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.