Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Madness? This... is... DUBROVNIK!!!

Yeah Frank, I stole your allusion; deal with it.

In Dubrovnik I stayed with a lovely man named Božo (the "z" is pronounced as the "s" in "pleasure") and his family. I learned of them from my friends Frank and Jessica. They had come through this way last year and told me about it. Hostels are nice for meeting people when you're traveling on your own, but it can be a real relief to have some privacy for a change.

The first thing I did was head over to the old town. It's beautiful, a medieval Mediterranean town, still with its wall still intact. I decided to avoid the main road and took random turns down narrow side streets, just running into random sights.



I then payed to walk along the main wall surrounding the city. There were some quite beautiful views but it was terribly hot, and there was nowhere to escape from the noon sun. Luckily, I had just filled my 1.5L water bottle from the town fountain... I drank all of it.








I also went and checked out the aquarium built into a space underneath the wall. It was not very impressive. Maybe I'm biased growing up in such proximity to Monteray Bay Aquarium, but the exhibits were tiny, and not very numerous (considering the price), and I'm pretty sure the lone sea turtle was dead (I watched him for about 20 min and he never moved). Additionally, at MBA, there is a focus on conservation, but at the end of each description in this place, there was a little blurb about the different methods of catching the critters for consumption (excuse the alliteration). Still, it was a nice way to escape the heat, and I spent over an hour down there.

I hung around to watch some folk music, then wandered out a hole in the wall and down to the rocks to watch the sunset.



I spent almost the entirety of the next day on my ass. I slept in until about 11, then turned on the air conditioning and just sat around reading my book. I did some exorcising too, but it was nice to have a day to just relax. I made it down to the beach briefly around 4pm to go for a swim, too, but that was just as good.

My last day in Dubrovnik, I took the tour of the old fort that Frank had told me about. My host was a citizen soldier in the Croatian army during the war, and he and tiny band of guys held of the vastly superior (in terms of numbers and equipment) invading Serbian forces for months. It was fairly sobering to see the damage wrought by gun fire and artillery, and to hear him talk about exchanging fire and grenades across short hallways. But the views from the fort were incredible.



Artillery hit the wall here, about 2 m from where Božo was standing


Next stop: Istanbul

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Swindlers and Sea Urchins

Split is nice, but after the sheer magnificence of Plitvice, it was a bit difficult to appreciate the beauty mere man can create. I checked out Diocletian's Palace, one of the largest preserved vestiges of the Roman empire, which is now just narrow streets lined with shops surrounded by an old wall.




Outside the main gate, there is a statue of Gregory of Nin. Supposedly, you can get a wish granted if you make it while rubbing his toe, and that part of the statue is polished to a shine.



My last day in Split, I took a day trip to the nearby island of Brač with a couple guys I met in the hostel. We rented a scooter and a quad and drove around the island looking for beaches. It was a lot of fun, and it would have been nice to have the whole day there, but we got a late start because we were searching for a sailboat.



(I relied mostly on them taking pictures, but for some reason my computer wouldn't read his data card so I'll have to wait to get them).

The following day I headed off to Hvar. It was a lovely little town with not a lot to see, but beautiful weather and some nice beaches. A lot of the beaches are rocky, and a few feet out into the water there are copious sea urchins, but the water is so clear you can see them and avoid them (and I wore my sandals into the water anyway).




Unfortunately, my experience on Hvar was spoiled by my messed up hostel situation, and I cut my stay to 2 nights. I booked a place called CroParadise, but the directions were really bad, and I had to call someone to come pick me up in the main square, then I was driven off to the location. It was not as advertised. There was no internet, no ocean view, and it was about 15 minutes from the beach (it was advertised as 100m from the water).

Turns out, they over-book the main location and just shuttle people to alternate properties without actually telling you what is going on. The only reason I found out is because I noticed the pictures didn't match up. I was pretty irate, and I ended up bitching out the owner and getting a %20 discount. I almost left without paying, but the woman caught me with my massive backpack on. Bastards.

Oh well, I'm back in Split now and will catch a bus to Dubrovnik.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Wow... just wow

Words can not describe the beauty of Plitvička Jezera, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking (there's over 100, and some of them are meant to be stitched together for panoramas). The pictures can't really capture it either, but at least it's something.

Move this place to the top of your list of places to see before you die, seriously. I can't even think of hyperbole that would do it justice. The first scene you get when you walk into the park is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and it only got better. Ok, I'm gonna shut up now and put in some of my favorite photos.












Friday, July 11, 2008

A note on showers

So far, every shower I have seen in Eastern Europe has been of the same, ridiculous variety. First of all, the pipe supplying the hot water to the shower head is outside the wall, perfectly situated for anyone desiring (or not) 3rd degree burns. Secondly, the lever to change the temperature differs by a turn of about 3 degrees between freezing and scalding, and is conveniently located at just the right height to be constantly bumped into (thus changing said temperature) every time I turn around.

That is all.

Croatians are pious... and amorous - Zagreb

Woke up at 5am yesterday to catch my train at 6:05. I had tried to pack everything I could the night before, but I still managed to make a bunch of noise getting my stuff out of the room and getting ready to leave. I hopped on a tram and a metro to get to the train station, and arrived at around 5:45am, but I couldn't find the International ticket counter. After running all over the place, I was stopped by a nice old lady that spoke English and told me where to go. The ticket counter was behind a ticket-control barrier... brilliant.

After navigating my way around to the back to the station, I finally found the little room where there were two stations open. One had a couple buying tickets, so I walked up to the counter and began telling the woman what I needed, but she shook her head, told me I needed to get a number, and pointed back to the door. I walked back and took a number, after which the same woman immediately rang the bell and beckoned me forward. By this time it was 5:55.

After I explained what I needed, she began writing out the information (yes, writing it - by hand). I swear she was writing as if it was calligraphy meant for an emperor. Every letter and number seemed to take several seconds to write, and when she was finally done she told me, "it leaves at 6:05," as if it wasn't already 6:03 and I hadn't been looking at my watch every 5 seconds. However, she didn't know which track it was on, so I sprinted out to the platform (no small feat with a 50lb back-pack and a laptop case), found my train, and sprinted to track 11 which happened to be, predictably, the furthest one away from where I was standing.

I got on the train and began looking for a cabin, and it began moving before I was even half-way down the first car. The 6 hour ride was pleasant enough though, despite the fact that I was sweaty and tired, and I arrived in Zagreb around noon. I changed some money at the train station (this time I had checked the exchange rate before I left so I wouldn't get ripped off), and wandered off to find my hostel.

The first thing I noticed in Zagreb was the copious numbers of shrines. After walking for about an hour, I had seen 3 of them. There was even one at the train station. And there were always people praying at them.


That second shrine is located at the stone gate. Supposedly, a fire burned everything there except an anonymous painting of the Virgin Mary, so of course the religious think it's more magical than Jesus in a pita bread.

I also wandered over the The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or simply, the Zagreb Cathedral). It was quite lovely, and I tried to be as quiet as I could because there were people that actually came in to pray (though there were a smattering of tourists too). As I was walking back from the front of the church, I noticed a wizened old lady staring at me from one of the pews. At first I glanced away quickly and looked at some of the stained glass, but she was still staring at me 60 sec later. So I looked her in the eye and smiled, an expression she did not return. I walked passed her to the back of the church, and checked out an interesting sculpture on the wall, and when I turned to look at her, she had spun around in her seat to continue staring at me. I wish i had had the presence of mind to whip out my camera and take a picture.



I continued to walk around the upper town, and felt like I had seen most of what I wanted to see in the first few hours I was there, so I wandered down to one of the many parks in town, where I got to lie down in the grass, read my book, and watch several couples making out as if their partner's lips wouldn't be there tomorrow.


I wasn't able to find the restaurant I was looking for, and instead managed to spend about $40 on dinner (it wasn't worth it).

Today, I resolved to only spend one more night here (originally I had booked for 3 nights), and tomorrow I will go to Plitvice national park on my way to Split. I took a leisurely stroll back down the main street and grabbed a small pastry and a water on my way to the Zagreb Botanical gardens. I hung out there for a couple hours, then strolled over to a technical museum that had some exhibits on Tesla, but after looking at the info, decided it wasn't worth the $3 admission fee. It's hot, and I just want to hang out and relax. I can definitely see why people usually only stay here for 1 night on their way to someplace else.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Glorious Views and Politically Flexible Artists - Budapest

Tuesday, I did almost nothing. After getting in around 3am the previous night, and having another bout of interrupted sleep, I didn't actually get going until about noon. I went to lunch with my parents in a nice little restaurant, after which we headed across the historic Széchenyi lánchíd (chain bridge) to the Buda side of the river to take a look at the sight of the old castle. The castle was destroyed by the Turks when they captured Budapest, and replaced by a palace when the Hungarians wrested it back.



We wandered all the way around the palace looking for various monuments, but wearied quickly of that, especially since we couldn't really find what it was we had come to see. The original intention was to scale the hill to get a better view of the city, but the weather was icky and all three of us were too tired to make the attempt. We resolved to do it on Wednesday, and follow that up with wine-tasting and sight-seeing in old-town Buda. Having thus decided, we stopped briefly to see the Országház (Hungarian parliament building), then went back to our respective residences and relaxed the rest of the evening away.


Up bright and early on Wednesday, my dad and I charged the Gellért hill, named after Szent Gellért, who was largely responsible for converting Hungary to Christianity, but was martyred by being thrown over this very hill in a barrel filled with snakes and nails.

At the top of the hill is the Citadella, built to fortify the city after an uprising, but never actually used. The monument at top was originally designed for the ultra right-wing government of the early 20th century, then passed off as a monument to the Soviet soldiers that captured Hungary from the Fascists, and is now a symbol of independence. The view from the top did not disapoint.


unfortunately, we found out the house of Hungarian Wines was closed for relocation, so we missed out on the wine-tasting. Instead, my dad and I met up with my mom for lunch, then headed to the House of Terror, a museum dedicated to the decades of despotic Soviet rule, especially the brutal quashing of the 1956 uprising. The museum was well put together, and was fairly powerful despite being almost entirely in Hungarian, but it was a bit pricey, and the English audio-guide that would have helped explain everything was even more expensive. After that, I said goodbye to my parents, and packed all of my stuff to make ready my departure. The train to Zagreb leaves at 6:05am...

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Money changers and other adventures - Budapest

Yesterday, we hopped a 3 hour train to Budapest. My parents' Eurail pass is for first class, so they paid the difference of my ticket and I got to ride in luxury. The country side was beautiful, and there was a massive field of sunflowers which contained hundreds of wind turbines.

Upon arrival in Budapest we wandered over to the money changer (after being assailed by about 15 taxi drivers looking for fairs) to change some Euros into Forints. Apparently we got hosed, because we only got an exchange rate of 184 HUF per Euro, and we should have gotten more like 240. Then we wandered around the train station and up and down several flights of stairs before finding the right Metro station, but we eventually made it to my parents Mansion of a Hotel.

After reveling in the air conditioning a bit, I set off on my own to find my hostel, which should have only been about 5 blocks away. But I managed to walk about 25 minutes in the wrong direction. In my defense, I did realize something was wrong, but I decided to be a bit bullheaded and continue on anyway. I did finally arrive, and walked up the 5 flights of stairs to the Hostel.

At that point, I was more or less exhausted and just barely managed to make it to the pub across the street for some drinks before going to bed.

I woke up several times during the night, apart from some people getting back at 4 am, and a couple people who's snores sounded like they were chopping down trees, Odin also finally decided to answer my prayers and sent thunder and lightning for about 45 minutes around 6:30am.

It was bright and sunny by the time I was ready to head out the next morning though, and i tramped back over to my parents' hotel to head out for the day. Our first stop was the historic Magyar Állami Operaház (Hungarian State Opera House). We didn't catch any performances, and we could only stand in the foyer, but it was still pretty grand.


From here, we wandered down the road and decided to stop in Szent István Bazilika (Saint Stephan's Basillica). This was one of the more beautiful churches I have ever seen (and I've seen a fair number of churches).

We were also treated to some beautiful Gregorian-sounding chant from the Monday morning mass, with the congregation engaging in call-response.

We decided to pay the 400 Forints (less than $3) to ascend a series of elevators to the top of the dome to get a panoramic view of Pest.


Our next stop was Hősök tere (Heroes' Square), and the lovely Városliget (City park), which contained a statue of George Washington from "The Hungarians of America."



We grabbed an ice cream in the park while marveling at the many interesting buildings, including the Vajdahunyad Castle, with a hodgepodge of architectural styles built for the millennial celebrations of 1900. We also saw what is now one of my favorite statues, depicting the anonymous author of early Hungarian history.


Finally, exhausted, we made our way to the Széchenyi-gyógyfürdő (Széchenyi medicinal baths), and spent 3 hours soaking in the hot water, dousing ourselves in the freezing water and getting Hungarian massages. I definitely plan to spend a full day here the next time I visit Budapest.



Here I split off from my parents and the second I got home, another deluge let forth and continued unabated all night long. I joined some people at the hostel at a Pub for some Karaoke and got back around 3am. The next day was far less eventful... coming soon.