Link for ALL the Thailand (and Cambodia) photos. If you want captions (and all the bad and duplicate photos removed), you'll have to hit up Anna's FB albums.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Back home
2 boxes downs, 8 to go. I'm just now beginning to unpack the boxes of papers, binders, and books from 822. It's amazing the amount of memories stored it an unorganized pile of receipts; I've got a stack of receipts detailing trips to grocery stores (party beer runs), restaurants (dates over the years), and other purchases over 4 years of college, and I'll have to bring myself to throw them away tonight.
Traveling ended abruptly. We returned home on a Friday, and I spent the weekend at home as it was the first time all 5 of us had been together since Easter (my sister left for France before I came home from ND). By Monday, I felt like I had been home forever, not missing a beat (2 weeks home, and Gina just observed we changed one of our outside lamps. These are the changes I don't notice, so perhaps that why everything seems the same).
It's been strange; I don't feel like what I did this summer has really sunk in. My memories are a blur; doing 2 trips back to back, with no rest between because of the passport debacle, certainly didn't help. Sometimes, I'll be telling my friends here in Carmel what I did, and traveling around the world like I did is almost unfathomable for them, while for me it became the new normal, and I can feel the disconnect. My cousin, who had a similar summer, insists the magnitude of what I did will sink in over time. I certainly hope so. I do feel like I learned much more about the world on this trip, and I certainly have a nice cachet of stories to tell. The pictures are still just a pile of things to captions, but I was looking through my photos from my travels while at Oxford, and they brought up nothing but warm memories.
The adventures are certainly not over. I think I will continue to blog, sporadically. But let's look back at the memories:
Boldest thing I did: Go out on a limb, trust my friend Edo, and take a bus down to Prijepolje. Aside from a tense hour waiting at the bus stop, it was a complete success.
Biggest disaster: Losing the Passport. No questions. And, in theory, it's still in Bangkok, in the hands of the State Department. Arg!
Biggest near disaster: Dropping all of Anna's and Sam's valuables off a cliff in a dry-bag. Oops...
Greatest regret: No Tigers. Didn't pet one, didn't see one.
Most frustrating cultural disconnect: Toilets. I don't want to pay for it, and if I'm going to pay for it, don't make me fish through the trash can for paper products.
Most confusing cultural disconnect: No, Turkey, I'm not on my honeymoon. Especially not with my little sister.
Greatest surprise: Taxi ride to Sarajevo. And the beauty of the Balkan mountains in general. 3 straight hours of staring out the window, mouth open in awe, and knuckles white with fear.
Most surprising non-surprise: Couch surfing in Krakow. It was ... easy... and nothing happened. I was almost disappointing nothing strange/unexpected happened.
Greatest discovery: Motorcycles. And how much fun they are to drive.
Greatest food market: The one in Chiang Mai where we bought our ingredients for our cooking class. Home of the Greatest Snack Food Of All Time (GSFOAT), crack peanuts, and the best smoothies I've ever had.
Best decision: Biking around the Angkor complex. Full credit for this one goes to Anna.
The best trip improvisation was the taxi ride and the whole side-trip to Bosnia, but that decision was actually made against my will.
Best decision that sounds like a bad decision: Chiang Mai women's prison. Great full-body massages. [I don't think this made the blog, but Anna and I went 1 day, and Sam another morning]
Strangest food: peanuts. Fresh, raw, moist peanuts straight from the ground, in the hills of Thailand. Banana worms were a disappointment, and none of us had the courage the eat the much larger bugs.
Best Hostel: Hiker's Hostel, Plovdiv.
Worst Hostel: Oriental Hostel, Istanbul. Didn't have a problem, but I never trusted the men at the desk.
Best tour guide: Huan, or whatever his name was.
Best cook: In the hills of Thailand. Spoke no English, no Thai, drank hard alcohol constantly, and cooked on an open fire in a wooden hut. What's not to like?
Best form of transportation: Trains. 2 reasons, smooth ride and free toilets.
Worst form of transportation: Buses. Or maybe bus stations meant I was always grumpy whenever I rode buses.
Most consistently frightening form of transportation: Taxis.
Best nationality: Canadians. Gotta love 'em.
Most Postcard Perfect Location: Koh Nang Yuan. Yes, the beach between the 2 knolls looks exactly like the pictures.
Favorite moment: Sitting on the shores of Srah Srang, looking across the reservoir to the jungle as Cambodian boys splashed around at the base of the platform.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
New Mexico
Within 12 hours of my arrival in Chicago, I was back on a plane, flying to the Albuquerque Sunport for the Martinez Family Reunion. My mom's mom was born in Cebolla, NM, as the 5th of 10 kids. Cebolla is a tiny town, but 3 generations later the Martinez clans is enormous and far-flung. The reunion was in the old school house where my grandmother had primary school (now a community center). I had been to New Mexico 3 summers before with my family to see family, so many of the sights were familiar, and it was good to see many relatives, most of whom I had only seen once before, if ever.
On Friday, we immediately headed to the Frontier, a delicious establishment across from U of NM, to meet family and good food. On Saturday, we went kayaking with some young cousins (once removed), and then Saturday evening we had the reunion dinner, followed by drinking and dancing. On Sunday, we had Mass at the old Martinez ranch above Cebolla, which now has a different owner who has converted the land into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Immaculate Heart of Mary Oratory, which is a collection of beautiful bronze statues laid around the grounds, primarily a stations of the cross. Mass was done by Monseigneur Jerome, the first priest from this family in hundreds of years (according to Jerry), assisted by my brother, soon to the the second priest from the family. Afterwards were much picture taking, then goodbyes; thereafter the McGauley family vacation began, with my mom, Gina, my brother Alex, and myself.
On Friday, we immediately headed to the Frontier, a delicious establishment across from U of NM, to meet family and good food. On Saturday, we went kayaking with some young cousins (once removed), and then Saturday evening we had the reunion dinner, followed by drinking and dancing. On Sunday, we had Mass at the old Martinez ranch above Cebolla, which now has a different owner who has converted the land into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Immaculate Heart of Mary Oratory, which is a collection of beautiful bronze statues laid around the grounds, primarily a stations of the cross. Mass was done by Monseigneur Jerome, the first priest from this family in hundreds of years (according to Jerry), assisted by my brother, soon to the the second priest from the family. Afterwards were much picture taking, then goodbyes; thereafter the McGauley family vacation began, with my mom, Gina, my brother Alex, and myself.
On Sunday night, we got a call from our horseback-outfitter for the next day saying he was dealing with a horse’s injury and had to cancel on us, so we had to scramble to find a new outfitter; usually McGauley vacations are thoroughly planned and don’t involve much scrambling, but after two months of daily planning/scrambling*, I suppose it was only natural to continue the tradition.
* During debriefing after we had gotten back to the States, one of Gina’s complaints was that she wished we hadn’t wasted so much time scrambling to figure stuff out each time we got to a new city. Scrambling? Gina, that’s called planning. I just do it the day of arrival...
On Monday, the horseback ride ended up being quite good. Though we didn’t go as high up in the mountains as we originally planned, it was a good trail, and we had a good guide with whom I talked at length about huntin’. I didn't realize that there was such a big difference between hunting deer, elk, bear, mountain lion, and so forth, and that the rules are different for each animal (for the predators, bear, cat, and bobcat, hunting season is a quota (say, 6 cats for a region), whereas for deer, elk, sheep, and so forth it’s a set time duration).
We passed the anticlimatic Continental Divide on US 84 on our way north into Colorado and had lunch in Pagossa Springs, Colorado, where I continued to unnecessarily stuff myself with greasy Spanish-American food (Beef! Chiles! Beans!). We drove to Durango, CO where we spent a long time wandering around the pretty town, checking out old hotels, art galleries, and stores. I expanded my small leather collection, and my brother bought a cowboy hat that actually looks pretty good on him. Dinner was in Cortez, CO where we spent the night.
The following day we explored Mesa Verde National Park, which is filled with archeological sites from the ancient Classical Pueblo Indians. It was interesting to see the parallels btw the cliff dwellings in MVNP and the cliff dwellings in Cappadocia, Turkey. We then drove on to Four Corners National Monument, which was recently rebuilt (2010) and actually looked pretty nice. It was interesting to read about how far off the surveyors from the 1890s and 1900s were from the correct latitude and longitude, but the courts and Congress (and Prez T.R.) ruled that the USGS marker is what marks the official spot, correctness be damned. The Four Corners region is perhaps the most desolate part of the world I have ever been in, but it has a stark, almost grim beauty. It’s not mindboggling flat as I assume the western Great Plains are, as there are attractive rock formations that break up the landscape, but the land just feels so empty and devoid of anything but shrubbery.
On Wednesday, after spending the night in Chinle, we took a jeep tour of Canyon de Chelly, AZ. The jeep was an open top truck that sat 24 (or 12 when you are carrying the Pittsburgh Steelers, true story), and we drove down 1 main branch of the canyon and then the other. This took pretty much the whole day as every 15 min or so, Ron the guide* would stop the truck, get out, and talk about something interesting, usually one of the many ruins of the ancient Classical Pueblo native Americans, and then around every hour we could get out and walk around, usually conveniently next to a few stands where residents** were selling their wares. At one of the stops we purchased a CD from Travis Terry, who is apparently famous (if you google image him, he's the Navajo one) and definitely loquacious (learned lots of cool stuff about how Hollywood studios choose their sound, from Gladiator to The Eagle, and how slightly different choices in flutes can affect the mood/setting)
*Ron’s first language is Navajo, so it was interesting to listen to him talk. Not as much an accent as a different cadence to his speech. Similar (but not as strong) for our Acoma guide at Sky City.
That night in the hotel, after Alex went to the pool, I decided to try to swim some laps to work off all the good food I'd been eating, but I nearly got sick afterwards because of the altitude and not being in shape.
**Though the land is a National Monument, it is also in the middle of the Navajo nation. Therefore, the park rangers there protect the ruins and enforce no one trespasses on the archaeological sites, but the rangers have 0 control over how the Navajo use the land, so the rest of the canyon is home to families practicing dry farming (no irrigation b/c the dirt filling the bottom of the canyon quickly silts up any attempted irrigation system). Therefore we saw lots of horses and cows and a few orchards and fields.
On our tour was a former graduate of ND ('99), who had done ACE in Brownsville, where I have a few friends heading soon, and French family with an absolutely adorable little girl.
On Thursday, went to Uranium museum in Grants (the capital of U mining in the USA in the 70s), where we had spent the night, then a tour of Acoma Sky City, lunch in really nice visitor center (nice mix of looking modern and traditional), then onwards to Albuquerque. We had dinner on the old plaza, and I had huevos rancheros because hadn't had any yet this trip and to go to NM without eatin huevos racheros would be unacceptable. (and it was perhaps best meal of trip). We watched Flamenco dancing on the Old Town gazebo. There was a little girl in a traditional flamenco dress standing behind the gazebo (so away from the audience) who was watching the dancers and trying to mimic them, spinning her dress around and stomping her feet. I enjoyed watching her and wished I could have gotten a good picture showing both her and the adults dancing, showing the transmission of culture across generations.
Culture across generations. I'm going to close this post with reflections from Monseigneur Jerome's (cousin Jerry to my mom) homily from the Mass at the Family Reunion. He talked about 3 things - past, present, and future. He spoke about the struggles of my ancestors on this unforgiving land (in NM since 1608), the importance of love between current members of the family, and the importance of passing on the family's stories to future generations, such as my own. I'm beginning to learn these stories, and beginning to understand NM as the land of my fathers (well, Mother's). Perhaps because my mom speaks of it so, I feel a strong connection to the land of NM, a connection I never felt when I visited Ireland. My last name is Irish, but I think the culture that has the strongest imprint on me is Spanish. Central Indiana is my home, but New Mexico is the home of my ancestors.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Job
One chapter ends, the next immediately begins. Today, I arrived home in Carmel, putting a final end to the 60 odd days of travel. Sitting in my inbox when I logged on tonight was my official start date and location. I start work October 17, in Wilmington, NC. The date was later and the location warmer than I expected. This will keep me looking forward, as I always am.
I have 3 blog posts in the works - Poland, Hungary, and New Mexico. Now that I'm home and no longer traveling, I should have all 3 of those up next week, plus probably a long rambling post wrapping up the whole trip.
AJ
Flight home
Thankfully, we had zero travel difficulties returning to the States. We go to the Budapest airport so early we couldn’t even check in yet as it was more than 2 hours before the flight. Gina and I spent the first flight, Budapest to Heathrow, game planning on the in-flight magazine which movies we were going to watch on the transatlantic flight*. In a near disaster, we found ourselves flying next on a 737, which meant we were stuck watching whatever NBC thought the entire plane would enjoy. Thankfully, they chose Rango and Wall Street II, with some TV comedy mixed in. I was completely surprised with Rango and thoroughly enjoyed it.
*traveling east-west across the Atlantic is super-easy for jet-lag, as long as it is not a red-eye. You don’t sleep on the flight, and your body just thinks you are staying up late and then “sleeps in” the following morning.
We were picked up at O’Hare by my mom, in elephant pants, and my aunt. We drove to my aunt’s, ate, did laundry, slept, and departed the following morning for Albuquerque via Midway airport for the final leg of my travels, the Martinze Family Reunion and subsequent tour of the Four Corners region.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Budapest, Hungary
We found our hostel* in Budapest by listening to a girl who had hopped on the train somewhere before Budapest and who was going from cabin to cabin, bike in hand, handing out maps and asking if anyone needed assistance finding a hostel. Despite her cheery demeanor, Gina and I were very distrustful of what was basically a tout, so we talked to her three times before conceding that she was representing the hostel group that our guidebook recommended for Budapest, and we might has well book through her. I think she found our reticence bizarre, but she ultimately got her booking.
*I would have couchsurfed again in Budapest but regrettably Kyle actually had stuff to do at work and wasn’t able to do the preliminary search like he did in Krakow, and we never had regular, free internet access after we left Turkey.
We booked the cheapest option, which ended up having a pretty solid location as it wasn’t too far of a walk but still far enough that we were removed from the pricey, touristy area for food. The building was a university dorm that gets converted into a hostel during the summer. No AC and a large unisex bathroom (the unisex showers worried Gina until we figure out you could lock the door). There was a group of a dozen-ish German(?) friends who shared our floor, but we simply awkwardly passed each other in the bathrooms and kitchen and never spoke to each other.
We built our time in Budapest around 2 free (yay!) tours, done by the same company and working on the same tip-only basis as others. The first was a general informational/historical tour by a girl near-ish my age. This tour had an enormous group, as it included twenty-odd future MBA students from Columbia University on their "networking/bonding/bacchanal" pre-MBA trip. The second trip was a fastinating "Communist Tour" given by a lady in her forties who spoke about the differences between life under communism and life now. She was appropriately nuanced, explaining how some things have gotten better, and somethings worse, confirming my belief that one system of government isn't absolutely better than the other, but each has their strengths and weaknesses*. An excellent example was education. College education is infinitely better, as admissions are no longer dictated by how active/loyal you were in the Party, but now by merit. In contrast, the quality of primary and secondary education has plummeted as budgets have been cut, salaries slashed, and kids no long spend their entire day in school.
*Don't worry, my vote is still for capitalism
*Don't worry, my vote is still for capitalism
What was most interesting about this was that the guides were far more negative on their country than most tours. Like my tour in Sofia, the guides were natives, but they were very harsh on their current leaders and the current state of their country. For example, the older guide stressed that the Hungarian parliament was only 20 years old, not yet a real parliament worthy of their magnificent home. She thought Hungarian was very much a post-communist state, not yet a liberal, capitalist democracy like most of the EU. She talked about the systemic corruption in the state medical service - doctors are grossly underpaid, so while medical care is legally free, it is necessary to bribe doctors if you want any sort of treatment, or to be treated as a human. This led to an interesting observation by an Estonian (Latvian?) girl on the tour that said there is no such corruption in Estonian medicine, perhaps because bribery wasn't established under communism.
Another interesting episode of negativity, our younger guide of the first day is studying international law, and planning on leaving for England or Germany once she gets a degree (brain drain) so she can actually make money. She decided to not study EU law because she did not have faith EU will stick around much longer. I mentioned the inertia EU has, and another guy on the tour replied, "Yes, [EU] is like a machine. It is the Borg"
On the first day we also did a tour of the Parliment building. Our guide was a very grumpy old lady. but it was a majestic building. On the second day, we spent the morning in the National museum, sheltering from the rain. The National Museum scored major points for organizing itself chronologically, having a geopolitical map of Europe at the entrance of each room for reference, and focusing on war and politics, putting silly things like culture and art in the periphery.
Food: For our first lunch, we picked a random restaurant and ordered the two set menus without having the slightest idea of what we were eating. Ended up my meatloaf was good, but Gina's mystery meat (liver?) was only OK. For dinner, Gina got goulash (yummy) and and I got vegetarian surprise. The second day we had breakfast and lunch at the large Central Market right next to our hostel. My breakfast was a mistakenly ordered poppy seed pastry (rather dry) along with a very Hungarian stuffed paprika pepper, and for lunch I got a wonderfully greasy Hungarian burger, complete with cole slaw and bacon piled within.
Service was consistently slow, which was frequently frustrating, but the waitresses were always polite and attentive, whenever they actually made it over to our table.
Poland
In Krakow, Gina and I decided* to try something new: Couchsurfing!
Basically, couchsurfing is an online network where people allow out-of-towners to crash on their couch/spare bed/floor for free, in theory so they can meet people. I saw it as a winning combination of a way to meet locals (something I struggle with while traveling) and free lodging. So my cousin back home did some online screening for possible hosts in Krakow, and then while in Turkey I messaged the 3 that seemed the least sketchy. We got a response from 1, who agreed to host us and offered to meet us at the train station.
The girl, Julia, met us at the train station, and our adventure began… and it was safe and uneventful. While 2 free nights and no mishaps is recorded as a complete success, it would have been nice to have had a more lively host. Julia, however, had just had a grandparent pass away and was in the midst of trying to shake up new roommates for her apartment as her previous roommates were graduating, so I believe she did the best she could. We did go out to eat with her the last night we were in Krakow, and I had an interesting conversation with her about languages* and culture** another night.
*and confirmed that I cannot tell the difference between Polish or Belorussian. Interesting that Slavs can tell the difference between Romance and Germanic languages, but we (not just Americans) typically cannot tell the difference between various Slavic languages.
**Julia is Belorussian, not Polish, and made a few comments that suggested that, as a minority, she occasionally gets irked by Polish nationalism. I asked if she had ever been up to Wawel, and she was like, "nope, nothing there interests me. That's not my history."
Poland is still a very Catholic place, and in Krakow I saw an interesting phenomenon I have only seen before in Rome – nuns on the loose! Seeing nuns in full habit going about their business is almost a strange as seeing the monks in Thailand out and about, though sadly there were not as many nuns. The second day in Krakow, Gina and I had a friendly competition to see who could spot the most nuns, with myself edging Gina 15 nuns to 14 nuns. The only rule of the game was that you had to call the nun first. This led to an awkward moment when we were walking across Stare Miasto, the main square, with Julia, and I shouted, "nun!," notching a point but then having to explain to Julia what we were doing.
We came to Krakow for 3 reasons. 1, I thought it would be on the way from Dresden to Budapest (nope). 2 and 3 were the Wieliczka Salt Mines, a priority for Gina, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Because we had lost a day traveling from Dresden to Krakow, we decided to book organized tours instead of trying to navigate public transit for both of these sites.
On the first day we booked an afternoon tour of the salt mines and spent the morning checking out Wawel Hill, the home of Poland's national cathedral and old royal castle. That afternoon we went down the Wieliczka salt mines, following a centuries old tourist trail through the mine, complete with informational displays carved out of salt. An elevator at the end is a recent addition, but you begin by climbing 54 flights of stairs straight down, eventually getting 130m below ground. The chapels carved out of the salt were stunning and a testament to man's artistic prowess (I believe the famous chapel of St Kinga was carved primarily by miners, not professional artists).
The following day we took a full day tour of the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) concentration camps. Auschwitz I, the best preserved and the home of an excellent museum and collection of artifacts, was very informative, but wasn't as emotional as I was expecting. As Sophia had warned me, the Holocaust is so terrible and inhumane that it is almost impossible to grasp. I was most moved at one of the first displays, a small collection of Jewish prayer shawls recovered from the collection of Nazi contraband. The collections of clothes, suitcases, eye glasses, shoes, and so forth were of such large scale it was beyond comprehension. At Auschwitz II, more commonly known as Birkenau, was where most of the murder took place. This camp was of staggering size and scale, especially b/c only 2/3 of the land is preserved, and it did well to physically demonstrate the scale of Nazi evil and the industrial efficiency with which the Nazi went about exterminating people. For the former, there are rows upon rows of brick chimneys, standing as silent vigils marking where 200 humans apiece were stored, awaiting destruction. Polish refugees, returning after the war, had stripped away all of the wood in the camp to rebuild their villages. For the later, I was reminded of the comment about evils of "progress for progress sake" made at commencement by Sister Mary Scullion, the Laetare Medal recipient . The camp was enormous, yet 70% of all arrivals were exterminated within a day of arrival. The crematoriums could burn ~1300 bodies a day, yet the 6(?) crematoriums at the camp couldn't keep up with demands at its peak, so the Nazi's resorted to burning bodies in an open field behind the camp, and pictures of this burning survive.
A quote in the museum reminded me why I came to Poland, "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again" ~George Santayana.
The monument in Birkenua said, "For ever let this place be a cry of despair / And a warning to Humanity, where the Nazis murder about one and half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe"
***
We went back to Julie’s apartment, grabbed dinner with Julie at a nearby resteraunt that she liked, and then scurried over to the train station to catch our train. The first ride was uneventful, but we were a bit confused waiting for our night train in Kattowice. Ultimately the train came and we slept. The train took an odd route – we arrived at Prague at 7am before Budapest a bit after 8 – and I think we spent a few hours just sitting in a train station somewhere in Poland or Czech Republic just killing time so that we would arrive at our destinations at a reasonable hour.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Confused in Katowice
Just boarded our train in Katowice, Poland. It was twenty minutes late, resulting in much anxiety among the large number of the non-Polish speaking travelers. Once on the train a man with a moustache (so clearly someone important) walked upto us and said in slow, deliberate English, "I want to help you." Right. He lowered our beds in our sleeping cabins and took our tickets, so I hope we see him again, partially to get our tickets back but mosty because he pormise d us coffee in eight hours.
I know I have been delayed in blogging. So that I dont lose my loyal readership, I am going to post an unfinished post on Turkey and two hopefully finished posts on Germany. They will show up below this post. I will put up a fresh post indicating if and when I finish the part on Istanbul, but I need to do it this way so that the posts remain in chronological order. A post on Poland has not yet been written.
Budapest or bust.
AJ
Friday, July 15, 2011
Dresden and Kamenz, Sachs, Germany
Took a late train into Dresden, and then took a train to Kamen,switched to bus for the last leg of the journey. In Kamez, a good 45min from Dresden and more a small city near dresden than a suburb, we met Jeff, a friend and classmate of Gina's who was working in Kamenz for the summer and was hosting us for two nights.
It's a Trap!
So we woke up after Jeff had left for work, and had breakfast and got ready to go, and walked out the door...
The door was locked. We struggled with it fo a bit and confirmed the smaller deadbolt was set and only a key would open it. We searched for a key and then for tools to pry the door open. No luck. Investigated the windows and the three story drops to ground. Tried to contact Jeff but my Kindle was not grabbing a working signal. So, locked in the apartment, we took naps and did some reading. Jeff failed to come home for lunch as expected, and so a bit before 1300, our agreed upone meeting time at the train station, I finally got 3G signal by leaning out of the kitchen window, and sent Jeff a "please come rescue us" email.
After being rescued, we walked to the train station to catch the next train but we walked onto the platform as it pulled away, discovering it left three before he hour, not three after like the preceeding train. So we walked back to the town center and (with difficulty) found a Kebap stand for lunch. We misjudged the time it would take to get back to the train station, and again walked onto the station as the train rolled away. Damn.
We used the new hur to explore the local Lutheran parish church, which was of very high quality and had a lot of religious art from the 1500s. Gina snuck up the steeple for good views. We finally caught the 4 o'clock train to Dresden
Dresden was much smaller than I expected, I believe it is around the size of Indy and felt around that size. Nonetheless, its rebuilt historical center delivered. The Lutheran church was stunning, and its architecture was interesting because the space was designed to emphasize the podium (lecturn?) and the reflected the Protestant emphasis on the sermon as the center of a service, in contrast with Catholic churches where your attention is drawn to the altar and the sacrifice of Mass. Possibly related, the Protestant church was painted in light, cheerful colors that celebrated the salvation of Christ with happiness, which was delightful but definately felt different than the more somber mood I am used to, like in Gothic churches.
We snuck into the Catholic Cathedral, which was post reformation Baroque. It was very grand, but in a few of the side altars it appeared that instead of restoring the orginal atlarpiece when everything was destoryed on Feb 13th, 1945, they had constructed new memorials made by modern artists, which were very well done (probably because they got them built before the 1960s showed up). One was three human figures carved of wood such that they appeared shaped of flames. The time spent in the Cathedral was very spiritually fullfilling, I think because I haddn't been in a Catholic Church since Mass in Sarajevo.
We crossed the Elbe and walked north, and I rolled down a hill and got very dizzy. We caught the 20.00 train back to Kamenz (on the first try!), and at Jeff's we scrounged through his kitchen and pulled together a meal of homemade currywurst, instant potato soup, reheated corn, and old rolls. Jeff and I cooked, Gina did the dishes. Since wregularly do the dishes by hand at our lakehouse during the summer, Gina later said the dish washing made her homesick.
The next day, we caught the seven am train out of Kamenz, with a six minute layover in Dresden Hbf before our train to Cottbus, and then quick transfer to train direct to Krakow Glowny. Our train from Kamez was of course 6 minutes late, so I talked to the conductor (strictly speaking, I pointed at my timetable and watch and was worried expressions on my face), who came back twenty minutes later and said, "we hold train for you." The Germans come through again.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Berlin, Germany
Ah, the Fatherland.
When we got on our first bus into Berlin, and then especially on the U-Bahm, all I could think was, "My God, we are surrounded by Germans!" Everyone just looked German. This is in contrast to Turkey, where only a few people 'look' Turkish and people came in all sorts of skin shades, dress codes, and levels of hairiness (moderate to excessive).
Germany is, in a word, better. It is almost alarming. Everything is so damn efficient, intelligently laid out, and correctly priced. Our train from Berlin to Dresden was five minutes late, and such is my faith in the Germans that I can only assume it was our fault. It is a refreshing contrast from Turkey, which is frankly still a developing country.
I had a sharp discussion with Anna (and Sam) about what I had learned from my time spent abroad. My thesis was that while America has much to learn from Europe on specific issues (like transportation and urban planning), America remains both inherently and actually superior*, albeit if only because American culture meshes well with my (American) values. Well, Anna and friends, Germany may challenge this thesis. It will require more research, probably a return trip and perhaps a stint working here or nearby.
*American Exceptionalism I believe is the technical name. The other potential challenger is good ole Canada, a country which, like all good Americans, I have never bothered to visit. I also have high hopes for Singapore once it matures out of a single party system, but since no one other than Cherrica and perhaps Julie or a really bored Jordan is actually still reading this paragraph...
Ahem. So, what did Gina an I do in Berlin? We took the bus into the city (pleasantly easy despite a dearth of signage) left our luggage at our hostel as it was too early to check in (but they took a full load of laundry from us for only €5. Glorious. Also a 2€ discount for having an ISIC card, bringing total european ISIC savings to... two euros. I have yet to be asked to verify that I am a student)and walked to Hackescher Mkt. as recommended by the front desk. There we dropped thirty euros on a nice meal in what will hopefully be our most expensive meal of the trip. We tried the house beer, which I thought was solid but Gina was more meh. I had a large and Gina small, but the waiter tried to serve them the other way around, which disturbed me. More worrisome was that your boy halfpint here was definitely feeling it after 2/3 of a liter.
We then walked to the Brandenburg Gate n(and walked off some alcohol) to rigorously confirm that I was right and the fron desk girl was wrong an the tour started at 4 not 3. To kill time we prayed in the meditation room of the Brandenburg Gate and popped over to the rail station to book our tickets to Dresden, but due to the conflux of some clarification needed from Gina's friend, Gina's use of FB as her primary form of communication, and FB and my Kindle generally not getting along, we did not buy a ticket at that point.
The tour was one of the Sandeman free walking tours, which several of my readers are likely familiar with. The gig is you get an excellent tour of a big city, given by a native speaker and with lots of historical context explained, and then there is an expectation of tips to pay for the guide at the end. The tour was excellent, and spent a lot of time explaining how Berlin's rebuilt and modern landmarks are a product of Germany grappling with the legacy of two wars and Nazism. The war memorial at Neue Wache was beautiful and simple, and the memorial to Nazi book burning at Bebelplatz was brilliant- a plaque with a description and the quote from 1800s along the lines of, where books are burned, soon after humans will be burned, and a window in the floor to an underground library with empty shelves for 20,000 books, the number burned that fateful night. The memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe was frustratingly both over-thought and underwhelming. Most interesting was the location of Hitler's bunker and therefore the site of his death, very deliberately an unmarked parking lot in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable apartment complex. Our guide correctly pointed out the parallels to USA's attempt to give Osama's grave no physical location, and the expected conspiracy theories that emerge as a result. Checkpoint Charlie is now a vigorous tourist trap, but it was cool to see and had a bundle of informational signs that Gina returned to the next day to see. I learned that Checkpoint Alpha was leaving West Germany, Checkpoint Bravo entering West Berlin, and C was exiting West Berlin, so famous as the final piece of Western occupied land.
The tour guide was a British grade student studying at Humbolt, which allowed me to indulge in a brief discussion on the current economic state of tertiary education in the West, a discussion The Doheny and I have had at length.
The following morning I got up and went for a run from Alexanderplatz where our hostel was down Unter de Linden, under Brandenberg gate, and then looped around the Tiergarten. I ran because I wanted to check out the Tiergrten, a large wooded park in the middle of the city, and I wanted to shake up the traveling rhythm. Run was great, but my calves are still tight two days later.
After the run we attacked the museums of the aptly named Museuminsel, or Museum island. Think the smithsonian on the Mall in DC. Gina and I had agreed to simply meet back at the hostel at seven, so she headed over before I did. When I headed over I went first to te Pergamonmuseum (no space in German) a discovered a lengthy line (Gina said it took her onl thry minutes), so I went to the info desk and asked which musuem had the smallest line. Directed to the Bode-museum, I walked straight in a bought my all inclusive day pass. The audio guides in all these museums were free, which was wonderful because it saves you from the normal audio guide purchase agony, "Oh it's only a few dollars...but I just finished paying a high admission fee... the guide probably just repeats what the signs say... but what if there are no English signs and you walk around staring at audio guide marker kicking yourself." Fellow museum afficianados will understand the wonderfulness of complementary audio guides. So I wandered about a learned a lot about paintings artists I had never heard of. It had a number of sculpture that I thought were quite excellent.
After the Bode I went outside and walked past lots of expensive cafes until I found a convienience store and bought a brat (read, giant cheap hot dog with generous dolop of quality brown mustard) for a euro fifty. I hen walked back to the island and into the Pergamonmuseum, reveling in my superior travel skills as I skipped the line and walked straight in with my pass.
To my non-surprise, I promptly ran into Gina, who was still in her first museum. Admittedly, the Pergamon was excellent, and the (complementary!) audio guide, at least for the Pergamon Temple itself, was perhaps the best I have listened to, going into details on every single scene on the huge facade but moving briskly from one image to the next. As Gina had predicted, it was interesting to see the ruins, esp the mock up, after walking around the original landscape.
Pity the Germans took it, because with the temple returned to Pergamon it coud rival Ephesus or Pompeii, for the temple certainly rivals the Library of Celsus, and I would love to see the temple perched on the moutain top with all the grandeur the Romans intended. (Dear Turkey's, Ministry of Tourism, you should build a replica).
Post unfinshed. Also saw the Ishtar gate from Babylon buit by Nebecanezzer (badly misspelled) and other ridiculously famous old stuff. Squeezed in one more museum and then left Berlin for Dresden
Monday, July 11, 2011
Ankara and return to İstanbul
Ankara.
The day was spent mostly on buses, whıch meant the same 3 thıngs
1. Schedules were throw ınto disarray as travel proceeded on 'Turkey Tıme,' as an Amerıcan phrased it here ın Istanbul
2. There was much confusıon at the Otogar, thıs tıme wıth me falsely accusıng a man of stealıng my tıcket. Ooops
3. I read another book of War and Peace and watched several bad Amerıcan movıes ın Turkısh (do you need dıalogue to enjoy Blade: Trinity? Of course not.)
So I'm now on a train in poland trying to remember what we did in Ankara, and I'm afraid it was not much. We followed our owner's advice and tried to do Ankara during the day while waiting for the night train. Our bus arrived 2 hours late, so we beelined for the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, an impressive name for a museum th guidebooks raved about as a must see. We took a taxi straight to it, which was an excelent decision as the walk was steep uphill and we had our packs. We flagged down a taxi, and after a bit of confusion we were able to communicate the place we anted to go, or so we thought. The driver started the meter, drove maybe 8 meters, and stopped and asked a pedestrian for directions. So perhaps he had said, "sure, you silly Americans. Hop on in, I'm sure we can figure this out together!" He was quite loud and talked the entie drive, so I smiled, laughed when I thought it was appropriate, said a few thing to Gina, and generally had no idea was going on. I had sat up front and was worried that if I disengaged from the conversation he would get upset and drive use somewhere sketchy. It was like you are at a party and dont know what is going on, so you laugh at the jokes and desperately hope noone notices. Except this party was in Turkish.
The taxi ride down the hill a few hours later was silent.
Day 1 in İstanbul
We started out at the Blue Mosque, which is a massive mosque that sits ccross a plaza from the Hagia Sophia. It is modeled after (inspired by!) the Hagia Sophia butis a pinch smaller, and I liked it more than the HS (following day, closed on Mondays) because it is a half melinium younger and so the art and especially the blue tiles (that it gets its nickname from) are still vivid. For the Hagia Sophia some of the mosaics are still stunning, but you can clearly tell it is a shadow of its former magnificence.
Went first t the Hagia Sophia. Really really large on the inside. Cool to stand, esp in the upper balcony and to imagine all the history that had passed throug such a majestic space.
The musuem was fine, but frustratingly ended when the Romans showed u, viz. right when things get interesting. Frankly, the unheralded Archeological mueum in Istanbul was better. As for the rest of the city, the old city did seem good, but we didnt make time for that as we did not return from th otogar, nor did we see Ataturk's mausoleum.
The night train was sadly sold out. The trans looked quite nice and I was all pumped for trains. Oddly, our subsequent trip to the otogar went exactly as I imagine they should go. We arrived, walked confidently to the bus companies we know and love, and their Istanbul buses are 'full.' A tout comes and rescues us. We quickly purchase tickets and are wisked downtstairs to a waiting bus that leaves within ten minutes. Efficiency!
The night train was sadly sold out. The trans looked quite nice and I was all pumped for trains. Oddly, our subsequent trip to the otogar went exactly as I imagine they should go. We arrived, walked confidently to the bus companies we know and love, and their Istanbul buses are 'full.' A tout comes and rescues us. We quickly purchase tickets and are wisked downtstairs to a waiting bus that leaves within ten minutes. Efficiency!
We were told that the bus, leaving around seven, would get in at midnight, but it arrived around 3am. I'll chalk that one up as language barrier rather than Turkey time. The young men on the bus were exceedingly helpful when we moved into Istanbul, utilizing the 1.5 English speakers at their disposal to figure out where to drop us. They even were going to have someone drive us from the European to the Asian bus station when they thought that that was what was needed. They ended up dropping us off at random dark intersection and had a taxi ready for us.
Sadly our bus did not take long enough to merit roughing it for the rest of the night, so after failing at the first few hostels we reurned to the loved Oriental Hostel and its sketchy Turkish front desk men. We slept in the thirty man dorm in the basement for the next three nights, and it was quiet.
Day 1 in İstanbul
We started out at the Blue Mosque, which is a massive mosque that sits ccross a plaza from the Hagia Sophia. It is modeled after (inspired by!) the Hagia Sophia butis a pinch smaller, and I liked it more than the HS (following day, closed on Mondays) because it is a half melinium younger and so the art and especially the blue tiles (that it gets its nickname from) are still vivid. For the Hagia Sophia some of the mosaics are still stunning, but you can clearly tell it is a shadow of its former magnificence.
Had a heaping pile of thinly sliced chicken for lunch, with the normal sides of rice, lettuce, sliced cucumber, and a few olives and cheese. Gina had a large salad.
After lunch we went to Tokapi Palace, the seaside palace and capital of the Ottoman Sultans. It was very nice and we marched through the audio guide thoroughly. Most memoable for me was the collection of religious artifacts the Ottomans had accumulated, I think mostly from Mecca. Because Islam overlaps with the Christian old testament, I saw Abraham's pot, Joseph's turban, Moses' Staff, David's sword, and John the baptist's skull and arm, and I'm not really sure how I feel about ıt all. Very thought provokıng.
We did not go in the Harem becaue we did not budget our time and it was closed before we got to it.
We did not go in the Harem becaue we did not budget our time and it was closed before we got to it.
To shake things up and to get out of Sultanhamet, we took an incredibly packed trolley towards Taksim Square. Took a funıcular* from the trolley to the square.
*Good form of tranportation, Excellent word in the English language
Walked back from Takşım square all the way to the hostel. Bought mussels from a street vendor. Great walk, but then walked along the sea walls and dıscovered we couldn't get back to Sultanhamet and had to backtrack.
Day 2 in İstanbul
OK, this day is incomplete so it may not make senseWent first t the Hagia Sophia. Really really large on the inside. Cool to stand, esp in the upper balcony and to imagine all the history that had passed throug such a majestic space.
After lunch we hit up the archeological museum, which was very good except for the upper levels ue to the lack of AC, so ancient Cyprus and Palestine got short shrift. The highlight for me was seeing fragments of the Treaty of Kadesh, though striking up a conversation with two cute girls from UC Davis in the coin collection was also nice.
There was a mıscommunıcatıon for leavıng tıme at the musuem. Gina and I both thought we were doıng what the other person wanted, leaving me amblıng around the museum, mıldly bored and killing time, and Gina waiting at the exit freaking out.
Walked to the covered Bazaar, which in my opinion is nothing but a different culture's manifestation of the shopping mall. Wandered about and had to convice one very nice man that I, in fact, did not want to spend $200 on a small carpet.
After the Bazaar we tried to walk through the grounds of Istanbul University but it was closed. We then went to Suleymaniye Camii, a mosque
There was a mıscommunıcatıon for leavıng tıme at the musuem. Gina and I both thought we were doıng what the other person wanted, leaving me amblıng around the museum, mıldly bored and killing time, and Gina waiting at the exit freaking out.
Walked to the covered Bazaar, which in my opinion is nothing but a different culture's manifestation of the shopping mall. Wandered about and had to convice one very nice man that I, in fact, did not want to spend $200 on a small carpet.
After the Bazaar we tried to walk through the grounds of Istanbul University but it was closed. We then went to Suleymaniye Camii, a mosque
Chatting with family in Mosque. Probably the best casual, non-comercial* interaction I have had with a local in all of my travels. The mom actually struck up the converstation (with Gina) after she had asked us for a pencil. She spoke decent but limited English but made a valiant attempt (her vocab was limited but her pronounciation was solid. That's good, you can always make do with limited vocab. I do every day). She and Gina talked while I played with her 5 year old kid (the same one I had glared at earlier for being rambuncious), and then the mom had her 2 kids pratice their English with me.
*So no tour guides, nor the monk-chats in Thailand.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Turkey: Cappadocia
Cappadocia (pronounced wıth hard Cs) is a beautifully interesting place. Due to ancient volcanic erruptions, the rock is very soft, and erosions have created stunning valleys and plateaus and the famous, Dr. Suess-esque Fairy chimneys. Starting with the Hitties (read, a really long time ago), people began carving out the soft rock to make homes, hollowing chimneys into multi story houses and carving entire villages into cliff faces. Eventually, because the land sits on the natural border of Roman, Persian, Byzantine, Arab, and Turk empires, the local people carved entire cities underground, designed to hide ten of tousands of people for months at a time. The engineering knowhow to pull of a fifteen level city 50 meters below ground must have been incredible, and they clearly worked because the cities were forgotten by history and were rediscovered by farmers in the '60s, and I was able to walk around a city down eight levels. While none of the individual caverns were that large, the overall scale reminded me of walking through a large cave system that was perfectly adapted for humans and things like holding livestock and making wine.
We arrived in Göreme at a reasonable hour and checked into our hostel. We had been told that the Göreme tourist office as actually helpful so we used it to call a hostel. They came to pick us up, which was really cool until we figured out that the hostel was like 3 minutes away. Our owner gave us the standard two day itenerary, reccomending that we do the 'red' tour on foot without a guide, and then joining a tour group for the farther ranging 'green' tour.
Day 1
The was spent on a wandering hike through the valleys northwest of Göreme. The hike was a long one, 10am to 7pm, though we did spend nearly three hours in the Göreme Open Air museum, a collection of churches in a small valley with well preserved frescos and a good audio guide. Listening to the audio guide was interesting because it would walk you through all the Bible scenes on the walls assuming you had no prior knowledge of the Christian stories. The churches (really chapels) were impressive, with barrel vaulted ceillings and side altars and all sorts of chapel-y thıngs carved from solıd rock. Often the frescos were flaking away revealing the artwork of the earliest Christians, which was circa fourth century and was mostly geometric figures painted directly on the rock in a pigeon-shit based (yep) red paints. As for the pigeons, rock carved pigeon houses are everywhere, as are the pigeons, which were kept by the locals as 2-way messengers and their poop as fertilizer (and paint). Our guide the next day looked at me like I was a weirdo* when I asked if the ever ate the birds for meat. Apparently you don't eat your fertilizer.
*Defensible, I know.
Our walk continued along the road and then into a long, narrow, and thankfully shaded valley. There we met some lost French guys and explored some small caves. At the last junction, exiting the valley onto a ridge, we talked to the guy selling fruit*, but he was very unhelpful. I was going to go one way, but Gina was convinced we needed to backtrack ~50m before turning, and it ended up she was right. We were pretty tired at that point but the last leg was the best as it ran along a ridge and had great views as the sun went down. The road ended at a village, Çavuşın, and we had to come off the path through someone's backyard. We took a dirt road back from Çavuşın to Göreme and when it hit the main road we stuck out our thumbs and hitchhiked for the first time in our lives. The first car (after the delıvery truck) stopped, but the the two guys were mighty confused at first and didn't seem to know were Göreme was, which was odd because it ended up being like 3km away and they seemed like they were going there also. Further dıscussıon took place at the Otogar, and we fınally got out, but not wıthout me accıdentally stealıng one of theır water bottles.
*This was actually how this turn was hand-labled on our map by our ownern, 'fruit vendors.'
That evening we met up for dinner with Joe and Eli, two Canadians we had met back at Selçuk. While chatting with Eli and Joe I realized that Gina and I had utterly failed to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Joe So how did you celebrate America day?
AJ What?
Joe America day!
AJ Oh. Didn't do much.
Joe You didn't shoot your guns in the air?
AJ No, we left those at home.
Day 2
We took a guided tour. Astonishingly,it was Gina and I, our adorable* Turkish tour guide, and two minibuses full of Asians. They were a mix of Koreans and Chines and were apparently an uncorrodinated almagation of small groups. The highlight of the trip was then when we were underground and the guided said that the large room we had just stepped into was a kitchen, and the Asıans all together went, 'aaaaah!' I don't think I'd seen that stereotypically Asian behavior since, well, the last large group of asian tourısts I saw...
*why when Turkish ladies speak broken English it's cute, and when large Turkish men do it is sketchy?
The tour started in Ihlara Valley, which was a pleasant walk that reminded me of Indiana forest and made me slightly homesick. We then had lunch and I had fresh fish, scales and all (No as good as Perry's at the Lake). Next was Derinkuyu, the most famous of the underground cities. As I said above, it was very impressive, and I'm glad we had a guide or otherwise I would have gotten lost (Gina insists she wouldn't have, so if you ever fınd yourself there wıth her, make sure she gets lost). The trip also included a few stops at panoramas and a final stop at a jewlery store.
That night was had dinner at a cafe our owner recommended. I had the special, a ravioli that was just OK, sauce wasnt any good but the cheese, as always, was excellent*. Gina had gozleme, a stuffed pancake thingy that I enjoyed more than she did. I had a glass of local white wine, which was quite good and went well with my pasta.
*Good cheese, the lone constant of this trip.
Day 3.
This day began with a trip to the barber. As I am wont to do, I had not shaved for a week and without my clippers my razor would have been inadequate. I was told to expect around 6 lıra for a shave, but the only place I could fınd that was open charged 10 YTL, so after I failed attempt to baraıgn I left, and then bashfully returned 45 seconds later as I had no other optıons.
The process starts with the applıcatıon of shavıng cream. Lather lather, lather, lather. Thıs took a rather long tıme as he scrubbed my chın wıth a brush to generate foam, but ıt felt nıce. Then was the actual shave wıth a straıght razor*, applıcatıon of face cream, break for tea, washıng off of face cream, touchıng up wıth eletrıc razor (cheatıng!), burning off of ear haırs with a flaming cue-tip**, shaving of nose hairs wıth a specıal electrıc rasor, a massage, and done! Sadly no eyebrow work, but he dıd do a quıck touch up on my neck, whıch ıs always my favorıte part of a haırcut.
* My take-away? Shaving w/ a straıght rasor hurts more and doesn't do a better job than my Quattro.
**Having your ears lit on fire feels like, well, lighting your eyes on fire. Your ears get really hot lıke when you put your fınger too close to a candle, and then he snuffs ıt out wıth hıs free hand.
We rented a scooter (125cc) for 8 hours. In Turkey you need to have a Scooter license, so I had to lie and say that my American state drivers license was good enough and hope that we didn't run into any savvy gendarmene.
As inThailand, I absolutely loved driving around int he scooter, so I decıded that I'm buyıng a motorcycle for my fırst mıd-lıfe crısıs.
We started towards Uçhisar, and stopped to explore a still inhabitted six story fairy chimney, where we bought something nice for mom (Hi mom!). We then climbed Uçhisar castle, a hollowed out crag with stupendous* views. We then drove up to Çavuşin, where we had been before, to have lunch, and then on to Zelve open air museum. The three adjacent valleys were quite hot but we explored the former monestaries throughly, having to avail ourselves to our flashlights to navigate some of the deeper rooms and a tunnel between two of the valleys. Some of the climbing was quite difficult, occasionally going straight up vertical shafts with only ancient hand holds in the crumbling rock. Either** to or from Zelve we stopped and explored a church on the side of the road. A man was there collecting money but he didn't look official so we refused to pay. He got quiet angry and animated but let us be.
*Almost as good of a word as 'funicular.' See next post.
**Translation - I have no idea at what point ın the day thıs occured, but it happened.
The final part of the day was spent driving up to Avos to check out the Red River, and then driving down to Mustafapaşa, a small town with the redeemıng qualıty of havıng a funny name. The poınt of Mustafapaşa was that the road to pretty much nowhere south was supposed to have stunnıng vıews as ıt rıdes a rıdge above a valley, so we cruısed that for twenty mınutes, and then turned around and headıng back towards Göreme as the sun set.
For dınner that night I decided to let Gina excercise some decision makıng authorıty and pıck the restaurant, but in the time it took for her to decide I had already made up my mınd whıch restaurant I wanted to eat at, and had to grudgingly follow her lead, but the Pıde place we went to was just fine.
Day 4
Our bus heading out to Ankara was forty minutes late,but its dubbed American movies were quality, plotless movies like Transporter and Blade Trinity, where the language isn't all that important. Also the bathroom at the rest stop was free, so to celebrate th gloriousness of free bathrooms I used it three times during our stop. Win.
Day 1
The was spent on a wandering hike through the valleys northwest of Göreme. The hike was a long one, 10am to 7pm, though we did spend nearly three hours in the Göreme Open Air museum, a collection of churches in a small valley with well preserved frescos and a good audio guide. Listening to the audio guide was interesting because it would walk you through all the Bible scenes on the walls assuming you had no prior knowledge of the Christian stories. The churches (really chapels) were impressive, with barrel vaulted ceillings and side altars and all sorts of chapel-y thıngs carved from solıd rock. Often the frescos were flaking away revealing the artwork of the earliest Christians, which was circa fourth century and was mostly geometric figures painted directly on the rock in a pigeon-shit based (yep) red paints. As for the pigeons, rock carved pigeon houses are everywhere, as are the pigeons, which were kept by the locals as 2-way messengers and their poop as fertilizer (and paint). Our guide the next day looked at me like I was a weirdo* when I asked if the ever ate the birds for meat. Apparently you don't eat your fertilizer.
*Defensible, I know.
Our walk continued along the road and then into a long, narrow, and thankfully shaded valley. There we met some lost French guys and explored some small caves. At the last junction, exiting the valley onto a ridge, we talked to the guy selling fruit*, but he was very unhelpful. I was going to go one way, but Gina was convinced we needed to backtrack ~50m before turning, and it ended up she was right. We were pretty tired at that point but the last leg was the best as it ran along a ridge and had great views as the sun went down. The road ended at a village, Çavuşın, and we had to come off the path through someone's backyard. We took a dirt road back from Çavuşın to Göreme and when it hit the main road we stuck out our thumbs and hitchhiked for the first time in our lives. The first car (after the delıvery truck) stopped, but the the two guys were mighty confused at first and didn't seem to know were Göreme was, which was odd because it ended up being like 3km away and they seemed like they were going there also. Further dıscussıon took place at the Otogar, and we fınally got out, but not wıthout me accıdentally stealıng one of theır water bottles.
*This was actually how this turn was hand-labled on our map by our ownern, 'fruit vendors.'
That evening we met up for dinner with Joe and Eli, two Canadians we had met back at Selçuk. While chatting with Eli and Joe I realized that Gina and I had utterly failed to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Joe So how did you celebrate America day?
AJ What?
Joe America day!
AJ Oh. Didn't do much.
Joe You didn't shoot your guns in the air?
AJ No, we left those at home.
Day 2
We took a guided tour. Astonishingly,it was Gina and I, our adorable* Turkish tour guide, and two minibuses full of Asians. They were a mix of Koreans and Chines and were apparently an uncorrodinated almagation of small groups. The highlight of the trip was then when we were underground and the guided said that the large room we had just stepped into was a kitchen, and the Asıans all together went, 'aaaaah!' I don't think I'd seen that stereotypically Asian behavior since, well, the last large group of asian tourısts I saw...
*why when Turkish ladies speak broken English it's cute, and when large Turkish men do it is sketchy?
The tour started in Ihlara Valley, which was a pleasant walk that reminded me of Indiana forest and made me slightly homesick. We then had lunch and I had fresh fish, scales and all (No as good as Perry's at the Lake). Next was Derinkuyu, the most famous of the underground cities. As I said above, it was very impressive, and I'm glad we had a guide or otherwise I would have gotten lost (Gina insists she wouldn't have, so if you ever fınd yourself there wıth her, make sure she gets lost). The trip also included a few stops at panoramas and a final stop at a jewlery store.
That night was had dinner at a cafe our owner recommended. I had the special, a ravioli that was just OK, sauce wasnt any good but the cheese, as always, was excellent*. Gina had gozleme, a stuffed pancake thingy that I enjoyed more than she did. I had a glass of local white wine, which was quite good and went well with my pasta.
*Good cheese, the lone constant of this trip.
Day 3.
This day began with a trip to the barber. As I am wont to do, I had not shaved for a week and without my clippers my razor would have been inadequate. I was told to expect around 6 lıra for a shave, but the only place I could fınd that was open charged 10 YTL, so after I failed attempt to baraıgn I left, and then bashfully returned 45 seconds later as I had no other optıons.
The process starts with the applıcatıon of shavıng cream. Lather lather, lather, lather. Thıs took a rather long tıme as he scrubbed my chın wıth a brush to generate foam, but ıt felt nıce. Then was the actual shave wıth a straıght razor*, applıcatıon of face cream, break for tea, washıng off of face cream, touchıng up wıth eletrıc razor (cheatıng!), burning off of ear haırs with a flaming cue-tip**, shaving of nose hairs wıth a specıal electrıc rasor, a massage, and done! Sadly no eyebrow work, but he dıd do a quıck touch up on my neck, whıch ıs always my favorıte part of a haırcut.
* My take-away? Shaving w/ a straıght rasor hurts more and doesn't do a better job than my Quattro.
**Having your ears lit on fire feels like, well, lighting your eyes on fire. Your ears get really hot lıke when you put your fınger too close to a candle, and then he snuffs ıt out wıth hıs free hand.
We rented a scooter (125cc) for 8 hours. In Turkey you need to have a Scooter license, so I had to lie and say that my American state drivers license was good enough and hope that we didn't run into any savvy gendarmene.
As inThailand, I absolutely loved driving around int he scooter, so I decıded that I'm buyıng a motorcycle for my fırst mıd-lıfe crısıs.
We started towards Uçhisar, and stopped to explore a still inhabitted six story fairy chimney, where we bought something nice for mom (Hi mom!). We then climbed Uçhisar castle, a hollowed out crag with stupendous* views. We then drove up to Çavuşin, where we had been before, to have lunch, and then on to Zelve open air museum. The three adjacent valleys were quite hot but we explored the former monestaries throughly, having to avail ourselves to our flashlights to navigate some of the deeper rooms and a tunnel between two of the valleys. Some of the climbing was quite difficult, occasionally going straight up vertical shafts with only ancient hand holds in the crumbling rock. Either** to or from Zelve we stopped and explored a church on the side of the road. A man was there collecting money but he didn't look official so we refused to pay. He got quiet angry and animated but let us be.
*Almost as good of a word as 'funicular.' See next post.
**Translation - I have no idea at what point ın the day thıs occured, but it happened.
The final part of the day was spent driving up to Avos to check out the Red River, and then driving down to Mustafapaşa, a small town with the redeemıng qualıty of havıng a funny name. The poınt of Mustafapaşa was that the road to pretty much nowhere south was supposed to have stunnıng vıews as ıt rıdes a rıdge above a valley, so we cruısed that for twenty mınutes, and then turned around and headıng back towards Göreme as the sun set.
For dınner that night I decided to let Gina excercise some decision makıng authorıty and pıck the restaurant, but in the time it took for her to decide I had already made up my mınd whıch restaurant I wanted to eat at, and had to grudgingly follow her lead, but the Pıde place we went to was just fine.
Day 4
Our bus heading out to Ankara was forty minutes late,but its dubbed American movies were quality, plotless movies like Transporter and Blade Trinity, where the language isn't all that important. Also the bathroom at the rest stop was free, so to celebrate th gloriousness of free bathrooms I used it three times during our stop. Win.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Turkey: Pamukkale and Konya
Blog was actually fınıshed ın Istanbul, on the 12thç
In Göreme, Cappadocia, Turkey now, and should stay put for the next 3 nights. It will be a relief to not have to deal wıth buses for a few days.
In Göreme, Cappadocia, Turkey now, and should stay put for the next 3 nights. It will be a relief to not have to deal wıth buses for a few days.
Pamukkale and Konya fıt logıcally on our path from the Ionıan coast to Cappadocia, but ın retrospect I think we would have been better off just taking a night train straight to Cappadocia and either spending more time here or adding in something around Trabzon in the NE, which would have been more different. However, these 2 days dovetailed nicely wıth the travel plans of Kevin, Gina's schoolmate who was workıng ın Ankara for the summer, so we had a travel-mate for two days, whıch was nıce.
In Pamukkale we saw yet another Greek/Roman ruın, and always the hıghlıght was the audıtorıum. Pamukkale ıs famous for ıt's Calcıum deposıts. Havıng been to Yellowstone before, they were not that dazzlıng, though they were quıte expansıve, and ıt was cool that not only were you allowed to walk on them (unlıke Yellowstone), but you pretty much have to ıf you want to take the quıckest approach straıght up the plateau to the top. You take off your shoes and wade/shuffle/splash your way to the top.
Our bus from Pamukkale to Konya took 2 hours longer than expected. And then we only had a few hours there because we took a late afternoon (not evening) bus to Göreme, so we'd arrive ın Göreme at a reasonable tıme (whıch we dıd!). Rushed, we dıdn't get the audıo guıde for the museum and tomb, so we really dıdn't get much out of the whole experıence, whıch was a major bummer. Konya ıs famous for the home and restıng place of the founder of the whırlıng dervıshes, but sadly I dıd not learn all that much about them.
Konya was very non-tourısty, whıch meant we never got hassled ın the cıty center and the street Doners (gyros for Amerıcans) were the cheapest and bestest any of us had seen ın Turkey.
***
Utterly failed to celebrate the 4th of July here. See next post.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Turkey: Istanbul, Bergama, and Selçuk
A turkey is a funny little fowl that Benjamin Franklin thought should have been the national bird of America (1). Turkey is also a large nation that straddles Europe and Asia, with an elite that desperately wants to be European and a people that are just not there yet. Turkey is a nation of dry, desolate landscape peppered with the ruins of flourishing civilizations of times past. It is a nation with a brilliantly efficient and modern bus system (hello Inkheart dubbed in Turkish) and maddingly confusing bus stations.
Let’s start with those bus stations.
Escape from Istanbul
So Istanbul was, indeed, Constantinople. Its skylıne plus coastline falls in my rankings very nicely at #3, below Rio and NYC and above the Bay Area. Crossing the mouth of the Bosporus on a ferry was actually most reminiscent of the mouth of the Hudson, where in each direction there appears to an independent downtown.
It’s also apparently a hip place to be. In my day in Sultanhamet, the touristy downtown with the Hagia Sophia and so forth, I did not meet a single European that was heading towards the rest of Turkey. Instead, it seemed to be swarming with gap-year types who were partying their way across Europe, and Istanbul was another stop on the tour, with most people heading to Dubrovnik next and then on to Serbia’s Exit Festival. The best analogy for Sultanhamet would be Khoa San road in Bangkok (for my 2 readers who have been there), where everyone is a backpacker or some one trying to make money off of backpackers, except with two giant Mosques on the hilltop frowning down on the backpacker bacchanal below.
In summary, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Because of the lateness of Gina’s flight, we did not see anything in the city. We will come back and spend a few days in the city at the end of our circuit because there are too many must-sees, but I am thankful to be out of the city and exploring the rest of the country. And by country I mean classical ruins, because that’s about all we have seen so far. Konya should be a nice look into contemporary Turkey.
Right, those bus stations. So we arrived back at our hostel at 9pm, and the burly Turkish men at the front desk said I could come back at 9am when the booking desk opened to book a bus to Bergama. Not wont to trust burly Turkish men and all gung-ho at figuring out my way out of the city and on to our first destination(2), I went upstairs and spent several very stressful hours navigating the morass of the internet and decided that we (myself and the obedient Gina) would take the 7.30 am ferry to Bursa and book a bus from Bursa to Bergama, and maybe check out Bursa as there is a long wait from the bus leaves (3). So then I went to bed, listened for an hour to two drunk Dutchmen and their recently acquired English ladyfriend (4), and eventually shooed them out of my dorm at around 1am, which marked me as “that lame backpacker” that haunts all large hostels.
Woke up, taxied to ferry, successfully navigated ferry station and snagged some great seats with a view, before being ushered to our assigned seats where we awkwardly shared a table with a family of three. Arrived in Bursa port and figured out that Bursa was several miles inland(5), unlike every other Turkish costal town. We headed to the Otogar (see 3) on a city bus. Upon arrival at the bus station, all hell broke loose.
Here is an excerpt from a really grumpy email I sent my father and Kyle at the Bursa otogar cafeteria:
“Turkey and mcgauleys are not getting along… the guys at the front desk seem really shady and unhelpful… we are now stranded in Bursa. We took the first ferry here and went to the bus station but every bus was full. Bursa seems realy cool but station is 10K away. All the touts speak just enough English to suggest they can get you to your destination but not enough English to actually help you book a bus [6]. We went from desk to desk and the service was terrible, and one bus would have been perfect but we got as far as about to pay before they told us the bus was full. We think they couldn’t get gina a seat by herself. We got a one o clock bus to Izmir and hopefully backtrack from there to Bergama, so so far only two hour lost…”
And indeed, only two hours lost! We caught a bus from Izmir to Bergama for a paltry 8 YTL (after dropping over 60 already that day on transport), and then taxi to the hostel and staggered in well after the sun set. So long stressful day, but given we had no idea what we were doing, I think it went as well as it could have. So our balls to the walls (7) itinerary is already a day behind, but we have licked our wounds and learned from them.
(1) Yes, America. Not the “United States.” Because those two words are meaningless to anyone in the Balkans or Turkey. This is in contrast to Western Europe, where my sister says they will smirk and ask, “Oh, where in America?”
(2) AJ wants to figure things out and do it his way! I know, imagine that?
(3) hahahahaha! Otogars, or bus stations, are always way outside of cities. Like way out. It’s like they decided that because Americans are all about cars, they would follow American urban planning for their bus station design (concrete, ugly, only accessible by car), while they rest of their cities are nice and European. Therefore train stations are right downtown next to all the stuff I want to go to. Except DON’T TAKE TRAINS in Turkey. Everyone has told me this. All the guidebooks, the internet, people I have spoken to, etc. As one person said, “the trains have departure times. No arrival times, just departure.” This advice to so well followed I have, in fact, not yet met anyone who has used a Turkish train. I think it might just be an urban myth, like sticking a cat into a microwave. No one has actually done that. So if you never hear from me again, I’m stuck somewhere on one of those mythical delayed Turkish Trains.
(4) English Girl, “No, I’m ashamed to tell you want I do!”
Drunk Dutchman, “What, are you a stripper?”
EG, “No, no! I’m a lawyer.”
DD, “Ug! You should have told us you were a stripper.”
(5) OK, I think Gina actually knew this beforehand.
(6) Cambodia had, “hello, want a tuk tuk?” Turkey has, “hello, where are you going?” Responding to these questions with politeness and efficacy is a carefully acquired skill.
(7) Interestingly, an aeronautical reference.
Bergama is Pergamon
Sadly, this name change lacks the rhythm of Istanbul and Constantinople.
As I alluded to in an earlier post, we have also gone to some places and saw some stuff. On July 3rd, that stuff was the ruins of Pergamon. For those Biblical scholars, this was one of the seven churches mentioned in the Book of Revelations, and the Egyptian cult temple that St John directed his vitriol towards is still standing. Pergamon was a strong city-state (re?)founded by Alexander the Great and run by one of his generals(1) that was never conquered by the Greeks or Romans but was oddly willed to the Romans by its last king.
Our hostel was quite good. The local cat had given birth to 2 kittens just a few hours before we arrives, so watching the meowing kittens nursing in a box in the front room was always a highlight of stopping by the hostel. In the morning, we asked the owner how to find the footpath up to the ruins. He responded with directions for the “shortcut,” which ended up taking us to a nice hole cut into the security fence. So after posing for pictures, we snuck into our first Turkish ruins.
The ruins were cool (well, actually really hot, but I think you are picking up what I’m putting down[2]), particularly the amphitheater. As the guidebook said, amphitheaters are a dime a dozen in Turkey, but they never fail to disappoint. We did the ruins in reverse order than they were signed, a process we repeated to great success in Ephesus (instead of following a guide you didn’t pay for, as you go from building to building you just wait for the next English tour group to arrive. Win.) The lower parts of the ruins were quite deserted, which made for a cool effect has lizards scurried everywhere among the rocks, and we encountered one rather large snake and a large tortoise just ambling along.
Ephesus was the superior ruin, but I’m glad we saw both as the crowds and therefore atmosphere was very different. Ephesus reminded me vividly of Pompeii, in terms of both size and quality of the ruins, the fact that most of the good stuff is actually rebuilt, and the Roman streets absolutely packed with tour groups. Like Pompeii, it was worth the crowds, and the Library of Celsius delivered. The city sits between two hills so the crowds follow a very linear path, which is actually better than Pompeii, where you can find yourself circling around city blocks thınking, 'waıt, have I seen this unmarked ruined store before?'.
We stayed in a Australia-NZ hostel, which had free bikes that we could take to bike to Ephesus and then to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers, and astonishingly, the bikes made the bikes we used in Cambodia look good. But hey, they got us there and back, and no monsoon this time. The night we arrived I had dinner in the hostel and ate with an English archeologist from Cornwall and 2 Candadians from Toronto. The Candians and I talked sports at length, and after covering basketall (college and pro), football (American, Australian, and European), baseball (major and minor – I threw in a reference to both Indy and Idaho Fall’s teams), rugby, men’s tennis, golf, and crew, the exasperated Englishwoman exclaimed, “How do you know so much about sports!” We explained that it was how we spent all of our spare time, and that Joe had once read, “one of those things with sheets of paper all together is a stack”[3]. Lauren from Corwall, despite being horribly unsports savvy, was super interesting. She studied at Keble College in Oxford, allowing a brief bonding moment in which we agreed that the token Victorian brick building in Oxford (Keble) wasn’t all that ugly, and she had spent the previous months after graduation traveling around the ‘Stans of central Asia, which made for some super interesting travel stories.
Before we caught our bus out of Selçuk (below Ephesus) Gina squeezed in a quick trip to the local museum while I went up to a ruined basilica (4) which sits over the marked grave of St John the evangelist. In front of the altar I helped some Americans translate something from Turkish (astonishing given my grasp of Turkish), and chatted with them a bit. They asked what I was doing, and when I saıd I was going to work for GE, one of the ladies said she expected me to work with Jeff Immelt some day, so if that happens we have St John to thank.
Seeing some of the Christian sites amongst the Greek and Roman ruins and the modern Mulism buildings has been very interesting. In addition the the above, we were able to walk around the church in which the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus was held (#3 I believe), and in Pamukkale at Heirapolis we walked around the ruined shire for St Phillip. I need to go back and read by Acts of the Apostles, but praying at these sites has been very spiritually fulfilling and makes be more interested in a trip to the Holy Land, which I can now see me doing at some point in my life.
Next post will have to wait for meeting up with Gina’s friend Kevin and exploring Pamukkale and onwards to Konya. Poor Gina is still battling a bad cold, and at the pace we travel I’m not sure if she will be able to shake it. She’s been a trooper so far.
(1) This Alex guy founded (or destroyed) like everything of worth around here. And everything was taken over by his generals. Either he had an impressive amount of competent generals running about to found all of the kingdoms that followed his empire, or they had so successfully obliterated everyone else that being a former general of Alexander was a cushy position.
(2) Or smelling what I’m stepping in, for fans of JenCoe.
(3) A book, or which Joe the Canadian has read only one.
(4) To continue my blog shout-out, the basilica’s reconstruction is being bankrolled by a group from Lima, OH. Which I think is close to Minster, OH.
***
I know this is a long post (I wrote it on Kevin’s laptop on yet another long bus ride), but I’m going to throw in some final musing. Turkey has been good, but not as good as I expected. I’m worried that we might be going too fast, and I hope that when we finally get to Cappadoccia we will be able to slow down for a few days. But it also might just pale in comparission to the Balkans, which far exceeded by expectations. Other than a few places, like Paris, which I intentionally left unfinished assuming I would visit them again, even if in a few decades, the Balkans are the first place were I left thinking, “I gotta get back here, and sooner rather than later.” But since I’m nearly killing all of the must-sees in Europe in this trip, my desire to always see and do something new means I think it will be awhile before I return to Euruope. I hope to keep my promise to myself to stay in America for the next few years and keep my traveling local, but I can already feel my heart moving towards the next challenge. Oddly, Latin America, which I had absolutely no interesting seeing when Anna and Sam were looking at the globe with everything on the table, intrigues me. Peru and Machu Piccu, which almost came true with Cherrica and Sylvia for Spring Break 2011, shines the brightest, but I could see myself doing something like Costa Rica if the rıght group presents itself. Petra remains at the top of my “if I could go anywhere in the world right now” list, as it has since I stood in the Roman Forum, but the list under it is starting to accumulate.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
'sup
We are, lıke, ın Turkey, and we are goıng around and doıng some stuff and lıke we saw some ruıns and some old greek and roman stuff and we are lıke, totally alıve so dontcha worry about us.
I'll put up a real blog post when I have regular ınternet access. Lost a day travelıng, dıd Pergamon yesterday and Ephesus today.
I'll put up a real blog post when I have regular ınternet access. Lost a day travelıng, dıd Pergamon yesterday and Ephesus today.
Friday, July 1, 2011
The future
So before I got pick up my sister, here is our goal, by date. Only the 2 flıghts have been set. And my dear thıs ıs an aggressıve schedule. Good thıng I have been goıng slow these past few days. My guess ıs Ankara gets cut, and we eıther slow down, or fly out to the NE corner for some cool cıtıes.
1st: arrive in Istanbul
2nd: Bergama
3rd: Selcuk & Ephesus
4th: Pamukkale (Necropolis, Aphordesious?) . Here we meet Gına's frıend.
5th: Antalya
6th: Konya
Cappadocıa
7th: Nevsehir – Goreme (Cappadocia)8
th: Nevsehir – Derinkuyu & Kaymakli
9th: Ankara
10th: Istanbul
11th: Erdine #
12th: Istanbul
13th: Fly to Berlin
14th: Berlın
15th: Dresdin. Vısıt another of Gına,s frıends
16-19th: Krakow
20-22th: Budapest. Fly out the 22nd.
1st: arrive in Istanbul
2nd: Bergama
3rd: Selcuk & Ephesus
4th: Pamukkale (Necropolis, Aphordesious?) . Here we meet Gına's frıend.
5th: Antalya
6th: Konya
Cappadocıa
7th: Nevsehir – Goreme (Cappadocia)8
th: Nevsehir – Derinkuyu & Kaymakli
9th: Ankara
10th: Istanbul
11th: Erdine #
12th: Istanbul
13th: Fly to Berlin
14th: Berlın
15th: Dresdin. Vısıt another of Gına,s frıends
16-19th: Krakow
20-22th: Budapest. Fly out the 22nd.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Arrived in Plovdiv on a midday train, slept soundly the whole way there, likely because the majority of the ride was perfectly straight through flat plains. Upon arrival had to walk past the smirking taxi drivers a few times before I found where I could buy my train ticket. Walked up into the old city to find my hostel. Did not get lost!! Plovdiv already better than Sofia.
While walking up I stopped by the tourist office, which was generally unhelpful but I did discover that the ancient Roman amphitheater was having an outdoor opera that night, Die Fledermaus by Strauss, which I resolved to see.
Checked ınto the hostel and kıcked around a bit. 2 Polısh gırls also saıd they were goıng to the Opera, so I tagged along wıth them. Ended up that there was a Norwegıan guy who was planning on taking the 2 polish girls. He had nıce roses he had plucked for the gırls (roses are everywhere ın Bulgarıa). He had 3 roses, mine was just smaller. So I thınk I was what would be called a '4th wheel,' whıch ıs not yet in Urban Dictionary. The Norwegian guy and the polish girl he sat next to didn't talk much, so I dıd't feel bad. I just filed it away in the box with all the other strange cultural interactions / miscommunications
The opera ended up beıng ın Bulgrıa. (At one poınt I turned to the polish girl next to me, Carolıne, and asked "That's German, right?" laughs, "No, that's Bulgarian." "Right."). But ıt was pretty good consıderıng everythıng I knew about the plot was what I had gleaned from wıkıpedıa a few hours before, and the venue was super cool.
The followıng day myself, the two Polish girls, Carolıne and Sophıa, and a Welsh guy named Thomas, dıd a day trıp outsıde of Plovdıv organızed by the hostel. It was a slow day (we dıdn't leave the hostel untıl nearly 11), but we somehow managed to be absolutely exhausted when we all got back. We saw 2 monestarıes, Arapovo and the more famous Bachkovo. The super-old Orthodox chapels ın all of these are very nıce, but they defınately are startıng to look the same. But they are usually set up ın the mountaıns, and we dıd a nıce long hıke above Bachkovo to a small, run down chapel, and had lunch on the mountaınsıde.
We had some authentıc Bulgarıan food for lunch - everythıng we bought on the way and then prepared on the mountaınsıde - crumbly feta-lıke cheese (but saltier?), what I would call kebab meat (40% lamb, 60% chıcken; actually has a dıfferent name), a delıcıous dıp halfway between salsa and pesto, and a whole bunch of delıcıous tomatoes and cumbumbers bought from a roadsıde stand. At the roadsıde stand, our guıde asked to borrow my waterbottle, because ıt was plastıc. He draıned ıt ın the street, dısappeared ınto the house, and came back out wıth a bottle full of home-made Bulgarıan whıskey, whıch was for all intents and purposes moonshıne. Potent stuff. We trıed to drınk ıt durıng lunch, but none of us could hold ıt down.
Day ended wıth stoppıng by Assen's Fortress, perched on a clıff wıth sweepıng vıews of a valley.
I came back all sunburned, or as the Bulgarıan gırl workıng the desk saıd through gıggles, 'you look pınk.' I explaıned that I was Irısh. Thıs gırl was a hoot. When I checked ın the fırst nıght, the fırst thıng she saıd to me was that she was dısappoınted that I wasn't Brıtısh, whıch was what she had expected when she saw my onlıne bookıng. The hostel, Hıker's Hostel, was really nıce and homely, and the total staff of 3, the 2 gırls workıng the day and nıght shıfts and the guy who gave the tour, was all Bulgarıan, and they had good storıes to tell about all the strange people they had met comıng through theır hostel over the years.
The nıght traın to Istanbul out of Plovdıv was 30 mınutes late. It is always nervewrackıng when your traın ıs not on tıme, and all you can catch from the Bulgarıan PA system ıs '...Istanbul...Plovdıv..... thrıty....' My compartment-mate ended up beıng an Amerıcan, from Colorado and rısıng senıor at Columbıa, that I had hung out wıth at our hostel ın Sarajevo, and 2 Englısh gırls I was waıtıng on the platform wıth knew the Swedes down the hall. As one of my coworkers at Bain had once said, it's not a smaller world, but it's a small socıal class.
In Istanbul now. Twıddlıng my thumbs a bıt for now the thırd day ın 4, as I don't want to see any sıghts before my sıster gets here, but her flıght just got delayed for another 2 hours, so she won't get ın untıl near 5. Mıght go shower, haven't done that ın a few days
While walking up I stopped by the tourist office, which was generally unhelpful but I did discover that the ancient Roman amphitheater was having an outdoor opera that night, Die Fledermaus by Strauss, which I resolved to see.
Checked ınto the hostel and kıcked around a bit. 2 Polısh gırls also saıd they were goıng to the Opera, so I tagged along wıth them. Ended up that there was a Norwegıan guy who was planning on taking the 2 polish girls. He had nıce roses he had plucked for the gırls (roses are everywhere ın Bulgarıa). He had 3 roses, mine was just smaller. So I thınk I was what would be called a '4th wheel,' whıch ıs not yet in Urban Dictionary. The Norwegian guy and the polish girl he sat next to didn't talk much, so I dıd't feel bad. I just filed it away in the box with all the other strange cultural interactions / miscommunications
The opera ended up beıng ın Bulgrıa. (At one poınt I turned to the polish girl next to me, Carolıne, and asked "That's German, right?" laughs, "No, that's Bulgarian." "Right."). But ıt was pretty good consıderıng everythıng I knew about the plot was what I had gleaned from wıkıpedıa a few hours before, and the venue was super cool.
The followıng day myself, the two Polish girls, Carolıne and Sophıa, and a Welsh guy named Thomas, dıd a day trıp outsıde of Plovdıv organızed by the hostel. It was a slow day (we dıdn't leave the hostel untıl nearly 11), but we somehow managed to be absolutely exhausted when we all got back. We saw 2 monestarıes, Arapovo and the more famous Bachkovo. The super-old Orthodox chapels ın all of these are very nıce, but they defınately are startıng to look the same. But they are usually set up ın the mountaıns, and we dıd a nıce long hıke above Bachkovo to a small, run down chapel, and had lunch on the mountaınsıde.
We had some authentıc Bulgarıan food for lunch - everythıng we bought on the way and then prepared on the mountaınsıde - crumbly feta-lıke cheese (but saltier?), what I would call kebab meat (40% lamb, 60% chıcken; actually has a dıfferent name), a delıcıous dıp halfway between salsa and pesto, and a whole bunch of delıcıous tomatoes and cumbumbers bought from a roadsıde stand. At the roadsıde stand, our guıde asked to borrow my waterbottle, because ıt was plastıc. He draıned ıt ın the street, dısappeared ınto the house, and came back out wıth a bottle full of home-made Bulgarıan whıskey, whıch was for all intents and purposes moonshıne. Potent stuff. We trıed to drınk ıt durıng lunch, but none of us could hold ıt down.
Day ended wıth stoppıng by Assen's Fortress, perched on a clıff wıth sweepıng vıews of a valley.
I came back all sunburned, or as the Bulgarıan gırl workıng the desk saıd through gıggles, 'you look pınk.' I explaıned that I was Irısh. Thıs gırl was a hoot. When I checked ın the fırst nıght, the fırst thıng she saıd to me was that she was dısappoınted that I wasn't Brıtısh, whıch was what she had expected when she saw my onlıne bookıng. The hostel, Hıker's Hostel, was really nıce and homely, and the total staff of 3, the 2 gırls workıng the day and nıght shıfts and the guy who gave the tour, was all Bulgarıan, and they had good storıes to tell about all the strange people they had met comıng through theır hostel over the years.
The nıght traın to Istanbul out of Plovdıv was 30 mınutes late. It is always nervewrackıng when your traın ıs not on tıme, and all you can catch from the Bulgarıan PA system ıs '...Istanbul...Plovdıv..... thrıty....' My compartment-mate ended up beıng an Amerıcan, from Colorado and rısıng senıor at Columbıa, that I had hung out wıth at our hostel ın Sarajevo, and 2 Englısh gırls I was waıtıng on the platform wıth knew the Swedes down the hall. As one of my coworkers at Bain had once said, it's not a smaller world, but it's a small socıal class.
In Istanbul now. Twıddlıng my thumbs a bıt for now the thırd day ın 4, as I don't want to see any sıghts before my sıster gets here, but her flıght just got delayed for another 2 hours, so she won't get ın untıl near 5. Mıght go shower, haven't done that ın a few days
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sofia, Bulgaria
My blog must be set to Bulgarian, b/c spellcheck is telling me everything is mispelled, and I know I'm not quite that bad.
Sofia, Sofia, you play with my heart. Promising start, miserable failure in the middle, great invigorating evening, and a night spent in eating my loses.
Sofia (from the Greek word for wisdom, but w/ the accent on the O) should host a winter Olympics. She could use the investment, is so close to being a beautiful European city, and has the closest ski resorts of any major European capital, Mount Vitosha [Or at least they claim to be. I tried to verify this and failed]
Upon being awoken in the Sofia bus station, I groggily walked over to the train station and exchanged 1,500 Serbian dinars for an unkown amount* of Bulgarian whatever-they-use. All I know is I now have 5 currencies in my wallet, and it is becoming quite crowded.
*At least in Thailand I made an attempt to judge how much things cost. I've kinda given up. Oh, 2 marks for the slice of pizza? Yeah, cool, I can do that.
I then found my chosen hostel, Hostel Mostel. Definately the sketchiest entrance I've seen on any trip, but very nice once you pass through the courtyard. Got oriented and got directions. Their instructions for how to climb Mount Vitosha differed slightly from my guidebook, but I wasn't too worried. I then tried to find food, and failed to track down either of the 2 resteraunts they recommended. Should have noticed the bad omen. As it was 11 (or maybe noon. I didn't catch that we had shifted time zones until around 2. I just assumed the buses were posting the wrong times, as the buses in Serbian, despite being on time, had blatantly incorrect clocks), I just grabbed a cheap slice of pizza (nothing special, but I'm liking my Balkan pizza so far. I think it is a slightly different type of cheese rather than dough or sauce, but I'll believ whatever you tell me) and then some bread and brie in homage to my travels with Juile last year.
I take the tram (trolley?) to its last stop. I get out at the base of Mt Vitosha expecting to find bus #61*. No dice. Walk over to a lady at a kiosk. She speaks some English, but not enough, so waves another lady over. She speaks more English and seems to understand my problem, but not enough English to give a solution. Lady #1 writes some stuff on a sheet of paper in Bulgarian with 2 bus numbers on it. Lady #2 puts me on bus #82, after first addressing the bus driver (confused) and the passengers. I ride the bus for the number of stops I think I want, and try to get off. An older lady stops me, and has me wait on the bus.**
*Never did find that bastard. At least bus#93 had some signs hinting at its existence.
**It just dawned on me. Bulgarians reverse the head-nod and headshake. Serious. This may have complicated things during the trip. Damn.
The lady eventually has me sit next to her. We ride 82 for a long time, to where me now thinks is the other (wrong) side of town. We get out, somewhere. Lady is confused, talks to a guy in a kiosk. After awhile, I am told I am to catch #92 and take it to the final stop. It appears that 92 is an express, as it only has ~8 stops listed. But it also appears 92 comes only once an hour. "Very rarely," as a Bulgarian tween tells me in English. Old lady leaves, saying lots of things in Bulgarian. I buy OJ and gum (both excellent purchases; foriegn gum is esp hit and miss b/c you can't trust the brand names to taste the same). I wait. Read SI on my kindle. Wait. Read. Wait.
An hour passes. After 1.15, I give up an catch an #82 it what I thought was the opposite direction. Ride a really long time. Recognize nothing*. Get off at last stop. Walk over to a tram. It's the 11 and 12; tram map is unitelligible**. I guess (correctly!) which way is back to city center. I get off after a few stops as a busy road. I ask a man which trolley to the city center. With minimal confidence, he says #11. I give up and flag a taxi. Amazingly, the words "city center" and the 5 landmarks I point to on my map provide no recognition. Eventually, he recognizes Aleksandur Nevsky Cathedral, this big big big Cathedral nominally in the historical center. About 5 minutes into the drive, we pass the bus station. Yelling at the confused driver to pull over, I pay him the 3 lev I owe, and blowing off steam I walk back to the city center.
*Specifically, recognize a lot. Look kids, there's another nodescript communist apartment block!
**Infuriatingly, the problem was graffeti and too small font, not the cyrillic alphabet as per the usual.
Checked out the City Art Gallery. Cool concept - had 40 odd art critics pick 1 work each from the musuem's collection and write a blurb on why they thought that work was the most important in the collection for Bulgarian art history (no repeats). Resulted in a broad selection of work, and I enjoyed reading most of the write ups and thinking of Lauren H my art history major friend. Interesting to see that art after 1945 wasn't all that different behind the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately, that meant that everything after around 1970 was crap. I was hoping that at least the grumpy commies would call out modern art for being, you know, not good. Or art.* And man, upstairs they had a few contemporary works, and those were just weird.**
*No, we are not debating what art it. But a video of casual sex is not art. Nor are a line of colored boxes, even if you call it "Circle." Come on, people.
**Weird - a (tilted) laptop that is simply generating new pages on a word document. Called, "the generator." Weirder - an upsidedown kayak you were supposed to stick your head into and interact with. Weirdest - a bed frame with springs that you, the viewer, stand up and jump up and down on. The faster you jump, the slower the projection of your image on a screen moves. Wave your arms about, and you image switches between being large and small. Got it? Yeah, me neither.
Day ends with a success! Quality (free) tour of Sofia, with a super nice old Belgian lady who travels solo b/c her husband doesn't like traveling (she was spending 3 weeks in Bulgaria before returning to work. Iran(*1) had been her previous destination) and a lady from Mongolian (new country for AJ!!! Did you know they use Cryllic there also? I was the only one in the group that couldn't read cryllic. American fail(*2)). Tour was very interesting, I learned a lot of history(*3) and culture, but won't bore you here.
*
Sofia, Sofia, you play with my heart. Promising start, miserable failure in the middle, great invigorating evening, and a night spent in eating my loses.
Sofia (from the Greek word for wisdom, but w/ the accent on the O) should host a winter Olympics. She could use the investment, is so close to being a beautiful European city, and has the closest ski resorts of any major European capital, Mount Vitosha [Or at least they claim to be. I tried to verify this and failed]
Upon being awoken in the Sofia bus station, I groggily walked over to the train station and exchanged 1,500 Serbian dinars for an unkown amount* of Bulgarian whatever-they-use. All I know is I now have 5 currencies in my wallet, and it is becoming quite crowded.
*At least in Thailand I made an attempt to judge how much things cost. I've kinda given up. Oh, 2 marks for the slice of pizza? Yeah, cool, I can do that.
I then found my chosen hostel, Hostel Mostel. Definately the sketchiest entrance I've seen on any trip, but very nice once you pass through the courtyard. Got oriented and got directions. Their instructions for how to climb Mount Vitosha differed slightly from my guidebook, but I wasn't too worried. I then tried to find food, and failed to track down either of the 2 resteraunts they recommended. Should have noticed the bad omen. As it was 11 (or maybe noon. I didn't catch that we had shifted time zones until around 2. I just assumed the buses were posting the wrong times, as the buses in Serbian, despite being on time, had blatantly incorrect clocks), I just grabbed a cheap slice of pizza (nothing special, but I'm liking my Balkan pizza so far. I think it is a slightly different type of cheese rather than dough or sauce, but I'll believ whatever you tell me) and then some bread and brie in homage to my travels with Juile last year.
I take the tram (trolley?) to its last stop. I get out at the base of Mt Vitosha expecting to find bus #61*. No dice. Walk over to a lady at a kiosk. She speaks some English, but not enough, so waves another lady over. She speaks more English and seems to understand my problem, but not enough English to give a solution. Lady #1 writes some stuff on a sheet of paper in Bulgarian with 2 bus numbers on it. Lady #2 puts me on bus #82, after first addressing the bus driver (confused) and the passengers. I ride the bus for the number of stops I think I want, and try to get off. An older lady stops me, and has me wait on the bus.**
*Never did find that bastard. At least bus#93 had some signs hinting at its existence.
**It just dawned on me. Bulgarians reverse the head-nod and headshake. Serious. This may have complicated things during the trip. Damn.
The lady eventually has me sit next to her. We ride 82 for a long time, to where me now thinks is the other (wrong) side of town. We get out, somewhere. Lady is confused, talks to a guy in a kiosk. After awhile, I am told I am to catch #92 and take it to the final stop. It appears that 92 is an express, as it only has ~8 stops listed. But it also appears 92 comes only once an hour. "Very rarely," as a Bulgarian tween tells me in English. Old lady leaves, saying lots of things in Bulgarian. I buy OJ and gum (both excellent purchases; foriegn gum is esp hit and miss b/c you can't trust the brand names to taste the same). I wait. Read SI on my kindle. Wait. Read. Wait.
An hour passes. After 1.15, I give up an catch an #82 it what I thought was the opposite direction. Ride a really long time. Recognize nothing*. Get off at last stop. Walk over to a tram. It's the 11 and 12; tram map is unitelligible**. I guess (correctly!) which way is back to city center. I get off after a few stops as a busy road. I ask a man which trolley to the city center. With minimal confidence, he says #11. I give up and flag a taxi. Amazingly, the words "city center" and the 5 landmarks I point to on my map provide no recognition. Eventually, he recognizes Aleksandur Nevsky Cathedral, this big big big Cathedral nominally in the historical center. About 5 minutes into the drive, we pass the bus station. Yelling at the confused driver to pull over, I pay him the 3 lev I owe, and blowing off steam I walk back to the city center.
*Specifically, recognize a lot. Look kids, there's another nodescript communist apartment block!
**Infuriatingly, the problem was graffeti and too small font, not the cyrillic alphabet as per the usual.
Checked out the City Art Gallery. Cool concept - had 40 odd art critics pick 1 work each from the musuem's collection and write a blurb on why they thought that work was the most important in the collection for Bulgarian art history (no repeats). Resulted in a broad selection of work, and I enjoyed reading most of the write ups and thinking of Lauren H my art history major friend. Interesting to see that art after 1945 wasn't all that different behind the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately, that meant that everything after around 1970 was crap. I was hoping that at least the grumpy commies would call out modern art for being, you know, not good. Or art.* And man, upstairs they had a few contemporary works, and those were just weird.**
*No, we are not debating what art it. But a video of casual sex is not art. Nor are a line of colored boxes, even if you call it "Circle." Come on, people.
**Weird - a (tilted) laptop that is simply generating new pages on a word document. Called, "the generator." Weirder - an upsidedown kayak you were supposed to stick your head into and interact with. Weirdest - a bed frame with springs that you, the viewer, stand up and jump up and down on. The faster you jump, the slower the projection of your image on a screen moves. Wave your arms about, and you image switches between being large and small. Got it? Yeah, me neither.
Day ends with a success! Quality (free) tour of Sofia, with a super nice old Belgian lady who travels solo b/c her husband doesn't like traveling (she was spending 3 weeks in Bulgaria before returning to work. Iran(*1) had been her previous destination) and a lady from Mongolian (new country for AJ!!! Did you know they use Cryllic there also? I was the only one in the group that couldn't read cryllic. American fail(*2)). Tour was very interesting, I learned a lot of history(*3) and culture, but won't bore you here.
*
1. I told my guide that the Bulgarians did a better job w/ street sides than the Bosnians. She said that the Bulgarians drive better than the Iranian. Our guide pointed out that neither of these were all that commendable.
2. Even the Candanian from Saskatchewan(*4) in the Sarajevo hostel IDed as an American within 1 sentence.
3. For example, some Roman emperor I had never heard of issued an Edict I had never heard of that beat the Edict of Milan by 2 years, legalizing Christianity in the part of the Empire he rule. But he died and Emperor Constantine still has the cooler name.
4. Yes, people live there.
The night ends with me eating for dinner the bread and cheese that was supposed to be my lunch, reading NY Times editorials and the Indystar analysis of the George Hill trade. All and all, a workable day, and much better than the disaster of a day I think my sister suffered in Cinque Terre yesterday.
Tomorrow, go into all the good buildings on the walking tour that were closed last night, and then midday (not ideal, but I don't think I can do better) bus to Plovdiv. Night in the Plov, and overnight train to Istanbul. Chapter 2, the Balkans, is almost to a close.
2. Even the Candanian from Saskatchewan(*4) in the Sarajevo hostel IDed as an American within 1 sentence.
3. For example, some Roman emperor I had never heard of issued an Edict I had never heard of that beat the Edict of Milan by 2 years, legalizing Christianity in the part of the Empire he rule. But he died and Emperor Constantine still has the cooler name.
4. Yes, people live there.
The night ends with me eating for dinner the bread and cheese that was supposed to be my lunch, reading NY Times editorials and the Indystar analysis of the George Hill trade. All and all, a workable day, and much better than the disaster of a day I think my sister suffered in Cinque Terre yesterday.
Tomorrow, go into all the good buildings on the walking tour that were closed last night, and then midday (not ideal, but I don't think I can do better) bus to Plovdiv. Night in the Plov, and overnight train to Istanbul. Chapter 2, the Balkans, is almost to a close.
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