I write up how amazing Sofia is in a week.

In Plovdiv, most people tend to say the same as in VT (we do that here in Bulgaria too - it ain't Veliko Tarnovo, it's V-T), which is - stay two days max, and you'll see everything. Plovdiv has a nicely preserved old town with cobbled streets (cobbled enough to make Julia regret not wearing her flat shoes and enough to make local Bulgarian girls/women (double parenthesis: not sure of their exact age because they could have been going to prom or just getting ready to go out) take off their high heels and walk around barefooted).

Probably on their way to the Bulgarian equivalent of prom, or, we're just old

Plovdiv had some great sights, but it was made better by the people we spent the time with. Ken (shout-out if you're reading this!) was a guy who only stuck around in Plovdiv for a night, but we had a great day bumping into him old town and then spending the day sightseeing (for a very short time) and stuffing our faces with food and wine and dessert (I got a sundae called a 'Chicago'). We found a park that had stones all over with a great view of the city. I'm sure this was some sort of historical location, but I'm just going to call it the place where teenagers get drunk off a 2.5l of crappy beer. This might also be what it was known for historically, but unfortunately we will never know. Either way, it provided a great spot for a photo.

Roman Amphitheater that still holds concerts

Us with Ken at the park in Plovdiv where teenagers get drunk

Us without Ken at the park in Plovdiv where teenagers get drunk

So we'll go ahead and skip what the sights in old town actually were - I mean, the random house (not the publisher) and the museums were neat, and it was fun to lay down 10% of the price to pretend to be students to get inside, but let's face it - we're more interested in the other stuff. Like a late night pizza stand called 'Pizza Hit' that sold slices of pizza with corn and pickles as toppings. And advertised with interestingly dressed women (imagine Hooters mixed with a pizza stand - but you can't, because America doesn't have pizza stands! ...or it might, but I haven't seen one). After clubbing at a chalga club (again see Julia's post) all night, it was great to find the equivalent of a burrito in the form of a pizza that had a hidden pickle inside. I'm pretty certain it was the advertisement that drew me in. For Julia, it was probably the < 50 cent slice of pizza.

Sexy pizza

Only good looking, skinny girls eat at Pizza Hit

Speaking of chalga, we happened to repeat this experience with a lot more wine and beer here in VT. We went out with an American guy from Jersey who moved to California and is a chef. We started the night at a live music club where a talented Bulgarian band played American rock songs but didn't know the lyrics/English so they kinda just mumbled their way through (somewhat successfully). They had wi-fi, which I guess is a requirement for all bars in this country, so I loaded up Shazaam to see if it could connect their music to the actual song, but it failed. Sorry Bulgarian band - we loved you though.

From there we went to another club and paid a $2 cover. This club was jam-packed but played only 90s music, and not even good 90s music - I'm pretty sure I heard Snow. And it wasn't even Informer. We left after a few minutes and hit up our chalga club, which wasn't as bustling as the Plovdiv one and certainly had no napkins being thrown in the way. They did play the music, though, and there was a girl near us celebrating her 20th birthday with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. Julia made friends with them and we danced the night away until 5am.

It was off this album - a classic, I know, but it didn't fit our mood

Since then, I can't really say we've done much. We've gone through about three rotations of backpackers coming in and out of the hostel (remember, max of two days here) and we hear them talk about hiking trails and cool stuff they've seen and blah blah. And we've barely walked a mile from the hostel. We did eat a lot, though. All that weight we lost climbing hills in Kiev is back on. Thanks, Bulgaria.

Shopska,the national Bulgarian drinking food - I'm not even joking

Potato, cheese, and ham goodness

If in some way this makes Bulgaria sound dull and boring, please do not walk away with that impression. It's a place that makes us want to do nothing. It's so laid back and beautiful and relaxing that we can't think of anything more that we'd want to do. It makes for a perfect time to watch a marathon of the TV show Party Down (the third season got canceled but it's a great show - please Netflix it or watch it in some illegal way.

Absolutely nothing to do with Bulgaria, but this show is awesome

We've gone overboard on the delicious wine. We found our favorites and stuck to them. We took a photo of our collection in our room, but realized a bottle is missing (we threw it out during dinner) and doesn't include the bottle we bought at dinner (while consuming more Bulgarian pizza) or the numerous glasses we had in restaurants or cafes. Yes, guys, it's that good.

Our Bulgarian wine collection

With that, I think I've hit the highlights of what we've done here so far. We're heading to Vidin tomorrow, which was described as a place resembling a Lord of the Rings set. After that, we're spending two nights in Sofia (blah!) and catching a train to Serbia. Obviously our entire plan for Eastern Europe has been decimated. I look now at a photo I scanned before leaving of how we'd go east from Milan and back in a few months. Once this trip ends, I'll have to scan in the same map and post the differences. Just goes to show that planning sucks, and that meeting people along the way and hearing their thoughts and opinions (especially when you meet someone you know is like-minded) is what turns a trip from a trip into a journey.

Music in Bulgaria (Videos)

2011-05-15T13:51:00.001-05:00

Looking through our Lonely Planet, I came upon a list of "must-do's" while in Bulgaria. One of these was to listen to Azis, a Chalga singer that the LP described as "androgenous". Little did we know that we stumbled on a gold mine of quirky Bulgarian culture. Our hostel receptionist rolled his eyes when he heard us watching music videos on youtube, but he gladly showed us more videos and provided directions us to the best Monday night Chalga party in Plovdiv.

So what is Chalga? To me and Fred sounds like Turkish music with a modern pop twist and the cheesiness of Bollywood music. According to Wikipedia, "it is a blend of Turkish, Bulgarian, Arabic and Romani ("Gypsy") influences, as well as motives from flamenco and klezmer music". The female singers look like high-end prostitutes and the male singers look like greasy dirtballs. The lyrics are not intelligent, but it's perfect for dancing.

On Monday night, we hit up the most happening Chalga club in town, Famoso. We got there a little after 11:30 PM and it was dead. We noticed the bartenders and servers were all doing shots behind the bar. At around 1 AM the club filled up. Go-go dancers started dancing on bars and everyone else started dancing on couches. A drummer rotated from table to table with each song. Men sitting by themselves bought a stack of napkins and threw them in the air like confetti while a go-go dancer grinded on his table. We learned that this is done as a status symbol, like throwing money in the air (a stack of napkins costs about $35). We sat there wide-eyed and I even got up to dance a few songs.

Ok, time for some visuals.

This video features Azis, the cross dressing Chalga superstar and another popular female Chalga singer. Also, featured are french maids and lotsa breasts.

This is a 'retro' Chalga video that came out after the fall of communism. It's a deep meditation about Nike and Adidas sneakers.

In this music video, the singer is describing the woman as a 'perfect six'. In Bulgarian schools, a six is the highest mark. He also perfectly samples rapper's KRS One "Sound of Da Police"

Finally, for those of you who wanted to be up to date on your Chalga hits in 2011:

Well, that's enough about Chalga for now. I also thought I'd include some funny videos from Bulgarian Idol (also courtesy of our hostel receptionist)

Two words. Ken. Lee.

This is the Michael Jackson of croissants (self proclaimed)

Translation from comment on youtube:
(after the dance)
Judge: I'm not gonna comment cause i have to shot you. T
The others 2, i'm with you.
Judge: Doesn't your neck hurt doing those moves?
The guy: No, I've trained a lot, a lot!
Judge: Too bad... you're not that perfect. This is Music Idol u have to be amazing idol! You're good, but u have to be freaking good! Train a little more and come again next year! Bye, be safe. Here's the exit my boy... c'mone, bye!
The Guy: Can i do a little more?
Judge: No, no!

Our hostel receptionist also showed us a video of some good Bulgarian music, but what's the point of posting it if it's not going to make you laugh, right?

A Week Into Bulgaria and Loving It

2011-05-14T15:52:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post about where we're at and how much we're loving Bulgaria. Once Istanbul finally had its second day of sunshine, we caught an early bus (through Metro Tourism, which was the best bus ride I've ever had) to Plovdiv, which is in central Bulgaria. We had thought about going to Varna on the Black Sea coast, but heard it's becoming an overdeveloped resort town, and also was a bit too early for beach time.

After a few days at one of our favorite hostels, Hostel Mostel, we caught a mini-bus to Veliko Tarnovo, where we initially booked four nights but soon changed it to six. Here we're also staying at Hostel Mostel (they've got another hostel in Sofia as well). Great place.

Why the love for Bulgaria? So far, the scenery has been nothing short of amazing. The food is great, lots of Turkish influences, and for some reason Italian as well. The pizza we had last night would stand up to the better places back home. And it had the bonus of being topped with goat cheese, which doesn't even compare to anything back home.

The best thing? Wine. Those who have been in the area know this, but we'd never considered Bulgaria to be a great wine producer. We've sampled a few different bottles and each one has been great - even the under $2 bottle. It's a suprirse that we don't see imported bottles back home. The best one we've had so far was about the equivalent of $8. Anyone who comes here needs to drink nothing but wine. It's cheaper than Coke.

We'll do a proper Bulgaria post soon, including our experience at a chalga club in Plovdiv. To prepare for that post, please take a moment to visit YouTube and search for "chalga". You can thank me later. Julia will give a full rundown on this soon.

More Istanbul photos...

2011-05-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

...because this city deserves more photos!

European side of Istanbul at sunset from a ferry

Inside Hagia Sofia

The Blue Mosque

Inside the Blue Mosque

Basilica Cistern

One of the Princes' Islands

At Büyükada aka "Allergy Island"

And Istanbul definitely deserves it's own dessert section:

Pouring honey on Baklava

More Baklava

This is a dessert made of chicken breast. Really.

This is an dessert made from olives served at Ciya Sofrasi during our best meal in Istanbul.

Istanbul, The Layered City

2011-05-10T12:27:00.001-05:00

The layered city? What does that even mean? We couldn't come up with much of a title for this, but coming from Kiev to Istanbul, with little knowledge or research of Istanbul (or even Turkey in general) was an adrenaline shot from start to finish, tearing apart all our pre-conceived mental images of the place where West meets East.

As mentioned in the previous post, we came to Istanbul by air. As soon as the clouds faded during the descent and the city showed its colors (in a very literal sense), we realized we were in for something new. I'd been complaining lately that after such a long period of travel, a lot of things were starting to blend in. 'Where did we see x, y, and z?' I'd ask Julia. She'd stumble long enough before I'd be able to throw a few multiple choice guesses out before we narrowed it down.

Istanbul was not like this. It's impossible to forget when we had to climb up a steep hill every day to Istiklal street, the street of all streets in the city. Think of a city like Chicago, and ask yourself where people go out. You will get many answers all depending on a person's taste, age, and mood. On the European side of Istanbul, Istiklal has it all. Narrow alleys lead to further winding alleys to the point that when you find a great bar or a great place to eat, you'll have a lot of trouble ever finding it again. It almost reminded me of Tokyo, where finding the great places were tucked inside a random building with no sign on the 10th floor.

Again, thanks to Selin and Matt (and thanks to Karoon for playing matchmaker), we saw an Istanbul we never would have found otherwise. Up until then, our travels in the city were limited to the old town (tourist spots, which can't be ignored) and Beyoglu, the district of food, drink, and a Diesel store every other block.

Crossing across the Bosphorus on a ferry to the Asian side of Istanbul was a sight in itself. Even in the cold, rainy weather that hit us throughout our week in Istanbul, the aroma of the sea and the view of the two continents made us smile.

So what was the difference between the Asian side and the European side? Selin said it best: the Asian side feels more European, while the European side feels more Asian. Felt a bit like Michigan Avenue on steroids.

Of course, we saw all the sights that every other tourist sees, and yes they were worth the visit. Even though I was sick and tired of churches (I'll mention this every post), I was blown away by the Hagia Sophia.

Hagia Sophia - amazing

Back to the fun stuff. At the suggestion of a couple staying at our hostel, we found a dessert shop serving a sort of pudding with chicken inside. Sounds pretty disgusting, which was our first thought, but it was our favorite post-meal of the week. You don't really taste the chicken until the end when the texture becomes a little stringy, but you'd never know it had any chicken if someone didn't tell you in advance. Maybe this works with other classic desserts. Chicken Tiramisu?

Speaking of food, we were also taken to the oldest and most popular baklava shop in the city. We tried a sample of many offerings the place had and were full the rest of the night, even though we had a fantastic dinner shortly after.

Amazing

...but ok, it's time to mention Allergy Island, better known as the Princes' Islands. I've never had much of an allergy problem until I hit this island. I'd been looking forward to this trip since we arrived in Istanbul. Upon arrival I was sneezing like no other. Red eyes. Eyes closed shut. Get me out of here, christ. What is going on? What's giving this to me? There's horses everywhere. Am I allergic to horses? I haven't been around them ever. Maybe. Damnit, why can't I see this place? Get me out of here. Where's the ferry? When's it leaving? Ugh, get me out.

Stupid horses

Post-Allergy Island

That was a fun paragraph. After Allergy Island, though, we met up with Selin and Matt again and headed back to the Asian side to have some great Turkish-style ravioli, followed by seeing the upscale streets and wonderful parks that reminded us of the lakefront in Chicago aside from the sea and the European continent and islands in the backdrop.

Like Chicago but way, way cooler

A few fun things we noticed about Turkey:

As a woman, you cannot attend a public university if you wear a headscarf
Our blog, fredandjulia.com, was blocked because it forwards to Blogger
The Turkish version of the FCC is trying to ban domain names that contain a word (138 in total) that they consider immoral - examples include sanaldestekunitesi.com, which would no longer work because it has the word 'anal' in it - check this link out: Turkey Forbids Domain Names
The city is amazing - we're coming back here later when we're not on a budget - please, everyone who has not considered coming here or has thought about it but not come - GO!

Istanbul: How the Hell Did We Get Here?

2011-05-07T23:06:00.001-05:00

This one's going to be written perhaps too quickly and possibly murky since I slept only a few hours, needing to catch a bus to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in an hour. While Julia finishes getting ready for our fun 10 hour bus ride, I figured I'd try and I'd write something about how we ended up here, and if time permits, how the week here has turned out. Julia will follow up with her always detailed account of where we want, what we saw, and lots of fun photos. Once I wake up in a day or two, I may follow up with another novel.

Why the title of this blog? We came to Istanbul on pure spontaneity. I'm too tired to remember if I ever wrote about this in a previous entry, but - oh well.

We met a resourceful guy named Brian in our hostel in Lviv. We were randomly discussing ways to cheat the system through things like buying dollar coins from the government mint with a credit card and collecting points and miles, to some more mischevious things that probably shouldn't be discussed here. Through this, I brought up my 50,000 United miles that I noticed before we left on our trip and were about to expire in a week. I quickly went to the FlyerTalk website and found a few ways to keep these miles from expiring. The best was to donate 1,000 miles to charity. Done and done. Miles were now extended another 18 months, but I didn't really know what to do with them.

Fast forward again to Lviv, where within minutes of mentioning my miles, Brian told us we could transfer them to Continental (Star Alliance) and use them to buy tickets to pretty much anywhere in Europe using Lufthana (also Star Alliance). This not only saved us the stress of figuring out how to exit Kiev into Romania, but got us to Istanbul, a place we didn't even plan to visit.

By flying from Kiev to Munich and then back to Istanbul (the route makes no sense), and booking another flight from Budapest to Florence (need to end our trip in Budapest before Elina's wedding), again through Munich, and a final required third leg from Florence to Kiev in October (anyone want to buy this ticket?), we ended up using those miles that came from nowhere and paying only airport taxes.

So sweet, here we are in Istanbul, about to leave for Bulgaria.

Overall, the city has been great, despite dealing with rain most of the time spent here. Our last day gave us a full day of sunshine, but Allergy Island (more on this later) put my plans of spending a day island hopping in the Bosphorus to a quick end.

Selin and Matt spent a few days with us, showing us the real side of Istanbul and taking us to some great restaurants that we would have never found otherwise. Before we ever met up with them, our daily diet consisted mostly of kebabs and random wraps with some sort of meat inside them. Budget eating but there's only so much of this you can eat. Instead, we were treated to places with amazing food and nightlife that put Chicago to shame. Meeting and spending time with them was by far our highlight of Istanbul.

...and with that, it's time to pack away the netbook and see what Bulgaria has to offer. Again, more to come from both of us fom Bulgaria, where we'll hopefully be relaxing in the countryside and drinking what I've told is excellent, cheap wine.

I leave everyone with a photo of a shop in Munich's airport.

Oh Munich, how we don't look forward to a layover in your airport again next month

Kiev - More of Julia's Perspective

2011-05-03T17:55:00.001-05:00

There's been something that's been bugging me the whole time in Kiev. Fred touched on it a little in his previous post. We just didn't love it. But why? It has all the elements that (in my opinion) make a great city, but for us, something just didn't click and I can't identify what.

For example, in my post about our likes, I listed all the parks, view points and old buildings. This would immediately increase the likeability of a city for me. We didn't mention the wide pedestrian street, Kreshatik, which is closed to automobile traffic on the weekends, lined with cafes, ice-cream kiosks and stores. A Washinton Post article called it "a local Champs-Élysées". Again, the likeability factor should go up. We even met locals that took us around town and told us a little about typical life. This is usually the icing on the cake.

Nice Parks

Nice Views

Nice Churches

So, I sit here in Istanbul trying to figure out what makes us enjoy this city, but not Kiev. The easy answer is food. Fred and I would never run out to dine at a Russian/Ukranian restaurant, but the word "kebab" makes us salivate. That's not it, because the food in Luang Prabang was nothing special, yet we still didn't want to leave. Vang Vieng was by far the worst of the trip, but we would've loved to stay longer as well. It's not the people, either, because aside from a few exceptions, we've been treated pretty well, with everyone being patient when we didn't understand everything. One server actually went out of her way to tell us about every cake in the dessert shop she worked in. We also can't just say that we don't like big cities, because Saigon and Istanbul are pretty huge and we love them.

I think Fred is on to something when he says that Kiev is "so fast paced that the great things probably pass you by quicker than you have a chance to notice them". We never had that chance to just sit down and take it all in, or to just get lost in a small street that hid something special. There are no cute neighborhoods that have their own unique identity. The whole city center just blended together for me and everything past the city center, is an area where there is nothing but residential highrises (so I've been told).

There were a few good things that came from us spending a week here instead of just a day or two. The best thing is that Fred really improved his ability to speak Russian. There was one time that a lady asked him if he was in the line to buy tickets. He replied to her in Russian, "I don't understand". For some reason, she continued to ask in Russian, if this was the casheir, to which he replied, "yes". I was also surprised to be taken for a local. On two occasions, I gave Russian speaking people directions to tourist sites. They must've sensed, that I, like the locals, was walking with a purpose.

A very good Russian speaker (and Rodina Mat in the background)

Another good thing is that not only did I get to visit my home town, but I also got to visit the area I grew up in. There are very few people that came to the US with the same circumstances that can say they did that. I know that the number of readers of our blog spiked once we started writing about the Ukraine, and I think we can attribute that to my fellow soviet refugees who are curious about their homeland.

My home. Our balcony has an arrow pointing to it.

The yard I used to play in

The final good thing that happened in Kiev, is probably less important than the first two: I got to watch a filming of a reality TV show. Not just any TV show. It was a dance competition! Anyone who knows how much reality TV I watch will understand how thrilled I was :)

That about wraps Ukraine up. Some cities have the "IT" factor for me, and others don't. This doesn't mean its the same for everyone. Although I think Chicago is the greatest city on Earth, many would disagree with me. Even I sometimes question my decision to live there when I have to walk to work in piles of snow and freezing temperatures for months at a time. So Mom (and everyone else raised in Kiev), please don't be sad that I didn't like your hometown as much as Dad's (Lvov). It's a nice place, just not for me.

Fred's Perspective on Kiev (and Ukraine in General)

2011-04-29T11:21:00.005-05:00

Not to take away from Julia's excellent post about Kiev, of which again I can remember being at many of the sights (we walked around the city at least twice), but do not remember the names of. It's either the difficult language and pronounciation of places and streets, or again my slowly progressing lack of memory. Again, I'm a visual person. Show me a picture and I've got it down. Tell me the name of a street twenty times and I'm lost. We've been staying at this hotel for almost four days now and I couldn't even tell you the street name. Throw me onto Independence Square (the name in Russian I forget), and I can navigate my way back home.

So why Ukraine? Why did we come here on our honeymoon? Why did we decide, of all places, to choose Ukraine as one of the first destinations on the European leg of our trip? Had it not been for the cheap flights to Poland and the expensive ones to Kiev, we probably would have skipped Warsaw and Krakow completely, and most likely Lviv as well. Lviv came as a pleasant surprise, and as Julia said in her Lviv post, this place was absolutely amazing. Of every place we've been to on our trip, Southeast Asia included, Lviv was the best - by far. I could live in a place like this. I didn't want to go. Had it not been for a previous booking in Kiev, I would have begged to stay longer. Who knew?

But again, why Ukraine on the top of the Europe trip? I knew nothing about it, short of what I learned from Julia and her family - and most of this was in a negative light. Understood since the last time they had returned was during the Soviet era. After experiencing Hanoi and its semi-communist society, I could finally semi-relate to living in such a society. Obviously I can't fully relate, but it gave me an idea of how utterly cold it would be to experience this day after day.

So again, I'm rambling, and haven't provided the answer to, 'Why Ukraine?'. I wanted to see where Julia grew up. I wanted to see the city that her family spent their lives. The Ukraine of today is obviously different from that of almost 25 years ago, but I knew there must be remnants. When we visited the neighborhood she grew up in, I wanted to knock on the door of the owner of her previous apartment and see the inside. It was obviously not possible (I'd never do something like this back home), but it was something that would have given me further insight into her world. We explored the courtyard behind the building; its atmosphere that might remind you of housing projects in Chicago but filled with babushkas, some nice, some very helpful and friendly, and children playing outside of a run down soccer field. I saw the balcony of her home. She remembered exactly which gate to enter to reach her courtyard - and I wanted more. This was why I was here. Everything else was a distraction - but unexpectedly, a very pleasant distraction.

After the great fondness I grew of for Lviv, entering the city of Kiev, seeing its skyline from our eight-hour train ride from Lviv, commenting on how the skyline resembled a modern city, and then getting closer and seeing a city that existed as both a post-communist society and a world stuck in the past, unable to afford the means of a way out, I was a little unsure of the city I was about to spend a week in.

Julia's mom told us recently that Kiev is a city that grows on you. I find this to be true - though in a relative way. It may grow on you, but certainly not in the timespan of a week. I consider it to be the NYC of Ukraine - a place that is such a conrete jungle and so fast paced that the great things probably pass you by quicker than you have a chance to notice them. Our view of the city is primarily in the center. I see this as the loop of Chicago - where everything is awe-inspiring and new, while other neighborhoods have 'nothing to see', but give you a sense of the real Kiev. When we hit Julia's old neighborhood, I had a small taste of that. Walking through the courtyards of old Soviet-era buildings, viewing a market, asking old women if they knew of a kindergarten that existed here. To me, this was the real Kiev. To visit more would probably get us into trouble, like venturing into the south side of Chicago, but the city center can't possibly give you a glimpse into the daily lives of Ukrainians living in Kiev; those displaced by the Soviet Union decades ago.

My impression of the Kiev I know, the Kiev I have so far experienced? Compared to Lviv, it's cold. It's a place I couldn't fathom living in. It's a place I am amazed we're spending a week in. I'd say the same about NYC - good for a few days, but get me out of here soon. Maybe Julia's mom is right - it grows on you. There are advertisements everywhere for events such as Chemical Brothers concerts, and even films that came out in the US only a few weeks ago. I don't think you'll find this in a place like Lviv. It's a somewhat cosmopolitan city, and this is likely the only one that Ukraine has to offer.

By the end of our time in Ukraine, which after the weekend takes us to Istanbul, I hope to have grown a fondness for Kiev. It's been another one of those culture shock cities, like Hanoi, where everything seems so foreign but you know things will feel right at home in given time.

I'm happy to have visited, if only for the extreme amount of Russian I've been exposed to. It's difficult for me to speak a foreign language to people that understand my language much better than I understand their language. Here, I have little choice. I walk with Julia and her relative; with Julia and her relative's friend. I pick up words here and there and I ask Julia for translations. Many times I need to ask again, but slowly it sticks. I look up at signs of stores to practice my comprehension of Cyrillic, which again I often need Julia to clarify. (The X is what? The X with extra lines is what?). I listen, silently, and try to understand at least the topic of conversation, and hope to someday fill in the mid-sentence blanks. It won't happen on this trip, but I'm building that foundation - something I never really had before. I even randomly spoke to a staff member at our hostel this morning without even realizing it. Give me a few more weeks - a few more months - and I'll probably be set.

At the very least, I am leaving here with a better impression of Julia and her family's story, history, and sacrifice - what more can a honeymoon provide?

Kiev first impressions: Likes and Dislikes

2011-04-29T10:42:00.001-05:00

We've been lucky enough to be introduced to two locals in Kiev by our relatives back home. They showed us a good amount of Kiev, so we have some first impressions.
Likes:
- Lots of parks and trees everywhere
- Kiev sits on seven hills and there are viewpoints everywhere
- Old, well maintained buildings
- Pretty churches
- Wide sidewalks
- Many self-catering restaurants
- More modern than expected
- Everyone speaks Russian

Dislikes:
- City feels big and cold
- Walking uphill
- Soviet-style boxes, errr buildings (outside of city center)
- Old buildings being torn down
- Cars parked on sidewalks
- Lack of cozy cafes
- Lack of good beer
- Expensive
- Drunk teenagers on the street
- Still holds on to soviet culture as shown in a Lenin statue being guarded by 4 policemen (his arm has been knocked of twice, but it has since then been replaced)

A balcony on an older building

The opera house

The view from Park Slavy

Walking in Mariyinsky park

Mariyinsky Palace (under renovation)

House with Chimaeras

St. Sofia's Cathedral

St. Andrew's church

Another viewpoint

The Dnieper River

Trees blooming in the Botanic Garden

Thanks to our local friends and tour guides!!

Chernobyl: The Most Romantic Honeymoon Spot of All

2011-04-28T00:38:00.008-05:00

Edit: I had written multiple pages about this. In the end, I don't like what I wrote.

I'll summarize by posting a link to the photos, embedding some of the videos, and providing a shorter version of my thoughts. The photos provide a little more context to the videos (or maybe the other way around).

Overall, the tour was a disappointment. Much of what you see was probably staged to be creepy. The government is cashing in big on this one ($150 is your price of admission) - but I'd be a hypocrite for saying anything else on this. Most of the time is spent inside a bus. Getting close to the reactor freaked me out a bit. Wandering alone through the school was fascinating. Seeing remnants of a city stuck in 1986 USSR were the most interesting sights of the day.

The iconic photo that brings everyone here

Addendum by Julia:
I'm adding some photos that I thought were interesting when looking at Fred's set.

This is one of the pictures that is creepy, yet seems to be staged. The doll is perfectly peeking out of the leaves. Shouldn't it be buried in them after 25 years?

Outside of a kindergarten

Building stuck in the communist 80's

I didn't realize the Soviet Union already had MP3 players in the 80's

"Come to Lviv for Coffee, Beer and Haircuts" - our hostel owner, Igor

2011-04-27T11:03:00.003-05:00

'What kind of backwards country am I returning to?' I thought as we crossed from the smoothly paved Polish highway into the pot-hole hell road in Ukraine on our way to Lviv (my dad's hometown). I grew apprehensive about what we were getting ourselves into as we bounced along. Actually, I just fell asleep, but I was worried. The 7 am ride to our hostel didn't make me feel better. We passed by many communist style, box-type buildings and started bouncing once again when the road in old town changed to cobblestone. After the polished little buildings in Krakov, the buildings in L'viv seemed run down and the empty streets made the city seem sad. All that changed when we walked outside to a bustling city in the afternoon and started exploring the quirky town with its obsession of coffee, beer and preserving the old.

View of L'viv from the City Hall

Some of the buildings on the Market Square (Pl. Rynok)

Ok, so the Opera House is beautiful and the churches are really cool, but I'm going to skip straight to the part we loved best about Lviv - the themed cafes, pubs and museums! Here'a a summary of where we went:

Gasova Lyampa (Gas Lamp) - Half cafe, half museum. This establishment honors the founder of the Polish oil industry and the inventor of the kerosene lamp. There are four or five floors of small tables for drinking and eating as well as photos of lamps and antique kersone lamps on display.

Outside "Gas Lamp" with it's inventor

Masoch Cafe - This is cafe pays tribute to Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, a writer born in Lviv. I'm not going to explain to much about this person, but I will say that the term "masochism" was coined after him and I'll include a link to his wiki.

Our table inside Masoch Cafe

Pid Synioiu Pliashkoiu (Under the Blue Bottle) - Off a small street, turn into the alley, pass under a staircase and walkthtough a yard until you walk into a small cafe with about five tables. That's how you get to this cozy cafe with ah-maaazing coffee (and a menu in Ukranian only). My cognac coffee came out in flames. Literally.

Inside the cafe "under the blue bottle'. This is not an artsy filter. This is our broken camera.

Outside "Under the Blue Bottle"

Zolotyi Vepr (Golden Boar) - This is housed in an ancient building (Vening's house) which was torm down and rebuilt century after century. The last time it was torn down, three golden boar figurines were found within the walls thought to belong to the original owner. The cafe looks like a medieval pub with stuffed boars hanging for decorations. It's one of the fancier restaurants in Lviv, but we still walked out with a bill under $10 after having 3 appetizers, a pork entree, a side, bread, bottled water and beer.

Boars hanging inside "Golden Boar"

Dim Legend (House of Legends) - This pub/cafe takes theme to the next level. Every one of its rooms has it's own theme. We sat in the Lion's Room which had lion paws coming out the of ceiling, lion tails hanging by the cash registers and photos of Lviv's lion statues hanging as wall paper. Our hostel receptionist also told us that there is a room where only little people work, but that seems like a legend itself.

Pharmacy Museum - This museum is located inside a drugstore that existed since 1735. Its displays include various pharmaceutical tools, a laboratory and ancient storage containers. This is also the location our camera died, so we're now on our third camera of the trip!

A scale in the Pharmacy Museum

Lvivskaya brewery - One of the olderst breweries in Europe (almost 300 years old). We walked through a museum which displayed various methods of producing beer through the centuries and also had a tasting of their beers (our tickets and tasting cost a total of $4 for both of us).

Fred as a Lvivskaya bar girl

On Easter Sunday, we discovered something that we didn't know. Apparently, in Lviv, the whole day is a time to party. We walked in the rain to a festival in the Ukrainian Folk Architecture museum. Despite the bad weather, families with children, older people and teenagers all piled in to watch some folk performances, donning their traditional embroidered shirts and carrying picnic items. Around dinner time, we noticed that most of the young people were dressed up to go clubbing and that both the market square and the main street leading up to the Opera House were flooded with people of all ages, most of them not sober.

Folk music on Easter

Outside an old Ukranian home in Ukranian Folk Architecure museum

Opera House on Easter Night

Unfortunately, we had to call it an early night because we were leaving for Kiev the next day. We could've easily spent a week or two in Lviv exploring all the cafes, walking through markets and spending more time on historical sites. We really feel like this is an 'undiscovered' Prague. Our prediction is that after Euro 2012 Championships take place in Lviv, the rest of the world will discover Lviv and it will no longer be the hidden gem that we found and tour buses will come there by the thousands.

Good Bye, Lvov!

Krakow, Daily Life (Not a Wikipedia-like Entry)

2011-04-22T12:39:00.003-05:00

Again, I have a hard time writing about sights I've seen and the history behind them (unless it's something I'm very interested in, like WWII). In Krakow, there's so much to see, so many sights, so much history, but I can't remember the history or even the names of the places. Lots of churches, cathedrals, pictures of Pope John Paul II, walls, umm, yeah, other stuff.

St Mary's Cathedral - I remembered this name because we had to meet next to it for two of our free walking tours

I do remember the walking tour we did of the Jewish district (or what remains of it) near the old city. The cool thing about the walking tour was that it was a free walking tour, led by a guide who knew what he was talking about, accompanied by a rabbi (or at least someone who knew a lot about the Jewish religion), and supported only by tips from people on the tour.

We walked quite a way to the quarter and saw an old synagogue, the outside of a cemetary, some locations shot in Schindler's List (like Julia said, we re-watched this film before going to Auschwitz), and finally Schindler's factory, which has since been turned into a museum. The guide also pointed out the real truth about Schindler - that he wasn't the great man portrayed in the movie, but a businessman who took advantage of the cheap/free labor. Still, he saved many lives, so that counts for something.

This scene was in Schindler's List - watch it again

Another memory is of meeting Ukrainians from the Carpathians on our train from Warsaw to Krakow. They brought musical instruments we'd never seen before. Julia tried to play one. They were heading to Krakow to play for a traditional festival, which was part of the Easter week(s) celebration. We came to see them play but only caught the end of it. After that, we spoke to them (or, Julia spoke to them, I merely said 'very good! and 'thanks!' and asked for a photo op. They gave us their traditional outfits (and a hat for me) and we got one of the best pictures of the trip. See below.

I love this photo

Near the end of the festival, everyone just let 'em go

For me, Krakow was great not because of the history or the sights (aside from Birkenau, which for me was both surreal and devastatingly sad), but for the daily life that made us feel like we were in a home away from home. We stayed in a private apartment (with no wi-fi! agh!) that had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a shower. When we first arrived, we met a family from the UK that had been staying there for over a week already. After day one of being annoyed by them watching Star Trek all night, we decided to actually speak to them and made friends. We learned why Scandanvia is so expensive; we spent our nights talking about randomness over beers. We tried to find TV channels in English, but even with 400 channels, all we found was either Polish TV or Arabic phone sex videos (yeah, I don't get this one either). BBC was about it as far as TV went. So, we turned to beer, conversation, and the occasional book. More often than not, it was beer and conversation.

Our housemates over the five-ish days were for the most part great. We met a guy from Norway who stayed for a night but was a blast to hang out with. We spent most of the week with a young couple from Hong Kong who usually refused to even say hello to us (but yes, they spoke near-perfect English).

We didn't eat out much because of the high costs. Instead we hit up the Galleria Mall that even surpassed Chicago in terms of high-end brand name clothing stores. Inside was the supermarket we frequently visited. Our groceries were enough to last us more than the time we spent in Krakow. There's no way we spent more than $50 for all our trips, and that includes about 12 beers. I'm obsessive about needing to spend every last piece of currency before we leave the country, but Julia was keen on keeping the money 'just in case'. Like we're going to bribe border officials with $5 of Polish zloty. I wanted to buy random shit from the grocery store but she'd have none of it.

In any case, we cooked meals in our kitchen at the apartment. Yogurt (Polish people are big on their yogurt, with entire aisles dedicated to various types), eggs, french toast, chicken (with soy sauce, the only 'spice' in the kitchen), dumplings with meat inside them (don't know the Polish name), spinach, cabbage salads, sandwiches with cold cuts, cheese, and horseradish mustard.

The other hostel, owned by the same people, had wi-fi, free breakfast (which we were always too lazy to attend and had our own breakfast anyway), and the best part - free dinners. From hamburgers, hot dogs (served with french bread!), pasta, salad bars, and the best one - a Polish-style meal. Lots of fried stuff, but wow, it was good. We went there every night for dinner (except for the home-cooked chicken night). It was about a ten minute walk from our apartment, but definitely worth it. We had a Chinese restaurant below us, but yeah, didn't sound too appealing. Chow mein was apparently their specialty.

On the last day, we finally had a kebab (which there are many of throughout Poland) and loved every bite of its large goodness. We visited a cafe twice and I was insistent on going to that same place a second time, even though there's a cafe about every block. They had some amazing hot chocolate (thick enough to require a spoon), which was even better mixed with espresso.

Public transit was interesting. I almost threw up on the way to Auschwitz taking a mini-bus, and I never, ever, ever get car sick. That was fun and ironic. We decided to take a train back which took double the time of the mini-bus. Slower than Amtrak maybe.

Around the city, we mostly took trams. We never had a map of the transit lines but Julia did a great job of guessing what line to take and which stop to get off at. I failed at figuring out how to pay for fares on buses. You basically buy a ticket, validate it on the bus (to show what time you entered the bus) and wait for a bus-cop to check if your ticket was valid. If you got busted you'd pay some crazy amount of Polish zloty which would probably end up being $5. But we didn't risk it because $5 got you at least three trips to the bathroom.

Oh yeah, the Salt Mines were cool too. Not worth the price of admission in my mind, but worth seeing. Check it out on Wikipedia as well. I'll show you a picture. They built a church out of salt that has regular mass services. You can even get married there!

This is the salt altar we would pray at if we were religious

So yeah, I assume everyone got a great expression of Krakow! The history of it is pretty amazing. You should read about it on Wikipedia, because I didn't do it justice here.

Oh wait! Before I finish this post, I need to let everyone know that Julia and I ate some food that had mushrooms mixed in the cheese sauce! ...both of us hate mushrooms if you didn't know. It was called Zapiekanki and was mixed so well inside the cheese and covered with salami fatty goodness that we didn't even taste it. Imagine a pizza bread and you come close. Or just look at the picture below.

We ate mushrooms!

Krakow was awesome. Poland was not where we planned to go (we only went because it was cheaper to fly there from Milan than going directly to Ukraine). But man, we loved it. Warsaw was great, Krakow was even better. I'm sure other cities would be just as good. If we understood how to pronounce the language, I think it'd be a very livable country.

...but I'm still upset we left the country with around $15 of Polish money. We spent ~$1 to use the toilet at the station (everywhere in Poland charges money to use a toilet - even McDonalds!). This was before our long bus ride to Lviv (see prior post). I got yelled at for walking out of the bathroom without paying. At least I think I got yelled at, because I never really learned much Polish. It's coming in handy in Ukraine, though, since it's some hybrid mix of Polish and Russian. So much for learning Russian in Lviv. Maybe Kiev?

But this ends the post. Sorry again for the novel. Ukraine next. Lviv is awesome. It will be a great post. Get excited.

Julia looking tall in front of a very, very small door