Friday, November 25, 2011

The Only Tourist in Romania

For the crowd-adverse, now is the time to visit Romania.  In the capital city of Bucharest I had some company and in Transylvania but then, wow, it was like I had the whole country to myself.  My week in Romania started in Bucharest where I was fortunate to be hosted by Erin, a RPCV from Macedonia who now works for Peace Corps in Romania.  While Erin was at work, I visited an outdoor museum of buildings from all over Romania showing the many styles of construction.  Then I toured the Palace of Parliament, built by the Communist ruler Nicolae Ceausescu during his 20+ year reign.  The building is second only in size to the Pentagon and seemingly every inch is covered with marble and gold-embroidered curtains.  As a friend of mine who grew up there said, it's astounding that Ceausesau could spend so much on a building when his people were standing in bread lines.  Actually, he was executed before the building's completion and now it is used, as the name implies, for the government and other offices, conferences, etc.  I rounded out the day by wandering the historic quarter, which shows the great architecture that used to cover more of the city before Ceausescu had his way with the usual socialist concretification, and enjoyed a Lebanese meal with Erin. 
Palace of Parliament
Lebanese with Erin

Next I traveled by train into Transylvania, specifically to the city of Brasov.  One advantage of traveling solo is that if I decide to drop my bags at the hostel, inhale an apple, and then run out to catch the next bus then nobody is perturbed by it.  In this case, I rushed off to the town of Bran to see "Dracula's Castle."  Though the historical inspiration for the Dracula character, Vlad the Impaler, hailed from this region, there's pretty much no tie to Bran Castle per se other than some great marketing.  Still, I enjoyed reading the history of the last royal family who used the castle until their ouster after WWII.  Brasov was also fun because there were other people staying at the hostel and we went to an Irish Pub to listen to a big band perform.

Spooky - Bran "Dracula" Castle
From inside Bran Castle
Note funny Hollywood-style Brasov sign on the hillside
Brasov at sunset
 After Brasov, I took a 2.5 hour train to the town of Sighisoara, which has cute walled city that I walked around.  The childhood home of Vlad the Impaler is also here.  Then I continued perfecting my killing-time-having-coffee-and-using-internet until I took off for a 2 hour train to Cluj Napoca, then yet another 1 AM train for 6 hours to Gura Humorului.  I had the pleasure of being woken at 2:30 AM by the conductor who said nothing I understood except "problem" and then having to move to another train car.  At least the second train car seemed heated which might have been the problem.

Sighisoara
Dracula!

Arriving in quaint Gura Humorului on a Sunday morning, I needed to take a taxi out to the guesthouse I reserved online.  I rang the bell of the guesthouse and nothing.  I knocked.  I rang more, pounded on the door.  What was I going to do 3 miles from town with all my stuff on a cold morning?  After a few more minutes, I finally roused the owner of the guesthouse.  Pleasantly I was upgraded to a room with it's own bathroom but I guess that made sense since I was the only guest.  I chose this location because a friend stayed there last March and their website said they worked with a Peace Corps volunteer before.  And ultimately it worked as a decent base for seeing two monasteries, Humor and Voronet, that is by walking about 10 miles roundtrip.  Eh, I figured I needed the exercise after all that train/cafe sitting.  Voronet was the truly impressive monastery, the complete exterior covered in small, detailed paintings.  Here's practically the only picture of me in Romania because I rarely had someone around to take one.  Actually, I had two people take photos but both were about like this, which is to say that someone should teach photography in Romania.

Me at Voronet Monastery
Voronet exterior
Voronet details
Humor Monastery
Inside Humor during Sunday services
In the countryside on my walk
Water well, still in use
Genius--to go pretzels, tied with twine

I begged my way onto an officially "full" mini-bus, the only one I knew of that day, to my final stop in Romania, Sighetu Marmatiei (also known as Sighet).  Basically I went all the way from the northeast corner to the northwest so I could see a place called the Merry Cemetery in a nearby village, Sapanta.  Actually, the signs in Sapanta call it the Cheerful Cemetery and I'm glad that I made the effort because it's like nothing else I've ever seen.  Dating back to 1935, each plot has a cross where the front (and sometimes the backside too) have an image from the deceased's life.  Usually it had something to do with the person's vocation or life like weaving, farming, fixing cars, etc.  There were some crazier pictures too though like someone being beheaded and another person hit by a car.  The whole cemetery is so colorful with the dominant blue color and then all the different images are so colorful, so I got completely photo-happy and you can see the results here.

Merry Cemetery
Romanian food--stuffed cabbage rolls (sarma) and polenta with cheese
Typical winter street scene in Sighet

During my time in Sighet, I was blessed with incredibly good travel karma.  First, I figured out from the signs at my hostel (again I was the only guest and the owner left a baba who only spoke Romanian in charge, so thank goodness for the detailed signs) that there was a van directly from Sighet to Budapest so no more night trains!  Second, I easily caught a ride from Sapanta back to Sighet, following the custom of paying the driver the same as the bus fare.  Then, on the ride to Budapest, a nice lady who spoke English took me under her wing and made sure I didn't get forgotten anywhere along the way, getting out of the van just before my stop.  I thought we were arriving in Budapest at 4:30 AM, just when the subway was opening but, doh, I didn't realize we were changing time zones.  When I pulled on the locked doors of the train station where I was dropped and saw 3:30, my stomach dropped and my mind started racing--it's cold, if I take a taxi I'll get ripped off, can I even find a taxi, do I wait out here for an hour...when another gal from my van came up and said, "I don't speak good English but my brother can give you a ride if you want."  Oh, praise be!  So I got dropped just a few minutes from my hostel and for free.  The whole week the people in Romania were so good about trying to understand me and helping when they could--I have great impressions of the people there.

I wish I had something exciting to report about Budapest, Hungary but here's how it is: this is my third time here and being the thorough person that I am, I pretty much saw everything the first time through.  Plus, traveling two weeks alone is exhausting.  I was in charge of all logistics, watching belongings, making decisions, etc so here, I'm resting.  Mostly I've been shopping, restocking for my next destination--India!  I had to replace my broken purse, buy a plug adapter, watch the new Twilight movie (okay, strictly speaking that wasn't a must), etc.  Today I sent my winter coat and a few other things home to lighten my load (and it also greatly lightened my wallet, eek).  I'm feeling fairly ready though having learned, among other things, that instead of 30-degree Fahrenheit temps like here, India is having highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s and that time in India is a half hour off the rest of the world, i.e. 00:30 to everyone else's 00:00.  I spent the entirety of the last year in and around Eastern Europe, so I'm excited to be heading to a new region, especially when it's a place that is completely off the rest of the world time-wise.  By Sunday, I'll be in Delhi! 

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Bulgaria, Or How I Almost Got Arrested

Arriving in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, I saw this and was like hmmm, did I teleport to Denver International Airport?

DIA?
My afternoon began happily enough, sitting watching this scene while I ate the cheese sandwiches that Linda made me,


and going into this church and wondering how the massive dome has barely any supports.

Aleksandar Nevski Church
Sigh, but then because my cell phone wasn't working and I needed to reach Galina, my couch surfing host, I bought a new card for my phone.  In theory, this card should have made my phone work but it didn't.  In the store I'm speaking Macedonian, begging for my money back and they are refusing in Bulgarian that I do but don't understand.  There is some controversy about whether Macedonian and Bulgarian are two different languages or dialects of the same language and I will not weigh in.  Suffice to say, they knew what I wanted but since the chip worked in their phones they weren't budging.  This is when, I'm sad to say, I threw the card on the ground and started kicking at the packaging.  The store owner I was talking to disappeared and it occurred to me that I might be arrested.  So, I picked up my kicked-around card and hightailed it.  This is pretty uncharacteristic behavior for me but I think I regrouped well.  I found another phone store that loaned me a phone and I used my card to call Galina.  We agreed on a meeting time and place and then I ate 2 doughnuts at Dunkins because that makes everything better.

Tom Jones says it's not unusual to use doughnut therapy
Staying with Galina was by far the best part of my time in Bulgaria.  We are the same age and have a lot in common, so I enjoyed chatting with her over the breakfast she gave me and when we went to dinner my second night there.  She and I shared her room in her apartment, which is an incredibly nice thing for anyone to do, and I found her couch quite comfy.  Plus, she helped me figure out all the logistics of buses and things to get where I wanted to go, I really couldn't have asked for more. 

Galina at dinner

Sadly my second day in Sofia started with yet another financial blow.  I needed to exchange money and the banks weren't open yet, so I went to a currency exchange that flipped the numbers, so essentially I was charged $15 to change $75--yeah, ouch.  I have heard from many other friends about this type of problem, taxi cons, etc, so Sofia doesn't have a good reputation for travelers.  Fortunately the rest of the day was lovely as I took a bus about 3 hours to a place called Rila Monastery.  The monastery has a striking paint job on the exterior and I got a good look at it during the 2 hours I had there until the bus went back to Sofia.

Rila Monastery
Close-up from Rila Monastery
After my two days in Sofia, I took a bus about 3 hours to a town called Veliko Tarnovo.  I'd chosen that destination based on the recommendation of others and so as to see somewhere in Bulgaria outside the capital.  Unfortunately for me, the office that used to sell international train tickets in Veliko Tarnovo no longer did, leaving me with a dilemma: I'd just arrived in town, but I needed to go to another town 20 minutes away by train to buy a ticket, which wouldn't be so bad except the trains only run once an hour.  Ah yes, and I have to buy a ticket before the office closes at 5 (or maybe 6) PM.  So, stressed, I quickly visited two churches and then carried on to the town selling international tickets.  That gave me 8 hours until my 1 AM train to contemplate the coolness of the interior of the Tsarevets Fortress church with it's modern take on Orthodox art and to rejoice that a town without a working restaurant had free wifi in its train station.  Then by 7 AM, I was in Bucharest, Romania.

Tsarevets Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo
Interior of the fortress church

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

KP sounds good to me

After my overnight in Kosovo, I dropped back down to Macedonia for a two night stay in the northeastern city of Kriva Palanka (KP).  I was met by Linda, my Peace Corps volunteer friend living there, who did not bat an eye when I immediately asked to wash my sleeping bag which had unfortunately absorbed some of the oil leaking in the trunk of the van that delivered me to KP.  Besides doing my laundry, Linda also fed me and gave me the last 40 MKD ($1) that I needed for bus fare, so she really did step in as my mom for the weekend. 

Linda and I took a great hike up to the nearby monastery, Sv. Joakim Osogovski.  It's the only monastery that I've been to that had a marker from the Turks protecting it from harm because one of the Ottoman leaders was nursed back to health there.  Linda carried up some food for the monastery cats that she's befriended, almost the extended family of her own friendly cats, Vesna and Vince.  On the way down, a local lady who found out I hailed from Bitola sang Bitola, moj roden kraj with me, one of those moments that are an irreplaceable part of living in Macedonia. 

Sv. Joakim Osogovski Monastery in the background
Column in the foreground is the marker from the Turks
Linda feeding her buddies
Linda and me at the monastery
Playing Quidditch--no seriously, people in Macedonia still use this type of broom
 We also visited the firehouse that was renovated due to Linda's work with the community.  She applied for a grant to do the work and I assisted her with shaping the grant application for the Peace Corps committee that approves the grants.  This is the only grant project I helped with where I got to see the results first-hand and I must say, I was really impressed!  The firemen did the labor, even building cabinets, and it looks fantastic.  They seem pleased with their new digs and there is also meeting space now for local groups.  And rock star that she is, Linda is contemplating another project to help other organizations find adequate buildings for their work. 

Community room before renovations--photo courtesy of Linda
Community room after renovations--photo courtesy of Linda
Brand new kitchen, built from scratch--photo courtesy of Linda
 And then I was off on my own, or so I thought.  Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find Sarah D., another recent RPCV, on my van to Sofia, Bulgaria.  We chatted the whole way until she headed to the airport and I ventured into the city.  Oh, what a venture.  More on that in the next installment, Bulgaria. 

Monday, November 21, 2011

Finally, the Doughnut Hole!

This summer I toured through the Balkans around Kosovo, affectionately dubbed the Doughnut tour.  Well, I'm happy to report that I finally got to that elusive Munchkin itself.  Kosovo was my first stop on my two month trip celebrating my completion of Peace Corps.  I am now officially an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer), though truthfully I still feel like I'll be going back to Bitola any day now.  Finishing Peace Corps, like any government-related task, involves heaps of paperwork and then boom, I'm free!  No more reporting my whereabouts, although perhaps I got too accustomed to this since I seem to be doing so voluntarily on Facebook anyway.  So, back to Kosovo. 

Wonderfully I was able to begin my travels with another newbie RPCV, Mere.  We took the bus to Pristina, Kosovo's capital, only about 3 hours from Skopje.  The city had a vibe quite similar to Albanian-dominated cities in Macedonia so it didn't strike me as particularly exotic but I was glad to go there and complete my education on the former Yugoslavia.  Good Americans that we are, Mere and I asked around until we found the golden idol, i.e. Bill Clinton statue.  Eleven feet tall and up on a pedestal, Clinton is recognized for his help in separating Kosovo from Serbia through NATO air strikes.  Having a statue of such a recent president is a bit much for me to take in but it was a fun stop nevertheless. 

Giving Bill a thumbs up

Mere & me in front of the Newborn sign landmark

While Mere continued on Sarajevo, I spent the night couch surfing with an American named Ben who is teaching at an American school.  I had a fun time hanging out with him and his teacher friends, comparing their classroom stories to ones from my teacher pals in Macedonia.  Other than a small snafu with the key when Mere and I arrived, I had a great first couch surfing experience that carried over into my next surfing stop, Sofia--more on that in my Bulgaria installment.  Up next though, my last weekend in Macedonia.

Monday, November 7, 2011

The Last

Today is my last day in Bitola, which I cannot believe no matter how empty my apartment gets as I give away anything that will not fit in my travel backpack which, believe me, does not hold nearly enough.  Really this is just one of many "last's" this month, such as my last...

Visit to Gostivar / Running Race in Macedonia
At the Harvest Festival 5K run planned initiated by Peace Corps Volunteer Candy and her counterpart Luli, I defended my title as the fastest lady over 20 years old--wahoo! 

Peace Corps Runners, courtesy of Phil Lampron
Clean sweep by the Americans--me, Kerry, & Joany, courtesy of Phil Lampron
Also I drank my last one of these drinks, salep. 


It's a hot drink from Turkey made from orchid root and I hope someday it finds its way to an American coffee chain near me--we non-coffee drinkers should have some options too.

 "Na Gosti (Visit)" With My Host Family
I made one final visit to Sveti Nikole and bid farewell to my awesome host family.  Now at the end of my service, I can really appreciate how fortunate I was to have them take me in.  They helped me get a solid base in the language and they always welcomed me back with open arms.  My baba (grandma) knit me a pair of slippers practically overnight, worried as she was that I didn't have adequate footwear for the winter.  Finally, now that he's 5 years old, I can talk with my host nephew and we understand each other and his little sis is more darling all the time.  My host dad called the other night just to check in, which seems like no better sign that we're really family.

Baba Genka working on my slippers
My "niece" Kijara wearing my running medal and her big bro, Mario
 American Corner Events
It's sad knowing that soon things like playing kickball, overseeing pin-the-wart-on-the-witch, and teaching line dancing can no longer be considered "work."  Then again, I'm still job hunting, so maybe...

Kickball in the city park
With the boys, awesome fall colors in the backdrop
Pin the Wart on the Witch
The Four Seasons--Michelle, Lauren, Helene, and me
Awesome costumes of kids from my sports club
Lauren teaching the moves, courtesy of American Corner Bitola
Cotton eye joe-ing, courtesy of American Corner Bitola
Ana from the American Corner and me with the poster everybody signed for me

Time Mopping My Bathroom
A common quirk here, my entire bathroom floods after every shower.  I will not miss mopping it up every morning.

Appearance on Live Macedonian Television / YMCA Training
My counterpart at YMCA, Viktor, and I were invited to be an hour-long, live TV program to discuss a training we put together on my favorite subject, projects.  Only unlike last time, on this program I had to speak in Macedonian.  People here are pretty straightforward and the consensus from friends who watched the program is yeah, my Macedonian is still rough but it's understandable.  Even better though was that 28 people came to our training, literally filling every seat available.  Happily YMCA is getting new Peace Corps volunteer from the new group, Karli, and her visit coincided with all this excitement.  During my last weekly YMCA meeting, I brought American treats and the tortilla pinwheels were a surprise hit--my job is clearly done. 

In the TV studio which was freezing!

Viktor & me at the training, courtesy of Karli Reyes
Listening closely at the training, courtesy of Karli Reyes
 Coffees
"Having a coffee" is what it's all about here and in this aspect, to use Peace Corps parlance, I've "fully integrated."  Luckily the weather here has been mostly sunny, allowing me to do most of my coffee dates sitting out on the Shirok Sokak pedestrian street, staring at the passersby just like a real Bitolchaka

Introducing Karli to drinking coffee on the Shirok Sokak with Viktor
Strolling the Shirok Sokak with my friend Ivona and her daughter
 In addition to the goodbyes with my local friends, I also have bid adieu (or here, ajde ciao) to my volunteer buddies.  They are, I must say, crazy like me--they will sacrifice two years of income for something they believe in, will crash on the floor just to visit a new place, and laugh when others might cry--and it is hard to have them dispersing near and far.  I know I'll see some folks back in America which will surely be fun but different without Macedonia as our backdrop. 

Macedonian Meals
The Macedonians, they know their roasted peppers and grilled meats, among other deliciousness.  Pretty soon my hamburgers won't look like this, with the fries right on the burger (then again, my burger will also probably be 100% beef and that is something to look forward to).

Yum Yum
Days as a Celebrity
Bitola is not a huge place and when I'm out, especially on my runs, I see people I know who wave, stop to talk, give me a high-five, etc.  One of the YMCA members attended our training not in small part because she loves my accent, which I told her will definitely be under-appreciated back home.  Soon I will not be "the American," just "an American." 

A few more last's are yet to come, including my last visit to Skopje, last language exam, and last Macedonian pizza with the side of ketchup topping.  After that, I'm off to Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, India, Thailand (flooding permitting), and Laos!  My sunscreen is indeed packed, so dispatches on these adventures coming soon.