Ljubljana
Sarajevo
Durmitor
Dubrovnik
The Slavs
Istanbul
Life as We Know It
I wasn't prepared for what I saw. The people all died in the same two year period. Grave sites were everywhere throughout the city of Sarajevo. Even while strolling through a public park I found several graveyards. I read they didn't have space left to bury the dead so they started burying them in the city parks. They are still resting in peace in the city center 15 years later.
I remember thinking during the war in Bosnia how ridiculous it seemed to me that the people were killing each other. All of them basically the same ethnically and when the Croats turned on the Serbs, fighting with the same religious beliefs. The Christians and Catholics going to war with each other is very confusing? They believe in the same god and pray with the same book for crying out load.
The country was a mix of Catholics Croats , Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Slavs living side by side. In 1990 Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. In 1992 Bosnia also passed a referendum for independence. I guess the Serbs saw things a little differently.
It's a long story about either civil war or just a war of aggression but the Serbs wanted Sarajevo for themselves and turned on the Croats and Muslims and started bombing the city. Reports began of ''ethnic cleansing'' where the Serbs were killing Muslim Slavs or driving them away in order to create an ethnically pure region. There were also reports of concentration camps and mass rapes. The Croats then turned on the Serbs and Muslims and everyone was killing everyone. I realize my historical recap isn't exactly detailed and probably not very accurate. The point is that it was a crazy war that destroyed so much life and for what?
The city was scarred. Like I said, I wasn't prepared to see all of the bullet and mortar holes and the graves and the overall energy of the city felt broken. It takes a long time to heal the kind of deep wounds inflicted on a city like Sarajevo.
Kenna and I heard many stories from different people about the war. Surprisingly, they had no problem talking about the horrors. There were so many horrors to tell.
While riding the tram in 100 degree heat, Kenna opened the window closest to our seat. A woman behind us started yelling at us. We couldn't understand a word so a young girl explained to us she was angry we had opened the window. Every single other window on the tram was open, even the window next to this woman. She wouldn't stop yelling and carried on for at least 10 minutes. We asked the girl to apologize for us and she said not to worry. She said the war had made a lot of people crazy and it was just part of life in Sarajevo. It was very sad.
We met a woman who ran a hostel across the alley from the apartment we rented. Her hostel was two blocks from the river surrounding the city which during the war was literally the front line. She spent three years hiding in her basement. A man would come to her home to deliver her food so she didn't have to leave. Sniper fire was constant. Her main mission during the war was hiding her teenage boys so they wouldn't be called to fight. She told us that she loves America. She said if it hadn't been for Clinton she would have died. She said that she waited for months hoping that a European country would come save them but no one did until Clinton stepped in and helped with the Dayton Peace Accord. I'm not sure how true that is because I thought it was an EU treaty but in her mind it was all because of Clinton. I miss Clinton.
I'm not sure how to explain what it's been like to travel this year as an American. Overall, I'd say that the world still loves the US and thinks of it as a paradise they can only dream about. But people from all over the world have something to say about George Bush. They may not speak a single word of English but they know how to say George Bush and they know the international sign for ''he sucks.'' It's been a relief not to be in the US during the election year. I can barely stand to hear the bits and pieces I get from other tourists. I'll hope for the best in the next year but I've honestly lost most of my hope after the last eight years. Now Iran...now Russia and Georgia and then the next war and the next...
I've talked before about the effort is takes to grow and evolve personally. It's a lot of work and maybe takes a lifetime, maybe many. It's no wonder that our collective evolution is slower than the slowest slow boat to China. There's too many of us and George Bush is the President of the world. What the hell are we doing? You can tell by this post that I'm staying really positive about the future :) Yay future!
Dreams of Bond
I've dreamed of going to Montenegro, mostly because of the Bond film Casino Royale. I've spent so many years watching Bond films wishing I could travel to the all the romantic locations. It was everything I had dreamed it would be and more. Another beautiful country, infamous for being the newest country in the world. The region was part of Serbia until June 3rd, 2006 when they declared their independence. The economy seems to be taking off. I would highly recommend that everyone invest some money in local real estate. I'm sure you could quadruple your investment in a couple of years. This place is on fire.
We spent most of our ten days in Kotor, a small town nestled at the head of the deepest fjord in southern Europe.
The first day we arrived we met Boris who drove us out around the coastline outside of town to a pension owned by his father. We had a beautiful room on the top floor with a balcony overlooking the water. It would have been perfect except for the lack of a fan or A/C in the 100 degree heat. Fortunately, the beach was across the road and the water was perfect.
Boris went out of his way and even helped us find a different room within the walled city when the heat got to be too much. He took us to a beach on the coast called Jaz with perfect sand and perfect water. The Adriatic is salty. You don´t need a raft to lay horizontally in the water. The salt content keeps you fully buoyant, feet up and everything. Pure bliss.
There is a huge field next to the beach that's used as a parking lot. The Stones played a show there and the government is going to pay Madonna 20 mil or something to play as a way to promote the country. I guess you have to pay well to get someone like Madge to play a show in a beach parking lot in a country with only half a million people.
We met a Serbian waiter that took us out to a Turbo Folk club. Turbo Folk is the local music sung by porn goddesses. It's not very good and either was the conversation. The guy wasn't our friend for long after he explained how Albanians and n*ggers smell bad. It was my first exposure to the racial, religious, or whatever conflict that's bashed this part of the world. The guy had fought in the war and was a real Serbian nationalist. I carefully explained to him that Serbs smell bad too, that I had sat next to several on the bus. He claimed that Serbians had never hurt anyone but that Bosnians and Albanians went around killing people??? I decided I should refrain from asking him about Serbia's whole ''racial cleansing'' thing.
After a week in Kotor and the surrounding areas we headed up into the mountains of Montenegro to Durmitor national park. It was such a relief to feel the cool mountain air. The mountains were peaceful. I loved being surrounded by A frames and ski area signs. We spent some time walking and hiking through the woods and were so happy to curl up with blankets at night. It was a relaxing few days for us before heading to Bosnia.
For all of you travelers, I would like to suggest Montenegro as a destination. There really is no reason to go anywhere else in Europe, the country has it all.
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!
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
It was strange how much like home it felt to us. The other times I've traveled to Europe I felt like I had arrived in a romantic land far, far away. Europe always seemed so...well...European. After spending two and a half months in India and Nepal, Vienna looked exactly like Seattle. The only apparent differences were the language, the license plates and the number of bakeries. Life in the West has it's advantages; more conveniences, but a little less colorful.
