I arrived in Belgrade after yet another JAT flight delayed by "technical issues"... I shouldn't be surprised, JAT is part of the Star Alliance with Air Canada - the service levels are about the same. I checked into my hostel and got my own room with a TV! That had English channels! That I could watch reruns on NCIS on all afternoon long! On the way from the airport to the hostel, we passed some...
Sarajevo... more than just a war city
Saturday, April 27, 2013 / BY Carmen
I honestly wasn't sure what to expect of Bosnia... I mean the only thing I *really* know about the area is that my best friend's boyfriend went on a peacekeeping mission there when I was in university. So yeah... war. That's about all I knew. My first impression of Sarajevo wasn't exactly the best one - I went to my hostel only to find that they'd overbooked and I didn't have a bed for the...
During my stay in Dubrovnik, I scheduled a day trip to Montenegro through one of the local tour agencies. I mean... I was already visiting ten countries in a month... why not add an eleventh for the sake of it. I was picked up on "Croatian" time... about 15 minutes after my email said the van would meet me, but having seen the road construction the day before, I wasn't upset at all. The roads...
First off... Croatia (or what I saw of it) is a really beautiful country... but holy hell is their transit system not my friend. I arrived in Zagreb after about six hours on a train from Budapest at 8pm. I had simple instructions - get on the tram, go for two stops, and then find the hostel. First time I got on the tram, it obviously changed numbers after I got on, and I ended...
My train ride to Budapest was quite nice... I sat with a girl from Australia that had actually been on the overnight train from Krakow with me as well... she's travelling around after spending almost two years working in London. Those Aussies really have it right travelling so much!
Budapest is a great city - lots of history, and they're not afraid to make fun of their currency (I, for example, had 20 1000-zloty notes, so 20,000 zloty - and that was worth less than $100 Canadian. I felt rich!) - comparing it to monopoly money at times.
My first night in Budapest I went to a folklore show that I found out about on the internet. The ticket was less than $20 and I was treated to almost two hours of dancing and magnificent Hungarian music. Every member of the band played the whole evening's music by memory, there wasn't a piece of sheet music to be seen. There were ten dancers in all, and they put on quite the show. It was like Lord of the Dance, Hungarian style!
The next morning, I got up and went on my first of two free walking tours of the city - this was a basic tour of the history of the city and some of the buildings. We finished the tour by walking up to the Royal Palace on the Buda side of the river which overlooked the Pest side, and the Parliament buildings (the Europeans really like their stats - the Hungarian Parliament building is the fourth longest building in the world).
That afternoon I had to choose between taking a free Jewish walking tour, and visiting the Holocaust Museum (since the museum would be closed the next day). I chose the museum, and it was very well done, and while watching the final video of when the concentration camps were liberated it took everything for me not to cry.
The next day I spend the morning being pampered at the Szechenyi Bath and Spa. It was also nice that I could wear a bathing suit and not have to be naked in front of everyone! I treated myself to a massage that I wish could have gone on forever. It was a great treat in the middle of the trip!
In the afternoon I managed to take my jelly-like self on another free walking tour - this one was about Communist Budapest. We stayed on the Pest side of the river for this one, and it was nice to get the perspective of two people that actually lived during the Communist regime. Hungarians actually had it pretty "good" (all in relative terms) during communism as they weren't sensored like many other countries were... they were allowed to travel to non-communist countries (albiet with a different passport than if they were travelling to a communist country), but they had TV, they had radio, and as one of the tour guides said, they got to wear jeans!
Budapest was a great city to visit... I highly recommend it!
Next stop... Croatia. How many times can I get lost on public transportation in Croatia? Find out next post!!
Budapest is a great city - lots of history, and they're not afraid to make fun of their currency (I, for example, had 20 1000-zloty notes, so 20,000 zloty - and that was worth less than $100 Canadian. I felt rich!) - comparing it to monopoly money at times.
My first night in Budapest I went to a folklore show that I found out about on the internet. The ticket was less than $20 and I was treated to almost two hours of dancing and magnificent Hungarian music. Every member of the band played the whole evening's music by memory, there wasn't a piece of sheet music to be seen. There were ten dancers in all, and they put on quite the show. It was like Lord of the Dance, Hungarian style!
The next morning, I got up and went on my first of two free walking tours of the city - this was a basic tour of the history of the city and some of the buildings. We finished the tour by walking up to the Royal Palace on the Buda side of the river which overlooked the Pest side, and the Parliament buildings (the Europeans really like their stats - the Hungarian Parliament building is the fourth longest building in the world).
That afternoon I had to choose between taking a free Jewish walking tour, and visiting the Holocaust Museum (since the museum would be closed the next day). I chose the museum, and it was very well done, and while watching the final video of when the concentration camps were liberated it took everything for me not to cry.
The next day I spend the morning being pampered at the Szechenyi Bath and Spa. It was also nice that I could wear a bathing suit and not have to be naked in front of everyone! I treated myself to a massage that I wish could have gone on forever. It was a great treat in the middle of the trip!
In the afternoon I managed to take my jelly-like self on another free walking tour - this one was about Communist Budapest. We stayed on the Pest side of the river for this one, and it was nice to get the perspective of two people that actually lived during the Communist regime. Hungarians actually had it pretty "good" (all in relative terms) during communism as they weren't sensored like many other countries were... they were allowed to travel to non-communist countries (albiet with a different passport than if they were travelling to a communist country), but they had TV, they had radio, and as one of the tour guides said, they got to wear jeans!
Budapest was a great city to visit... I highly recommend it!
Next stop... Croatia. How many times can I get lost on public transportation in Croatia? Find out next post!!
I just spent the last hour speaking with the girl that is working the front desk of the hostel. She's 24, from a small town (that she is so proud of... she showed me pictures and also gave me a quick history lesson - I showed her pictures of Calgary and Banff), and is close to finishing her degree in Bosnian and English and has plans on becoming a teacher in her old high school....
My stay in Bratislava was short... honestly one of the only reasons I decided to stop there is that it made good sense as it was located (by train) between Krakow and Budapest. Since I was only in the city one full day I needed to take full advantage of it... so after I got off my night train from Krakow, I went to the hostel and crashed for a few hours before heading out...
Hostel Living... you take the good and take the bad...
Sunday, April 21, 2013 / BY Carmen
I have spent the better part of the month of April living in hostels, in rooms anywhere in size from four to eight beds. For the most part they were great... there was the normal complaint that many of the bathrooms weren't up to par (I can handle shower stalls, what I can't handle is literally a closet-sized shower off a hallway with nowhere to change or store your stuff so it doesn't get soaked),...
Krakow... for those who have waited patiently...
Sunday, April 21, 2013 / BY Carmen
Wow... it has been awhile since I have been near a real keyboard. And of course the one that I have found in Sarajevo has the z and y keys in the opposite spot and I cannot find the ampersand or the apostrophe keys to save my life. Or the question mark. Le sigh. But here goes... On my first day in Krakow I went on two free city walks - a tour of the...
I know that I'm begin on my posts... I still need to update you on the rest of Krakow, Bratislava, Bucharest, and now Dubrovnik. Here are some pretty pictures to tide you over in the meantime! ...
Auschwitz... words can't do the experience justice
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 / BY Carmen
Auschwitz deserves its own post. It is amazing. In a completely fucked up way. The only thing that kept crossing my mind was how people could think of doing this to people. Lining them up. Selecting those to work and those to die. Performing medical testing. Giving people leprosy just to see how it spreads. Walking people to the gas chambers. Taking their bodies, by the hundreds, and putting them into giant crematoriums. Then putting...
Bucharest... where Ceausescu loved his marble...
Tuesday, April 09, 2013 / BY Carmen
My days in Bucharest were fairly quiet... and it was nice. As much as I want to see everything while I'm on vacation, most place's sights can be seen in a day (and I know I'm missing out on stuff, but if it's not on the "essential" list of sights, I figure I can come back and see them another day). I took another free walking tour... my guide was Simona, and she was great. ...
It's Sofya... Sofia is a girl's name...
Sunday, April 07, 2013 / BY Carmen
Sofia itself is a rather industrial looking city on first look... and after my adventure with the Kontroller the city was going to have to do a lot to make up for my first impression of the city. The hostel that I stayed in was nice... but completely lacking a common hang-out area. The hosts were great, and the location really couldn't be beat. My first day was pretty uneventful. After getting up at the...
We'll start this post off on a good note, although I'm sure by the title you know something not-so-awesome happens (nothing threatening me or my well-being... just stupid stuff exacerbated by the fact that I don't speak Bulgarian).
My second full day in Istanbul had better weather, which was good and bad (good because I didn't have to deal with wearing a rain jacket, bad because I'm a moron and forgot sunscreen). Istanbul is built on the side of a cliff (okay... it's just rather hilly, but I swear I needed rock climbing equipment to get back to my hostel). I went to the "mosque" and then wandered over to the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia and to the Basillica Cisterns. The last three are all very close although that didn't stop me from walking at least 10km each day I was in Istanbul (up hill, both ways... literally!!). I swear 90% of the pictures that I took in Istanbul are of ceilings. The mosques are amazing, their domes decorated so beautifully and when you're in one, you can't help but to get caught up in the enormousness of the buildings themselves, and the Muslim religion.
As someone that is not religious in the least, I am often in aw of most sites of worship. I've been to countless churches, including the Vatican, and can't help but to find a peace there. The muslim mosques were no different. And listening to the call to prayer a few times per day was amazing. Yes, there are a lot of mosques, but unlike most North American churches, they're used daily.
My saving grace for this day was that I found the trolley (called the Tunel) up the hill to my hostel. It was probably the best 4 lira I spent while I was there. Well, other than the 1 lira bagels that I could have lived on.
As I mentioned before, the hostel was great (I'll do a review of them all at the end). The craptastic part was that it was over this seedy Turkish bar that blasted Turkish music at full blast from about midnight onwards. Seriously, it was like being a prisoner of war it was so loud, but with the exception being that I wasn't having water dumped on my face constantly and had no secrets to tell.
The next morning, I was up at 4am so I could catch a 5am bus to the airport to head to Sofia. That part of the venture was fine... except I find it odd (by Canadian standards) to have to go through passport control on the way in and out of the airport. Oh well, more stamps in the passport for me!
When I got to Sofia, I knew that I had to buy a bus ticket for both myself and my bag. I did so in the little store in the airport and went to wait (in the rain) for my bus. I got on, and because my bag was so wet, I put it down before punching my tickets in this archaic punch on the wall of the bus.
In comes in the Kontroller. A mean looking Bulgarian man demanding 20 Lev from me for not paying. Apparently "not paying" means my bag had a seat before I punched its ticket. And being the only person on the bus other than the bus driver, I was hooped. So I paid my fine and then spent the rest of my bus ride to the hostel in a nasty mood, as my $1.50 (2 Lev) bus ride now turned into a $15.00 (20 Lev) bus ride. But really, when you're trying to reason with someone that doesn't speak (or chooses not to speak) English, $15 was the least of my worries.
I'll end this post now... next up will be all about Sofia and the hot New Zealand lawyer that I almost offered to bear children for.
Turkey, I am in You (and damn you have weird keyboards!)
Monday, April 01, 2013 / BY Carmen
First off, I take no responsibly for my spelling or grammar as there are symbols on this keyboard I´ve never seen before. The "ı" and the "i" are seperate keys... whıch resulted ın my not beıng able to type my own username and password ınto Google for about 15 trıes. Oh, and there ıs a "ç" where there ıs supposed to be a period. This could get fun. I have been ın Istanbul about 24 hours now, the first 16 or so were totally useless though....