It's just China

The building I live in, here in a suburb of Hangzhou, is new.  The rooms were throughly construction-dust-filled when we first moved in, and the empty storefronts on the first floor of the building looked more at home in a Stephen King novel then the neon and people-filled picture that comes to mind with the mention of China.

Three weeks ago I noticed some people walking around the deserted area.  They seemed to be talking measurements and generally casing the area.  About three days later the first store, which is a steamed-bun chain-store, opened up.  There is now a convenience store, four restaurants which are officially open, a bar around the corner,  and a plethora of storefronts that are being worked on.

That's China.  Things are changing every day and sometimes I feel like I'm in the biggest game of catch-up, but mostly I feel like I'm part of a giant video game in which every day that I survive, with a smile on my face, is an accomplishment.  I know that a country which practices censorship and harsh recreational-drug enforcement is scary.  I understand that a lack of a Romanized alphabet is intimidating.  I empathize with the struggle of trying to find high-quality food, clothes, and services, especially in a system overrun with subpar products.

But, I am loving all of it.  The good, the bad, the ugly, and the babies who wee in our cafeteria during lunch.

Don't mind us

Putting up the sign

Three Big Suprises

The three big surprises while traveling, 

as told by tumblr:

There is a hostel for everyone

A few examples

For sleepy people

For foodie people

For adventurous people

For shy people

For antisocial people

For strange people

For tea-people

For romantic people

(please get your own room... actually, just go to a hotel)

For alcohol people

Television is the best conversation starter

That's right binge-TV-watcher, you're already a traveler at heart.

You want to make friends...Say it.

But so help me, if you give a spoiler for GOT

I will ice you out. 

Australians

The media told me they would be like this...

But really...

And then

A special thanks to my body for getting me home on those nights

VelODDity (Volume 3)

Just Around The River Bend:

VolODDity (Volume 2)

Hills

110 kilometers of fun:

The plan:

The trials:

The result: 

No lesson learned:

VelODDity (Volume 1)

For those who don't know, I am attempting to bike to Avignon (sort of from Nantes, as I cheated and got a train from Flers to Nantes). Anyway, I wanted to make my journal a bit differently, and this is some of it so far.

Someone gave me their secondhand bike, but a bunch needed to be fixed. 

My first day of biking!!!

One step closer to fluency 

I don't enjoy the mornings

French store hours

How I attract men

Man, I feel like a woman!

This is a self-indulgent post, so don't say I didn't warn you (also, if you read the title and didn't realize the kind of content you'd be reading, that's your own fault): 

Today a thirteen year old girl asked me was the best lesson I’ve learned from traveling.  I paused for a moment, preparing to talk about how little I like German beers, and that Czech malts are the only ones for me, then really stopped to think about it.  

This was my chance to be completely honest, and there seemed like no better audience to hear it.  I told her I had learned that I want my self-confidence to be based on my brains.  After a little more introspection I said I wanted my self-confidence to be based on my brains and my actions.  

When I say brains, I don't mean intelligence, I mean my mind.  I aspire for my self-confidence to stem from the fact that I have my own unique take on the world and that’s the most important thing I can offer anyone.  I’m not saying that I don’t love getting made-up for a party but I’m learning to be less scared about going to a bar without makeup.  I’m learning that I may use 2-in-one shampoo to make my backpack a bit lighter, but that doesn’t make me any less of a woman, and it certainly makes me a happier traveler.  I’m learning that I can have 4 outfits and still be an a good companion for a leisurely stroll and chat. 

I know that this is the same thing many of you have heard before in other forms… Love thyself, for your beauty comes from within.  But it’s one thing to prosthelytize it, and a whole other to know it.  

I may wake up tomorrow with a face covered in acne and I’ll be wearing clothes that I have used every other day for three months, but am I any less of a strong, capable, and occasionally funny woman?  

No. 

(I just dug through mud in order to reach the GeoCaching treasure in Ljubljana... I sorta miss digging up earthworms.)

I'm Still Out Here

Blog oh Blog where art thou? 

This post is dedicated to Madison Wall, who informed me that she reads my blog, bringing the grand total to two people (three if you count my Grandmother’s lucky stumble upon the site).

Last you heard I was in Prague, celebrating the end of my Celta.  It’s now half a year later.  There was a quick post mentioning that I was in Albania and headed to Macedonia, but that hardly encompassed my actual progress. For those quantitative thinkers, I have included a Google map that will tell you about where I’ve been for the past six months.   That’s all well and good, but this post will tell you what I’ve been doing (at least for the past two months). 

Table of contents:

I.    My thoughts on Germany

II.   The death of my computer

III.  Olomouc

I. I dont’ really know where to start, so I think I’ll start with the here and now.  I’m on a train from Frankfurt to Würzburg. I’m looking out the window at towns set into rolling hills and amaculate factories build as neighbors to the train tracks. The train has been following a small river, no wider then several meters for a few towns.  It’s quaint, but that quaintness is a facade that covers up the truth of this country, which is it’s newness.  I have been told that there are few structures that pre-date the second World War, and that’s very visible here in the south. 

(This is part of the Old Town of Frankfurt)

Reddit produced a fascinating comparison of WWII Germany and modern Germany here.  I’ve spent a lot of time in the past two days thinking about how other spots I’ve seen would compare in a similar line-up. 

II.  I ended up in Germany because my old computer finally died.  I say died but that is a passive explination. The much more honest story is I spilled water near the sockets then propped the computer in rice for two days.  I got most of the rice out of the sockets but had to use a knife to pry those suckers out.  According to my friends, the computer was still plugged into the wall while I preformed this last act.  The computer clogged along for about ten minutes after I turned it on, and then sputtered to a halt and worked no more.  I was sitting at a table with my friends’

 Rubes and Mitch and I had a shit-eating grin on my face, knowing that I would finally be getting a new computer (the broken one was seven years old and could only run two programs at the same time).  They seemed to think this was wasteful and blasé (which is was) so they cheered on my computer to survive.  My computer ignored them and stayed dead. 

At this point I had been in Olomouc, CZ for a month, and it became apparent that I would need to find a way to get another computer, which would be much more expensive in the Czech Republic and Europe in general.  As luck would have it, my sister was heading back to the states for two weeks and then would have a 12 hour layover in Frankfurt on her way from the US to Africa, a mere 7 hours away from Olomouc.  

III. What was I doing for a month and a half in the far east of the Czech Republic?  Drinking.  Mostly beer and tea, though occasionally water and sometimes Becharovka. I hung out with friends, made some new ones, watched movies, got made fun of, made fun of other people. The kind of things you do when you settle into a place and end up being welcomed into an already established friend group (whether I was welcomed or whether I bullied my way in remains unclear to me.  It has occurred to me that I was hazed so much that I had to be welcomed in.).  We made several trips into Poland, a small city called Ceisian on the boarder of Czech and Poland, and there we changed it up a bit and drank vodka.  Truthfully though, even without alcohol, my time in Olomouc was the perfect respite I needed after spending the summer and fall in constant movement.

The other nice thing about that time is that all the faces and personas I had created to survive on the road could all be put away.  I have a suspicion I even burned a few of them.  Some of those faces were left over from way before my travels. At one point I was working on a puzzle in the living room.  It was a 1000 piece puzzle and I worked on it from when I woke up to when I went to bed.  The three boys, who I spent most of my time with, teased me and hid pieces and pretended to lose them, and I would rise to the bait and get enraged, but they didn’t stop hanging out with me (possibly because they literally could not physically get away from me because I wouldn’t leave).  When I got a little too boozy and danced on chairs, they still went out with me in public. When I came out of my dorm in the morning, looking like I had personally been in multiple Pokemon battles throughout the night,  they would still talk to me. There was nothing I had to put up a front about over the past month, and it feels incredibly refreshing. 

(Puzzles rock my world. It's a thing.)

I'd like to tell you more, but I'm a little worried that writing about my other travels will sound tedious and too much like a checklist, and less like a story.

Here is the map that shows where I've been so far :) 

A Thank You To Balkan Locals

Anyone who travels will profess the importance of connecting with the locals (although it is extremely difficult if you are trying and generally happens by chance).   I have spent the past few days in a constant state of luck where I have continually made local friends and had very unique experiences.  I think that this “luck” can also be contributed to the Balkan hospitality.  

I have never felt so cared for and assisted as I have in the Balkans. In Tirana I asked a cab driver to take me to a certain part of the city to catch a mini-bus to the boarder town of Pogradec and he didn’t just take me to the mini-bus.  He made sure the right mini-bus drivers were approaching me and that the right ones took my bag.  He then called an English-speaking woman and put me on the phone with her to make sure that I understood where this bus was going and what I should do after.  A cab driver took time out of his day to make sure one ignorant tourist did not end up stranded in the wrong part of Albania.  It seems like a small act of kindness, but for one tourist who is unsure of where to go and how to get there, kindness like this feels like winning the lottery.  But, as I’ve seen countless times over the past few weeks, this was not a one-of.  This is a constant culture of warmth towards travelers that seems to know no limits.    

In the following entries I will write more about antidotal incidents, but I cannot even begin without addressing and thanking the kind people in this region who have made me want for nothing. 

Informational: Getting Between Kotor, Tirana, and Ohrid

This is an informational post: To get from Kotor to Tirana: So much simpler once you are doing it: At Kotor, took the 8:55am bus to Bar, then got on a bus right away to Ulcinj then waited 1 hour for the bus at 12:30 that was supposed to go all the way to Tirana which would have been awesome. but the bus was a little bit broken so we had to change (to a minibus) in Shkodra but it was easy and we got here at like 4:30. So not terrible at all! The whole thing was about 19 euros.

But, if you get the chance, stay in Ulcinj (FYI they were pronouncing it Ool-scene if that helps) then that would probably be the easiest! the 12:30 bus goes every day except Sunday and then you should get here at about 4:30.

When I got to Tirana I got a cab to my hostel (Tirana is not the most map-friendly place)


Tirana to Ohrid: There are two options, one is long but pretty straightforward. The second is more adventurous, but faster and better scenery (I took the second option).

 Option one:

Bus to Struga (But you have to go through Durres) then bus to Ohrid. It's through a company though Pollogu. There is a 9 AM, 9 PM, 4 PM, and 7:30 PM. They all leave from different places so you'll have to ask around about it. This route should take about 5 or 6 hours.

 Option two:

Minibus to Pogradec...It leaves the South West of Tirana and will probably be in a violet mini-bus. Once again you'll have to ask for where it leaves specifically. And talk to the taxi driver that takes you there (he only spoke Albanian, but he made sure I was getting taken to Pogradec). At Pogradec, ask your minibus driver where you should pick up a bus to Tushemisht (Su. Naum Macedonia boarder).

Get the minibus to the Su. Naum boarder. This is where it becomes 'an adventure.' Walk across both boarder checkpoints (about 1 Km apart). From here you can hitchhike to Ohrid, or you can (theoretically) walk for about 25 minutes to the Monastery. I was planning on picking up a taxi or minibus from there and it should have been less then 5 euro's, but a car with a family stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride.

We passed the Monastery and I couldn't tell if there were taxi's around, but I think there probably were. In total it was about 4 1/2 hours. Anyway... bottom line is, it is possible, don't let the internet nay-sayers tell you otherwise :)

 Good Luck!

The word "robot" is Czech

Let's just start with the basics:

What you think my month in Prague has been:

What my month in Prague has actually been:

But now I am a CELTA certified lady ready to take on the world... Right? Well maybe not the world, but I am trying to take over my life a little more. As I sit in 300 degree Prague, I am leafing through my roommate's "Europe on a Shoestring" Lonely Planet guide. So far, Albania and Belarus look nice, now I just need to get through the B's-Z's. I am going to try to stay around Eastern Europe while I'm here, with a brief excursion to Spain at the end of the month.

Post-CELTA (the past week) I have been jumping from hostel to hostel with my roommate from the course and, as of two days ago, one of my best friends from New Jersey. Yesterday we went to Prague Castle and the adjoining cathedral. The highlight was the kings' crypt in which one king's four wives are all buried in the same coffin. It sounds a bit like a RyanAir flight. We also saw the defenestration tower. The whole experience made me pleased that I am in Prague today, and not 700 years ago.

I'm hoping to leave the sweltering heat and party hostels of Prague in the very near future (aka, tomorrow). My only problem is where I'm leaving to, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

I just realized this post lacks any real substance, so to remedy that I have put in a picture of two children I saw riding the Metro a few days ago.

New Class in United

So United has created a new section on the plane. It’s called ‘Economy’. Now, I know that you’re saying, “But doesn't every commercial flight have economy?” My answer is that yes they do, but United has taken it a step further and has turned the old Economy into ‘Economy Plus’ then squeezed in some back row seats and called it ‘Economy.’ The best part about all of this is that you get the smaller economy seats for the old price and can now pay a premium to have ‘economy plus.’ Congratulations United, you are one step closer to becoming Ryan Air Atlantic.

the Heat

For those of you who know me (which is hopefully anyone reading this), you know that I am basically a menopausal woman. The second that air circulation stops, I think that the walls are caving in and that I am going to suffocate. It's not very pleasant, mostly cause I an a world champion complainer and being around me when I'm overheating is like being near a Kardashian at any point in the day.

Okay, so not many places here have fans, and hardly anywhere has AC. In school we have a few very loud AC units, and if it was up to me, they would be blasting 24/7. Sadly, some people think hearing our lecture is more important then enjoying AC so it's only on some of the time.

Home is a whole different matter. There is definitely no air conditioning, and we have no fans. My sister and I share a room that is just big enough to squeeze in two twin beds, and then they have placed a desk in the only space available to walk in. Basically, there is no space to stand in the room, you just kind of climb over everything and lay down.

Between the two beds, one of them stops the door from opening, and half of the other is used for storage space. I was originally given the full bed which I just about fit on, but as the nights went by, I started to think that I was going to suffocate because my sister hated opening the window.

I said that if she was afraid fo being shanked in the night, I was happy to take that bed, as I would much rather get stabbed with a breeze on me then suffocate to death in an airless room. She laughed and told me that it wasn't people she was afraid of, but snakes.

I almost smacked her. Her cousin, who sometimes lives with us, apparently explained to her that it would be nearly impossible for a snake to climb directly up the wall and through the window, but she did not believe her. My feelings about being bit by a snake (even though it's really not feasible in the situation) are identical to my feelings about getting stabbed, so I forced her to switch beds with me.

I began sleeping in the 'storage bed.' It is used for quilts and my luggage, which I mostly live out of. When I lay down on the bed, it is about a foot to short, so to sleep, I either have to put my feet up on the pile, or curl into a ball. Considering the reason I switched beds is because I thought I was being broiled alive, doing this -->

is not an ideal situation. So generally I sleep with my legs pushed up against the 'stored' items.

Sadly, sleeping next to the window had not been as satisfying as I had dreamed. With the window open and the sun-deflecting curtains open, there is still curtain that is meant to be a sheer modesty curtain. The problem is that it may look sheer, but it may as well be made of iron. Occasionally I can hear the breeze outside and I imagine the curtain letting in air, but I think it's just my imagination.

Last night was especially bad. Sne and I were home alone because Mama Busi was working the night shift at the hospital. As we got ready for bed, I could feel the stifling heat of the room bearing down on us. It like we were swimming in hot murky air. I tried to sneakily move the curtain aside so that the breeze was free to come through (as Mama Busi had done about a week before). But in the darkness I heard Sne squeak "I'm scared."

Annoyed, I moved the curtain back. For a few minutes I tried to fall asleep but it was too stuffy. Finally I told Sne that I was going to sit against the window with my head under the curtain. She couldn't find a plausible reason to be scared of that, so she didn't complain. I stayed like that for two hours, praying that I would doze off in the awkward position, but my body wanted to lie down. I hoped that Sne would be asleep by that point, so I lay back down and tired to sneakily push the curtain aside. Once again, "I'm scared" came out of the darkness.

Fed up, I took my pillow into the tv room, and lay down on the blissfully cool tiles. I drifted off almost immediately. At one point I realized that a blanket would be nice and went to grab mine from the room. I know at some point in the night Sne came out to the living room and told me to go back to the room, and I told her to leave me alone (hopefully I wasn't too mean, but I am not known for being particularly kind when someone wakes me up, especially when I am so comfy). Around 5 AM I thought it might have cooled down in our room, so I went back and continued sleeping peacefully.

Today I had a Zulu test and seemed to preform better then I thought I would. I also finally found a way to get out of my writers block. I think it just proves that sleeping on the floor should definitely be more popular. I probably won't get away with that kind of shananagans when Busi is back home, but one can hope.

I go to the rural homestay in Saturday, so I will be without running water (not too different from my home here), no electricity, and definitely no internet. We have heard a lot of rumors about it, but I think only time will tell about whether or not it will be significantly traumatic.

Oh, and yes mum, I've started my malaria medication.

Church

Today was my host sister, Sne’s, 17th birthday! However, it was also a Sunday so I had been preparing myself to go to church. As an atheist, I was prepared to sit through the process once. Luckuly my mother had spent years preparing me for this moment, by forcing me to go to the local Lutheran Church. That is, until she succumbed to the fact that she too was an atheist.

Anyway, I woke up relatively late and came out of my room prepared to go with Mama Busi to the local Roman Catholic church. To my delight, she said that she didn’t think she would have time to go, this being Sne’s birthday and all. Twenty minutes later, my friend, Amanda, who is actually Roman Catholic and living with a family of the same faith turned up. It turns out that Mama Busi was so worried that I was missing the service (for whatever reason) that she called their house and asked if I could join them.

Steeling myself, I headed out to church with them. The church took about 15 minutes to walk to from our houses and consisted of several open space buildings close together. The actual church part was very plain with tan walls and a few sketches of Jesus on the cross. And of course, it was not air conditioned.

The service was not two hours, like Welile, Amanda’s little sister had told us; it was three, and to make matters worse, Amanda fainted from the heat in the middle of the service. We went out to a side room and one of the acolites came to check on us. She told us not to worry and that Amanda should just sit down and relax. About five other women came to check on us during then next few minites, until the first acolite flew back in, filled with excitement. “The Father is coming! You must get back outside!”

Amanda, who still looked peaky stood and we went back to the pew, where we got water splashed on us by the preist. I couldn’t feel any of the divine light that my neighbors seemed to be feeling, but it was fine, they didn’t seem to mind that didn’t react.

After another 5 mintues of standing, Amanda excused herself again. I didn’t bother, as the thought of having the acolite drag me out for a second time would just draw more attention to us in the all-black (except for me and Amanda) congregation. It also appeared like Amanda's little siblings who are 6, 9, and 10 years old, enjoyed the service as much as I did, because a few minutes after Amanda left, they too mysteriously disappeared until after the service was over.

But it wasn’t a complete waste of a morning. The music was amazing. During the course of a song, many people would break off and begon their own harminiation, and somehow it always seemed to fit like a puzzle piece into the stanza.

In conclusion, I will not be going to church again here, but it was an interesting experience.

First View of Durban

Today we went up to the top of the Moses Mabhida Stadium. A cable car carrie dus up and presented us with an amazing view of the Durban bluf on one side. All those google image pictures of Durban were taken from that vantage point. On the other side of the platform, the immense size of the city was visible. Durban is certainly a sprawling city. I was thinking about how I thought that about Johannesburg too, when I realized why they both seemed to sprawl out for large distances. I suppose, they both had many townships leading out of the central city and when Apartheid was abolished, those townships must have merged into one another, because they were no longer required to be detached from one another. Sprawling-ness is probably relatively common now, and I am curious to find out if all of South Africa’s cities are as spread-out.

We also watched the movie ‘Skin.’ Firstly, our 60-something professor cried, not that he was alone. I definitely was affected by the movie and started crying at the end of the movie as well. If you are interested in learning a bit about the discrimination in South Africa, I highly suggest the movie.

Oh, and I got a lovely collar tan as well... It's not very attractive.