Dubrovnik
Lake Ohrid
I was walking in the hills looking for a church perched above Lake Ohrid when people started shouting at me in
Macedonski from their house. I yelled back
that I didn't understand and they waved for me to come over. There were three,
sitting on their terrace overlooking the water, eating tomatoes and cucumbers
and drinking local whiskey. They motioned for me to sit down, fixed me a plate
and poured me a shot. I was just walking down the street! The man, his sister
and their uncle spoke some words I could understand and after we struggled to
communicate for a bit the man called up to his 15 year old daughter to come
translate. They were all so sweet and I was surprised at how readily they
invited me into their home. The whiskey was strong. I don't think I've ever
tasted whiskey in my life. The girl spoke English very well and we sat and
talked through her for about an hour. The uncle invited me to come to Montenegro
to stay at his house and said he would drive me around the Balkans. I couldn't
believe the generosity, at least not until I had spent more time in Macedonia.
Come to find out the people are just like that here. After finding the small
13th century Church of St. John Caneo I wound my way back down the hills to the
waterfront.
While walking along a man dressed like a guide on the Mark Twain Riverboat
cruise at Disneyland struck up a conversation. I stopped and talked to him for a
while and his friend from a nearby cafe joined us. After ten minutes the man
took a call and said he had to pick up some clients in his water taxi, would I
like to come? Of course I would. We cruised along the coast to a beach side bar
and instead of stopping we kept on along the coastline to watch the sunset. We
toured some caves and he reached into a hole to show me bats which he seemed to
think of as friends. He asked if I wanted to hold one of the bats. Uh...let me
think about that for a minute...NO! I was offered whiskey which I tried to
decline but after much harassment, accepted. He told me about a friend who lived
in a cave nearby and had for the last 35 years and asked if I wanted to meet the
Macedonian David Crusoe. Okay? We pulled up near a big cave opening and he
called out when a man appeared looking just like David Crusoe. The man waved and
my friend told me to take his picture so I did. We finally went back to fetch
his paying customers, five friendly 20 year olds from the bar and headed back to town. All of this in
one afternoon.
I have a multitude of similar stories and I grew to love the country
because of the openness.
We left Macedonia headed for Montenegro and decided to avoid Kosovo and head through Albania. We spent only
one night in Tirana. I wasn't really
feeling the love in Albania until we were headed out of the country waiting for
a bus at a cafe in a town near the border. Three women in their fifties sat next
to us and asked where we were from. One of the women lived in NYC and was just
home for a visit. Within five minutes she offered to drive us across the border
into Montenegro. She called her brother in law who picked us up in his Mercedes
and drove us the hour across the border to a town called Ulcinj. The woman took us to lunch and helped us find a
place to stay. We thanked her profusely for everything and her response was that
she didn't have much money but people who have no money have big hearts and
people who have a lot of money have injured hearts. Is that a Mother Teresa
quote?
Later that night while out to dinner, the waiter was struggling to explain
the menu so he asked his English speaking friend to translate. When the man
found out we were Americans he sat down and decided to tell us all about
American politics. After a long discourse on the US justice system he invited us
to stay at his house and offered to drive us around to the many beaches and go
out on his speed boat. We politely declined and decided to head up the coast to
Kotor the next day. Montenegro!
The Slavs
It's been such a shock to be back in the West, trying to adjust to the cost of things and being surrounded by white people again. Crossing the border from Turkey, it was obvious, as it usually is, we were suddenly in a very different country. The first thing I noticed was the overt sexuality of the women. The hair extensions, 4 inch heels, collagen, implants, mini skirts and cleavage were extreme. The women in Bulgaria make SoCal girls look like Persians. Think Jenna Jameson wannabes.
I was in shock for the first few days after being in Asia and for the last month in Islamic areas. It was actually offensive and seemed kind of pathetic. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good photos of the girls at their best. They weren't the friendliest people I've met on this journey. Everyone can't be happy all the time :) It might just be the language barrier? It's difficult to find people who speak English here so we've been having fun drawing pictures and using our hands in some kind of idiot's sign language. My heart is kind of broken to be gone from the land of Lord Buddha. I was so ready to leave India but now that I'm here I really did fall so in love with Asia. I can't tell you what I would say after living in Nepal for a few years so I'm not sure how realistic my perspective is but I'm not really feeling the love from Europe yet.
The history in this part of the world is of course pretty amazing. Bulgaria is a land where prehistoric cultures dating back some 8,000 years existed. Culture after culture built on top of one another. And like Greece or Turkey, ruins lay everywhere. Excavation sites were as common as parking lots back home. You walk around any corner and people are digging and shoveling up ancient cities. The sites seem a little more casual than you would expect from an archaeological dig. Plastic lawn chairs sit under rainbow umbrellas and wheelbarrows and shovels are strewn over the site. It doesn't appear to be official business, more like a large sandbox with children's bright colored sand pails. Which is kind of cool actually because you can saunter through some of them and no one seems to mind.
We spent only four nights in Bulgaria, two in Plovdiv the second largest city after Sophia with only 350,000 people and two in Veliko Turnovo. This may explain why I really don't have too much to say. We're back on a whirl wind tour, this time of the Balkans. Off to Macedonia...
The Love Blog - Preach on Preacher
Turkey is a gorgeous, romantic country. We've spent the last week on the southern coast in Kas. It's a small sun drenched town perched on a hillside overlooking the clear blue Mediterranean sea. Although the country is considered the gateway between East and West it feels very European after our 3 1/2 month stay in Asia.
The food is the same for breakfast, lunch and dinner; french bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, eggs, chicken and lamb. I never thought I would say this, but I am so sick of french bread. Our days consist of going to the beach, walking around, eating at sidewalk cafes, drinking wine and having apple tea with the local shop owners. The daily Islamic prayer calls, dictated by the lunar calendar, wake us up at 4:30 AM over the city wide loud speaker.
Kas is Turkey's adventure sport Mecca so of course we ended up here. We went diving in the cold water to a deep canyon where we saw a huge octopus hiding in the rock and the stern of a boat wreck. We also took a day boat cruise to see a sunken city, destroyed by an earthquake in 100 BC. Ancient ruins are everywhere. It's strange as an American, with our few hundred years of history, to learn the monument you're casually leaning up against was built in 400 BC.
In one of my first blogs I talked about the fact that the trip wasn't something that happened to me like winning the lottery. I had the desire to travel the world and made it happen. Life doesn't just happen to you although it's easier to think that it does so you needn't take any responsibility for the outcome when things don't go as planned. You have to pursue life and make an effort to create the life you want. How you spend your days, what profession you choose and how much you enjoy it, how your relationships work out - all of it is manifested by you.
I fell in love when I was 20 years old with one of my best friends. I spent 15 years trying to get up the nerve to tell him how I felt but never did. I made zero effort and thought that if it was meant to be it would just happen. I look back now and realize that it didn't happen, not because it wasn't meant to be between us but because I didn't pursue it. Unless you put it out there, put yourself out there, you will never know what's possible. In life and in love - the island is there to discover. It will pass you by if you don't jump in and swim like crazy. "Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk."
Life's what you make it
Can't escape it
Celebrate it
Anticipate it
Yesterday's faded
Nothing can change it
Istanbul
Life as We Know It