08.05 - Europe

So on and on I go,

the seconds tick the time out,

there's so much left to know,

and I'm on the road to find out …

 - Cat Stevens

I missed my Delta flight out of Kennedy because the woman at the counter took 45 minutes to check the baggage of two people. So I ran to Air France and they got me on the next flight to Bucharest. Eighteen hours later I was in an expensive hotel in Bucharest with no luggage and no new change of clothes. A proper start to one of my adventures.

On this page, you’ll read about the 13 countries I visited from June 24 to September 3, 2005. I’ve divided the stories up by country. It should take about 15 minutes to read everything here. I've put the short stories in various colors, so you can either read the journal, the stories, or both. Feel free to skip forward any time. 

The photos from this trip are all at my photo site:

www.dsiegelphoto.com  (start with the "Balkan Peninsula" gallery)

 

 

Romania

I got my luggage the next morning, spent a day in Bucharest, and couldn’t wait to get out of there. I went to the Black Sea, a place I’d always wanted to go. I had a Eurail pass for the Balkan Peninsula, so I figured it would be easy to get around. Wrong. All Romanian trains are on indefinite strike. I had to get around by convincing people to give me rides and paying plenty because gas is so expensive. The coast has small Soviet-style resort towns for Romanian families to go on vacation. No one speaks a word of English. It’s actually a pretty cool place to visit if you’re a 10-year-old Romanian kid.

Romanian restaurants pride themselves on having page after page of animal products. They honestly have pages of pork products, pages of beef products (every part of the animal is listed with some sort of sauce or side dish) pages of various grilled meats (I saw “bear” on the menu at one restaurant). For me, the vegetarian, there was always pizza with peppers and ketchup. And that’s what I ate.

I’m sure there are a lot of nice people in Romania. I’m sure they are warm, welcoming, and honest. But Romania is in serious trouble. The government is so corrupt that people have no hope of a future. They make about $5 per day. Their expenses are higher than that. I spoke with people who said most Romanians wish for the communists to come back, because at least under Ceausescu they had some meat, eggs, milk, and sugar. Now they say they are starving. They have a huge amount of farmable land, and most of it is being done with horses and donkeys. There are gypsies on the roads everywhere. 

The communist days weren’t so easy either.

My big problem with Romanians is that many of them are serious liars. I had a date with a Romanian girl in New York last year; she lied about everything and enjoyed it. While I was traveling, I was also trying to sell a camera on Craigslist back in New York, so whenever I checked my email I would also repost my ad. But not from Romania.

Romania has so many scammers trying to talk people into sending them money that Craigslist blocks out the entire country. You can’t get to Craigslist from a computer in Romania. That is a very very bad sign. I was able to get to Craigslist from Albania, but not Romania. I wouldn’t be long any Romanian stocks in the coming years if I were you.

This is the Danube Delta, one of the breadbaskets of Europe. But the government has made a mess of everything, and now it’s just a country of peasants trying to get by. They live in their 1970s Ceaucescu concrete apartment blocks and do whatever they can.

If I went back to Romania, I’d go straight to Transylvania and enjoy looking at castles. Forget about Bucharest and parts East. But I don’t think I’ll ever go back. There are too many other places in the world to see.

Bulgaria

You really need a car to get around in this part of the world. I eventually returned my Eurailpass unused because there basically are no trains running in the Balkans. I walked across the border from Romania to Bulgaria, hoping to find a guy on the other side who would take me to civilization for a reasonable price and not leave my lifeless body in a ditch somewhere, even though he didn’t speak any English. Remarkably, I did, and soon I was in Varna at the bus station looking at my map and guide book trying to figure out where to go next. A college kid sat down next to me and suggested Veliko Tarnovo, and it turned out that the next bus was leaving soon, so I got on it.

I was somewhat relieved to see that Bulgaria is trying hard to join the Western world. Bulgaria is not a land of peasants and scammers. Bulgaria has fashion and industry. People seem to be working and pulling ahead. There are miles and miles of sunflowers, all with their heads turned in the same direction.

Veliko Tarnovo is a nice little town where no one speaks a word of English except the real-estate agents, who have been selling apartments and farms to the Brits in the past few years. Real Estate is booming as more Brits arrive and make the locals rich by paying 10,000 pounds for an apartment. Next year it will be twice that. 

In Bulgaria, everyone over the age of 14 must smoke cigarettes. i was lucky they didn't throw me in jail for not smoking. Even though smoking is not allowed on the buses, the driver of my bus to Sofia smoked five cigarettes in three hours, and the tour guide woman smoked two. Fortunately, no one else smoked on the bus. Sofia is a complete write-off. Can’t imagine why anyone would go there. But I think the Bulgarians might make it into the EU – I think they have the entrepreneurial drive and the social desire to go forward, not back. So far, so good – I had been spending most of my time in interesting tourist places, not in the big ugly cities. I took a bus to Skopje and found myself in the middle of Macedonia.
 

Macedonia

I can’t emphasize enough how different these countries are. Macedonia feels like an extension of Turkey. You see it as soon as you walk around Skopje – the people here have square heads. You can see the square heads in the photos I took in the souk. There is a strong Muslim feel to the place. I spent hours wandering the souk taking photos. The men loved having their pictures taken. They hammed it up and shouted for me to shoot them. But when I pointed the lens at a woman she would immediately cover up and demand money, even the old women. I got some good photos in Skope but it’s not a place to visit.

I stayed at the rip-off Holiday Inn, which costs $130 per night! This is as much as the average Macedonian makes in a month. For breakfast, I had Tang to drink, and I poured Tang on my muesli to make a semblance of a breakfast.

I went early to the souk to take photos and the old shoe-shine guy had just gotten his kit set up. He beckoned me over, insisting that I bring my Teva sandals to him because he wanted to show me something (or so he said in sign language). So I made the mistake of putting my sandal up on his shoe holder. My sandals are made of suede (probably fake suede). The ond man takes out a piece of sandpaper and starts sanding away at the straps of my sandals! Not only is he sanding the straps, he’s sanding the stitches, so now my sandals are going to self-destruct in a week! Then he showed me his work and told me to compare it to the other sandal. I couldn’t tell any difference. But now I had to let him sand the other one so they would both break down at the same time later. He asked for the equivalent of $2, and I protested. We settled on 40 cents.

Five bus hours later, I was in Ohrid, a lovely medieval town on a beautiful lake. The lake used to have wonderful fish in it until the locals ate them all, so now they bring fish in from other places. It was here that I met Petrit, a man who knows my doorman, Tommy, back in New York. Petrit teaches French in a small town called Debar, where Tommy is from. Almost no one in this part of the world speaks English, but Petrit and I got along great speaking French. He and Tommy’s brother took me on a day trip to Debar. I don’t know if Debar has ever seen an American. I was treated like a royal guest. I got tours of houses, I was offered bon bons and pizza, I was taken around like a prince. I took photos everywhere to bring back to Tommy. They even called Tommy from the local phone booth place and I had a chance to talk with him. It was great fun. They invited me to stay a few weeks, but I said I had to go to Albania, so again they dropped me at the border and I walked across.

Ah, but here’s the little story about Macedonia and why I don’t think they’ll make it into the EU as soon as they’d like. 

I took a boat ride across the lake from Ohrid to a monastery, where it happened that Sunday was the big day that everyone gets dressed up and goes to the monastery for various activities. So the boat was packed with Macedonians in their Sunday finest, with kids all dressed up and old people hanging onto the rails wearing hats.

Upon reaching the monastery, everyone immediately got in line to go into the old church. I think the church is 800 years old. But it wasn’t a line. It was more like rugby without cleats. Everyone simply pushed toward the door of this old church. There were about 200 people pushing from all directions toward one little door. I really had nothing else to do, and the ferry wasn’t going back for 4 hours, so I got into the crowd and was pushed along toward the door. It took an hour and a half in the hot sun to go 40 feet. People just pushed and pushed, so it was uncomfortable for everyone. Small children cried. Short people had a hard time breathing. I got bruises on my back from people being shoved into me. It was really serious pushing! My legs got sore just from resisting, so I wouldn’t be crushed. Men and women, young and old, they all were pushing hard for a solid 90 minutes in the heat to get into this little church. 

And once inside the church? People kissed some old paintings and left some small pieces of food on an altar. That was it. 90 minutes of marathon pushing in searing heat to kiss a few icons. I later told this story to Petrit, who nodded and allowed that there were primitive elements of their society. The Macedonians are lovely people, but they aren’t Europeans. I’m not sure they ever will be.

After all the pushing, I was exhausted and had to eat something. I went to the little café, which was completely overwhelmed by the crowd. Out of thousands of people no one spoke a word of English. I managed to order some cucumbers and tomatoes (in this part of the world, that’s what I call a combo salad). I had some bread and olive oil. I was seated at the same table with an old couple from Greece. I said I was from America.

The old man looked at me and said in perfect English: “America. George Bush, boom boom.” I couldn’t have agreed with him more.
 

Albania

Strange place, Albania. Everyone drives a Mercedes and nobody works. At 5pm, everyone goes out on the street to eat corn on the cob. Tastes like burnt lima beans, this corn. They just had their elections when I was there, re-electing the old guys who were in charge when the pyramid schemes of the 1990s wiped out almost everyone’s savings. People were happy – it was a step away from communism. In the Sixties, the Albanians decided to part ways with Russia and embraced the Chinese, who promptly built enormous factories that are now dead and dessicating. Some of these factories are two kilometers square!

I went to a money machine to get money and an Albanian guy stood right next to me. I mean within inches of me, waiting for my money to come out of the machine. I’m sure if it had, he would have taken it. But even though there are a lot of money machines in Tirana, none of them are international. They’re just for local banks. I think there might be two international ATMs in Tirana, and I managed to find one the next day.

Albania is not dangerous. You’re not likely to be kidnapped or held up or even stopped. The two biggest problems in Albania (and all the guidebooks say this) are the potholes and trying to cross the street. Some of the potholes are the size of a hippopotamus. You could easily break an axle driving down the road if you’re not careful. The other danger is trying to cross the street. Seriously. The drivers will not stop for you and will be happy to run you down, even if you are crossing with the light. It’s the most dangerous city I’ve ever seen from that point of view – your life is always at risk when crossing. 

Here’s how you can tell you’re in a poor country, where people have no way to improve themselves. You go to the park and look for the scales. If you see old people sitting on park benches with scales in front of them, you know you’re in a tough place. They hope people will come by to weigh themselves and give them a few coins. I saw the scales in Romania, Macedonia, and Albania.

In Albania, everyone drives a Mercedes and nobody works. You figure it out.

 

Montenegro

If you remember one thing from this journal, it’s this: get yourself to
Montenegro. It’s an amazing country with a spectacular coastline, breathtaking mountains, and cultural treasures galore. Take the kids. Rent a car. Bring Euros. Check into a hotel in Budva and drive everywhere from there. By 2006 you’ll even be able to take the boat to Dubrovnik, so you won’t have to go anywhere else in Croatia.

Or fly into Dubrovnik, spend a few days there, and then head to Montenegro for ten days. Dubrovnik has a good airport, so you can get there from many places in Europe. Stop reading this page and reserve your flights now!

In Albania, a man who fixes car tires is called a gomist. In Montenegro, that same person is called a vulcanizer.

Croatia

Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik. Did I mention Dubrovnik? You don’t need to go anywhere else in Croatia, just go straight to Dubrovnik.

Again, I walked across the border where I managed to find a taxi. On the road to Dubrovnik, we saw a broken-down rental car, so we stopped. The man, who was Scottish, said the car wouldn’t start. The taxi driver, who didn’t speak any English, pointed to the car and said “diesel!” Upon hearing this, the Scot realized he’d put regular gas into his diesel rental car, which is why it wasn’t starting. His wife looked at him like this was his 800^th mistake of their trip. My taxi driver said “no problem” and drove away. Then he got on his cell phone and called someone. I heard him say “Blah blah blah benzina, blah blah blah diesel, blah blah blah kaput.” Then he nodded at me, indicating they would be rescued.

I spent four lovely days there, bumped into a few thousand Americans (they’re buying up all the real estate), went sea kayaking around an island, took a day and went to Bosnia (bombed out – see the photos), and enjoyed hanging out in this wonderful old city. Felt a bit like being back in Jerusalem. I stayed with a lovely oldish woman named Mellie, who rented me a room, blew cigarette smoke in my face, and told me stories of the war. Eighty percent of the town was shelled – almost all the roofs are new. Even though it’s overrun by Americans and the restaurants are mediocre, it’s a very special place. 

Like most of the Dalmatian coast, barn swallows fly incessantly above the town from dawn until dark. They fly very quickly, flitting here and there, eating tiny flying bugs that are smaller than ants. You never see them stop or stand on anything (rooftops, wires, stones), because barn swallows will never stop in an exposed place – they always dart into holes. And they presented a puzzle to me that I think I solved.

During the day, they squeal as they fly. Not all of them squeal, but about 40 percent of them do. But then, as evening falls and the light fades, the squeals turn to a high-pitched chatter. Why do barn swallows squeal smoothly during the day and chatter at night?

The answer, I believe, is that they are telling each other where they are so they don’t hit each other. A certain percentag of swallows squeal to let others know they are coming. They don't all need to squeal (in fact, if all swallows squealed it would be way too confusing), just enough of them to keep the others informed where they are.

The key to solving the puzzle is that a swallow going sideways is easy to see and avoid, but one coming right at you is like a dart – very hard to see and very dangerous. During the day, they can see each other, so the squeal is all that’s necessary. But as it gets darker, it’s much harder to see an incoming bird, so they need to communicate better, especially to oncoming traffic. And that’s where the chatter comes in. The chatter generates a Doppler effect, so the oncoming bird tells anyone in front how close it is and how fast it's approaching. The chatter rate increases to about 60 percent at night. It takes more energy to generate the chatter, which is why the squeal is good enough during the day, but the chatter is more accurate and necessary for survival during those active feeding times around dusk.

To test my theory, I listened one morning early before the sun was completely up and, sure enough, they were chattering in the early morning light as they snatched their aerial breakfast and avoided incoming flying darts. But as soon as the sun came over the mountain, they started squealing again.

(The following photo isn't Slovenia, it's Bosnia; I didn't have a good photo of Slovenia.)

 

Slovenia

As Mellie said, and as most Americans don’t realize, “De Slovenes, dey are Germans.” And she was right. The Slovenes are hard working sophisticated people who pretty much held up Tito’s folly (also known as Yugoslavia) economically, because they have a work ethic you just don’t find anywhere else in the Balkans. They really are much closer to their neighbor Austrians than to Croats. I’m eager to go back to their mountains and explore – the weather started to get bad and I went right to Trieste instead.

 

Italy

Trieste has nothing going for it other than nice sunsets looking toward Venice. You don’t need to go there. But you do need to hear the story of how I lost my nice watch.

Now that I’m in Italy, I can finally get some decent food. I go to a fancy wine store and restaurant where I’m able to talk Zinfandel with someone who knows. I taste one of his Zinfandels and I’m in heaven. He’s a friendly guy and we get talking about wine, and next thing I know I’m having a fabulous homemade pasta meal that is really the first good meal I’ve had since I left New York. He tells me he’s going to the cellar to get me a special bottle of wine. A 1984 something. I don’t know what it was, but it was just for me, so I couldn’t refuse. I told him I was just having one glass because it’s lunch time, and he says he doesn’t care, I’m going to love it.

So I have the glass of wine, and it’s nothing special. But the pasta is amazing! I’m thrilled. I’m so thrilled that I order another glass of wine because he went to all the trouble. Again, it’s not very good, but I’m having a good time anyway.

I stumble out of the wine bar in the middle of the afternoon, and I think to myself I’ll just go to the park for a nap in the sun. I put my stuff down, take off shoes and socks, and I lay on the grass, soaking up the rays. Then I realize I don’t want a watch-strap tan, so I take off my Tissot T-touch travel watch and put it on the grass by my hip. Forty five minutes later I wake up, groggy, put my socks and shoes back on and stumble back to my hotel room to drink water.

I laid down on the bed, dehydrated and ready for a nap, and then it hit me. I forgot my watch. I RUN back to the park, but I’m too late. I just stood up and walked away from a very nice watch, and now it’s gone.

I have got to stop walking away from my stuff!

How many things have I stood up and walked away from on this trip already? An umbrella (someone in the train station in Zagreb got it). A good hat (gone). My visa card and ATM card (the Romanian waitress ran after me and gave it back – hey, an honest Romanian!). I left my palm pilot and my camera many times in Internet cafes and always went back and got them. But enough is enough. I’m going to change my ways.

When you travel the way I do, you get up and leave a place forever about 15 times every day. I can’t afford to leave things behind any more. So I have a new habit – I always look back after leaving anyplace. It’s a great habit. I’ve kept it since my trip, and it’s really very useful. It takes a second but probably saves me, on average, at least half an hour a week of going back for things I’ve left behind.

I have one day in Venice, before I take the night train to Nice. The thing that makes Venice so wonderful is the exact thing that makes Venice so awful: it’s amazing. Practically everything is 400 years old and sinking. The good news is that if you get two bridges away from the main streets, you’re mostly out of the tourist zone and you can enjoy the town. My photos tell the rest of the story. I hope you like close-ups of doors and windows, because I do.

France

I spent two weeks on the Riviera, then two weeks in Chamonix, then I went South. I took some good photos, so I’ll let them do the talking. I decided to look for real estate in Nice, and after looking at apartments for three days decided it was just too pricey. Too bad. I like Nice. I went rollerblading on the Promenade Des Anges and loved it.

I was looking on ebay to get a new Tissot T-touch watch and have it sent to me, but I managed to find a titanium one in Cannes that I bargained for and got a great deal on. Also in Cannes I went looking at expensive watches and managed to have on my wrist for 30 seconds a watch that cost over $750,000. That was my idea of a joy ride.

As you can probably tell from the photos, I also fell in love with Chamonix. I did three days of rock climbing and one day of ice climbing on the glacier before the rains moved in and sent everyone home for the season. I loved this town and can’t wait to go back.

One evening, I wandered into a bar and saw three posters on the wall. Three similar posters, all images of a cog railroad leading to Mont Blanc. Just three simple posters, one reddish, one light blue, and one dark blue at night. I asked for the owner. I asked him if he knew what these posters were. He said yes, he did. I asked if the people in the town knew what he had on the walls. He said no, they had no idea.

These were the famous “Vers le Mont Blanc” posters designed and produced by Geo Dorival in 1928. There are only a handful of sets of these left in the world in excellent condition. I was so inspired that when I came back to the USA I looked online and managed to buy a set in perfect condition. I love them.

I went to Toulouse, where my plan was to stash my heavy pack (45 pounds, and I’ve been traveling with it for eight weeks already, so I’m pretty strong by now) at the train station and head to Andorra for a day of sightseeing. I get off the train and go to the luggage room. In the old days, you would go to the guy in the luggage room, hand him your luggage, and he would charge you one euro and give you a small receipt.

Today, things are different. The luggage guy is now the X-ray screening guy. He looks at the x-ray image of your bag and then you put your bag into the self-service locker, which works on a combination. I asked how much the locker cost and the guy said 6.50 euros (about $8, if you can believe it). I said I didn’t have change. He said no problem, they have a change machine. So I went to the change machine, put in a twenty-euro note, and got 20 one-euro coins. It was at this moment that I got the memo from my large intestines that it was time to visit the bathroom. So I rushed back to the locker, put in six coins, and watched the “6.00” appear in the window. One more to go. I put in the seventh coin and they all dropped out. I tried again, and on the seventh coin, again they all came back. Now I’m having the biological equivalent of a yellow terrorist alert, and it’s changing to red. I asked the guy, who’s watching me with a smile on his face, why I can’t put in seven euros. He says because it costs 6.50. I asked him if he had change for a one-euro coin. He said of course not.

At this point, the cat was almost out of the bag. I left my backpack in a locker with the door open and ran all the way to the other end of the train station, where the men’s room was blocked by plywood. A man told me it was “that way,” so I ran that way and found the parking lot. Oh boy. I hate this. My internal pressure valve is now firmly in the red. I asked the woman at the car rental window and she pointed me again “that way,” so I went that way and found the trailer that housed the “toilettes,” paid my one euro to get in, and managed to get some relief. Must try not to do that more than every five years – too painful. That’s why they make Preparation H, and I really don’t want to be a subscriber. I got change from the nice ladies at the bathroom, ran back across the train station, where I was able to put the correct change into the machine and lock my pack into a locker.

This is how France is. Half the population spends its time coming up with rules that the other half spends its time trying to figure out how to get around. Nothing really works. Ask anyone who’s spent much time in France and you’ll learn that nothing works there. The reason the country stays afloat is tourism, which they all take for granted, and which keeps money flowing in so that the government can continue to find new ways to make life difficult for the French.

That was when my troubles began. The conductor told me to get off at the wrong station (I’m sure I asked a stupid question and got a stupid answer). I spent three bloody hours in a small town that is just about on the end of the map in Southern France. I had to take the train back and wait for a bus, all of which took hours. After traveling the entire day, I ended up in Vieux Andorra at around 6pm, just in time to find a hotel. I had with me a camera, a credit card, a sweater, and about 40 euros in cash.

Andorra

I was thrilled to bag Andorra, my 62^nd country. The Andorra stamp in my passport is one I’d been after for years. And there it was, plain as day, right on its own page in my passport (see the photos).

Andorra is a mountain valley with 70,000 inhabitants, all of whom speak Spanish that’s spelled with a lot of Xs and Qs. Andorra is the only all-native Catalan-speaking country in the world. It’s a beautiful, refreshingly sophisticated country with architecture that reminds you of Switzerland, not Southern France. It seems a million miles from Toulouse. And it has over 3,000 stores.

Andorra is the duty-free capital of Europe – people flock here to shop from all over the continent. There are always lines at customs going in and out of the country. I pictured people buying cigarettes and alcohol, but I was wrong. They were buying every brand you’ve ever heard of.
 
It’s now 7pm. The stores are closing in 30 minutes. I need a pair of boxer shorts and a new t-shirt for tomorrow. I manage to get them just in time (Italians, by the way, don’t wear boxers, and few French men do; I don’t know about Spaniards). I head back to the hotel for a nice shower.
 
Then I go for dinner. It’s the usual cheeseless pizza, but this one was memorable. I’ve never had a thinner-crusted pizza. This pizza’s crust was about as thin as a piece of shirt cardboard and extremely tough. I had to use a steak knife and bear down on it to break the crust into small enough pieces to eat. Easily the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten, and I was starving. And I was upset, because I’d just dropped my camera.
 
I had been tired after a long day. I was wearing my clean underwear and my new t-shirt, and I was hungry and looking at restaurant after restaurant trying to find a place to eat. It got a bit chilly so I went to put on my sweater. My right hand thought it was giving my camera to my left hand, and my left hand though my right hand had it. I dropped the camera onto the hard sidewalk and glass shattered all over. I pick up the camera and notice that the lens was pretty much okay. I’d shattered the UV filter I had on the front to protect it. 

So there I am eating rock-hard pizza, exhausted, looking at my camera trying to figure out how I’m going to get what’s left of the UV filter off my lens without scratching it. Hell of a day. I paid, went back to the hotel, and decided to solve the problem the next morning. 

I got up and managed to pull the glass fragments from my filter without damaging the lens. Even though the metal was bent, the lens itself was in great shape, so I was able to continue shooting for the rest of my trip. Which was a good thing, because I got some excellent shots in Paris. I spent the rest of the day shopping. 

I know the rock-bottom prices of a number of products, and I can tell you there were only a few bargains in Andorra. But they were good bargains. I got a strap for my new watch for a price I couldn’t even get on ebay. I saw some sporting goods at excellent prices. And mostly I saw a lot of so-so consumer stuff at not very good prices. Finally, I got the bus back to the train, went to Toulouse, and got a room at the cheesy hotel at the train station.
 
I enjoyed my day in Toulouse. It’s a charming town with a lively cultural life. Good restaurants, interesting people, sophisticated stores, and a feel of calm. I would say Toulouse is the Amsterdam of France – it has that relaxed meandering feel to it. I managed to get lost in my Toulousian peregrinations, and I ended up at the Grond Rond – a large round park that also serves as a roundabout. If you pronounce “Grond Rond” properly in French, it should sound as though you are trying, unsuccessfully, to start an old truck. 

I had a lovely week in Paris, as usual. I’m glad I had my new camera, because I managed to take a number of good photos. I hope you enjoy them. 

I’ve seen 62 countries so far. I can’t wait to tell you about the next countries I visit, but they’ll have to wait because I’m starting a few new businesses here in New York.

Ciao!