Packing

I am a notorious over packer. I like to have everything I might need and most things I might want. But I don't hold a candle to my dad. Somehow, for this three week trip, we are carrying more than I packed for two years in Peace Corps and WAY more than I took when I travelled after PC. Most of it is the nature of the trip. The main point of the trip and what my dad has been talking about for the past three years is to do some climbing. Everything else is centered on this one fact. Unfortunately, to be safe, climbing has a lot of equipment and we had no confidence that any of it could be rented or purchased there for any reasonable price. So we are bringing our own and that means about 30 pounds of ropes, harnesses, helmets, and metal fittings. We are also planning on camping, so that means more stuff, like a tent, sleeping bags, cooking stuff etc.  right now this whole thing feels a little bit like an expedition to Everest or something, only we don't have any Sherpas. I don't think all the stuff would be as big of a deal if we also weren't taking a long way to get to Albania. Things would be really easy if we were just flying direct and then renting a car. No problem! But that's not what we are doing. We are flying to Rome, taking a train across Italy and then a boat across the Adriatic Sea. Somehow, I have faith that it will all work out . . . Maybe we can rent a donkey to help us with the gear . . . 

A return trip . . .

In a few weeks, I will be returning to Albania for the first time since I left almost three years ago.  Somehow, these past three years have seemed to have gone by very fast and slow at the same time.  It seems almost like a blink of an eye since I left and somehow also seems like a lot has happened in the past three years.  There have been some big changes in my life since I got home- I have gone back to school and finished a program to be a licensed teacher.  In other ways, things have not changed at all- being home, I have gone back to many of the routines I had before Peace Corps.  Anyway, I am excited and nervous to go back.

Unlike my parents, who didn't return to the Philippines for almost 30 years from the time they left, I am making my first return trip only a few years after leaving.  I honestly didn't expect that I would be going to Albania so soon.  So why now?  It was actually my dad's idea.  When he came to visit me at the end of my service three years ago, we had some adventures, but there were a few stones unturned.  For one, my dad is a climber.  He likes to climb things.  When he came to visit me before, we did some hiking, but no climbing.  This was my fault- he wanted to bring a rope and harness and various other things that would have made it possible for us to climb things, but the timing was not good.  He came at the end of my service and I was leaving to travel around the world, so I needed him to take a suitcase (or two?) home with him when he went back.  This was by far the cheapest way to get stuff home (since he was planning on coming anyway and he was flying on my mom's passes).  So he didn't bring ropes or a tent or anything else we might need to have a backpacking/climbing trip.  We therefore had another kind of trip, which was great.  But . . . there are some beautiful rocks in Albania that are just crying out to be climbed.  Some people don't understand rock climbing.  What is the point of climbing that rock? Basically, it's just fun.  It's a challenge.  It's a puzzle.  And for the last three years, my dad has been thinking about the rocks that we saw in Albania and wanting to go back and climb them.  So we are.

This is the (very tentative) schedule for our trip.  It is flexible based on the fact that we are flying on passes and may not actually fly on the day we plan.  It is also flexible based on the fact that we may just decide to change plans.  Anyway, it looks like a good trip!

Sunday, April 21- Fly to Rome
Monday, April 22-Rome

Tuesday, April 23- train to Bari, ferry
Weds, April 24- Arrive Durres
Thurs, April 25- Tirana
Fri, April 26- furgon to Peshkopi
Sat, April 27- Peshkopi

Sun, April 28- Peshkopi 

Mon, April 29- Peshkopi
Tues, April 30- to Korab (camp)
Weds, May 1- Korab (camp)
Thurs, May 2- Korab (camp)

Fri, May 3- hiking? Lura? (camp)
Sat, May 4- hiking? Lura? (camp)
Sun, May 5- hiking? Lura? (camp)
Mon, May 6- to to Tirana- stop in Kruja?
Tues, May 7- Tirana to Durres- ferry
Weds, May 8- Bari to Naples
Thurs, May 9- Naples to Rome
Fri, May 10- to airport- fly home

Sleeping in airports

When I booked my tickets to and from Malaysia the only flights arrived at about very late (about 1:00AM). I spent some time online trying to figure out how to get from the airports in KL and Shanghai to the actual towns and where would be most convenient to stay. In this investigation I stumbled upon a great website: sleepinginairports.net.

For KL I found that it would be easy and not too expensive to just go to town and get to my hostel (and the ratings for sleeping in the airport there were not good). For Shanghai, since I was actually arriving in Hangzhou (about one hour by train or two hours by bus away from Shanghai center) with the late arrival it would be easier to just stay in the airport. Since the airport was new, there were no reviews, but I decided to chance it. I ended up finding a great spot- padded bench seats with no armrests, quiet, no people and with a power outlet close by. I watched a movie and then put on my face mask and went to sleep for about 5 hours. In the morning I found my way to the train and (after going to the wrong address once) checked in at the hotel where I would meet the students from Denver that would arrive later that night.

I spent a little bit of time adding my reviews to sleepinginairports.net for some of the airports I've been stuck in including Iceland, Amsterdam and Tirana. The website is great for those of us lucky enough to fly standby, but not lucky enough to make it out on the first try. My mom wished she had know about the site before they came to see me- it might have made their overnight in Seoul a bit more comfortable. This time in China was the first time I had chosen to sleep in the airport instead of just getting stuck there, but now with this site, I might be sleeping in airports on purpose more often.

Why not Malaysia?

The Philippines allows Americans to stay for 21 days without a visa which meant that I needed to leave by Nov. 9 or pay a big fee. I was meeting the group in China on Nov. 14. I had a few choices- I could go to China early and spend a few more days in Shanghai or I could go somewhere else entirely. With low cost carriers like Cebu Pacific, going from one country to another in SE Asia is pretty cheap and after looking into it I found that heading to someplace like Singapore for a few days wouldn't cost too much more than flying direct to China. But where to go?

When you are traveling, especially when staying in hostels, you meet all sorts of people and in this day and age with facebook and email it is easy to exchange info. It is not uncommon to spend a few days with someone and then leave them with that general invitation, "if you ever make it to Timbuktu (or where ever) on your travels, let me know and we can meet up!" I've given a lot of those invitations myself- "when you come to Denver look me up!". In a discussion with my mom about where to go she reminded me about the girls that we met in the hostel inNorway. One girl was from China and we missed each other when I was in Beijing because of the national holiday. The other girl is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I sent her an email and she would be in KL at that time. With no better reason to go anywhere else, I booked a ticket to Malaysia. Why not?

KL is an interesting city. The skyline is dominated by huge skyscrapers mostly built in the past 10 years. But when you get closer to the ground, you find an interesting mix of cultures, with China town full of persuasive street vendors and family temples to head-covered Muslims and modern domed mosques to barefoot Hindu temples filled with flowers.

After a day in KL with Sum, I headed to the old capital Malacca. Here I stayed in a hostel and almost immediately after I arrived I was offered a bike ride around town. This was by far my most successful bike outing yet, mostly because I had a good bike and someone to teach me how to use it correctly. I have been thinking more and more about my options for when I get home and I think that biking is a better and better option. I really don't want to buy a car and I know that I will not have the money to do so for a while anyway. Anyway, I spent the day exploring Malacca and shopping. The next day I headed back to KL and straight to the airport for my flight back to China.

Brave?

I met a colleague of my host, Tyler, in Xi'an- she took us out to dinner for my first "hot pot" experience. She kept telling me how brave she thought I was. This is something that I hear from a lot of people on my travels. I guess because I was traveling by myself, away from my friends and family in a strange country. I don't really think of myself as "brave". Is riding the train across two continents or biking through the Chinese countryside alone brave? Some would call it brave, I suppose that some would call it stupid and I just call it beautiful and fantastic. I don't think of what I am doing as brave because I have always seen travel as exciting and normal, not usually dangerous. And now more than ever before, I think you have to be even less brave to travel alone because it is so easy.

In the morning on a boat floating down the Li river outside Guilin I had a discussion with an Australian guy who is traveling from Australia to Europe by land and sea. We talked about how the Internet had changed so much about travel. Just a few years ago, you had to rely on guidebooks for info, which could be incorrect or out of date. A few years before that there weren't even very many reliable guidebooks for many places. Other than this, you had tourism centers and travel agencies or just randomly arriving at a hostel. Now it is all different. You can go on one of several websites (I like hostelbookers.com) and look at lots of options with price comparison and reviews of guests. I almost never arrive at a destination without a prior reservation and all the info I need about where I'm going. In fact it is actually becoming harder to travel in a new way- it is easier to travel, but harder to have an adventure.

Last year I read a few books by Paul Thereux in which he traveled long distances mostly by train including across Europe and Asia and then back on the trans-Siberian in "The Great Railway Bazaar" and a year traveling China by train in "Riding the Iron Rooster". His world was a completely different place than the one I am traveling in. When he was in China, he was escorted by a government "tour guide" and struggled vainly to leave him behind and travel on his own. Now independent travel in China is easier than ever with many places geared towards the young, independent backpacker with hostels, cheap tours and English speaking staff. I was, in fact, a bit nervous about traveling alone in China, much more so than I had been about going across Europe and Russia by myself since I do speak (enough) Russian and knew I could get by in a pinch. China has been harder, since Chinese is harder and not too much is translated, but so far I haven't had too much trouble. The biggest issue I've had so far was my hard seat train tickets and I don't think knowing Chinese would have helped me too much (only a few million less people or not coming to china on a holiday would make a difference there).

I'm not really sure what "brave" is. I'm adventurous maybe, curious for sure. But mostly I'm just trying to see the world. . .

Sent from my iPod

The great wall and all that jazz

(yep, that's me on the Great Wall)

What can you say about the Great Wall, really? Didn't they kind of say it all when they named it "Great"? I decided to take a tour offered by my hostel that would go to the "secret" wall- a part hopefully not covered in tourists and crawling in souvenir stalls. They delivered on the promise and we arrived at a beautiful section of the wall not far from the most touristy bit (with the cable car up and slide down) that was only partially restored and beautifully empty. It also turned out to be a fantastic day with relatively clear skies (only a mild pollution haze) and you could see quite a way in every direction.

It was a fun trip, I spiny most of the day hiking with a pair of British sisters who are English teachers not far from Beijing and in the city for the holiday. There is not much to say except that we climbed up, walked for a bit, took pictures walked back and climbed down. Climbed the Great Wall- check.

Travel in big cities (and any major tourist destination) often feels like a rather endless series of checklists: Great Wall- check, Summer Palace- check, Temple of Heaven- check, Chinese acrobats- check, etc. I feel like I try not to just "do" the checklist, for a lot of reasons. One, I can't really afford it; if I did everything listed in the Lonely Planet, I would be completely broke by now. I think, also that the best times I've had on this trip have been when I got off the checklist- usually with couhsurfers and PCVs. For me it is somehow easier to skip some of the attractions if I have someone to walk around town with- and when I do see things, it doesn't feel quite so listy since I'm sharing it with someone.

Anyway, checked off a lot of things from the list in Beijing. . . Up next, something that has been on my list for a long time: Terra-cotta warriors in Xi'an!

Sent from my iPod

The ger life

(Caitlin and I outside "Dublin Round")

One of he quintessential things to in Mongolia is to stay in a ger (yurt). The easiest way to do this is to pay for a tour that takes you to an "authentic" ger camp. But since I'm not generally for the easy way, I didn't do this. Instead I found a PCV that lives in a real life ger. In case you don't know, a ger is a Mongolian felt tent- usually used by the nomadic herdsman. In modern day Mongolia, many people live in more permanent abodes: apartments, brick houses etc., but many people still live in movable gers and many also live in semi-permanent gers in neighborhoods of towns and cities. Caitlin's ger is like this- she lives in the yard of a Mongolian family's house. Her ger- Dublin Round (probably the best ger in Mongolia)- is pretty great. It is about 12 feet across with furniture all around the edges and a wood (or coal or dung) stove in the middle of the circle that vents out the hole in the roof. She has no running water and has to go a few times a week to the end of her street to fill up a large plastic container for her water needs. She does have electricity and even Internet. Imagine, Internet in a felt tent!

I found the foreigners

(waiting for the train on the Mongolian border)

I found the foreigners- they are in second class. For the trip to Ulaanbaator, there were no third class seats available for the days I wanted to travel so I had to pay the extra money to be confined in a small compartment with three other people and loud rude foreigners next door. . .
In fact, the whole car is made up of foreigners. It seems that there is one normal train a day that crosses the border and in fact for several hours on either side of the border, it is disconnected and all alone (it is very weird to see your train car sitting by itself on the tracks, not connected to anything). And there are no third class seats because there is no third class- or first class for that matter. Just our lonely second class. For the border stop (long!) all of us forieners got off the train and sat chatting on the platform- it reminded me a bit of the people I met in waiting in the Amsterdam airport.

It feels weird to be leaving Russia. I don't think I'm ready, I just feel like I'm starting to understand things a bit and remember words that were lodged in the back of my brain. In Mongolia and China I will back at square one, not understanding anything people say, only worse off than in Russia because I've never studied Mongolian or Chinese.

I am really excited about Mongolia and I wish that I had planned a little bit longer there. I am planing on staying with a few Peace Corps Volunteers, which I think will be awesome as always. I have also started to map out my time in China, which is a challenge because it is just so much that it is hard to decided where to even start. I feel like I almost have to just open my guide book at random and visit where ever my finger lands, but of course that would be a bit silly. Really that is all that I have been doing so far and it has seemed to work out ok . . . Anyway, the trip goes on!

The hostel life

About half of my travel so far on this trip has been in "hostels". Hostels are loosely defined as private businesses that cater to budget travellers, youth and students for accommodation. The general picture that comes to my mind is a building with several large dorm rooms and some sort of shared kitchen, but I have found that hostels can vary widely. I have stayed in just about every type of hostel- from small, converted apartments with just a few rooms to large corporate affairs with a front desk and swimming pools (seriously, at a hostel in Florence!). My favorite places were probably somewhere in the middle- homey, but big enough that you don't feel like you are stepping on people and with enough people to have a wide variety, but not so many people that you can't seem to meet anyone.

I've met some really interesting people in hostels- from the guy writing his novel in Bulgaria to the many gap year Aussies and a few slightly odd ducks. Occasionally I've run into people again randomly, like the guy we met in Bosnia and then was in my hostel again in Kiev and the Norwegian guys from the hostel in Plovdiv who I played cards with halfway through Romania.

I was worried that I would be lonely or shy or bored travelling alone, and sometime I was. I've decided that I still do prefer to travel with someone (at least someone cool!) to travelling alone, but I have also found that I CAN travel solo. I have met a lot of people that are doing long trips, that make my round the world look like a mini break. I don't know if I could do it-after just a month on my own I was feeling ready for a break. We will have to wait and see how I feel in the middle of the longer (three month) trip later in the year.

Anyway, I have found he hostel life to be fascinating and I'm glad to have stayed in some really interesting places- and a few uncomfortable ones.

Tips for hostel travel- ear plugs and sleeping mask are a must when staying in dorm rooms (sometimes it seems like there is a snoring contest going on), talk to people- if you want to be alone you are staying in the wrong place, keep your belongings neat- the best way to lose something is have your stuff spread all over a dorm room, don't be afraid to cook in the kitchen but ask before you take any food that's no yours!

Happy travelling!

Sent from my iPod

Night train to Belgrade

It was hard to pull ourselves away from Budapest, but the trip must go on, especially since Alexi had a ticket to fly out of Sofia so we had to get there. Looking at our time, we had a few choices- we could go straight 15 hours to Sofia, or we could split it up with two night train journeys and a day in Belgrade. One of the best ways for a budget traveler to save some money and time is to take night trains. Except for the border check that inevitably comes just when you've fallen asleep, I tend to sleep pretty well on the night train as long as I spring for a bed. The problem, of course, is that you never know how things will be. You buy your ticket and just hope for the best. . .

We got on the train (it seems as always) just as it was leaving and dragged ourselves to the compartment to find a full room- we were on the top bunks of the six bunk couchette. We managed to climb up (not easy with 35lbs on your back) and get settled. At around 2:00 when the border check came I woke up dripping with sweat and hardly able to breath. When the door opened a rush of fresh air came in hat made me realize how hot it really was. I climbed down to go to the bathroom and discovered the truth- it was significantly hotter up in the top bunk and there were tons of open bunks in other compartments. Under the principle of ask forgiveness not permission I grabbed my sheet and went to sleep in an empty bottom bunk.

We arrived in Belgrade not very well rested but still determined to make the most of our 16 hours there. Belgrade fit into our tour of capitals nicely. With lots of fountains, a relaxed coffee shop culture and a really, really big church under construction it was somewhere between Sarajevo and Tirana. While I imagine there could be more to see and someday I would love to come and really talk to people (and maybe get another perspective on history) I feel like we made a good choice to spend just the day there. We made it back to the station with plenty of time (time in fact to watch a movie on Alexi's laptop) but still somehow barely made it on the train since we had to go back to the ticket counter to get a refund for the couchette reservation
since the sleeping car didn't actually exist. We were actually able to sleep more without the couchette since we staked out an empty compartment and stretched out on the seats.

Sofia is another one of these cities like Istanbul and Sarajevo that is a strange mix of east meets west. But more confusing. I'm not sure why, but we got lost more in Sofia than in any other city. We would turn down one street and then look up and realize we were on the completely other side of the city from where we thought we should be. We felt like we either must have been the biggest idiots in the world, or the city had some sort of weird voo-doo that made otherwise smart
people get completely lost. From Sofia we took a day trip to Rila Monastary and got Alexi ready to leave Europe. Sadly, my lovely traveling partner had to head home (sad) to start grad school (happy!). So now my journey continues solo.

Next chapter: finding out how PCVs party in the rest of Eastern Europe.

Budapest's second chance

Eight years ago, when I was studying abroad in Prague I took many weekend trips around central Europe including one to Budapest. I try not to blame it on Budapest, but the trip was not what you could call 'great.' I took the trip with about 9 other students from my program in Prague- first lesson, don't travel in big groups . . . never again.

Things started to go downhill right from the beginning- while crossing the border to Slovakia in the middle of the night two of our friends were taken off the train because they didn't have the correct transit visa to go through Slovakia. None of us really knew what was going on until the train was moving and our friends were not on it! When we arrived in Budapest (two people short), the accommodations that we had arranged were somehow wrong or something changed (maybe because we were two less people, but I have no idea- I didn't arrange it). From that point it was just a mess- trying to get 10 people to agree on anything or move in any direction is impossible. Basically, it was cold, I didn't end up doing or seeing very much of Budapest and the trip was only saved from being a complete wash when three of us broke off from the group and found this wonderful outdoor skating rink in front of a castle and spent the morning by ourselves there.

When Alexi and I first started talking about taking this trip together, Budapest was one of her top destinations. I knew when I left the last time that I would have to go back sometime to give it a second chance. Budapest passed the second chance with flying colors.

Being back in Budapest made me actually get a little bit nostalgic for Prague. It is a big city, but the center is very walkable. It also has some of the best public transportation around (I love the super deep Budapest metro). The Danube, while not really blue, is really pretty and the two parts of the city sit in wonderful contrast to each other. I knew that there were a few things that I wanted to do in Budapest that I didn't get to do the first time around, namely tour the Parliament and go to one of the famous thermal baths. In the former, I was thwarted again when the tour was full the first day we tried and closed the second. I did, however, get a dip in a thermal bath and a massage, so that pretty makes up for everything. Other highlights of the 4 days in Budapest included eating falafel twice, seeing a 5 hour long Waggner opera (in box seats!) for only about 5Euro, and meeting Outi, a Finnish girl that we couchsurfed with for two nights.
We also took a one night trip out of the city to the town of Gyor. Gyor also was lovely. We happened to arrive on the weekend that they were having a festival of some sort. It seemed to involve various kinds of music and dancing, as well as medieval events (there were some people dressed up in armor . . .and flag throwing). So the town felt very festive. We fed the ducks down by the river and watched tango dancing. And in our (never ending) search for the best gellato in the world, we found a good contender in Gyor. Sometimes there are gems in the most random places . . .
I left Hungary feeling as if I could honestly say "I liked Budapest," maybe even loved it. I might just have to go back again, but not because it has anything to prove.

Ok, so I feel a little bit bad about skipping Croatia. Croatia doesn't deserve that. Croatia is great. Really Croatia, it's not you, it's me. . .

When we left Mostar, we headed to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik has the reputation for me as being one of my mom's favorite places. I don't know how many times I have heard how wonderful it is. Alexi and I talked a bit about this, what makes a place great (or not great) for different people. A few months ago, in addition to posting my plans here, I sent out an email to all of my friends and family getting advice for my upcoming trip. The response I got was great. I got a few tips on places to stay or poeple I could stay with, a few people passed on my message to another friend with more info and a lot of people told me about places they have travelled. I really loved getting these messages, but it was kind of funny, because sometimes I would get completely contradictory advice about a place. It could depend on so many things. How do they like to travel? What was the weather like that day? Who were they with?
I bring this up because I liked Dubrovnik. I didn't love Dubrovnik. It rained both days we were there (crazy hailing thunderstorms) and things were a bit expensive for me. For example, to climb the old city walls and walk around up there cost about 10€. That seemed a bit steep to walk around the city (in the pouring rain no less) so we skipped it. Also because of the rain, we didn't get to go to the beach, one of the things I was really looking forward to in Croatia.
My favorite part of Croatia was Plitvice national park which is in between Zadar and Zagreb. A lot of factors went in to my general "like" of this place. First, it is insanely beautiful- it is a system of lakes connected by waterfalls that you walk across and through on raised wooden platforms. Second, we stayed in a great guest house outside of the park with the softest beds and best shower I've had in ages (especially compared to the bus station floor we slept on the night before).
We skipped Zagreb, partly because we were short on time, partly because we arrived with perfect time for the last train to Budapest, but mostly because we got more "don't bother" reports than "I loved it!" reports. . . But who knows, maybe we would have loved it.

So I had started to write a post about Croatia, but I got bored writing it and I figured if I was bored writing it, you would probably get bored reading it. As I have been traveling, I have been thinking a lot about the form of the "travel blog" in which people tend to just write "then we went here and it was great" sort of posts. I really hate that. So anyway, we went to Croatia and it was great . . .

About travel in general: Travel is hard work. This is the first time in my life (or since I was a kid, I guess) that I have ever had such a long period of time with no responsibilities whatsoever. This in itself is strange and I tend to feel like I should be doing something . . . My biggest worries each day are getting from one place to another and finding food. Other than that, I have nothing real to do. It's a bit strange. But somehow, travel feels like work sometimes. You have to get up early (some days earlier than I ever did working) to catch buses and trains or get a jump on the museum traffic. You have to do a lot of reading and research.

About travel buddies: I have been traveling (since COS) with Alexi (a fellow G11er). This is the longest that I have ever traveled at one time and the longest I have ever traveled with another person besides my family. I think that finding a good travel partner is hard. If the fastest way to ruin a friendship is moving in together, then the second fastest way to do it is to go out on the road with someone for a few weeks. People travel in so many different ways, that it can be a real crap-shoot. Sometimes someone you are really close to would be the worst person to travel with. Although we have known each other for two years, I wouldn't say that Alexi and I were close during our service. For one thing, we lived on complete opposite ends of the country. We shared a room together at the COS conference and started talking about this trip. I was really happy for the prospect of having someone to travel with for at least the first bit. Things with Alexi have been great. We get along well, we travel well together, we have similar interests. She is a bit more subdued and introverted than I am, but that has not really been a problem. And having a travel buddy has so many benefits- someone to watch your bag when you go to the bathroom, someone to split a double room with, someone to talk about the museum/church/monastery/park that you are visiting. When Alexi leaves in a bit, I will enter a new phase in my trip- my solo/peace corps couchsurfing phase. It will be weird to be traveling without her . . .

Phase two- the Balkans loop

After getting my dad in a cab to the airport, Alexi and I started the next leg of the big adventure- the Balkans Loop. Our plan was to head west into Montenegro, then go across Bosnia and then swing up through Croatia to Hungary, down to Serbia and finish up in Bulgaria. From there, Alexi will fly home and I will continue on my way.

Our first stop was Durmitor national park in Montenegro. We started off fine, having good luck finding a good taxi driver to take us over the border, finding a bus that (amazing!) took us right to the park, finding a cheap place to stay. The town was cute (although we had a hard time finding any good bread) and the park itself was pretty good too. With a big lake and lots of well marked hiking trails things were looking good. But then we entered the world of cartoons. Two to be specific. First, I want you to imagine Pigpen from the peanuts. You got that? Ok, now imagine that you are Pigpen and he little cloud of dust that follows you around everywhere was actually made up of flies and mosquitoes. So now you have a bit of the picture of the hike that Alexi and I embarked on. It was out of control. I sort of expect bugs in the forest, but not swarms. By the time we got up to the point where we couldn't go on (impassable ice field since we left our ice axes at home. . . ) the war had begun. This brings us to our second cartoon- the one where Mickey kills 7 (flies) in a single blow. I started my attack (on the mosquitoes mostly) and by the time I got down the mountain I had a body count of over 40.

From Durmitor, we headed into Bosnia-Herzegovina, starting with Sarajevo. For me, Sarajevo was very interesting for the fact that I think the was in Bosnia was probably the first war that I really remember clearly. The signs of the war are all over, and even though there has been an incredible amount of reconstruction work, they don't let you forget about the war. Besides that, I felt like Sarajevo was a very livable city. They have tasty food and a great market and a vibrant feeling city center.

We finished off the country with a trip down to Mostar. Where we saw the (new) old bridge (most as in Mostar). The old old bridge was built several hundred years ago and destroyed in the most recent war. A few years ago they decided to rebuild an exact replica of the bridge using the same techniques and materials as the old one (with a few modern safety precautions, like metal scaffolding). The new (old) bridge is incredible; you can't tell it was a different bridge. Which actually brought up some interesting things to think about. When things (especially large/beautiful/historic things) are destroyed should they be replaced with something new or should they destroyed thing restored? If it is restored to its original condition, then have we lost some of the history of whatever did the destroying- which might not be bad, I'm not sure. Anyway, the new (old) bridge was interesting and Mostar was nice.

Sent from my iPod

A quick note

Hey there loyal readers!

So I have left Albania and started the 'big adventure.' What this means is, that this is no longer a Peace Corps blog, but now a 'travel' blog (ok, I know a lot of my blog has been about traveling, but you know what I mean). Traveling, being a tourist is very different than living someplace and traveling from it (which for the most part is the kind of traveling I've done). It is harder in a lot of ways- I don't know the languages of the places I'm going, for the most part, I'm staying in hostels and hotels rather than with friends and I have to carry basically everything I own on my back. So far it has been fun and interesting, hopefully it will continue that way.

Anyway, so a couple of notes about my blog for the next few months: I sent my computer home with my dad, so I'm mostly using my iPod to write blog posts, it takes me longer to write since I'm not used to the keypad quite yet. Second, since I don't have my computer, I don't generally have a way to upload pictures, but I will try to upload as many as I can whenever I get on a real computer.

Thank you for reading!

A few last adventures

I got some great advice from a G10 PCV a few months ago about my last few months here in Albania. He said, "Do EVERYTHING you can do these next few months you have left in Albania. I mean it, do not waste ONE single day. Do those things you always wanted to do but for all the
obvious reasons never did." Thank you Matt for that bit of unsolicited advice- I have tried to take it to heart. Since the end of the Earth Day project, I have been trying to make the most of my time here and get to all the things that I wanted to do.

I started with a visit to the Venetian mask factory in Shkoder. I purposefully didn't buy any masks when I was actually in Venice, because I knew that I could get them cheaper (and help an Albanian small industry in the process) in Shkoder. Before heading on, I spent the night in Rreshen and made sure to say goodbye to the great students there that I met last year working on the play and with MUN.

A few days later I continued with a seriously awesome trip to the Skrapar region to go rafting. Seriously Awesome. Seriously. Everyone should take this trip. It is simply beautiful. I then spent a few days in Berat hanging out and finally visiting the castle there
(I'd been there twice before without making it to the castle.) Very worth it.After that, I spent the week in Tirana- getting medical stuff done, saying goodbye to a few people in my group and helping with a fundraiser party for some kids trying to go to America.

As part of taking Matt's advice and taking advantage of my last few weeks, I really wanted to make sure to spend some quality time with people in Peshkopi too. Seeing more of Albania is all well and good, but I think that what really means a lot to me is being able to go to dinner with my good friends here, having that last coffee and sharing one last circle dance.

But there were a few more things that I needed to get done outside of Peshkopi too. When we were in Italy, my traveling partner Connie and I were given a bottle of wine by the owner of the hostel we stayed at in Rome. She kept it and I promised that before I left I would come down and we would drink it together. Nothing beats a good bottle of wine or a nice walk along the lake shore . . . except maybe the good conversation with a good friend that can go along with those things . . .
What next? What haven't I done in Albania. Well, I've never ridden the train. I know what you might be thinking, "Is there even a train in Albania???" In fact there is- it is slow, only goes a few places and doesn't connect to the European train system, but it does exist! And it happens to exist from Pogradec (where Connie lives) to Elbasan. So decided to catch the train. Unfortunatly, I missed the train by about 5 minutes (the station, outside of Pogradec was a little farther outside than we planned on). But not to worry, the train moves so slowly that I was able to catch a furgon and beat it to the next stop! I actually really enjoyed the train trip. It was slow, but it was also cheap. And it was frankly nicer than I expected. Besides the fact that every window was cracked very badly, the carriages were not in that bad shape- they had comfortable seats and were clean. I could stand and look out the window, sit and read my book and not worry about getting car sick. Sure the trip took about twice as long (3 hours rather than and hour and a half), but it sure was a pretty trip!
From Elbasan I headed up to Tirana to do my final COS checkout and officially become an RPCV. The end was rather anticlimactic since I wasn't actually leaving Albania yet. After COS, I had a few days to wait until my Dad arrived, so I thought it was the perfect time to head to the beach. Probably the best (cleanest and not yet overdeveloped) beach in Albania is Dhermi, south of Vlora. I have heard nothing but good things about this place, but for some reason beyond me I never had the chance to make it down. Until now! Two days camping on the rocky, isolated beach was just what I needed to recharge. Because it was still really early in the season and the weather wasn't that great (a few sprinkles, but no real rain) there were almost no people on the beach. Just like I like it.
I headed back to Tirana to pick up my dad and head back up to Peshkopi for the last time.

Heading into the home strech, but not heading home

Welcome to 2010!

2009 was my only full year in Albania, and it sure was a full year. Even though day to day it sometimes seemed like I wasn't getting much done, when I look back on the year, I can see that I have done a lot here. With World Vision, I helped the team do community meetings with over 900 community members in order to design two projects that are getting underway now- one about water, sanitation and hygiene and one about violence in the home and school. I've been working with several different groups of students- a successful Model United Nations team, a Girls Empowerment group (done in Albanian, a real challenge for me) and an Outdoor Ambassadors group (environmental education). I helped another volunteer put on a musical with 45 kids, I helped run a summer camp for 50 kids from all over the country, and I traveled to 6 new countries. I also spent a lot of time traveling around Albania and even more time in my beautiful town of Peshkopi . . .

Anyway, as I get ready to head into the final few months of my service here, I am starting to look forward to when I will leave Albania. I have decided to "take the long way home" and travel for about 6 months before I return to the states. Taking another example from my parent's life, I think that this is the best time for me to see the world. I have a very tentative itinerary below and I'm hoping that you, my friends and family, can help me out with a few things:

1. Take a look at this list. Do you know anyone in any of these places that just might open up their homes for a few nights to a backpacking RPCV (returned Peace Corps Volunteer). I'm traveling on a just got out of the Peace Corps budget, which is basically the same as a still in the Peace Corps budget, which is basically no money! I am hoping to stay with friends and couchsurf when I can. Please help me get connected to people!

2. Have you ever traveled to any of these places? What was the best thing? What should I avoid? These are all new places for me so I am open to all suggestions!

3. Do you want to get a postcard or two? I like sending them, so send me your address and you'll get something from my travels . . .

4. I am doing this trip, for the most part, alone. And so now I'm inviting you to join me! I know that not many people have the freedom to travel for 6 months, but maybe for two weeks? Look over my plan and think about it . . .

June 10- Close of Service in Albania

June- July

North Albania/Kosovo

Balkans (Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia)

Bulgaria, Romania,

August-

Ukraine, Russia

September-

Russia (train), Mongolia, China

October-

S. Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia

November-

Indonesia, Philippines

December-

Solomon Islands, Fiji, California, Home!

Roman Holiday

Italy was the only place left on my list that I felt like I just had to visit before I left Albania . . . it is just across the water! I started asking around my group to see if anyone wanted to come along for the holidays. I knew that I wanted to go to Italy and I also knew that I did not want to go by myself, especially for Christmas. I was lucky that Connie, one of the volunteers in the more recent group thought Chrismas in Rome was a great idea and we started the plans for the trip.

Our plan for the week: squeeze as much culture as possible into 10 days without actually killing ourselves. This started with seeing La Traviata on Wednesday night just a few hours after landing. You know the best part about only going an hour and a half away for vacation? No jet lag! We also had tickets for The Nutcracker on Christmas Eve. Opera, ballet, now we needed some religion! After the ballet we headed over to the Vatican, but found that they closed early for the holiday. After much discussion we decided to forgo the craziness of the Papal visit on Christmas and instead did a much calmer and very beautiful midnight mass at the basillica near our hostel (which happens to be the second largest in the city and seriously amazing!). It was all in Latin and Italian and I didn't really get much of it, but Connie was raised Catholic, so really understood what was going on.

For Christmas, we decided to go another rought- we did Catholic, now lets get some Jewish in there! Rome has the largest Jewish population in Italy and has an excellent Jewish museum and Jewish quarter, which was perfect to visit on Christmas since most everything else in the city was closed. I was able to get one of my long time cravings- falafel (not so Italian, but you really can only eat so much pasta and pizza!). We also had Chinese food for dinner (the only other thing open!).

Our plans for the next few days include a trip back to the Vatican and lots of art, then on to Florence!

After living in Albania for nearly two years now, I think that I have become (as much as you can be) somewhat of an expert in Albanian transportation. There are some ways that Albania seems to really be coming along in terms of development and as far as being a PCV here, it is definitely the Posh Corps in many ways, but in terms of transportation, it is clear that Albania still has a long way to go and I'm entirely convinced that this country will not be considered "developed" until major changes are made in many areas of transportation.

For most foreigners, Albania's public transport system is a mystery at best and can be a frustrating experience. First, to be a tourist here, you really have to mean it. It is not that easy to get to Albania. Since it is the one European country not connected to the rest of the continent by rail lines, it is impossible to be sitting in a train station in Vienna wondering where to go and hop on a train to Tirana (like you could with basically every other capital city). This lack of effective train system also makes in country travel more difficult than in the rest of Europe. There are a few train lines going in between a few of the major cities, but the trains are run down and slow and very few people use them. In the summer when I was traveling with a few volunteers from Macedonia (which has an incredibly advanced transportation network compared to Albania) what the Albanian word for "platform" was, I couldn't tell them, because I realized that I had never used that word!

So, without trains, you are left with buses, taxis and mini-buses (furgons). I was contacted a few days ago by a guy that is in the process of updating a guide book for Tirana and is wanting to add in a bus schedule to his guide. He was hoping that he could help with the bus schedule for Peshkopi. The problem with this is of course that a schedule doesn't really exist as far as I have been able to figure out. There are a few buses, I think two that leave at 7 and 8 in the morning, and maybe another one later in the day, but it is not as if they sit at any sort of "station" or that there are "tickets." I have only taken the bus twice in my time here. Usually I take a furgon, which is kind of like a combination of a bus and taxi. Usually a mini-van or mini-bus size (with 8-15 seats), they circle the town until they find enough people and leave when they are full. There is no schedule, but I have been able to figure out that certain drivers like to leave at certain times of the day and that if you can call these drivers and reserve a seat the day before. Even so, if I call a driver and he says he is leaving at 7AM, we will only leave when the furgon is full, so if he doesn't have enough reservations it may still be a while before we are on the road.

Travel is easier for some other parts of the country, particularly the larger cities in the south and close to Tirana. For many sites, there are scheduled buses and there is even a "bus station" that serves many cities in the south (but even this "station" is a challenge to find in Tirana- there is no sign outside, you just have to know it is there . . . ). But for the rest of us, the "stations" are spread out at rather random spots along the side of the road and parking lots of Tirana. I honestly think that a major tourism development priority for the Albanian national government should be a central bus station- how can they expect tourist to find their way to Peshkopi when the "station" is an unmarked strip mall parking lot on the road out of town?!

Once you find your furgon or bus, that is usually not the end of your challenges. On my way to Rreshen last week, we were talking about all of the things that might delay your journey . . .

Top 10 best reasons your trip might be delayed when traveling in Albania-

10. Road Construction
9. Sheep
8. Overloaded Donkey
7. Overloaded gjushe (grandmother)
6. Someone in the furgon wants to buy fruit
5. Pilaf/kafe/cigarette stop
4. Stopped by the police (for a bribe?)
3. Someone in the furgon gets sick (although to be honest, this usually doesn't mean the furgon stops- just throw the bag out the window and keep going!)
2. Driver stops in the middle of the road to say hi to friend in furgon traveling in the other direction.

And the number one best reason that you might be delayed . . .

1. Driver stops to test drive a new truck! (not kidding this happened on our way to Rreshen last week- we stopped for about 15 minutes while the driver negotiated the purchase of a truck.)

Happy travels!

Probably the Best City in the World

Probably the best City in the world. This is (no joke) the motto of Brasov, a town in the Transylvania region of Romania. It is on every umbrella at all the cafes and restaurants downtown. Seriously, I can just imagine someone coming up with that, "Well, we haven't been to every other city in the world, so we can't really say 'The best city in the world, period', but we've been a lot of places and none of them were as good as here, so we can say 'Probably the best city in the world' until someone proves us wrong . . .

Anyway, Brasov is a pretty cool place, but I don't know if I was there long enough to really be sure of it's supremacy over every other place that I've been (I'm particularly partial to Prague myself, but that's just me . . . ). The town center is full of beautiful buildings and there is a slightly out of place giant Hollywood-esque sign on the side of the hill (just in case you forgot where you were?).

We actually didn't spend too much time in Brasov itself (except Amanda who decided that castles were not her thing and had an adventure with a red scooter . . . ) rather we used it as a base to see a bit more of the region and the castles that this part of Romania is famous for. The fairy tale tourets of Bran Castle harken back to princesses as much as Dracula and I'm all in favor of the former. The only mention of the famous literary biter was in an upstairs room talking about how the castle actually had nothing to do with the historical Vlad Tepes or the fictional Dracula at all except that maybe Bram Stoker may have based his description of Dracula's castle on Bran. What the castle did have, however was a lot of information about the Romanian royal family (who had most recently used it as a country home) and some pretty great views.

The next day, on our way back to Bucarest, we stopped in Sinai and explored another fantastic castle- this one much more royal palace than quaint country home. It seemed that every room we went into was more lavishly decorated than the one before (and it's no wonder that they charged a whole lot extra to take pictures!). Based soley on this and the Parliment I would have to say that the Romanians are skilled interior decorators . . . they take their palaces seriously!

Leaving Romania, we had a truly unpleaseant train ride to Sofia (lights on all night, loud, cold, uncomfortable seats . . . ) and arrived in Bulgaria to a rainy day. We had planned to spend the day exploring Sofia, but after the bad train ride and the rain, we decided to get the earliest possible oppourtunity back to Macedonia. As we crossed this last border, I realized that in just under two weeks I had completly crossed through Bulgaria three times (and had the 6 passport stamps to prove it) without stopping for more than a quick meal. I guess I've technically been to Bulgaria now but I think I might have to go back as I didn't actually see a thing.