17th of September - Bucharest, Romania
Friends of ours (Steve and Amber Golik) who traveled in Romania a few years ago hooked us up with friends they made in Bucharest, so we got in touch with Liviu before arriving in Romania and he offered to pick us up at the train station and let us stay at his house while we were in town. We had no idea what was in store for us in Bucharest. Liviu and his family and friends treated us like old friends and showed us Romanian hospitality to the extent that Jen cried at the train station as the train pulled away when our visit had ended. We were so touched by his generosity and the time that he and his wife and daughter took to show us their fine city, cook for us at home, treat us to wonderful meals in traditional Romanian restaurants, take us out on the town to experience the nightlife in Bucharest, stay up all night drinking wine and talking with Billy, introduce us to his friends who were also incredibly welcoming, and include us in a special countryside wedding.
Our first night in Bucharest Liviu, his wife Yvonne, and his daughter Becky took us out to a great restaurant for an introduction to Romanian food and we were thoroughly impressed with the wine and the tasty traditional dishes. We had the freshest produce in salads to start the meal followed by things like mamaliga (a cornmeal polenta side dish that accompanies most Romanian meals) and pork meat wrapped in cabbage leaves (another Romanian specialty). Liviu's friend Vlad met us after dinner and the guys took us to a club for a beer and then on to see a popular Romanian live band that played covers and weaved in a comedy act. We slept so soundly that night and then woke up to a lovely breakfast that Yvonne prepared for us of meatballs, green salad, fresh veggies, cheeses, coffee (and vodka)...all presented like a professional chef would plate dishes. Yes, we were off to a very good start, but it only got better...
Liviu took us on a walking tour of Bucharest starting from his apartment in the center of the city. He showed us his office, where he runs a recruiting business for Bucharest's job seekers and a couple of content/lifestyle web sites. It was inspiring to see the kind of drive and determination that has ignited in people of Liviu's generation who are flourishing in a country that has recently broken free of Communist leadership. Liviu told us that there is so much opportunity in Bucharest today because there are so many things that have not yet been done there. He is one of the people spearheading business in his industry and he seems to keep a close eye on what is going on in the States, the rest of Europe, China and India for his own vision of Bucharest's future. With Romania on the short list for accession to the EU, everyone is a buzz with the possibilities and the changes to come.
We continued our tour and Liviu pointed out all the sights as we walked around the city...the impressive Hilton hotel in an historic building, the National Theater, the ornate Opera House (outside of which al fresco concerts were being held in celebration of the great Romanian composer Enescu), the government buildings and parts of the city where Ceausescu's protesters gathered and 1,000 people were killed before he was overthrown and he and his wife were executed on Christmas Day in 1989. We were captivated by the historical and personal accounts of life in Romania during the tumultuous 1980s. We walked to the commercial center of Bucharest, which was once the center of the Communist regime and is now a bustling shopping mall with upscale stores, McDonald's and other international franchises. We made our way to the House of Parliament, which was ambitiously commissioned by Ceausescu, has been under construction for 20 years, and is still only 90 percent complete today. We strolled past city block after city block of fountains as we got closer to the large and looming House of Parliament. Out in front of the Palace of Parliament underneath a tent a car show was being held with expensive cars on display. Everywhere we looked there was evidence of a rapidly growing free market economy. Capitalism is alive and well in Romania's capital city. We could see how the explosion of growth here has impacted everyday life in Romania. For example, the city dwellers are talking on their cell phones in nice cars while speeding past horse drawn carriages on country roads just a few miles outside of the city center.
We got really lucky and were able to participate in a guided tour of some of the rooms inside the Palace of Parliament. This monstrosity of a monument to the Communist government under Ceausescu was as overwhelming on the inside as it was daunting from the outside. Each room was larger than life and so lavishly decorated with materials crafted in and extracted from Romania alone. Beautiful silk and velvet draperies adorn the windows, tons of pink marble decorate the walls and floors, special made rugs require 25 men just to roll them out over the gargantuan ball room floors, huge Romanian crystal chandelier hang from the ceilings of each room, state of the art technology and architectural techniques heat and cool the building and amplify sound in the meeting rooms. Every detail was attended to and money was not an object in the conception of this insanely opulent palace. This is the 2nd largest building in the world (only the Pentagon in the US is bigger). When we asked how much it cost to build, our guide was not able to give us an answer. It seems a bit strange that a communist leader would be so demonstrative with wealth, and we thought it was a pity that the building didn't seem to be fully accessible to the public or utilized by city officials whose offices reside somewhere inside.
We had lunch at the Amsterdam Cafe in the old town part of the city and we discovered house wine in Romania, which is nothing like house wine in the States. The best wine in Romania is the house wine on menus in restaurants...it is fresh, the quality is incredible and the price is right. For dinner we went to Vlad and Maria's house and met the newest addition of their family, a 5 month old named Vladimir. We drank wine as Vlad and Liviu conducted a cook off for dinner. Italian culture and food are prized parts of Romanian life as we discovered when Vlad whipped up a pesto sauce and Liviu threw together a blue cheese sauce for the pasta. Billy and I were appointed the judges of the contest, but we found it difficult to choose, as both dishes were as good as the pasta we ate in Trieste a month ago. We sat outside on Vlad and Maria's terrace watching the moon rise over the spectacular old world European skyline in Vlad's neighborhood. We had great discussions about family, life in Romania and in the States, politics (of course), the conspiracy theories about America staging the Neil Armstrong moon landing in 1969, and the law (a subject in which Vlad is well versed as a Public Notary in Bucharest). We went to Liviu's house and the girls retired while the boys stayed up talking in the kitchen.
The next day we attended a countryside Romanian wedding about one hour outside Bucharest. Liviu's friends Doina and Horia had been married in Bucharest the weekend before and this was a second celebration for their friends and family in the countryside. The wedding began with a procession from the groom's grandma's home to the church as 80 guests followed the wedding party to the small Orthodox church at the center of town. The church itself was made of dark wood and the interior was beautifully painted with gilded scenes of the life of Jesus and portraits of the saints. The ceremony was short and involved blessings of the bride and groom and the entire congregation, so we clumsily participated and noted the differences between Catholic and Episcopalian traditions that we each know. Jen crossed herself the wrong way (Catholics make the sign of the cross by touching their forehead, then chest, then left shoulder and finally right shoulder, but in the Orthodox church they touch their shoulders in the opposite order). Luckily the priest didn't seem to care. After being blessed we walked around the pulpit and kissed each of the portraits of the saints one by one. When the ceremony finished, we ate little sweet coconut flavored ball-like bitesized cakes and then marched back down the street toward Horia's grandmother's house.
On the way back to the house we made noise to notify the neighbors that we were outside and they each came to their front gates and drank tuica (a plum hard alcohol) from a traditional wooden flask and a glass bottle that was offered by the bride and groom. This was the best part. It was great to see the neighbors come out of their homes and wish the newlyweds well. One neighbor in particular was our favorite, her name is Old Lady Banana and she was about 80 years old (we later discovered the nickname was given to her because of her tendency to grab men's crotches while dancing on tables), and she came out of her home and started singing and dancing like a gypsy and was all too happy to take a swig of the tuica.
We met a lovely American couple at the wedding, who were from Tucson, Arizona, and coincidentally the guy (Corneliu or George, depending on who you talk to...we noticed that a lot of Romanians go by two names, one is their birth name and the other is their baptized name) went to high school at Evanston Township High (Billy's Alma Mater) and was born in Romania...he was the cousin of the groom. He showed us around his grandma's farm and recounted stories of his childhood there. He pointed out the hen tree with a ladder resting on its trunk, which we would later see the hens use to climb up into the tree's branches to sleep safely out of reach of any predators. He told us about how the farmland was taken from his grandma and divided up during communist times and how they worked the land and gave 75 percent of the crops to the goverment and kept the other 25 percent for themselves. He told us stories about how he and his cousin used to light fires on the farm for fun and how he tended the potato crops, which were the most backbreaking labor on the farm.
We got to know Corneliu and Jerica well over the course of the day as we ate and drank and danced to gypsy songs played by a live band. They attended the city wedding the weekend prior, so they knew the drill and warned us that we would eat and drink until we were stuffed. The food was indescribably good. Everything was homemade from the sausages to the wine, and all the ingredients came from their farm or from the neighbor's farms. The pig was slaughtered two days before the wedding, and the fruits and veggies were so fresh. We ate coleslaw that was so spicy and tasty, that we didn't believe that it was coleslaw...even the most typically mundane dishes were elevated to a gourmet level. I picked a grape from the vine to taste it and it was so sweet that I thought I was chewing on a piece of bubble gum. We picked an apple from one of the trees on the farm and it was so crispy and tart that it tasted better than any apple I have ever taken a bite of. At sunset the cows literally came home. We looked out on the street in front of the house and saw dozens of cows returning to their homes after being out at a communal grazing spot all day. Each cow knew exactly where to go to be let in through their owner's fences. All the neighbors were either sitting outside on the curb chatting or they joined in the fun at the wedding. They also opened their homes to any of the wedding guests who wanted to stay overnight. Our hosts kept the party going by bringing out new courses of food every two hours and plying us with coffee in between glasses of wine. We learned to dance in traditional Romanian style and felt like part of the family by the end of the night when everyone was dancing on the tables.
We were hoping that our experience of Romania would be special because we are going to visit Sigisoara, where Billy's family is from, to see the old family home and the graveyard where many of the Blaus are buried. We thought that our journey to Romania would be about getting in touch with Billy's roots, but we stumbled upon a whole different experience in Bucharest. We are off to a great start here in Romania.
15th of September - Istanbul, Turkey
From Belgrade we took an overnight train to the capital of Bulgaria (Sofia, which means wisdom in Greek), where we hoped to catch another train or a bus to complete the journey to Istanbul. In Belgrade we inquired about overland travel to Istanbul and we received 3 conflicting responses from different travel agents and the ticket office at the train station. We weren't sure whether to believe that the train to Istanbul was broken or that we'd be able to catch a connecting train from Sofia or that the tracks were flooded from the recent rains in this part of Europe. So, when we set off for Sofia we weren't even sure if we'd make it to Istanbul, but we figured it would be an adventure regardless of our destination. We had a sleeping cabin all to ourselves for this overnight train ride, so we were happy to be traveling comfortably for the first time since we arrived in Europe.
We arrived in Sofia in the early morning and found ourselves being rushed to the bus that was soon to depart for Istanbul. We followed two Bulgarian guys running at full speed from the train station to the bus station and we boarded the bus leaving for Istanbul just as it was pulling out of the parking lot. We spent all of 10 minutes in Bulgaria, so we know little more than what we read in our guidebook about the country. Bulgaria's claim to fame is that the first computer was invented by a Bulgarian-American in the 1930s. They fought on both sides of WWII (first for the Germans with Austria and later for the Russians). According to our guide book Bulgarians shake their head yes and nod their head to say no, which could prove to be very confusing body language, but unfortunately we didn't have time to test this out ourselves.
Crossing the border into Turkey was interesting. The woman sitting in front of us on the bus asked if we would hide some of her dozens of bottles of duty free gin in our bags until we were safely on the other side. We agreed to assist in the smuggling of bottles and we were the only people on the bus whose bags didn't get searched. We did have to pay for visas upon entry, but we successfully sneaked the alcohol across the border and then wondered why we didn't demand a bottle or two in payment. Alcohol is expensive in Turkey and it is not served in many establishments, probably because it's a Muslim country and not many people seem to drink here anyway...aside from the lady sitting in front of us on the bus.
Upon arrival in Istanbul the first thing we noticed was the sheer size of the city. We sat in traffic for two hours inching towards the city center. Once we got off of the bus we found ourselves lost in the maze of the overwhelming bus station and we immediately discovered what Turkish hospitality is all about. It was a warm welcome. With traffic whizzing by and horns honking a few hawkers crowded around us and vied for our attention with catchy phrases like, Hey Aussie! or Which one is the boss? or The biggest puma is you! This last one was a comment on Billy's puma t-shirt, but we are still not sure what it means. Once they had our attention they joked about taking our money, which led to a sort of bargaining game in which no one budged and everyone laughed. Next thing we knew we were ushered into the back of a cab and off to Sultanhamet, the center of all tourism in Istanbul. When it came time to pay for the cab we haggled over the price, then they shook our hands, kissed us, grabbed our faces, took our money and sped away. Welcome to Istanbul.
Istanbul is a stunning city with a strange mix of modern and ancient buildings and a striking Muslim culture. Our first day in Istanbul was spent walking around marveling at the Ottoman style construction and huge mosques with towering minarets. We visited Topkapi Palace, which was once home to Sultans and their harems, and today is a museum complete with a collection of the prophet Muhammad's swords and other personal affects like pieces of his hair and some of his teeth. The most interesting part of the palace for us was the architecture, as some of the buildings dated back to 500AD and all were built with opulent materials and tiles. That night we feasted on a staple here called doner kebabs (of the Iskender type with yogurt and tomato sauce on top of slices of lamb and cubes of bread). These ubiquitous kebabs would be called a wrap at home, and they generally consist of meat cut from a rotating spit, tomatoes and greens rolled up in flatbread. Billy could live on a diet of nothing more than these kebabs for an eternity. We went to an outdoor cafe to drink Turkish tea and watch a whirling dervish perform while savouring the scent of apple flavored tobacco that our neighbors were smoking from a water pipe. The whirling dervish performance was much less a show than a practice. Without any pomp and circumstance the dervish stepped onto the small platform in the center of the cafe and started spinning around in circles. His face had a very somber expression as if he was in a trance while his arms were held above his head in a very purposeful manner and his full robe made the shape of an upside down flower as he spun around and around. He wore a tall cylindrical hat and a black cloak that he put on and took off each time with a ritual kiss to the collar. We're not sure how he did this without becoming dizzy and falling over or stumbling. We tried it ourselves and determined that it would require much more practice.
We went to the Grand Bazaar and felt like we had arrived in the shopping mecca of the world. It was easy to get lost in the maze of shops inside the bazaar and browse the rows of goods ranging from gold and jewels to hookah pipes and Turkish carpets. The Egyptian bazaar was smaller, but we had more fun shopping there for candies and spices. We visited the Blue Mosque one day, which invoked in us a feeling of awe that can only be matched by visits to other grand and sacred places of worship. Another memorable night in Istanbul was spent having dinner at a rooftop terrace of one of the hotels in Sultanhamet. At around 8pm the sound of the call to prayer echoed all around us from the 5 nearby mosques. We sat there admiring the view of the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia Mosque, whose minarets were lit up dramatically like taper candles, while listening intently to the sound of the muezzins passionately intoning voices. No matter how many times we hear the call to prayer (we heard it first in Bosnia and also in Serbia) it remains a very foreign and exotic sound that reminds us that we are far from home.
10th of September - Belgrade, Serbia
We took an overnight train into Belgrade, and arrived at 6AM. We got into a taxi, and got totally ripped off, we paid 10 Euros to travel about 5 minutes in the cab. We have developed a skill for not getting fooled into paying ridiculous prices for things very often, but cab rides are our weakness and sometimes after a long trip we just want to get to a place to rest, and we lose our senses. The hotel we went to was booked, so we started walking around town in search of another place to stay. On our walk we ran into a siblings from Macedonia who had also just arrived in town, so we went with them to a nearby hotel where we all ended up staying.
After we dropped off our bags, we went with them to have some coffee and explore Belgrade a bit. We walked over to the old citadel that sits on a hill high above where the Danube and Sava rivers meet. This is probably one of the most important strategic locations in Europe, if not the world. Because this has been such an important location, linking the trading posts of Asia with Europe, Belgrade has been sacked and destroyed no less than 40 times in the past 1200 years. The citadel is the remains of what this city used to look like, again walled in so as to thwart invasions. What is so nice about the old citadel here is that it has not been fully restored, it still sits in ruins in some places, and really has the feel of what it used to look like. It is much larger than the forts in Dubrovnik or Split, by a long shot. The top of the citadel is now a very lovely park that has views out all over the city where children play and people go to escape the traffic and the heat of the city streets.
Inside the citadel is the Former Yugoslavian War Museum, which was incredibly detailed and full of maps and tons of information. We could not read a lot of the information, and we got the feeling that this was purposefully done. Hallway after hallway was full of old swords, knifes, cannons, and rifles dating from the Ottoman empire and earlier. When we got to the post WWI section, there was only one small room. There they proudly displayed a piece of the American stealth fighter the Serbs shot down in Kosovo in 1999, and the uniform of the US pilot that was flying the plane. This part had some English descriptions, and displayed graphs of how many troops, guns, planes and tanks NATO forces had in comparison to Serb assets, as well as the "illegal" weapons that were used by NATO troops against the Serbs. The experience we were supposed to get out of this part of the museum is to feel sorry for the undermanned Serb army who was viciously attacked by NATO. There was no mention of the ethnic cleansing and elimination of Albanians that was taking place in Kosovo by the Serbs. This was one of the more eerie feelings we have had anywhere on our trip, the people here live in denial of what happened in both Bosnia and Kosovo.
The next day we met up with the Macedonians again to visit Tito's tomb, where there is also a museum. Tito was a war hero who helped defeat the Nazi's in WWII, and also formed what was Yugoslavia of the 6 republics. He was a Communist, but not under Soviet control, and this made him very popular here for three decades until he died in 1980. He was also from a mixed family with a Croat mother and Serb father, which makes his burial in Serbia all the more interesting today. The museum was full of gifts other heads of state had given him as presents, as well as batons that were used in the annual youth relay across Yogoslavia where a baton was be passed person to person and then delivered to Tito in Belgrade. The batons were designed differently each year and were very interesting, there were over 30 of them.
In our cab to the museum, we drove by two old state buildings that had been blown up by NATO forces in 1999. The Serbian government left them that way to show the world what happened to them, although leaving such buildings in the middle of a thriving city like Belgrade seems a bit ridiculous. Our taxi driver also pointed out that there were many armed guards in front of the US Embassy, but there were none in front of the Croatian Embassy. He said that Serbians hate Americans even more than Croatians, whom they have a terribly long and bloody history of war with. When we asked the Macedonians why there was such strong anti-Americanism here, they told us that people are still angry about the NATO attack and generally don't like American interference in Balkan problems. They also said that there was never any confirmation that there were mass murders going on in Kosovo, which clued us in that they were part of the brainwashed group of Serb sympathizers that Milosovic created. It left a strange taste in our mouths, that this very aggressive country still believes that they are the victims after they waged war with the entire region and have always been involved in repressive measures against Kosovars. We decided to leave the Macedonians and walked through the upscale neighborhood of Belgrade near Tito's mausoleum, where we saw Milosovic's old house and many other mansions where mostly foreign diplomats live. All of the mansions had armed guards with large automatic weapons.
Later that day we went to an Internet cafe, and faced another strange situation. The guy who ran the place decided to turn up his little radio to blasting level when these very loud Nationalistic Serb songs were playing. He made the kids in the cafe sing along, and he marched around the cafe singing with his hands in the air. Then a song that had the American National Anthem played, but the words were very menacing, with some strong anti-American language. We felt it was time to leave as this Internet cafe seemed to be whipping into some strange frenzy, possibly as a show to us. When we paid the guy who was making all the noise and marching around the place, he was nice enough and didn't say anything to us. Overall, probably the strangest experience we have had so far.
Apart from the politics of the place, Belgrade is a very happening city, and has many nice avenues to walk along. The Skadarska district is full of cobbled streets with nice trees lining them, and cafes, bars and restaurants everywhere. It reminded us of Palermo in Buenos Aires. There are many beautiful people here, and they all love to stroll the main shopping avenue and sit at the cafes smoking and drinking coffee. We get a feeling that there is a lot going on here, and that there is money being made, we have run into a lot of foreign businessmen and the place always seems to be on the move. The food is excellent, and the city is clean and safe.
We were glad to have made a stop here, to hear how all the people involved in the recent war in the Balkans have very different opinions of the exact same events. We are still not sure how Yugoslavia survived as a union for so long with such deep hatreds that exist even today, but that does not mean that the people of these new nations don't know how to dress, party, and talk about the day their countries are going to join the EU.
6th of September - Dubrovnik, Miljet, Korcula and Hvar, Croatia
We met up with our friends James and Julianne from Chicago in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is at the very Southern edge of Croatia and probably the best restored old citadel in all of Europe, or so all the experts say. The city itself is incredible, it is built out on a peninsula, completely walled in from the outside world whether it be sea or land, with the wall reaching heights of 75 feet. Inside the large wall is a well restored city full of old churches, houses, shops, and the 3rd oldest pharmacy in the world, dating back to 1391. Although the city was shelled by the Serbs at the beginning of the war, for no reason at all, it is now well restored and except for the newer red shingles on some of the roofs, it looks just like the pictures of the city before the war.
The four of us spent a few days walking around the city, up and down the narrow alleyways and along the top of the wall where we could get the best views. Croatia is bustling with tourism, especially in such a historic and beautiful city as Dubrovnik, so the remnants of the war are much less pronounced than in Bosnia. We did talk to a guy who was there during the war, and recounted tales that we have heard from so many people in the region, no food, no water, no electricity for months on end. We did hear a bit more than just those words, as he described people drinking out of puddles and eating rats to survive. It is hard to imagine the shop owner or the taxi driver or the person whose home we stayed in living that way, which was sure to be true of anyone who was there 12 years ago as most of the population was.
Our evenings were spent walking along the craggy shoreline watching the sun go down, and then to one of the many restaurants that line to shore all along the new and old city. We also spent one hot afternoon swimming right off of the old city wall. It was spectacular to be in perfectly blue water, swimming in the shadow of a 75 foot wall. People swim all around the outside of the wall, and from the water you can see how foreboding it must have been for those who wanted to get in 700 years ago.
From Dubrovnik we took a ferry to Miljet, an island a couple hours away. Miljet is a beautiful green island that has giant natural inlets that they call lakes. We rented bikes and rode around the island all day, finding nice secluded places to jump in the water. In the middle of one of the inlets there is an island with an old monastery built on it, which has now become a tourist attraction. Apart from the hill we had to ride up and down twice to get to the other side of the island, it was a very relaxing ride and there were very few tourists to contend with.
From Miljet, we took a ferry the next morning to the island of Korcula, where we rented a very nice apartment for two nights. It was one of the nicest places we have stayed at on the entire trip, and was no more expensive than any other accommodation. There we explored the island, which also had an old walled town much like Dubrovnik, but smaller and more relaxed with fewer tourists. We cooked dinners on our deck that looked over the sea, and went to the "best beach in Dalmatia", which turned out to be just a little less pebbly than the other beaches, with some actual sand mixed in with the rocks. Our apartment also had a huge garden all around the house with fruits, tomatoes, herbs and other vegetables that we were allowed to pick for ourselves and use for cooking some gourmet dinners. Korcula had a really nice atmosphere, and was probably our favorite spot anywhere on the Dalmatian coast.
From there we all jumped on another ferry to Hvar, the famous island where the supposed rich and famous go to escape the more famous coasts of Italy and Greece. There were many giant yachts in the harbor, and one was carrying some kind of diplomat who had many bodyguards and people securing the area before he wandered into it. Apart from that, Hvar is similar to Korcula, but a little more run down from all the tourism, and not as quaint. One afternoon the four of us (trying to fit in with the yachting crowd) rented a small boat so we could go and explore the nearby islands. We had to cross the channel in the boat, but the winds were a bit strong, the waves blowing into our boat, and when the big yachts sped past us our boat almost got overturned in their wake. On top of that, it became very overcast and chilly, and we could hear thunder roaring on the other side of the hills. This was not the nice, relaxing boat ride were were hoping for. It did clear up enough for us to make it back across the channel with no incident. We had one more nice dinner in Hvar, and then we said goodbye to James and Julianne as they headed on to Split and we went off towards Montenegro.
